While browsing the Gonglao website today, I found a very detailed hotel internship record, covering work systems, job content, and the attitudes of the school and hotel, revealing the exploitative nature of the “school-enterprise cooperation” and the harm the author suffered under this brutal labor exploitation. Since the original article was published on the WeChat public account “Shengeng Ji” and has now been banned, although it lacks analysis elevated to a political level, it may help everyone in work investigations and writing factory diaries, so I am reposting it here. (The bold text in the article is my annotation)
I was assigned by the school in 2018 to intern at a five-star hotel in Guangzhou for one year, working in the kitchen. My job in the kitchen was on the cutting board, in the rough processing department. The main tasks were preliminary processing of vegetables, meat, seafood—basically washing vegetables, cutting meat, killing fish, and preserving refrigerated and frozen ingredients, as well as ordering supplies.
The kitchen I worked in was divided into Chinese kitchen and Western kitchen, two major departments. The Chinese kitchen positions included wok cooking, cutting board, prep cook, miscellaneous tasks (pronounced “za”), roasting, abalone and shark fin section, and dim sum (Cantonese morning tea). I had less contact with the Western kitchen, which was roughly divided into bakery, hot kitchen, and cold kitchen departments; they mainly prepared buffets and some individual orders. Generally, Western kitchen staff came to rough processing mainly to pick up and order goods. Strictly speaking, rough processing should be divided into Western kitchen rough processing and Chinese kitchen rough processing, but the staff worked together without clear separation; it wasn’t that Chinese kitchen staff only did Chinese kitchen tasks and ignored others.
Staff situation
The rough processing department had about ten people: four interns, two supervisors, one boss (head of rough processing), and three senior female workers (mainly responsible for washing and selecting vegetables and some miscellaneous tasks). Eight people worked daily, sometimes nine or all on busy days.
Among the four interns, two were 17-18 years old from vocational secondary schools, and two were 21-22 years old from higher vocational schools. They were all young with little social experience. The two supervisors included a younger one in their twenties with about three years’ experience and an older skilled worker. The boss was in his early thirties with over ten years of experience. The three senior female workers were over fifty, one over sixty, who was later dismissed due to poor hotel performance. The rough processing staff were mainly from Guangdong province; I was the only outsider from northern China. Daily communication among Guangdong locals was usually in Cantonese; when communicating with outsiders or other Guangdong areas (among the interns there were Hakka people who did not speak Cantonese), Mandarin was used.
Work situation
Working hours were from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., then 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. During the three and a half hours in between, cleaning took about half an hour, then about ten minutes to return to the dormitory. In the afternoon, we took a shuttle bus around 4:30 p.m. to work. Upon arrival, we first ate, with about ten minutes for eating. By around 5 p.m., guests would start arriving, and kitchen staff had to be at their posts preparing. Actual rest time in the afternoon was less than two hours. Interns and some employees commuted by company shuttle bus, which ran hourly, sometimes continuously.
At first, my work in rough processing was very monotonous: in the morning, selecting and washing vegetables, facing dozens or hundreds of pounds of vegetables like choy sum, lettuce, baby cabbage. Usually two people worked the vegetable processing post: one senior female worker and one intern. Others prepared ingredients needed on the cutting board. The rough processing boss rarely worked; the younger supervisor led the interns, and over time, interns could handle the tasks themselves. Around 10 a.m., one intern would go with the boss to pick up goods—materials ordered the previous day by various kitchen departments, including vegetables, meat, seafood, and some auxiliary materials. Once the morning goods arrived, rough processing and the upstairs kitchen got busy. New interns were less skilled than experienced workers, especially on the cutting board, which required knife skills. If you didn’t do well, even after one or two lessons, the skilled workers could be very strict. Some chefs had bad tempers, spoke harshly, and scolded people. I heard some chefs even hit interns or apprentices, but I never encountered that.
Seafood and poultry processing, called the “water station” in kitchen jargon, involved slaughtering live fish, seafood, poultry, and wild game, removing innards, etc. This work also required practice; interns could master basic fish and poultry processing methods in two or three months, but initially, interns would get minor injuries. Live fish struggled before dying, spreading their spines; inexperienced interns often got cuts or punctures. For a time, because I frequently killed fish and my hands were often wet, my wounds itched and hurt; over time, my hands developed hard calluses and became numb. My fingertips peeled badly, and for a while, my fingerprints were worn off, so I couldn’t unlock my phone with fingerprint recognition. The hotel did not provide gloves or other protective gear, nor did anyone raise this issue.
