Zhuhai, China-Six years ago, Li Guangxiang was a starting engineer at a chemical factory in Hunan province. He usually finished Ms day's work in a couple of hours and spent most of his first year sipping tea and reading newspapers. He daydreamed about being a real engineer with a challenging job. "I couldn't stand the thought of another 20 years there," says Mr. Li, now 30. Without telling Ms parents, he quit and found work 397 miles away in Shenzhen. For a beginning engineer, pay was low, about $240 a month, and demands high. Mr. Li shuffled through three jobs, and even was fired from a CMnese brush factory; he says it was for "inexperience." But after gaining experience, he got a job at a computer-parts plant outside nearby Zhuhai that was later bought by the big contract manufacturer Flextronic Interntional Inc. Since he came to the computer-parts plant, Mr. Li has seen his annual salary more than triple, but still to only about $10,000. As a senior engineer and an assistant manager at the plant, he supervises five production lines mnaged by women sleeve protectors. Last year, he persuaaed his younger brother to come here to Zhuhai and start working his way up in electronics.
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