Stories from Deli

Sumatra has a vast land, a sparse population. Therefore, the labor issue in the development of Sumatra is actually one of the most important issues in construction. But when it was opened up, it was a hard work, such as going deep into untouched virgin forests, competing for territory with snakes and beasts, not being stung by poisonous snakes, ligers and tigers. . Even if it is not stung by the poisonous snakes and eaten by the ligers, then in the deep mountains and valleys, the qi of the mountains and the miasma is full of pits and valleys, and the body is not strong, and it is inevitable to die for this miasma. The sunlight on the reheating belt is directly shining down. It is really uncomfortable to work in the fields and be fumigated by the scorching sun. For the reasons mentioned above, the labor developed in Sumatra finds it harder to incur. Then the capitalists who pioneered Sumatra were whimsical and came up with a method of contract workers to lure a generation of greedy and ignorant people, so that they could help the development of capitalism and be a kidnapper of labor. Work.

The term contract worker is very elegant and easy to catch. If you put it in other words, you would be terrified. The contract worker is [Piglet]. The term piglet was originally a peculiar term for a kind of business of human trading. The trading of population is originally prohibited by the laws of various countries; but it is very popular in southern China, especially in the four seaports of Xiamen, Shantou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. The total amount of trade in a year is actually quite a lot. People in Guangdong and Fujian provinces most used to the term piglet. When their children reach the age of sixteen or seventeen, fathers and brothers must always tell their children the following words in particular. [You have to be careful when you walk outside. If someone persuades you to make a fortune, or someone takes you to a foreign country for fun, don’t answer him, because these are liars]. However, although the children of Guangdong and Fujian are used to the special warnings of their father and brother, the piglets abducted to Sumatra to work in various development workshops still occupy the most miles in these two provinces.

Nanyang is an infinite pigsty, and Sumatra is especially the largest pigsty. The protagonists of the pigsty are mostly big capitalists and industrialists. Needless to say, the big capitalists and industrialists are all Dutch and a few other white people. They relied on a certain kind of power, so although they are doing business people with a ban, they are big people and no one dares to interfere. Moreover, it is the most difficult thing for new customers to import in all parts of the Netherlands and India. If a large number of piglets are imported, not only the landing tax of 150 dong does not have to be paid in full, but also a special preferential treatment, the so-called half-price payment. Passports and other routine procedures can also be exempted. Compared with the procedures that people of the intellectual class should go through when importing, it is really different.

The most indentured workers are in East Sumatra because it has the largest area and the most fertile land, it has many plains and is very convenient for irrigation and navigation. Therefore, the area needs a large number of workers. Therefore, the Chinese laborers alone are not enough to develop. Now the Dutch and Indian government is thinking of another way to transplant the natives from the densely populated areas of Java Island to Sumatra. Probably the emerging mines and farms are mostly Javanese workers, and most of the major farms are Chinese workers. Most of the people who were tricked into making piglets in the two provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, and they worked hard to develop grass for the big capitalists or industrialists of that generation.

Deli is famous for producing tobacco. This kind of cigarette garden is so vast that the Westerners bought that large area of ​​piglets and organized them like an army. The most basic is called a team, each team has a captain, several teams are combined into a district, and the district has a supervisor. This kind of captain and supervisor are a group of unhearted, vicious and vicious people. Because these tobacco fields are thousands of miles away from the ground, and there are no trees to cover them, people working in the tobacco fields are like roasting pigs and ducks on the fire regardless of the burning sun.

Workers of this generation eat some cold meals for breakfast every morning at four o’clock in the morning. After breakfast, they go to work in the tobacco fields, and finish work at 12 noon. Eat a kind of smashed rice for lunch, and start working again at one o’clock in the afternoon, and finish work until six o’clock. If the moon is bright, or the day-time tasks are not finished, then start night work, and take a rest until about nine o’clock. This is their entire life all day long. If you suffer from a disease, you can receive a special pardon from the boss’s grace to get rid of the dying disease. Otherwise, the foremen’s rattan whip will be drawn on the piglet’s body, regardless of his vitality. Unfortunately, he was sent to the west by that ruthless vine whip, so he dug a hole in the wilderness and buried it.

There are many sturdy men, this kind of hell pigsty, they can’t stand it, so they come up with a plan to escape. Sumatra is a sea around the world. You must buy a ticket before you can board a ship. The government permits the ticket to be sold in the shipping company. If you hide in a fellow villager, no fellow villager is willing to take it in, because it is illegal to take in piglets that escaped. In addition, the police are very well informed. It seems that they are clairvoyant and wind ears, so if a piglet escapes in a pigpen, it will be caught by the police within a long time and reenter the pigpen.
The escaping piglet was caught, but the foremen were more polite when seeing him, and smiled at him. Which smile is hiding the steel knife. Once a piglet ran away in a tobacco field somewhere in the sun, they called the police station. Sure enough, the escaping piglet was escorted to the old pigpen by the police. The foreman comforted him and said: “You can’t bear the smell of smoke. The work in the tobacco field is too hard. Please rest for a few days and try again. If you really don’t want to, then I will give you another job. stop. Hearing these compassionate comforting words, the escaping piglet seemed to have encountered the living Guanyin, and wanted to escape the sea of ​​suffering from now on. However, after less than half a month, the escaping piglet was caught by this living Guanyin, asking him to follow him to hunt in the deserted forest. When he arrived in the barren woods, the foreman called his companions to tie him up and ordered a beating. While beating, while asking, it was like a robber trying to commit a crime. It was beaten to the ground, and it was buried alive in the cellar. This is the old way that those people who have no heart and liver used to kill dogs.

