The Beginning...

I came out to work when I was 17 where I started work as a salesgirl in a small boutique in my hometown. I came from a farming family in the city of Benxi and earning money in farming was not easy. The weather was harsh and winter can be freezing cold. As such, I decided, against my mother's wishes, to stop school and start work.

Even as an employee, my salary was only 800RMB (approx. USD100) per month. It wasn't low by China's standard by I now know that it is very low compared to the more developed countries. Things were cheap back home. I could buy a blouse for 20RMB and have a meal for 3RMB.

It was only at the beginning of 2008 that a friend pulled me along to listen to an employment agency's sales talk in Benxi. They touted the benefits of working in Singapore, where we could earn as much as 10 times more than what we were earning back home. They were good sales people. They even help you calculate your return on investments showing you how you can recover your agent's fee in less than 6 months and thereafter it's all yours to keep. They showed you that after 2 years, you could come back with almost 50,000RMB (USD4,000) of savings to start your own business or do whatever you want with it. This sum of money will take me almost 14 years to save (...if I can save 300RMB every month which is not easy back home!).

It all sounded so rosy and many people fell for it. At the end of the talk, rows of people queue up to sign up. My friend and I were among the crowd who queued. We did not know what we were getting into.