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This is the 2nd chapter of the Migrant Worker thread.

“I will think about you,” he shouted to me with a huge smile on his face as I turned away and walked up the stairs to my apartment, leaving him with his yellow cap in the darkness. The Annie’s delivery boy had just taken half an hour out of his work shift to accompany me to the bank, all because of my absent-mindedness. That night I received a text message from him with a message of friendship:

*** Friends ***
*** New Friends Are ***
***Gifts sent from Heaven ***

The next day, riding my hour-long bus commute home from work at 11PM, I receive a call from him inviting me to go out drinking with his work buddies. Against my better judgment, I accepted; but quickly realizing my mistake after hanging up (I barely know this guy, it’s late at night, we’re going with his friends, and I have no family in Beijing to follow up on me), I send him some excuse by text about being too tired. The next day he invites me again, but I decline, citing late work hours; and the next, and the next. Eventually I start ignoring him altogether and I think he got the picture.

I didn’t trust him because he was a poor migrant worker. I don’t know what I was scared of, whether it was rape, or kidnap and demanding ransom from my parents; I just knew I was scared. I felt ashamed of myself; I had been desiring more interaction with migrant workers, yet I could not trust the very people I was trying to help.