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Two Names You Need to Know
There are more than 27 million people living in Beijing. At least 6 million people of them, including the author, are not native to the city. This means they migrated from another city to Beijing to make a living and work.
Li Gaowen and He Hongliang are just two of these ordinary migrant workers.
One of them died and the other seriously injured in a windstorm that happened around two months ago. Their stories briefly trended as a hot news topic, but then other news blew in, trends moved on, and their story ended up forgotten; as quickly as the windstorm of that day.
Do you remember this windstorm? I would be surprised if you did.
This wind connected Li and He.
Li Gaowen, 59 years old, came from Sichuan province in South-West China. He moved to Beijing with his wife around three years ago, and they found work as cleaners.
He Hongliang, 29 years old, came from another city to Beijing to worked as a delivery man. The news never reported where he came from, so I cannot tell you.
May 5th. 7:40 am
A wooden board came loose and struck Li while he was walking to work. His head took the full force of the impact. A short time later, an ambulance took him to the ICU.
May 5th. around 8:40 am
A collapsing wall fell onto He, the delivery guy, and crushed him.
Wind (风feng1) was the most popular conversation point that day - congested roads, cancelled flights, dust blowing in the air, etc. Those were the main topics.
The names of two migrant workers caught up in this wind were not remembered.
Their lives before those moments were typical of those living a below-average life in Beijing. The ones that are in Beijing to make money and better the lives for themselves and their families. They are the workers that keep the city running—allowing you to receive food straight to your door at any hour of the day or keeping your building looking clean. These people put a lot of effort into building Beijing and serving people's lives, so their names should be worth knowing.
The windstorm on May 5th wasn't unpredictable. In the days coming up to the storm, the Beijing Meteorological Bureau sent out 17 alerts about it. The day before, the associated dust already covered the whole city.
But Li and his wife hadn't read the alerts. They hadn't watched or read the weather forecast. At nearly 60 years old, the words in their phones are too small for Li, they don't have a TV and his wife is illiterate.
Throughout their stay in Beijing, they'd never lived in a home with windows. They were cleaners living in Haidian district trying to save up money. They rented a basement room for 400rmb per month - only a few square meters. It was just enough to fit in one bed.
While in the city, Li's wife hadn't been anywhere except for the small alley leading from their home to work. Every day it took them 12 minutes to walk there. On the day of the windstorm, she left for work a bit earlier than her husband. They always worked 8 hours a day, bringing in a 200rmb monthly salary - without any rest days. Despite this, their colleagues said that for people of 'their age', this kind of job and income is excellent.
That morning while Li travelled by ambulance, his wife had already started cleaning. Every day they cleaned two 20 storey buildings and felt very familiar with their work.
Li's wife carried on working until their manager came looking for her. He asked why her husband hadn't shown up for work. He was very late. She called him, but there was no answer. The lack of response confused her. She thought "I just topped up 30 RMB for him. He uses 8 RMB per month, so he should still have credit."
So, she decided to go back home to look for him. She hadn't noticed the place where her husband was struck or seen a stray wooden board. Afterall the area was already cleared. Police officers had removed the bloody board and a fresh layer of dust already covered the affected ground. Li's wife noticed their home was locked up, so she assumed Li had already left. "It's impossible for him to visit other places during our work hours, he doesn't drink or smoke…", his wife, still feeling confused, said to their manager. She then started to clean his areas, as well as hers.
By this time, the internet was abuzz with news about some wooden board hitting an old man on his way to work. They already knew that he was diagnosed with a severe head injury and was fighting for his life in hospital. His work attire; blue jeans and a shirt were already widely shared on social media.
In the building where they worked, there was a notice that said: "be careful with big gusts of wind, don't stay under the high building…" but his wife didn't know, she can't read.
While she was cleaning, the manager found her again and told her that a wooden board struck Li. She felt confused still: "When did that happen? How did he get hit? Did he this wood just hit him? How could this be?" And then she told the manager, "Okay, I'll finish his building first then go to visit him in hospital".
Her manager then told her, "You need to stop cleaning immediately." And he took her straight to the ICU.
While waiting for 3 hours outside of the operating room, she felt a sense of foreboding, a feeling that he wasn't okay. So she called her nephew, who works in a nearby construction area, for support. During this time, some police officers and a journalist kept asking her questions. But she didn't know what to tell them as she didn't understand what had happened.
As for He Hongliang - the 29-year-old boy, he never had a chance to ask what happened and he never had a wife to tell his story.
He was killed instantly by a wall falling onto him.
When they discovered him, all that remained of him was an opened bag of bread, and his smashed tuk-tuk left.
He'd arrived to work in Beijing just 20 days earlier and had just passed his training period to work full time for a delivery company. Any experienced delivery man can deliver up to 120 to 130 packages in one morning, but as the new boy, He Hongliang could only manage up to 70 to 80 packages. For the hope of delivering more each morning, He always arrived earlier than his colleagues. That morning, He came to the distribution centre, and his manager asked him, "So early again?"
He said: "I work slow, so I come in early."
Those are the last words that anyone remembers him saying.
When he first time came to the distribution centre, the manager told him that the only requirements for the job are working hard and having a good character. Mostly it's all about being polite when you make phone calls to the customers. As for whether you're married, where do you live, etc., nobody cares, as long as everything gets delivered on time.
That morning after the police officers came, the road was blocked. All of He's colleagues got an unexpected half-day paid rest. The first time this year.
May 6th. Morning
Li's wife went up to the building management and resigned. She cried, "We lived in the mountains and had barely any income. We have a son who hasn't got married yet. Our thinking was to work as long as we could to save up money for him and for when we are old. If my husband hadn't got injured, then we were planning to leave Beijing later this year."
May 6th. 5:45 pm
Around this time, the windstorm finished. Everything went back to normal in Beijing. The news moved on. Nobody noticed the missing cleaning couple or the delivery guy that never showed up.
Later that day, a driver came by, he took a picture and posted it on his WeChat moments: "Here is the place where someone got killed."
In case the wall killed or hurt anyone again, all the walls in that area have been knocked down.
THE END
W｜MYPENGYOU
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