Undercover reporter's diary may hold key to Foxconn tragedies

The diary of a mainland journalist who spent 28 days working undercover at Foxconn, a major supplier for Apple, might help solve the mystery over the string of suicide attempts inside the tightly controlled factory complex.

Foxconn, also trying to discover the reasons and seeking help from the public to prevent further tragedies, staged a rare media tour of the once mysterious 'IT Forbidden City' in Shenzhen's Longhua town yesterday.

Inside the almost 3 square kilometre complex - where 300,000 people work - there are modern dormitories, first-class facilities and orderly management, but most workers are unhappy because there are no entertainment facilities like cinemas or even city parks where young people can relax and go on dates, a diary published in the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly said. The Longhua complex is the biggest of Foxconn's two complexes in Shenzhen.

The diary was written by Liu Zhiyi , a 22-year-old Southern Weekly intern, who spent 28 days working in Foxconn's main factory after three Foxconn employees, aged 18 to 22, jumped to their deaths from dormitory buildings in just two days in April.

'I was the only undercover journalist among my colleagues to be recruited because I was the youngest one and only young people of my age would be hired by Foxconn,' Liu wrote. 'I was deeply shocked during the 28 days of undercover work as I finally discovered how [young Foxconn employees] live.'

Liu said the production lines at Foxconn started at 4am, with thousands of uniformed workers, all dressed exactly alike, having to stand as they worked at least eight hours a day.