There were five cold storage rooms in the rough processing area: two for vegetables, one for fruits, kept at about 5-6°C year-round; two for frozen meats, kept at about -18 to -20°C. Long-term work in such damp and cold conditions seriously harms health. I didn’t realize the harm at the time; sometimes I wore only a thin chef’s jacket in the cold storage, even closing the door to count inventory for five or six minutes. After a year, I noticed I caught colds more often. After returning home, I found I sometimes had joint pain, was sensitive to cold and wind, and had severe cervical spondylosis. I went to hospitals many times but they couldn’t diagnose the problem. Later, traditional Chinese medicine gradually helped. The TCM doctor listened to my symptoms, asked about my work environment, and confirmed it was related. A colleague who also worked in a cold, damp environment often caught colds; we used to think it was his weak constitution, but it wasn’t. Actually, entering cold storage requires wearing a coat, and rough processing had two sets, but I didn’t care, thinking I wasn’t delicate. Seeing others not wear them, I didn’t either—“a foolish boy sleeps on a cold bed, relying on strong internal fire.” This ignorance cost me dearly.
School and hotel attitudes toward interns
We were brought to Guangzhou hotels by the school for internships, with a monthly wage of 1600 yuan. The hotel provided food and accommodation. The staff dormitory was a residential building with average conditions: a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment divided into three dorms, sharing bathrooms, corridors, and balconies. Rooms were double or quadruple occupancy with bunk beds, small rooms, and high-power appliances were not allowed. We had two days off per week; if there was overtime, compensatory leave was arranged depending on the situation, usually no overtime pay; if compensatory leave was not possible, money was given.
About twenty interns came to Guangzhou in our batch; fewer than ten worked in the kitchen, others worked at front desk or floor positions. Interns came from several schools, including undergraduates, junior college, and vocational secondary schools. Wages differed little; undergraduates earned a bit more, over 2000 yuan. Internship periods were usually one year, some eight or six months. Internships were basically arranged by the school. If an intern left before finishing, the school withheld the graduation certificate. Interns often suffered grievances but had nowhere to complain; telling the school’s accompanying teachers didn’t help, as teachers wouldn’t speak up for students or report to the school. During internships, the school and accompanying teachers showed no concern. When visiting the hotel, they just took photos and viewed our internship results. I killed a fish in front of many teachers; they recorded a video and that was it. Then the hotel boss hosted a banquet for the school teachers, enjoying themselves in a private room! One intern at the front desk openly complained to the teachers and suddenly cried, saying she was mistreated by guests and her classmate defended her, but the front desk supervisor scolded both without distinction. The teachers said nothing, instead turning to talk at length about learning skills here. Seeing the students were not very welcoming, the meeting ended.
The school ignored students; if you dared to end the internship early, you were punished and couldn’t get your diploma. The hotel treated interns “equally,” no matter where you came from, you just worked. No one cared if you were an intern; others worked as much as they did, and you couldn’t treat yourself as a student. The Chinese kitchen had 40-50 people; interns made up half, but with unequal pay. Can you find a chef in Guangzhou for 1600 yuan? The hotel took a big advantage, calling it “industry-education integration.” School teachers had their own line, saying interns abroad don’t get paid, so we should be grateful. This shows who the school speaks for and whose side it is on. I realized I was “sold out.” The school and hotel exploited us without mercy. Naive students got such a harsh lesson before graduation, which I will never forget.
A senior who started working years earlier and had become a supervisor, when visiting the school to promote the hotel, anxiously told us juniors: “Young people nowadays can’t endure hardship anymore…” Near the end of the internship, the hotel worried interns might cause trouble, so they deliberately gave us the internship evaluation form to sign only on the last day. The hotel knew interns wouldn’t endure such exploitation if not for the diploma. The hotel also held a meeting telling us not to be restless as the internship ended, basically warning us not to cause trouble.
I submitted my internship report to the school. The internship teacher said my report was detailed and wanted to recommend it for the school newspaper. A teacher was assigned to help me revise it. A few days later, the teacher told me my report contained too much negative language and asked me to rewrite it. I did not reply to that teacher. The part they wanted me to change said: “I was just a robot, like the factory line worker in Chaplin’s Modern Times, repeating the same work. When the seafood tank phone rang, I immediately answered, grabbed a fish, skillfully bled it, scaled it, removed the innards, all in one smooth motion, finishing a fish in two or three minutes, like a wound-up clockwork.”