The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restaurant Workers

Re:The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restau... by mpthrapp on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @12:34PM (#8427817)

>If this story were about something else, it would be about something else.

Wow. Can't say that I thought of that.

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Re:The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restau... by jkaunisv1 on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @01:35PM (#8428210)

Actually pessimizer is drawing a parallel between the two situations. Both involve going into fairly substantial debt to get from China to the US under the promise of more money than could be made at home. Both involve years of difficult labor and living conditions. Both have limited options for leaving the lifestyle once committed. Yet the article about kitchen workers reads more like a hard path to the American dream, while the (hypothetical) one about sex workers reads more like a terrible, inhumane path to sexual slavery.

I think it's a noteworthy comparison and not a non-sequitur/trueism. Can't say I've seen much evidence of thought yet.

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Re:The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restau... by zorpner on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @02:27PM (#8428557)

While not impossible, it's less common for someone (who is nearly always female) to be abducted as a child, forcibly addicted to heroin, then sold into kitchen labor.

Yes, if this article were rewritten word-for-word to reference prostitution it would be a fictional story which could be compared to the existing article. However, it would badly misrepresent the state of global sex trafficking and the victimhood of people affected by it.

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Re:The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restau... by pessimizer on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @02:40PM (#8428650)

I think that your fantasy version of sex trafficking is common, but is certainly not representative. Many (most?) women are trafficked in exactly this way, knowing generally what they will be employed to do, just not knowing how terrible the conditions and pay are, and that they will never be able to pay off their 'debt' to the traffickers.

The vast majority of human trafficking is to provide house servants and manufacturing workers, but we don't care because sex. Judging by this thread, stories of human trafficking that don't involve sex are heartwarming and inspirational.

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Re:The Kitchen Network: America’s Underground Chinese Restau... by zorpner on Wednesday October 08, 2014 @02:56PM (#8428742)

not knowing how terrible the conditions and pay are, and that they will never be able to pay off their 'debt' to the traffickers

The fact that this is clearly not true in this article may be another way in which it's heartwarming and inspirational, and not comparable to even the whitewashed version of human trafficking you're proposing.

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