When seeing migrant workers or people from impoverished towns dressed in shabby, and sometimes, dirty and smelly clothes on buses or the Metro, many Shanghainese frown and keep as far away from them as possible.

The bias against out-of-town workers among locals is deep and pervasive.

A taxi driver once pointed at a rubbish-collection truck saying that no Shanghainese would work on it and that only people from other provinces were willing to do so. This was despite the fact that thousands of laid-off workers were idle at home. He also said it's always the out-of-town workers driving the trucks who didn't obey road rules and who disrupted traffic. In his eyes, Shanghai would be a perfect place if it didn't have farm workers from other provinces.

I also dislike some of the behaviour of migrant workers, such as speaking very loudly in public and not caring enough about personal hygiene.

On the other hand I have great sympathy for those workers I see searching for bottles in disgusting dustbins that could be exchanged for a few coins or when seeing workers of a house-moving company carrying my heavy furniture on their backs and crawling upstairs.

A worker who helped to install the air-conditioner for my apartment moved the big engine box out of the window on the sixth floor facing the wonderful night scene of the Lujiazui Zone in Pudong. He stood on the box to screw it into the outside wall and in the meantime sighed: "How beautiful the night in Shanghai is!"

And I once met another worker of small stature in paint-stained clothes in a post office counting out several 10-yuan notes and some coins. He was sending the money back to his family in his hometown.

At that moment, I realized that we should have more understanding and respect as well as compassion for this group of people.

The feeling of compassion was actually based on the idea we were leading much happier and superior lives than they were able to and that we looked down upon the dirty and hard jobs they performed. In our inner-most thoughts, we have subconsciously come to believe that we stand on a higher level which allows us to look down on other people we have ranked as being below us.

That always leads to a contemptuous attitude although we share sympathy with them at the same time.

If we can understand them, we may see that in their lives they share with us the same happinesses, frustrations and hopes. The worker in the post office may be sending the "small" amount of money to his children for their tuition fees because he wants them to have a better education. And the worker installing the air-conditioner standing on the engine box outside my window, may have a totally different view of the Oriental Pearl Television Tower from that of those dining elegantly in the top-most floor of the Jinmao Tower.

I once passed a row of low temporary buildings close to People's Square for workers engaged on the ongoing constructions nearby. The rooms were narrow and dark, full of beds for many workers. Under these conditions, the hard-working labourers might not have a bathroom to wash themselves and their workclothes every day and they don't have the time to stand in front of a mirror to comb their hair.

Everybody likes to be in clean clothes and to look presentable, including the migrant workers. That's why they may put on new and clean clothes when on holiday during the Spring Festival using part of their savings from the previous year of hard work.

I think that respect for migrant workers may originate from these understandings.

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