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SCMP Reporter

Zhang Minmin finally returned home to Zhoushan in Zhejiang province on Monday, but not the way her family had wanted - she went home in a coffin.

Zhang departed for Tel Aviv three years ago to work as a chef. She had asked for just enough money to pay off her family's debts and send her teenage son to university.

But her life ended on January 5 when two Palestinians detonated 15 kg of explosives in a pedestrian area in Tel Aviv. At least 24 people were killed in the blast, including three Chinese. The two other mainland victims were Li Peizhong from Shandong province and Guo Aiping from Fujian.

Zhang's retired father, Zhang Chuquan, said: 'She hadn't made a single trip home since going to Israel in 1999.'

Mr Zhang said his daughter chose to work in Israel because she needed the money.

She had been made redundant from a state-owned factory in Zhoushan in the early 1990s, he said. After that, Zhang and her husband started a restaurant but the venture failed and left the couple with heavy debts.

'Like a lot of people here, she thought working abroad was a shortcut to riches,' Mr Zhang said.

Zhang Minmin earned about 7,000 yuan (HK$6,600) a month as a chef in Israel; a similar job in her home town would have earned her about 1,000 yuan.

According to Wang Quanhuo, an official of the Chinese Embassy in Tel Aviv, there are officially about 9,600 Chinese workers in Israel.

But Mr Wang said: 'This does not include workers who've come here on business or tourist visas and overstayed.'

The media in Israel has estimated that between 23,000 to 25,000 Chinese are working in Israel -  10 per cent of the total number of foreign labourers in the country.

'More than 90 per cent of the Chinese workers here are construction workers. Most of them come from rural areas and small cities in China,' Mr Wang said.

Chinese workers are comparatively cheap. The minimum wage of a Chinese worker in Israel was only US$3 (HK$24) per hour - less than half what an Israeli worker would earn.

According to Professor Pan Guang, a Shanghai-based expert in Middle East and Israeli affairs, Chinese workers have filled the void left by Palestinian and Arab workers.

'Israel needs Chinese workers because Palestinian and Arab workers have fled the country because of the fighting,' said Professor Pan.

'The Israeli government is generally quite tolerant of the Chinese illegal workers.

'Chinese workers only want to make money. [They] save as much as they can and send it back home. Their income and living conditions are passable compared to that of labourers in other countries.'

The number of Chinese working overseas has increased over the years. Most of them are employed in construction, domestic service and catering.

According to figures released in November, there are 460,000 Chinese workers employed overseas, the China News Service reported. Most of them work in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, America and some Pacific island countries.

There have been few studies conducted examining the plight of these workers, but the China Daily  last year quoted Zhang Feng, a researcher with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, as saying: 'Many of them live in dirty and crammed shanty houses. They don't know where to turn to for help.

'Their strong desire for money made them vulnerable and therefore they are easy to be taken advantage of.'

Chinese workers who want to work overseas normally have to pay huge 'deposits' and other fees to recruitment agents - most of which are government organs.

A China labour expert at the Australian National University in Canberra, Anita Chan, said it was the money that drove people into the overseas labour export business.

'Recruitment agents earn a lot by signing contracts. Before they go abroad labourers themselves believe that they'll make big money,' Professor Chan said.

'Some of them do make good money by labouring overseas. But a lot find themselves working like slaves and getting very little income.

'They have been brazenly cheated before they go to work abroad,' she said.



Body of Chinese victim of suicide blast is returned