Just across the big bridge outside Muse, tucked deep into the Bankan countryside near the edge of the paddy fields, sits a scam compound where the workers have been living on edge lately. According to people inside, the company pulls in four to five million a month. The revenue looks impressive on paper, but the moment payday rolls around, the boss plays dumb. Pay gets dragged out month after month, and after several months without seeing a single cent, everyone inside is barely holding on by a thread.
With local Shan soldiers guarding the perimeter, the boss acts completely untouchable. Even well-intentioned local Chinese who tried to mediate couldn't get a word in. For the Chinese workers inside the compound, they are stuck in the worst kind of trap. They want to leave, but they don't dare. The second you walk out the front gate, all your back pay gets wiped to zero, and there is no coming back in to ask for it. Everyone knows they are being played, but just to get back the blood and sweat money that belongs to them, they have no choice but to stay trapped and grind it out.
Those of us who came south to hustle on the border are all doing it for the same reason—to earn a bit of money for the daily rice and salt back home. Falling into the hands of a heartless boss, stranded in a compound out in the middle of nowhere, you really get a full taste of how helpless life as a foreigner can be. Outside the gate, the motorbikes keep roaring down the streets of Muse as always. But inside, this group of migrants far from home still has no idea when they will ever see a single note of the money they worked so hard to earn.
