Migrant workers have help at hand(2)

Entertainment, shopping

Zhao Yongchao has been working on external insulation work at a residential building in Haidian since July. With the next construction project settled, Zhao will soon leave for another region, a suburban county located in Northeast Beijing.

Most of the day is spent on tedious and laborious tasks, but the 28-year-old migrant worker's smartphone provides his colleagues with convenient shopping opportunities and entertainment.

A work colleague used Zhao's iPhone, a gift from his sister, to buy a 500-yuan outfit, consisting of shoes, pants and jacket: "I'm quite satisfied," said Wang Cong, looking down at his pants and brushing off the dust.

In addition to shopping, online money transfers have become a monthly favor Zhao performs for colleagues. They give him the cash and he does the rest.

"Every month they give me the money they want to pay into the bank. I log onto the online banking application on my smartphone and transfer the money to the bank," Zhao said, "I have downloaded applications from two banks. They work very well,"

Each transfer costs Zhao 1 yuan, but that "doesn't matter" compared with the friendships he has built with his co-workers.

When bad weather keeps the workers confined to their shabby hut at the site, Zhao's smartphone provides entertainment, "For us, films and entertainment programs are good time-killers," he said.

Of course, there are times when he misses his family desperately, but the video function on his phone makes short work of the distance between Zhao and his home village in Henan province. 

He has video chats with his family two or three times every week. Standing in the street and connecting with the Wi-Fi in a neighboring shop, Zhao talks to his wife "face to face", learns about recent events in the village and discusses the academic performance of their 6-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.

"The other day when I stood near the site, I had a video chat with them via my phone for almost half an hour. My wife sat on a chair and the kids stood on either side. They kept asking questions, like 'Dad, when are you coming home?' or 'Dad, we want birthday gifts'," said Zhao. The link helps to assuage his loneliness.

Back in 2010, before Zhao used a smartphone, family chats such as this only happened every couple of weeks. Sometimes contact was lost for longer if Zhao couldn't find an empty seat at a Internet bar, or his neighbor's computer was being used by someone else.

By the end of June, mobile Internet traffic in China had increased tenfold from the end of 2010, according to Wu Heshuan a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering at a news conference for the release of a report on telecommunications in China.

Kuang said the migrant workers' lower educational background is no longer a communication barrier between them and the rest of society.

Although Zhao, whose formal education ended after middle school, has applied for jobs via his smartphone, he usually chats with strangers on a variety of Websites: "I never take it seriously, but it eases my loneliness," he said.