Wang Ligang spoke at the launch of the "Hummingbird" new book of the Trade University. Photos provided by the interviewees
This version of the photos was taken by Chen Dahong except for the signature.
Yang Junwu is used to seeing Beijing at 60km/h. He wears a padded jacket and a striking vest. He rides an electric car that needs to be recharged twice a day. The food in the trunk of the car is used to rescue the stomachs of urbanites.
Yang Junwu stopped on the sidewalk and waited with restraint for the light to change, usually waiting 40 seconds.
Time means different things to different people. For office workers, time is measured by the day, and in the eyes of the delivery brother, time is measured by the minutes. After the robot girl’s voice sounded, "You have a new order," "Time is ticking, every minute and every second is walking on the tip of my heart."
Yang Junwu is one of the few willing to wait, and his peers are known for ignoring traffic lights. "There are no cars in front and they keep honking their horns, and the throttle is so loud." The sharp and impatient sound of horns left on the road attracted people’s attention.
They are a sign on the screen of the mobile phone, riding a car, getting closer and closer to you, wearing similar uniforms, and even similar faces.
"Time is meant to serve people, and once you place an order, customers start to use time to evaluate and control people." Lian Si, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics and vice president of the China Youth Research Association, has focused his research on couriers and takeaways for the past year. "Takeaways and couriers are both service providers and consumers. They are alienated and controlled by time, which forces the whole society to be nervous."
Become a "10,000 Yuan household" as soon as possible
The deliveryman is nicknamed "the man behind Jack Ma," the "red blood cell of the Internet." In the sorting center on the outskirts of the city, the deliveryman performs Brownian motion (Brownian motion refers to the irregular movement of tiny particles – reporter’s note) on the daily throughput, and the scarlet letters on the wall say "Think more, work more and gain more, dare to fight and dare to fight Double Eleven."
"Which city in our country can do without online shopping, including the countryside. Our old hometown and village can’t do without online shopping." A courier brother said.
At the age of 19, Wang Li had just arrived in Beijing in a truck from his hometown of Xuchang, Henan Province, for 16 or 17 hours on the road, accompanied by a truckload of yuba. Ten years later, he packed up the belongings and memories of his life in Beijing and boarded the green leather car back home. As soon as the train started, tears came down.
In the past 10 years, his delivery mounts have ranged from bicycles to electric two-wheelers with welded boxes to tricycles, witnessing the development of the express delivery industry; from open-air indefinite points to all-weather stalls to standard indoor stations, he has also witnessed the annual growth of goods like a tide.
On the morning of December 16 last year, a consumer in Shanxi bought a product from South Korea, and the 60 billion shipment of the courier industry in 2019 was born. At that time, Wang Ligang had left the traditional courier industry. He returned to the site in Beijing to visit his old colleagues and found that within 5 months, 70% of the couriers had changed their faces, and the old people still called him "Principal".
Wang Ligang used to be in charge of express delivery at the University of International Business and Economics (hereinafter referred to as "HKIBE"). He spent all day on campus, ate in the cafeteria, and went to the school hospital when he was sick. He was familiar with every teaching building and every office, and knew where there were sofas, where there was hot water, and where it was cool in summer. Some teachers couldn’t find the phone number of their colleagues, so he flipped through his mobile phone and said, "I have it"; when he encountered a dispute, he asked a law teacher for advice. When he left Beijing and his child was born, Moments had more than 100 teachers praise him.
"My family conditions are difficult, and the burden of going to college is heavier, so I don’t study very much in the third year of high school." Wang Ligang’s face was round, slightly fat, and his cheeks were always red. After failing the college entrance examination, he looked for a way out everywhere, and now he regards the University of Trade as his alma mater.
Several factories in his hometown smoked day and night. After graduating from high school, Wang Li Gang went to a tobacco factory first. "It’s very closed and boring, and they are all people older than you, and they don’t have a common language." He was not used to the smell, and within a month of working, he decided to go to Beijing with his relatives.
