Chejian: Living and Working between Vehicles
Post-production
Chejian: Living and Working between Vehicles is an ethnographic film on the homecoming trip of the kimchi factory workers in China. Chejian interrogates the nature of mobility of commodities and factory workers. Production line workers in a kimchi factory in Qingdao, China, mostly come from a small rural village in Henan Province, which is 15 hours away from Qingdao by car. The majority of workers go to their hometown only once in a year during the Chinese New Year holiday, while kimchi they make travel to major Chinese cities and abroad almost every day, except during the Chinese New Year. Following the workers’ bus trip to and from home during the holiday, contrasting the rhythms of lives and work in both places, and listening to workers’ reflection and projection on their work, lives, and dream, the film aims to critically contemplate the speed and scale of mobility of commodities that workers contribute to creating and the limited and thus exceptional mobility that workers enjoy only in the particular period of the year.
