A daughter’s tribute to her working-class father, a consummate tractor-trailer mechanic whose sincerest hope was that his children could study hard and escape the fate of a blue collar laborer. After earning a master’s degree in sociology from a university in northern Taiwan, the author turned her attention back to her father, analyzing his acquisition of technical skills and the influence of class structures on his parenting values.
One axis of the book views the development of the Taiwan tractor-trailer industry through the lens of the sociology of technology, exploring how the author’s father acquired the skills he needed to work as a fabrication and maintenance mechanic, his interactions with his coworkers and bosses, and how he defined his notion of a “good job”.
Another axis involves the inter-generational relationships and class divisions within the author’s family. How did the author’s father have such confidence in the value of his own labor and technical skill set, yet at the same time constantly praise the superior value of his daughter’s degrees? The result is an elaboration of an important site within the evolution of modern capitalist labor, which also touches on inequality in education, the culture of class structure, and other larger issues.