Hitting the Road
As local people are still coming down from the heady heights of celebrating the Spring Festival, migrant workers from Longxian County, Shaanxi Province have been making their way to the four corners of China in pursuit of their dreams.
Most of them choose to leave their hometown on the tenth day of the lunar calendar's first month, falling on February 19 this year.
Among them, the oldest is Cao Xiaobing, 48, who has been a mine worker since 1996.
Because of this arduous job, his health condition now only allows him to work near home. His wife has worked as a carer for a disabled man in Beijing since 2008, earning 1,600 yuan ($257) a month.
Their dream is to build a new house and help their son get married as soon as possible. Their son is 25 and still single, an age when most men in rural areas have already married and had children.
Three years ago, he was introduced to a girl by a matchmaker, but the potential marriage failed after the girl saw his family's shabby home.
As the youngest among the migrant workers, Zhao Liang, 22 and his cousin Zhao Wei, 18, are heading for Taizhou, Zhejiang Province. Zhao Liang is an expert molding craftsman, and earns over 4,000 yuan a month, much more than others in his county. He enjoys fishing in his spare time and knows the importance of enjoying life.
His dream is to make more money and find a wife in the city, since "looking for" a wife in the countryside would mean no time to get to know each other before getting married. Besides, men usually offer certain gifts to the bride's family before the marriage, the price for which is increasing year by year.
Most migrant workers hope to find a stable job and then settle down in cities, a noticeable social phenomenon in the country's development commonly known as the "urbanization of farmers", said Zheng Fengtian, a professor with the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China.
A survey conducted on the new generation of migrant workers from Anhui Province last year shows that 80 percent of them don't have the knowledge to work on the farm reported People's Daily Online.
Having worked in cities for years, and having become emotionally attached to these places, most of them don't want to settle in their rural hometowns. However, skyrocketing real estate prices in cities make buying property there a distant pipe dream for most migrant workers.
Those who have no expertise, like Cao Xiaobing, usually earn very little and have almost no chance of breaking a cycle of poverty, said Zheng.
Longxian, with a population of 250,000, is a poverty-stricken county. Besides relying on agriculture, the county also transfers its surplus rural labor force to cities, joining the "army" of migrant workers of over 200 million nationwide.
This model is also typical of other poor areas, where local governments have provided guidance and organized training to equip their migrant workers with specific job skills, allowing them to earn more and contribute to their village or county's growth.
The county also tries to encourage its citizens who have become rich to come back, and set up enterprises to provide job opportunities. After working in cities for 20 years, Yan Xiaofeng, 38, wants to set up a farm, raising pigs and chickens in his hometown to produce healthy food.
For some migrant workers, the first step is to leave their homes and then get a job, without knowing what the future holds.
They are struggling to accomplish their dreams, a phenomenon often mentioned in recent years as being part of the "Chinese dream" social phenomenon.
"If only the middle class realize their dreams, it could not be called the achievement of the Chinese dream," said Zheng, adding that migrant workers should not be left behind.
Global Times