What is the meaning of 看场子?
In this context it means &quot;to watch/guard the place&quot;, &quot;to look after the place&quot;.

1997年，他到东莞打工，在一家木材厂给人看场子，在那里，他学会了汉族的生活方式，和朋友一起打台球，到歌厅唱歌。
In 1997, he went to work in Dongguan as a &quot;watcher&quot; for a timber factory. There, he learned about the the Han lifestyle, played pool with friends and sang in karaoke bars.

I'm translating a bit freely here, but that's the geist. 给人看场子 means &quot;to watch/guard the place for someone else&quot;, but it conveys the idea of informal work.
The subject of the sentence wasn't a formal security guard, or supervisor. He was &quot;helping someone look after the place&quot;, &quot;making sure things ran smoothly&quot;.

Bonus: Baidu Baike has also a page about this term, meaning essentially &quot;bouncer&quot;, or even &quot;henchman&quot; for club and bar owners. However it doesn't look like this page is written very professionally, so it's probably a very colloquial, extended meaning, or possibly underworld lingo. I would take it with a grain of salt.