"Being a courier is suitable for those who come out of the countryside. Those who have never seen the world are very trained for a person who has just stepped into society. You can meet all kinds of people, good people, bad people, good people or not." A courier brother talked about the original intention of choosing a career, "Of course it is freedom. Working in our line of work is busy, but we can also work for ourselves. No one cares about you at ordinary times. You can check your mobile phone whenever you want. If you work in someone else’s store, wouldn’t it be watched all day long?"
In his latest book, "China Youth Development Report No. 4: Hummingbirds Hovering Between Urban and Rural Areas," Mr. Lim has coined the concept of "ant tribes." He compares the delivery guys and delivery guys to "hummingbirds," which are brightly colored and can be levitated by flapping their wings quickly.
After analyzing 1,692 questionnaires, the research team found that the couriers and takeaways were mainly young men from towns and villages flowing in from around Beijing, with an average age of 27.62 years. They wore bright coats and had no social network support outside the existing system design. They could only survive in the city by flapping their wings quickly.
Wang Ligang had never left Xuchang since he was a child, and his impression of Beijing was Tiananmen in primary school textbooks. The first stop was outside the Fifth Ring Road. He jumped out of the truck and wondered, "Is this Beijing?"
When handing out flyers for a job with a monthly salary of 1,100 yuan near the University of Trade, Wang Ligang found that the monthly salary for express delivery could be 2,000 yuan. When he went to the interview, the boss first asked if he could endure hardship. Wang Ligang set his ambition to become a monthly salary "10,000 yuan household" as soon as possible.
The first year of Chinese New Year, he took home 8,000 yuan, and the villagers said, "This kid is not bad, he is very competitive." Salary rose every year with the rise of e-commerce. In 2012, he built a large bungalow for his family. In 2015, the express delivery industry was doing well, and he earned more than 100,000 yuan. When he drove the car back to the village, he didn’t usually look down on his family, and he came to the matchmaker every now and then.
When he was working, he didn’t know he was tired at all, and he ran wherever he needed people. Later, he settled down at the University of Trade and Trade, like farming, guarding his field. "My first starting point is to make money." He raised his hand and pointed to the air.
Friends who deliver deliveries like to party on payday. They are all from rural areas, and they look after each other in the city. If you drink more, you will always talk about various goals, which are nothing more than money-related. "I will buy a golden cup car this year!" Someone made a big statement at the beginning of the year.
Wang Li just went to work at 7 o’clock every day, and sometimes worked until 11 or 12 o’clock in the evening. "Double 11" would deliver 2,000 orders in one morning. When he was busy, he slept in a tricycle, spread out cartons and knee pads, pillowed his backpack, closed half the door, and his feet drooped outside.
The school’s express delivery is also divided into seasons like farming. Thick papers are sent in April, graduation certificates and tripartite agreements are sent in June, and brochures are sent by the admissions school in July and August. Girls love to buy cosmetics, and boys love to buy electronic products. When Jumei Youpin is popular, its boxes are all over the place.
Some international students like to buy mobile phones, TVs and balance bikes on Pinduoduo and send them back to their homes in Africa. He keeps dozens of shipping needs in a small book every day, and sometimes takes two consecutive calls and forgets the content of the first one.
According to a survey by Liansi’s research group, the average courier in Beijing works 27 days a month and 11 hours a day. Dating and watching movies are extravagant expectations, and they just want to sleep on weekends. When Wang Li was almost 30 years old, his family urged him to go back to a blind date, and his relationship would take place in a different place.
The love of the courier brother for Beijing is strong and significant. The survey shows that 70.86% of the couriers agree that "I like Beijing", 69.04% agree that "I pay attention to the changes in Beijing", 63.89% agree that "I am very willing to integrate into the people of Beijing and become one of them", and 63.94% believe that "I have contributed to the development of Beijing", which shows that the courier brother has a high degree of recognition of the contribution of the courier industry in Beijing.
I want to send it when I see the order.
Walking through the streets of Beijing, Yang Junwu had an extra identity than Wang Ligang, his father.
