WANG KAI: Hello everybody. I’d like to share some of my dreams with you.
    One of them is a dream from my childhood. I must have been under the school age at that time but I still remember that dream. It’s still very much present in my mind. In the dream, my brother and I were walking on a road we both didn’t know. It was in the evening. There were trees besides the road and at one point we lay down on two big branches that had been cut off from one of the trees. We just lay there, watching the road. In rural areas there is very little traffic on the roads, so we were pretty much on our own. When I think about this dream now, it scares me, but in the dream I wasn’t afraid at all. Then I heard a cock crowing nearby. In Chinese legend, ghosts and other evil beings are afraid of the cock’s crow because it means that the day is about to break.
    I didn’t know how the two branches had been cut down, but I knew they had been cut with a knife that my grandmother kept in her house, a sort of machete that people from Yunnan Province use for cutting tree branches. When I heard the cockcrow, I suddenly I felt that a ghost was coming towards us. I didn’t see the ghost but I got very scared and started looking around for a safer place. There was a well nearby. In real life, a well is a dangerous thing, but in my dream it seemed like a good place to hide. My brother jumped in first and I followed him. Then I woke up.
    Some time ago I had another dream that also left a deep impression on me. I dreamed that I lost one of my hands. It just sort of broke off at the wrist. I don’t remember how it happened; maybe I was scuffling with someone. In my dream I wondered how I would ever be able to play the guitar again, or even how I would be able to live without my hand. Actually my first thought was about playing the guitar because I love playing very much. I realized that my hand was very important for me. Then I thought about my future. Finally I woke up. I think this dream has to do with my present situation because I’m feeling somewhat unsafe. There is no security in this society, I think. I’m working in an institution that is trying to protect workers’ rights. The government doesn’t like that and they send people to observe us. Some time ago, I was involved in a lawsuit and the Labour Department was giving me a tough time. I know they were protecting the boss of the company we were fighting against. So I feel somewhat unsafe. I think that’s the reason why I had this dream.
    I’m from the province of Henan and I came to Guangzhou to study music. But I quit after my second semester at university because my economic situation wasn’t good and I had to get a job. At first I worked in a Ukrainian restaurant for three months and then at some other place for four months. The pay was very bad, only 600 Yuan, so I demanded a reasonable salary and even went to the local Labour Department for arbitration. It was then that my boss threatened me and even sent someone to physically attack me. Despite of this, the Labour Department was on his side. I have all the evidence: my labour contract, labour card, working clothes, the decision from the Labour Department. My boss didn’t even go to court to testify although they had summoned him. Nevertheless, the court rejected all my demands. The police didn’t do anything, either. When I got attacked I called them and told them what had happened. They even agreed that it was probably my boss who was behind the attack. But they didn’t arrest him.
    The attack happened on March 3rd. I was in an Internet bar and my boss sent someone to attack me. I got hurt on my head and had to have the wound sutured at the hospital. And the police didn’t do anything! This incident made me realize that things were even more unfair than I had always thought. So I decided to do something against this injustice. I don’t want to work under such unfair conditions. Now I’m working in an institution that offers legal advice to workers. My job is to distribute leaflets among the workers in order to make them aware of the Labour Law and to teach them to insist on their rights when they are treated unfairly by their employers. Sometimes we encounter problems. The government doesn’t like people like us, so they observe us. I think they are tapping my mobile phone, sometimes I hear a strange sound while I’m talking, as if somebody else was in the line. And my computer has had viruses. Still, for the time being I’ll stick with this job. I think if we all work together there will be less corruption in the government and less injustice.