Grass) and sausages. Due to reform and opening up, the town industrialized and urbanized. In recent years, it has been successfully honored as a "Town of Hygiene in China", "Famous Town of Exhibitions in China", "Town with the Strongest Education in Guangdong", and a "Civilized Town of Dongguan City". According to the town government, Houjie is home to more than 270 restaurants, and more than 130 hotels. Houjie is famous with for its shoe design and manufacturing center, mainly focused on branded shoes. In 1998, American labor activist Charles Kernaghan documented the scenes of the Liang Shi Handbag Factory, a sweatshop located in Houjie. He found that this factory paid wages as low as 0.13 USD per hour, made their employees work 10 hour shifts six or seven days per week, failed to fully pay employees, lacked any sort of fire exits, and housed their workers in cramped and dirty dorm rooms which were under 24 hour surveillance. The factory mostly employed young women migrant workers hailing from rural regions. This expose received major attention in the American press, due to the fact that it was one of the sweatshops producing handbags branded by American celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford. Transportation The Beijing–Hong Kong and Macau Expressway runs through Houjie. Tourism Historical sites within Houjie include the , the Shenxianshui (), Aotai Academy (), and the Hetian Fang Ancestral Hall (). References External links Satellite view of HouJie in Google Maps Geography of Dongguan Towns in Guangdong