The desire to make money is the same. In the sixth grade, my son fell in love with skating because of a pair of shoes that others gave him when he was a child. The 2022 Olympic Winter Games will bring "300 million people on ice and snow", and my son’s primary school has been rated as an ice and snow school, and he has also had a chance. Xiao Yang’s 500-meter speed skating score is 48 seconds, and after another year of practice, he can become a national second-level athlete by sliding into 46 seconds.
Yang Junwu calculated that as long as the child became a national second-level athlete and advanced to another level, he could stay in Beijing to study. He did not know much about the specific policies, but he did not dare to be sloppy about his child’s skating practice. "Sports is a money-burning industry. In the club for an hour and a half, the minimum price is 150 yuan to 200 yuan." It was his lunch time after 2 pm, and he asked for a bowl of wide noodles for 13 yuan in the food market next to the Trade University.
The food city was made up of takeaway stalls, and there were various electric vehicles parked outside the door. The takeaway brother greeted him with the first greeting: "How much have you been doing?" They took off their gloves and walked into the warm room to take a short break.
Yang Junwu put the power bank wrapped in transparent glue aside, and after a day, the power of 20,000 mAh was only 20%. He earned 7 yuan for running an order, and his son’s helmet was more than 1,000 yuan, with beautiful flowing lines. He compared the helmet of tens of yuan that he sent to takeout, "It is indeed different. There is a reason why it is expensive."
He has to invest 560,000 yuan a year to skate for his children, but he can’t stop, "As soon as the children go out to compete, they see other people’s children skate better than ours. Why, we still invest less."
Yang Junwu was born in 1984 in Longnan, Gansu Province. His family had little income all year round, and food was cheap. He dropped out of school at the age of 14 and worked in the county seat with adults selling leather shoes for more than half a year, but the business was not good. After being introduced by friends, he went to the mountains to dig coal for two years, making a lot of money and dangerous.
The underground mine was not ventilated, and the earth explosives had just been blown up, and the hole was five or six hundred meters deep. Yang Junwu climbed to the top of the seventy or eighty meters high to work, and the smoke from it made him have a headache and weak legs. "I was young and light at that time, and I quickly called people after going out.
At that time, the ordinary mask and clothes he wore were very heavy, and the old stone powder was scabbed inside, and his hair grew to his shoulders. Once he got home, his family couldn’t recognize him.
After that, Yang Junwu went to Xi’an with a friend to work for a construction team for three years. He later came to Beijing, starting from washing dishes, to making side dishes, cold dishes, and cooking, and worked in a restaurant for 6 years. Then he opened two stores by himself, one with poor management and one with deception, and lost everything.
In 2008, the worst was when his daughter-in-law was pregnant and their daily living expenses were less than 10 yuan. Yang Junwu ate big cakes and green onions every day to save some money to make tomatoes and scrambled eggs for his daughter-in-law.
At that time, he rented a house in Qinghe outside the Fifth Ring Road, went to work at Sanyuan Bridge, and rode his bicycle home every day. Just in time for the Olympic Games, he got off work at night. When he passed the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, he collected plastic bottles and stomped them flat with his feet. The next day, he sent them to the collection station outside the Fifth Ring Road. For a dime, he could earn 80 or 90 yuan a night.
Five years later, his family had recovered, saved some money, and opened a Sichuan restaurant near the University of Trade. He went out every day to distribute flyers to the surrounding buildings, and the business was very good. At that time, online food ordering was just starting, and he hired 11 takeaways to deliver meals.
Subsequent to this, major takeaway platforms entered the market one after another, seizing the market through subsidies, and eating a meal was only three or four yuan, or even free. "It is our merchants who are hurt", and half of the subsidies were borne by the platform and half by the merchants. Their own food delivery staff was also snatched away by the emerging delivery platforms.
He found that the better the business, the more money he lost, and he earned traffic for the platform in vain. When the restaurant really couldn’t support it, Yang Junwu bought a helmet and officially became a takeaway guy.
He leaned forward, pedaled on the ground, started the food truck, the dying trees on either side ** him in the winter, and his helmet leaked, so he put on a wire hat. Last ****** in *******, a strong wind blew down a tree and took the life ** a deliveryman. He also ran outside that day, feeling that the wind was about to blow him down. Last summer, a deliveryman in Shanghai died in a rainstorm, but most deliverymen still prefer "bad weather" because ** the high subsidies and the increase in orders. When it snowed, Yang Junwu put on his helmet, and the snow hurt his eyes.
