The Chinese government’s stress on the importance of the “harmonious society” reflects an uneasiness about the growing income disparity. In big cities migrant workers flood in to take menial and often dangerous jobs in construction and other service industries. In my own apartment complex the doormen have told me about the poor wages and bad working conditions, which are reflected in their often short tenures. However, a more obvious manifestation of the disparity between the haves and have-nots of Chinese society is that of the window washers of my high-rise.

Beijing’s filthy air means that our apartments quickly have grimy windows so muck-ridden that we can barely see the gray sky outside. So imagine my surprise when not only was there blue outside my kitchen, but I could actually see it without the interference of giant black streaks. Quickly I realized that the management company had sent someone to clean the windows, a slightly harrowing task in a 25-floor building.

Sure enough when I went outside there was a guy hanging from the roof on a rope without very much other support. It looked like something halfway between a rock climber and an urban Spiderman. Ironically, not more than 50 meters away down the road I spotted almost the same scene on a shorter building.

Unfortunately, like with most dangerous jobs in China, these guys were mostly likely from the countryside and greatly under compensated. It’s these guys that take risks I never would who make our lives a little nicer: our trains run more smoothly, our views are a little nicer, and our buildings a little taller. They are the forgotten part of our harmonious society, but hopefully these pictures will help all of us remember that our windows don’t clean themselves. Some crazy guy has to hang from a rope for not enough money.