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The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker

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Resurfaced independently across 3 calendar years, with breakout response in 2 of them.

submissions
4
submitters
4
observed span
2014–2021
peak thread · 271 comments
651 pts
latest 20+ return · 2021-11-29
64 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

Reading through the poems, one in particular stood out to me, ‘A screw Fell to the Ground.’ While it was done eight months before his suicide, the context seems to be relatable to how he may have been feeling—mostly the sound of “someone” plunging and nobody hearing. — 《一颗螺丝掉在地上》 "A Screw Fell to the Ground" 一颗螺丝掉在地上 A screw fell to the ground 在这个加班的夜晚 In this dark night of overtime 垂直降落,轻轻一响 Plunging vertically, lightly clinking 不会引起任何人的注意 It won’t attract anyone’s attention…

It's hard to remember sometimes that all the people in the world that live lives so much worse than ours still have their own hopes and dreams, their own aspirations and imaginations. This article made me quite sad, despite the great poetry.

sbarre·245-point thread·

We're all a part of this. I've been asking myself questions, at an increasing rate lately, like "where does all this material come from?", "who makes all this stuff?", "what's the effect of making this?', etc., and any hint of an answer leads to nowhere good quite quickly. That is especially true when you consider the human and other animal elements. Just looking into the trash makes you realize the insane amount of single-use material that is used for daily…

bmitc·64-point thread·

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
2

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
962

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
390

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2014-11-05The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)First breakoutjimmer24583
2018-11-12The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn workerBest threadisomorph651271
2021-09-04The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)adam_ellsworth20
2021-11-29The poetry and brief life of a Foxconn worker: Xu Lizhi (2014)Latest 20+ point returntediousdemise6436