One courier’s WeChat signature read: "You only know Beijing, but you don’t know how cold Beijing winters are."
If you receive less orders, cancel more, and the completion rate and punctuality rate are not up to standard, you can only get part of your salary.
Online for 6 days, if the order quantity is enough, there will be rewards. When the subsidy is high, Yang Junwu can’t stop at all, earning hundreds of yuan every day, "as long as you see the order, you want to send it", and he doesn’t rest in the early morning, so his eyes hurt.
Students in Lian Si’s research group once interviewed the delivery guy, but later found that he couldn’t follow at all. "It’s too fast, and it’s also fast to go upstairs. If you are relaxed for a moment, you will have no money for a moment." A sophomore in economics at the University of Trade once thought that no one was leaving the stairwell in the office building, but later learned that when it came time to eat, the delivery guy would "jam" on the stairs.
They often took takeout from a missing railing in the school. When there were many people, the takeaway brother lined up outside the railing. It was cold and he stamped his feet.
The deliveryman is extremely time-sensitive, no one walks slowly, always trotting. The frequent school deliveryman calculates which traffic light to start calling at, and can arrive at the same time as the students. "Just like the optimization in our economics, they are all experts," the research students said.
Yang Junwu felt bored while waiting for the meal and wanted to smoke. He took two puffs, then threw it away, and had another order to send to the hospital. He didn’t like going to the hospital, because the disinfectant smelled big, the elevator queued up, and there were often foreigners who couldn’t write their addresses clearly.
If it was delivered to a high-end community, he would have to knock on the door three times, neither too lightly nor too heavily. There were many possibilities at the moment of opening the door, some people stretched out their heads to say thank you, and some people closed the door without saying a word. "80% of my food delivery is shared, and cooking is inconvenient. They are all young people. They like fried chicken and milk tea, and some people secretly eat their roommates’ takeout."
He was delivered from 5pm to 8pm, and after 8pm, "it’s cheap again", and the delivery fee is higher during peak periods. When the unit price is high, he goes home to have a quick meal and then comes out to work. At night in Beijing, too bright car lights quickly pass through the darkness, and no one walks around, except for the takeaway guy who spreads dust like dust.
Invisible boss
On Wang Li’s wedding day in his hometown, there was a table of guests who were couriers. The license plate number went from Yu A to Yu U. Almost the whole village came to watch.
Before his wife became pregnant and gave birth, he decided to return to Zhengzhou to live, bought a house, and took out a loan. He wanted to transfer back through the courier company, but he was unwilling.
Wang Li just had to pay off the mortgage and couldn’t be idle. Seeing that the riders running errands on the street were a business, they started quickly, had no academic restrictions, and could withdraw cash immediately, so they decided to join. Two hours of training in the morning, paid the deposit, and started work in the afternoon, earning 150 yuan in cash.
This errand company has a wide range of business, delivering things, walking dogs, accompanying runners, distributing flyers, moving goods, queuing up for registration, arranging Internet celebrity pastries, and selling parking spaces… Riders are also called "running men", and they sell their time at a clear price.
Wang Ligang was able to run all over the urban area of Zhengzhou in one day, running many polylines on the map, and he could best understand what "time is money" is.
Because he was in a hurry, he could see large and small car accidents on the streets of Zhengzhou every day, one shoe here and one shoe there. A delivery worker who witnessed the traffic accident was afraid that he would die like this, and the child was still so young. He obeyed the traffic rules honestly for a few days, but he earned less money. After a few days, he returned to his original state.
Wang Ligang joined the "team" in order to earn more money. The team is a "running men" group of more than 20 people. They share where to take orders, they will not run empty, and they also do tasks together.
In the system, everyone has a level. Wang Li has just joined for a short time and is just a "battalion commander". The higher the level, the easier it is to grab orders.
As the number of running orders increased, Wang Ligang lit up another medal on the screen. The data will be cleared every week and every month, and he has to keep "running" to win time.