Everyone is unwilling to make piglets, but there will be so many there? The source of this piglet can be divided into several aspects: one is kidnapped by pirates and sold to others. Because the pirates along the coast of Guangdong are very powerful, and there are so many, they tied to the civilians, unable to redeem them, and sold them to the heads of these generations of piglets. Pig head fascinated people’s brains with ecstasy, then sent them to the boat, locked in a black cabin, and then awake them with anti-wake medicine. When I woke up, I was like a fish in the kettle, involuntarily. One is to lure the ignorance of the village to the inn of the piglet agency, feed him, use, and play, and trick him to go to Nanyang to make a fortune. Those who have no money will lend them money to buy ferry tickets. This is the piglet who was tricked away. There is also the poor people who have suffered from bandits and natural disasters. They want to work because they have no work to do. They want to be robbers but are as timid as a mouse. They just don’t make a living, but they happen to be introduced to Nanyang. , They are willing to follow along. I wanted to survive, but I didn’t know how to survive on Su Island. The source of piglets is probably nothing more than the above three. When Piggy arrived on Sumatra Island, the big capitalists and industrialists of that generation had already prepared a thick book, forcing them to print fingerprints one by one. When fingerprints are made, a person’s body will not be free for life.

So what does the word contract say? In the past, the initial contract period was ten years or fifteen years. Later, after many protests, even the Dutch who had the heart of a bodhisattva held injustice there. So now it has been changed to three years. However, the period seems to have been shortened for several years, but there is still no benefit to the piglets being sold. How to say it? Because of the capitalists, those who become capitalists rely on [land] and [labour]. There are still many undeveloped land on Sumatra Island. Of course, they are not afraid of lack. The most lacking is labor. New workers must be given considerable training before they can produce good wishes. Moreover, it costs considerable money to buy piglets from the capitalists. So they thought of various ways for the contracted workers so that they could never leave the pigpen and plunder their labor.

The capitalists’ method of plundering the piglets’ labor is very clever. They are usually very bitter about the workers’ food, on the one hand they make the foremen sell small dishes and snacks. Of course, everyone needs food. If you don’t have money, you don’t have to pay in cash. Try to keep the account. When the salary is paid, the foreman will deduct the money owed. Sometimes one month’s salary is not enough to return the account, then the next month salary is borrowed. In this way, when the time comes to eat grain, and when the term expires, he bears a large debt, so what money does the worker get back and forth? I had to renew the contract for the second time, so that if I continued again and again, I would be trapped in this hell on earth forever.

Some diligent and thrifty workers, although they are trying their best to curb their appetite, those capitalists think of another way. Westerners know that Chinese people attach great importance to the New Year’s Day. The Chinese New Year Festival is also regarded as a big festival of the year in the old custom. They use the Chinese psychology to meet the New Year’s Day and the Chinese New Year festival. There are three days off each, and the workers are free to entertain themselves. The natives and overseas Chinese gave an emblem called [Piglet Out of Prison]. During this holiday, there are scenes near the tobacco fields. It is very lively. All kinds of gambling beaches, tobacco bureaus, prostitutes, and all kinds of money-consuming tricks are lined up near the tobacco park. The piglets of that generation who have always been closed in cages, once liberated, can’t contain their desires, let them go, and spend all the money they have accumulated during the year in this short holiday. Those who don’t have money can even borrow from the foreman. The more they borrow, the longer the period of selling themselves. Therefore, as soon as the piglets entered the pigpen, they were cut off from the motherland.

Although there are indentured workers everywhere, for example, there is a type of indentured workers in Occidental who work on ships, and there are also many indentured workers in the British colonies. Even in the colonies of other islands in the Dutch East Indies, there are also many contracts. Workers; but it’s not as serious and inhumane as in the tobacco garden in Sudong District, Sumatra. According to the investigation, there are 74,000 contract workers working in Sudong Tobacco Garden, and about 21,000 voluntary workers have completed their contracts and continue to work voluntarily. There are 164,000 contract workers on other farms and more than 20,000 free workers. It is estimated that the workers on the farms are still in great need, about 50,000 people. I don’t know how many piglets are in the cage.

苏门答腊一瞥 / 沈雷渔.

南京 : 正中书局, 1936. Sūméndálà yīpiē/ chénléiyú. Nánjīng: Zhèngzhòng shūjú, 1936.