Homo Sapiens

August 13, 2021.

It was another bright and sunny day.

Lai Xiaoni, who had left Yangon long ago, was now traveling alone in Dongzhi City.

At the riverside docks, various cranes were loading and unloading cargo and containers. The Rui Niang Town dam wasn’t far away.

After its expansion, Dongzhi City had become a major city with a population of 1.37 million, surrounded by eight satellite towns.

At first, she thought only Yangon was developed in Hongsawaddy, but what she saw along the way was a real eye-opener for Lai Xiaoni, changing her previous stereotypes.

The port was only about 2.3 kilometers from the dam. The town of Rui Niang was built on a higher plateau, with an elevation difference of about 80 to 90 meters from the port area. This meant that even if the dam were to collapse, the safety of the residential area was beyond question.

From a table by the river at a waterfront teahouse, one had a panoramic view of the dam, the pumped-storage reservoir, and the port.

Having lived in Lingnan Province for a while, Lai Xiaoni was quite used to Dongzhi’s climate.

”Ma’am, here are your refreshments.” A middle-aged waitress smiled as she served her rice noodle rolls, Cantonese shumai, and turnip cakes.

Lai Xiaoni picked up her teacup. ”Ma’am, are you also Chinese?”

”Heh... Yes, I immigrated here with my son. My daughter studies at Dongzhi Medical College, so I got a job transfer to work here,” Li Suqin replied with a smile.

”Are you used to living here?”

Li Suqin smiled back. ”It’s quite nice. There are a lot of Chinese people here in Dongzhi. Please enjoy your meal. Just let me know if you need anything.”

With that, she pushed her cart to serve another table.

Lai Xiaoni took a sip of oolong tea. ’A transfer? Is it like the university admissions transfer system?’

At the next table, a young, visibly pregnant woman with a traditional hairpin in her hair was talking to a young man who appeared to be her husband.

The pregnant woman overheard Lai Xiaoni’s Mandarin and turned her head with a smile. ”A transfer is when, for family or work reasons, an employee is moved from a position elsewhere to one that makes it easier for the family to be together. It’s usually a good fit for employees who are also homemakers.”

”Oh, I see. Are you also Chinese, miss? My name is Lai Xiaoni, and I’m visiting Dongzhi as a tourist.”

”You can just call me Xinxin. This is my husband, Mao Shuihe,” Fang Xinxin said with a smile, introducing him.

Mao Shuihe nodded a little shyly. Although he could speak Mandarin, he still wasn’t fond of talking to strange women, especially with his wife right there.

”Sister Xin Xin, you must work for Qingye Group, right?”

”I work at the front desk for Qingye Aviation, and my husband is a forklift driver at the airport,” Fang Xinxin answered, gently stroking her belly.

Looking back on her experiences over the past year and a half, Fang Xinxin felt as if it had all happened in another lifetime.

With the help of her cousin, Fang Xinwu, she had come to Hongsawaddy for AIDS treatment and stayed for over a month.

After spending more than a month together, and with Mao Shuihe showering her with attention and care, her gloomy mood had lifted somewhat.

But all good things must come to an end.

When Fang Xinxin returned to her hometown in China, her reputation was already in tatters because of her illness. Not wanting to embarrass her parents any further, she ultimately chose to go work in Yangcheng.

However, finding work in Yangcheng had been difficult these past two years. She spent over three months there without finding a suitable job.

In the end, it was Mao Shuihe, who had kept in touch with her online, who recommended she come to Hongsawaddy to work at the airport’s front desk.

Feeling like she could no longer hold her head up in her hometown, Fang Xinxin seemed to want a fresh start somewhere else, so she came to Dongzhi.

At that time, Mao Shuihe was no longer working under Fang Xinwu; he had found a job as a forklift operator at the airport.

Over time, Fang Xinxin and Mao Shuihe got together.

As she recalled this experience, a silly smile crept onto her face. ’I’m too quick to trust people,’ she thought, ’but luckily, Mao Shuihe turned out to be a good guy.’

After eating a shumai, Lai Xiaoni asked curiously, ”Isn’t being pregnant inconvenient for work?”

”Not at all! The company doesn’t mind. When you’re pregnant, you usually get 18 months of maternity leave, and they continue to pay your base salary and social insurance.”

”It’s that good?”

Fang Xinxin shook her head with a smile. ”It’s a mandatory company policy; you have to take the leave. Plus, there are various subsidies during maternity leave. Things like baby formula, diapers, prenatal checkups, delivery, and infant care are all 50% off. Xiaoni, if you can find a job at one of the ’Big Three’ groups, you won’t have to worry about these things in the future.”

”My major is in finance, so I can only look for jobs at banks here. It’s probably going to be difficult,” Lai Xiaoni said, feigning helplessness with a shrug.

Fang Xinxin could tell that Lai Xiaoni’s ambitions lay elsewhere, so she changed the subject. ”Xiaoni, are you traveling here by yourself?”

”Yes, my dad works in Yangon.”

”You’re very brave. Foreigners don’t usually venture deep into Shan State and Kachin State. This area used to be a lawless zone.”

Lai Xiaoni asked curiously, ”Was it really that chaotic here before? I’ve read some descriptions online, but it’s always a little hard to believe.”

”My husband and my cousin struggled and scraped by here for several years, so he knows the situation well. Shan State used to be extremely chaotic. It’s only in the last few years that the ’Big Three’ groups and the government put in a massive effort to establish public order.”

Lai Xiaoni glanced again at Li Suqin, who was busy serving dishes. ”Are there many Chinese immigrants here?”

”Quite a few, yes. Many are family members of technical staff. That waitress, Aunt Li, who you were just talking to—her son works at the aircraft factory, and her daughter is studying at Dongzhi Medical College. She was worried about her daughter, so she applied for a job transfer to Dongzhi.” As Fang Xinxin spoke, she passed a cream sandwich she didn’t like to her husband.

”Is it easy to apply for that kind of transfer?” Lai Xiaoni felt that Qingye Group was quite humane.

Fang Xinxin smiled and nodded. ”For non-technical and non-management positions, as long as the reason is valid, the company will usually help sort it out. A service position like Aunt Li’s is very easy to transfer.”

Hearing this explanation, Lai Xiaoni’s impression of Qingye Group improved considerably.

Her own parents had to live apart for long periods because of their jobs. If not for the fact that her parents’ generation was more tolerant and less restless than the younger generation, their long-term separation would have caused problems long ago.

Clearly, Qingye Group had recognized this issue and was trying to find ways to alleviate the problem of couples living apart long-term.

Their solution was a reasonable job transfer policy.

Typically, if both husband and wife are Qingye Group employees, the one with the lower-ranking position and income will accommodate the other by having their job transferred.

According to Qingye Group’s internal data, in dual-employee couples, it is usually the wife who accommodates the husband.

This is also related to the advantageous position men hold in terms of income and job roles.

The internal data shows that in many dual-employee families, the wife’s income is often less than 50% of the husband’s.

This is especially true when they become pregnant within a year or two of marriage. A female employee’s time on maternity leave does not count toward her years of service, which affects her promotion to higher employee grades.

Of course, many female employees don’t actually care about years of service or their employee grade.

After all, in the eyes of many female employees, the fact that the company allowed them to take full advantage of the generous maternity leave was a huge benefit in itself.

If it weren’t for the fact that some female employees could only have two children due to C-sections or their physical condition, they actually wouldn’t mind having a few more.

After all, with each maternity leave lasting 18 months, during which the company paid their base salary and a maternity stipend, even the lowest-level employees had a base salary of 500 Jin yuan per month.