"It seems to be free, you can go online and offline at any time, and you are not controlled by others, but you are actually controlled by the system." Lian Si said, "You seem to be able to choose by yourself, but once you click’start ‘, the system will start the countdown mechanism." The robot voice of the new order is the supervisor who is eager to hear it but afraid to hear it.
"When I eat, I see a very large order, and I can’t resist the temptation. The very hot noodles are eaten in 5 minutes," Wang Ligang said. "The money you don’t earn, some people earn it."
"The computer designed you to be a part of the program, without emotions, without fatigue," Lian Si said. "The system has no emotions and is extremely demanding. You can’t slack off at all."
Yang Junwu went to work every day and had to wear clothes from the takeout platform to take pictures and upload them to the system. He was the boss he had never met. In the past, the couriers didn’t want to buy equipment, so they borrowed the clothes of the workers to take pictures and print them out, and then took pictures when they encountered random checks. Later, the system kept upgrading, and soon recognized this kind of "lazy".
Yang Junwu hated upgrading the system on his phone the most, and he always delayed the update until the last moment, "In the past, the system positioning was not so accurate, and it could be delivered in advance. Now the more updated it is, the more powerful it is. Before, it could be delivered at 500 meters, now it is 20-30 meters, and it is accurate to 10 meters to the merchant." The fast and highly routine communication system regulates his every move.
"In the era of mobile Internet, through clothing identification, positioning technology and timing programs, all-weather monitoring of nomadic piece-rate work has been realized." Mr. Lim said that couriers and takeaways who trade time for money have lost a lot of time to learn and improve, limiting longer-term career development. "In addition to the accumulation of electric vehicle driving technology and the accumulation of interpersonal skills, it is difficult to think of any progress in other aspects."
In July 2015, couriers were included in the 2015 edition of the "Occupational Classification of the People’s Republic of China" as a new occupation, and their professional identity was officially confirmed for the first time. But when the courier brother becomes the courier brother, there are not many ways out.
"Going home and opening a store is already difficult to achieve a class leap. We have investigated some of the situation of returning young people. In 2012, there were also people who started from scratch and finally bought an Audi house on their own. After 2017, they were rarely heard of." Lian Si said. When he was doing research on the "ant tribe", he was moved to see "house purchase plans" posted on the walls of young people. It is the desire of each individual to move up that has increased China’s urbanization rate.
Officially recognized new occupations also lack social security. Many couriers and delivery workers know nothing about insurance, and they are afraid of getting sick. One is that there is no medical protection, and the other is that they will delay their income. Delivery often shuttles between hot and cold in winter. "If we feel uncomfortable, we will take cold medicine immediately to prevent it."
Urban Life Ferryman
On the eve of leaving Beijing, Wang Ligang and Lian Si had been chatting in the cafe next to the school until 11 p.m., and neither of them wanted to leave. He knew that after tonight, the connection with the city was disconnected one by one.
He has no life in Beijing, only work. "When delivering things, watching people eat around the table, or passing by a restaurant with bright lights, that’s life."
Wang Li had just made it a rule for himself that no matter how much money he could make, he had to go home for the Chinese New Year. He dared not imagine celebrating the Chinese New Year in Beijing, "I still feel unfamiliar with this city".
A brother mentioned that he would go to the Philippines to make money after the year. In his eyes, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are just big cities that can make money. Many couriers hope to integrate into Beijing, but feel that it is difficult to integrate. Only 48.23% of the couriers agreed that "I think Beijing people are willing to accept me as one of them", 53.79% agreed that "I think Beijing people look down on outsiders", only 26.83% of the couriers agreed that "Beijing cannot do without me", and 25.47% of the couriers believed that "they are already Beijing people".
"You can’t have a physical confrontation with people wearing this dress, or you can just fire them," Wang Ligang said. One courier took the bus after get off work, and even if it was cold, he had to take off his uniform. Others said, "I will never tell my son that his father delivered takeout." "I just bought water and wore casual clothes. If I wore takeout clothes, they would probably ignore me or be perfunctory. This is discrimination. Those who took out the pain and pressure in their lives on the delivery guy include many security guards and shop assistants."
