When I was little, money was tight. My dad was a farmer. The kids, eight of us, used to help him in the rice paddies. He made us go out to learn a trade when we turned thirteen. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Skipped from job to job a lot. So many times that I lost count. When I was eighteen, I got a job with a cement worker. I don't know why I stuck with it. I guess because he was a nice guy.
In those days, learning the cement trade was tough. I started as an apprentice. Lugged big baskets of sand around all day. Hard work for a skinny teenager. Me and the other helpers also mixed cement. Did prep and cleanup work. Our boss never told us much about anything. We watched how he did it and tried to catch on. We sweated to learn ... and we practiced what we learned. Being an apprentice usually lasts about three years. But it only took me two.
I was drafted by the Army when I was twenty. They put me in the engineering corps. I worked on fortifications and barracks for soldiers and learned a few things from the more experienced guys. After I got out, I went back to my old boss's crew in central Taiwan.
A couple of years later, somebody told me that there were a lot of jobs in the North. I moved to Taipei. Got a job with another contractor, but I didn't get along with the guy. So I started doing apartment renovations and extension projects on my own [adding a floor on apartment building rooftops or expanding living space onto balconies]. I did that for over ten years. Then the government said it was illegal to build extensions. I started to run out of work.
By the late 1980s, it was hard to find enough to do. Sometimes, I had nothing for months—just sat around waiting for a call. I went back to doing crew work on construction sites. My friends introduced me to two other cement workers and we teamed up. We've been together for over three years now. It's working out. We have enough connections to keep us busy.
Work's the same whether you're doing renovation or construction. But when I did renovation, I did all the work myself. Laying floors, plastering walls, tile work. On the big construction jobs, there's all these teams. One for walls, one for floors, one for tiles. When we do the walls, we've got unskilled laborers helping us. [Points to his wife, Shen Feng-ying (沈鳳英).] She's one of them.
Shen Feng-ying, who has been sitting quietly next to her husband, says that she is a "rough" worker. "Our team has three cement workers, one rough worker, and a woman assistant," she explains. "The cement workers plaster walls. Me and the woman assistant pass the mortar to the men on the scaffold. I also mix cement and prep the wall. [Walls need to be clean before the plaster can be applied.] We do all kinds of little chores too, like getting lunch or drinks in the middle of the day. After the guys finish the walls, we clean up spilled cement or other things left on the floor. "
Me and my wife go to work at five or six in the morning. We leave before the kids. They get up at seven. Our daughter [ten years old] wakes her little brother [five], gets him breakfast, and drops him off at daycare on her way to school. She picks him up on her way home in the afternoon. We don't get home till after six. When I was doing renovations, my wife helped out in a noodle stand, and our daughter started helping care for the little one. She'd use the stroller and take him to the market and the hospital nearby. [Looks proud.]
You need some strength to do cement work. You plaster the wall to make it smooth. Fill the holes. You press and rub the mortar a lot. While my hands rub the wet cement, my brain is resting ... it's blank. Skill shows in how flat and smooth you can make the wall. "Practice makes perfect, and experience helps too." The big reason for good or bad work is people's attitude toward it. A lot of times, work for apartment renovation comes out better than on big construction projects. Even if the same crew does them both. But that's because in the apartment the owner's always right behind you .... [Stops to greet his in-laws who've came by. They are on their way to visit Shen's father's "legal" wife, who's ill. Consistent with old customs, Shen's father has more than one wife, although polygamy is now illegal in Taiwan.] Like I was saying, the owner watches your work. But site supervisors, they don't keep an eye on you. Some guys are real goof-offs. Always going for a piss. Taking breaks for betel nuts and smokes. Spending more time talking than working. Next thing you know, they're behind schedule. Then they've got to finish up in a rush. They don't really care about doing a good job.
Bad plastering won't make the building fall down. But better not jerry-build or use lousy materials. You've got to use just so much sand for just so much cement. Eight baskets of sand for one bag of cement. Anyone trying to save a few bucks by using less cement is making a mistake. Bad mortar isn't sticky enough and might crack in an earthquake. Plus, it won't last. How long a wall can last depends on if the mortar's good, if there's enough cement in the mix. I don't mess around. If there's not enough cement in the mortar, I'll demand more.
Yeah, I suppose some people appreciate my attitude and my work. But that doesn't guarantee me a job or higher pay. I still have to look for projects. Jobs come from construction companies or contractors. Contractors mostly.
We usually charge by the ping [thirty-six sq. ft.]. The company or the contractor names the price. Teams on the same building get the same pay. Going rate's about NT$780 [US$29] a ping. We mostly apply for payment every two weeks and we get paid in cash. [Grins.] But rates vary a lot. Some rates are really nice—you get more than enough for your work. $780-a-ping is fair. Most people think our work's worth at least that. But some times we take low-paying jobs. Can't always get the job we want or nothing else is available. Even so, I make about NT$50,000 to $60,000 [US$1,850 to $2,220] a month. When we're finishing up a job, me and my co-workers start looking around for an other one. Not that there aren't plenty; but you can't always get them at the right time—can't work on two jobs at once and they don't wait till you're ready. When we don't have a project, we do piecework. You know, work as contract laborers. Somebody needs extra hands to speed up work on a job. They hire us and pay by the number of days we work. Money's not bad—NT$3,000 [US$111] a day.
I think the job suits me. Don't need to negotiate with anyone. [Contractors set a "take-it-or-leave-it" rate.] My co-workers are friends—we don't get on each other's nerves, you know? It's a simple environment. Is it safe? Well, when it gets to plastering walls, it's pretty safe. I suppose you could fall from the scaffolding when you're working on the outside walls. The metal scaffolds they use now are a lot safer than the bamboo ones—they don't just break or something without warning. We're supposed to wear hardhats on site. Uhh ... but saying you will is one thing, doing is another. [Smiles.] None of us actually put them on. If there's an accident, say you fall from the tenth floor, the company ... maybe, will give you some compensation. I'm not sure. But I got insurance. Laborers' insurance and national health insurance. Aren't they enough? I never heard of anyone buying any extra insurance. We're lucky we never had any accidents. I guess you just have to watch yourself. No money can compensate losing a leg or a hand, right? You've got to be careful.
Trade association? Yeah, I joined one. Isn't that where we pay our insurance premiums? [Looks uncertain.] I don't know anything else about it. I never go to any meetings. What kind of meetings do they have anyway? I know where it is; we go there to pay the insurance premium. Isn't that what it's for? Don't most professional organizations work that way? What else can they do? We've never talked about it. I never hoped that they would do anything for us. I usually don't daydream about this kind of thing. [Helpless smile.] I know I can only count on myself.
To tell you the truth, I really can't say if I'm satisfied with the job. Whatever profession you're in, it's only natural to complain about it, right? Anyway, what are you going do? I've done this for twenty years. It's like eating—you just can't do without. There's no other way for me to make a living. I'm happy that at least I've learned something. Long as I'm willing to work, I can feed myself and my family. My friends and relatives tell me it's a high-paying job. Besides, building places for people to live is a nice thing to do. [Smiles.] It's a basic need and being able to help provide it is ... real nice. I mean, I feel useful. I feel like I'm doing something meaningful.
If my children want to follow in my steps, I won't object. It's a decent job. But most people don't show much respect for it. They think it's work for uneducated people. I suppose they're kind of right—I don't have any formal education. Lots of us don't. But my children have started school now. I hope I can at least get them through high school. People who go to school communicate and present themselves better. Like my wife. She had nine years of school. She expresses herself better than me. My kids can have an easier and more respected life if they stay in school and get a diploma.