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Migrant worker lawmaker adapts to legislative life
(Xinhua) Updated: 2008-03-02 22:37 BEIJING -- Hu Xiaoyan will enter Beijing's Great Hall of the People for the first time in her life, not as a tourist, but as a lawmaker to attend the annual parliament session scheduled to open on Wednesday. "I feel the whole world is watching me. The pressure is really too much," said Hu, 34, a migrant worker in south China's Guangdong Province. She arrived in the capital on Sunday. Hu is one of the three migrant workers who were elected as deputies to the National People's Congress, or the top legislature, for the first time. The other two are from China's largest metropolis of Shanghai and Chongqing Municipality in the southwest, both of which have a huge number of migrant workers. A native of southwestern Sichuan Province, Hu has been working in a building ceramics company in Foshan City, Guangdong, for five years. She had been promoted to deputy workshop chief. Most of the workers in her company are migrant workers. Hu was one of two candidates selected by Guangdong trade unions and was elected to the post on January 21 at a session of the provincial legislature. She has kept her job, but her free time is often occupied by her new post. She foregoes her two-hour midday nap and often stays up late to collect requests and suggestions of fellow migrant workers. She opened a blog and her constituents can e-mail her. Interview requests from journalists from home and abroad swarm in every day. She has even held a press conference and conducted a number of surveys to learn more about her fellow workers. Hu says she is working hard to be a true "spokesperson for migrant workers" and does not want to be a media celebrity. |
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