Back to China Power China’s Huddled Masses

‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

Every American, and probably many other nationals, are familiar with the words of ‘The New Colossus’, a sonnet adorning one of the inner walls of the Statue of Liberty and which has for more than a century inspired immigrants seeking a better life.

But what if a place that has been sought out by huddled masses seeking a better life decides, well, that they can’t leave once they’ve arrived? It’s a problem facing many migrants in China who have found themselves trapped in gated communities.

For, while many Western governments grapple with their publics’ fears of crime and social strains (some US states with Mexicans and France with North Africans are just a couple that spring to mind), many Chinese worry about a supposed rising tide of violence and robbery that they believe accompanies migrating labourers.

According to a report in the Globe and Mail, gated villages that have traditionally been seen as signs of affluence are now little more than prisons, with residents sealed in at night by uniformed guards.

The report notes that there are 16 such villages around Beijing which are, contrary to the official line, upsetting locals who say the restrictions on their movements are disrupting their work:
 

‘Some residents protested against the installation of the gates at Shoubaozhuang after they went up two months ago, arguing that the curfews made it difficult for them to reach their jobs—sometimes a 2.5-hour bus ride away on the other side of Beijing—and get home again before lockdown. The authorities responded by pushing back the night time curfew by half an hour, but many here are still bitter about the restrictions, complaining the gates often open later and close earlier than they’re supposed to.’

Ask residents of nearly any urban area in the world if crime is rising and they’ll say yes, regardless of whether it really is (try asking many Japanese—despite their already extraordinarily low crime rate continuing to fall).

So is it in Beijing? Actually, according to Chinese officials crime is rising rapidly across much of the country, particularly in urban areas. Some blame the global economic downturn for the uptick in property crimes and ‘crimes disrupting the market economic order’. But whatever the reason, China Daily reported earlier this year that: ‘Criminal prosecutions increased by more than 10 percent in 2009, and public security cases increased by about 20 percent.’

The Globe and Mail notes the irony of the fact that it is these same migrant labourers that built many luxury gated communities but who now find themselves locked into communities where:

‘(U)nwatched young children play on a dirt road strewn with uncollected garbage while their parents work in the city during the day. The stench of fetid public toilets fills the air and bicycles vastly outnumber cars.’

http://the-diplomat.com/

Gov begins to integrate 100 mln migrants

 

The government wants to settle next-gen migrants in second tier cities. CFP Photo

 

By Chu Meng

The central government is rolling out new plans to support next-gen migrant workers according to its “No. 1 Central Document” last Sunday.

The next-gen workers, whose population now numbers 100 million, migrate to urban areas to escape the income gap that separates villages from cities.

The rights and concerns of laborers have been a central government discussion point for the last seven years, but this year marks the first time their children were addressed directly in the first yearly document.

“This group refers to those born in the 1980s and 1990s to parents who abandoned their  farmlads for work in the city,” Tang Renjian, deputy director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, said at a press conference Monday.

The central government has made it a top priority to help these men and women become urban residents, according to the document. The government plans to move more farmers to the cities to receive housing, insurance, social security, education and other benefits that urban residents enjoy.

“They are bettr educated than their parents but have limited knowledge of farming and little interest in it. They want to become part of the city and embrace that life, but at the same time the cities don’t want to accept them,” Tansaid.

“This is an important issue concerning the social structure in China’s rural areas and, indeed, in the entire country,” Huang Xu, director of the Urban Studies Office at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciencesaid Wednesday.

The new generation migrants differ from their parents in that these men and women are not willing to be the passive victims of discrimination, Huang said.

The problem is that modern society has given them simple but blind ideas about equality and democracy, he said. They lack the comprehensive education of city residents while clinging to the perspectives of their rural parents.

The new group most wants to be treated the same as urban residents in employment and public services, he said.

Huang said small- and mid-sized cities are the ideal locations for this generation to make the transition. “Life in the smaller cities will make their drams more achievable at their income levels,” he said.

He also suggested that hukou, or household registration system, in small- and mid-sized cities should open, and more effort is needed to accelerate the economic development of townships.

Migrants seek wives in Vietnam

Hong Lin hopes to find a romantic partner in Vietnam. Photo provided by Ran Wen

By Li Zhixin

Finding someone to love is tough in the big city: it is tougher when you are a migrant worker.

Hong Lin, 22, headed for Vietnam.

Hong, a migrant worker from Chongqing who was hired to work in Beijing construction last year, was inspired by a news story about another Chongqing cook who worked in Ho Chi Minh City and brought home a Vietnamese bride.

He quit his job at the beginning of the year, returned home and applied for a passport. “I will go to Vietnam next month once I get a visa and a translator,” he said.

Hong became a migrant worker when he was 17 years old, and he has worked in Beijing, Guangzhou and Qingdao without a chance to find love  since women are oddly underrepresented on construction sites.

Hong also attended several dating fairs for migrant workers, but was disappointed when women did not show up.

In order to find a partner, he once quit his job at a bicycle factory and went to work at an electronics equipment factory known for employing women. “As soon as they knew I was a migrant worker, they wanted nothing to do with me,” he said. “My relatives introduced women to me several times, but they claimed to have boyfriends when they found out what I did for a living.”

Spring Festival Gala for migrants to be filmed

By Liang Mielan

The first national Spring Festival Gala for migrant workers starts taping on February 7. It will be broadcast by CCTV7 on February 18, the fifth day of the new lunar year. The theme of the gala is “Go home and celebrate Spring Festival,” and the acts to be televised are now being rehearsed.

Gathering to watch the CCTV1 Spring Festival Gala on the eve of the Chinese New Year‘s is a family tradition. For this Spring Festival, over 20 million migrant workers will have their own program.

The gala was initiated by Yangguangdadao, a program on CCTV7, and has already been given the green light by supervising government bodies.

“As a national TV channel focused on rural life, we feel obligated to offer a meaningful gift to migrant workers to express our gratitude for their hard work during the past year,” said one of the show‘s creators.

“The gala is a stage for migrant workers to tell their stories and show what they have done for social progress and national development,” Li Xiaomei, executive director of the gala, said. The gala is divided into three parts, Luo Qing, the media coordinator, said. “The performances section will invite some well-known migrant worker singers and artists to perform on stage. Ordinary migrant workers are also invited to sing along,” she added.

“Migrant workers on the Internet have been enthusiastic about the chance, and have sent in their clips to apply,” she said. Another part of the gala will be a news review. “Several outstanding migrant workers whose stories were reported in 2009 will be invited to speak. Li Ying, the sanitation worker from Jiangsu Province who was awarded a Shanghai hukou (resident permit) for cleaning toilets for 10 years, will be one speaker,” Luo said.

The gala will also be the format of a charity project called One, Ten, Hundred, Thousand.

“[It] is a joint effort by media and enterprises to help migrant workers improve their lives,” Luo said. The project intends to send one student of a migrant worker family to study abroad, to reunite 10 couples, offer basic services to 100 workers and provide financial aid for the education of 1,000 of their children.

The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year with donations and assistance from its sponsors.