Liansi’s research group found that cities are economically absorbing and socially rejecting express delivery and takeaway delivery.
Yang Junwu, nicknamed "Old Yang", was someone who didn’t want to fight with others. Last year, he sent a list at two in the morning, so he called first because he was afraid that someone in the house would sleep. As a result, the call disturbed the other party’s game, and the person opened the door and paused, "What kind of call, won’t you knock on the door?"
"I thought to myself, it’s not appropriate to knock on someone’s door in the middle of the night, is it wrong for me to make a call?" Yang Junwu was angry and aggrieved.
Although Wang Ligang was on campus, he had also heard students say hurtful things. "You will always be a courier."
Lian Si said that in the real world, the express delivery industry is essentially a work of interaction and communication between people. The two ends of the screen connect sellers and buyers in real life, from warehouses to customers, and the transmission is "things" and "feelings". It is an important channel for social information transmission and social emotional transmission, which makes the express delivery brother an effective force for urban grid management.
He said that the courier brother and the takeaway brother are important nodes in the new type of social relations, a key minority, and divergent "routers".
Wang Li Gang usually greets people with a smile and has a good relationship with Customers, but once something is damaged and there is a dispute of interest, the other party immediately turns his face, and he can only play the bitter card.
During the interview, a courier brother lamented, "The courier is an extension of your hands and feet. If a person discriminates against his own hands and feet, I really don’t know what’s wrong with this society."
There are also times of warmth. Wang Ligang’s colleague delivered the courier on the first day of the new year, and everyone else was very enthusiastic. Someone gave him a red envelope of 100 yuan.
It snowed in Beijing some time ago, and Yang Junwu delivered a takeaway order at 11 p.m. When he turned to leave, the girl gave him a heating pad. "I met a good person today," he said in the group.
He never used the heating pad his kids used to keep warm when they skated. That day, the heating pad was attached to his stomach, and it was "really warm".
The student in charge of the interview gained a new understanding of the courier and the delivery guy. "I used to take takeout from them like I took something from the supermarket shelf." She ordered takeout for 14 consecutive days, and finally met Yang Junwu one day after lunch. The conversation with him reminded her of her father. When she ordered takeout again, she knew that there was also a vivid story behind the hand that handed her the lunch box.
"I was an ignorant teenager when I came, and I was already a father-to-be when I left." Wang Ligang carried the box for a long time, his shoulders high and low. He was invited to the scene of Lian Si’s new book launch, and his face was red. "My life has had an adventure, which has been recorded by the times and remembered by society." Despite all these years of hard work, he now has a lover, a child, a house and a car, and feels content. "All this was brought to me by courier."
Yang Junwu ran on the road every day, and as long as he went out, he could receive messages from his daughter-in-law and son, "Pay attention to safety". He smiled and spread out his mobile phone to show the warmth of a small family.
When he came to Beijing at the age of 20, he never imagined that he would be able to stay here for more than 10 years, and his children could no longer understand the dialect of his hometown. When he was a young and strong young man, he went to Tiananmen Square to see the flag raised and sat for one night. The result was that there were so many people that the flag had been raised halfway when he saw it. He did not expect that one day his colleagues would be able to walk in front of Tiananmen and attract a lot of attention.
On the 70th anniversary of the National Day, a float carrying "Rainbow" and "Home" came, and the courier and takeaway brothers rode various electric vehicles to make their first appearance in the mass parade.
Their appearance became news, and netizens left thumbs of praise at the bottom. These ferrymen of urban life have become an indispensable grassroots force connecting various blocks of the city.
The scholars at the meeting said that each generation is a new human being, and there is no reference to the way we interact with the world.
The delivery and delivery guy shapes the city in his own image, the city of illusion, the city of myth, the city of ambition, and the city of nightmare. New occupations are now absorbing huge jobs, and maybe one day in the future, this industry will also disappear into the torrent of the times.
(At the request of the interviewee, Yang Junwu is a pseudonym in the article.)
China Youth Daily · China Youth Network reporter, Yang Jie
