Styrofoam box reseller

Guo Jie’s work in Shanghai consists of buying and transporting used styrofoam boxes from markets around Shanghai and selling them to seafood wholesalers who reuse them. She is one of the estimated 277 million rural migrant workers in China. With residency restrictions, many of these workers have limited access to education and healthcare resources for themselves and thier families in the cities that they work in. As a result, their children often stay behind in the rural communities they themselves have left. There are an estimated 61 million children “left behind” by their migrant parents in China.

This is the first film in a series on the topic of work in China.