A sociologist’s tribute to her blue-collar father, this is a moving portrait of a generation of working-class men in the boom times of Taiwan’s largest industrial port, as well as a personal reflection on the comfort, security, and success the author enjoyed as a result of her father’s sacrifices.

In Taiwan, mechanics who repair and maintain heavy machinery and vehicles are known as “black hands”, since their hands are always covered in grease. Author Hsieh Chia-Hsin’s father entered the trade of tractor trailer manufacturing and repair when he was still a teen. For five decades he has plied his trade, using his two blackened hands to support a family of four, raising both the author and her younger brother. Yet, her parents always encouraged them to study hard so they could escape from the bonds of physical labor that shackled their father.

 Taking these words to heart, the author hit the books and tested into top schools, but all the while, she wondered why her parents seemed to look down on their own professions. This question was still with her when she entered graduate school to study sociology, and the lives, work, and social mobility of the black hands of her hometown, Kaohsiung, became the subject of her master’s thesis.

Adapted from her thesis, My Grease Monkey Father starts from the industrial landscape of Siaogang District, Kaohsiung, an important manufacturing and shipping hub for southern Taiwan, describing a social milieu born of Taiwan’s miraculous 20th century transformation from an agrarian economy to one dominated by manufacturing. Having established this social and economic setting, the author turns her attention to the life stories of working men like her father, who, through an apprenticeship system that provided young men from the countryside a second family as much as it did vocational training, learned to become skilled laborers who could hold their own in a newly industrialized economy. Going further, the author delves into the philosophy and values of these blue-collar tradesmen, the limiting labels applied to them by society, and the resulting self-image they maintained.

Combining field research and ethnographic records, My Grease Monkey Father challenges the narrow lens through which Taiwanese society evaluates “a good career”. The author’s flowing, readable prose lends dignity to her subjects, and provides an integrated socio-economic analysis of the tractor trailer repair industry’s boom times during Taiwan’s economic miracle.