Smart Immigrant Workers in Factories

photos to prove their identity as a Smart. 62 Director Li at first tried to join their group

chat, but the request never got approved. He said that the members in the group are all

from similar backgrounds and it is a rather closed group, parallel to outsiders’ world.

Two standards that prove one is a Smart is that first, you have joined the “family” , and

second, your hair is standing up. 63 For Smart members who do not have a specific

meeting place, the group chat is a crucial place for the “family” members to

communicate and maintain orders, and fashion acts as a tool to help construct as well

as gatekeep this space.

Smart Immigrant Workers in Factories

“Non-mainstream” is directly translated from the Chinese word “fei zhu liu ” ,

which means an “alternative” or “subcultural” style. This descriptive word is more

often used in a negative way to describe subculture styles such as “Smart. ” The group

of young people associated with this style initially consisted of those from rural areas

in mid and southern China who were born in the 1990s and went to big cities in

Guangdong Province to earn a living in factories at a young age. In the documentary,

the youths interviewed started working at the age ranging from 11 to 16.

64

Luo dropped out of school and started to work in a factory when he was 11, and

that was when he started to explore an alternative style drawing inspirations from

media contents he consumed: he made a hairstyle imitating the main character from

62 Li, Yifan.

“We Were Smart. ” 63 “Dui tan <Sha ma te wo ai ni> dao yan Li Yifan. ” December, 17, 2021. https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nM4y1c7z5/?spm _ id _ from=333.788.recommend _ more _ video.1 64 Li, Yifan. “We Were Smart. ”

the Japanese manga Dragon Ball, and wore makeup and tattoos like the Japanese

Visual Kei musician Miyavi (Figure 4). 65 The photos he posted online went popular,

and some started to imitate the style. According to Dick Hebdige, “bricolage” is a

crucial element of a subcultural style. “Bricolage” extents meanings of basic elements

and generate new meanings and discourses that people outside the groups do not

understand by combining different elements together. 66 Luo uses elements from

various cultures together, and combines them with his own understanding of what is

fashionable to him. As shown in one of his photos (Figure 4), his long hair is dyed red

and sticking out. While one eye is hidden behind his hair, the other eye looks at the

camera from the side with his head slightly held up. Some decorations make his face

more unrecognizable. With this big hairstyle, alternative makeup, and a black top, his

stare feels bold and even angry. What does he look like without the makeup and the

exaggerated hairstyle? Does this style work as a mask to hide his natural look or

something inside?

Smart style became popular around 2007, when these young people in factories

needed a way to express but also protect themselves. It is still unsure what informed

the Smart style, but the culture cannot be separated from the emergence of the Internet

and the popularity of social media platforms such as QQ, Baidu Tieba and Tianya bbs

in the 2000s. Maybe they adapted the popular style they saw online, but more

importantly, the only place they could escape to was the Internet after a long day’s

65 Sun, Xiangyun.

“Dui yu zhong guo qing nian ya wen hua zhong feng ge zhi zheng de she hui xue fen xi - zai yi ‘fei zhu liu’ wen hua ji ‘sha ma te’ wen hua (对于中国青年亚文化中风格之争的社会学分析-再议 ’非主流 ’文化 及 ’杀马特 ’文化). ” Zhong Guo Qing Nian Yan Jiu (China Youth Study) 11 (2013): 29-34; China Newsweek. “Chong fang sha ma te: chu le tou fa, ta men ceng jing yi wu suo you (重访杀马特 :除了头发 ,他们曾经一无所有). ” 66 Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge 1991.