China's laid Off Migrant Workers Return Home.....Then Leave To Look For Their Next Job
Lin Yang writes:
There was a curious sight on the expressway leading to the southwestern city of Chongqing on the morning of December 2nd. According to the Chongqing Evening News, four beat-up electric tricycles carrying 11 people were trying to pass a tollgate. The drivers were farmers without licenses. They and the riders were covered with dust from head to toe and the drivers' feet were poking out of their shoes.
The unlikely group were completing a 3000 km trip from the coastal province of Guangdon where they had been doing menial labor and working factory jobs. After the financial crisis hit, the farmers, all of them Sichuan natives, lost their jobs, becoming so destitute they couldn't even afford a train ticket home. Most of the men were working as trishaw drivers delivering goods and their wives worked at local plastic processing factories. As business died down their work dried up. “We didn't want to part with our trishaws and we didn't want to leave any of our belongings behind”, explained one driver.
Among the 14 bikes that set off together, only the four made it through, covering the 3000km in 14 days. They slept on the road every night and ate dry instant noodles. "This is harder than farm work at home," one woman said. But the trip left them with precious memories as well. Frustrated by the steep mountain roads in Guizhou, the team took a chance to go on the national expressway reserved for automobiles, only to be stopped by the local traffic police. But upon learning their story, the police let them through and guided the way. At a toll gate, kind guards shared their dorm with the workers. It was the only night during the trip they had a warm bed to sleep in.
But this is not another grim story about laid-off migrant workers in despair. While the press is still sounding alarms about the influx of migrant workers returning to their hometowns, some have already decided on their next destination. Zhu Daoyong, one of the Sichuan farmers who had spent 10 years in Guangdong will board a train to Lanzhou soon, "My friend there called and said there were still jobs available. I miss home but it's more important to make a living. I want to work hard and come home with money for the Chinese New Year", said Zhu. "I have confidence. I think I will make enough to build a house in my hometown in three years."
Many others share Zhu's optimism. The farmers seem to think that there will be more jobs in the northwest, hoping that the local, domestically oriented economy has yet to feel the effects of the meltdown. Statistics seem to bear that out. Tickets from Chongqing to major northwestern cities are snatched up as soon as they become available. Stats from the local railway department show that since the end of October every train to major cities such as Xi'an, Lanzhou, and even Urumqi in the far west has been packed with job-seeking migrant workers. Let's hope the farmers' instincts are leading them in the right direction.
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[...] with it. Interestingly, opinions come in waves, one week exaggerating the damage, the week after dismissing it as seasonal [...]
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We call them "peasant-workers" here in China. All the hardest jobs are their ways to make a living. They have to work for 12 hours a day in a dusty, noisy, smelly workshop full of various toxins to earn more or less than 1000-yuan's monthly wages (146 US$)that can only afford their everyday basic survival. So while the CCP advocates "stimulating internal needs" to fight the crisis, I want to ask them a question, that how they "stimulate" such peasants (nearly one billion, many of them make far less 146 US$ a month) to turn out their wallets for dissipation? That's their lifesaving money!
As for the benefited groups, they throw about the same in spite of the "tsunami" or not and "stimulating" or not. So the CCP has been shouting for "expanding internal needs" for more than 15 years (since Zhu Rongji, the former CCP premier) to no avail. The misshapen, export-oriented, outland-restricted economic structure and model have never been changed a little. That's the sticking point!
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I think the economic crisis in the west is great for the Chinese workers. Now they are no longer exploited by the west to produce cheap goods for the spoiled kids in America, they can now enjoy staying with their family, and provide parental care to their children at home. The migrant kids can now stay home to enjoy the free schooling provided by the government. It is a perfect solution, especially now that the American children are deprived of their cheap toys.
And now that the workers no long have to make these cheap toys, they can expect to make a whole lot more money than 146 US$ a month now. With their higher income, they can afford to spend more, and stimulate the Chinese internal consumption.
This is a fitting consequence for the US. They used carrier battle groups to force China to produce these cheap goods, and that's why they have to suffer a depression. Serve them right.
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If the likes of Nanheyangrouchuan and Majhong...blah blah can log on this blog, John Smith will be served right, Lol.
Strong reasoning and well-orgnized lampoon, John. What a shame all those PPL in China can't rebute now. I kind of miss their name-calling and word abuse with Chinese characteristic.
Hey, wait, how about that Indian guy, Singe or something? This guy got censored and harmonized altogether?
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What do you mean the Chinese posters can't log on. China hast the most free internet in the world, or at least the Chinese government say so. That's because Chinese has the most netizen in the world, and that must mean there the netizens have freedom. Don't lie about China.
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"China has the most free internet in the world", if China were the only country with internet!
Stop lying! or could your lying be brainy a bit, please?
Could any mainland Chinese access "the China Blog" and many other overseas websites without a proxy?
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John Smith: "Stop lying! or could your lying be brainy a bit, please?", I finally understood what Nanheyangrouchuan said: John Smith and sb. else are the same person......
So, John， some new comers don't know your stand, man, what can you do? hahahahahha...................
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So, tell me what's his real stand, please.
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Actually, John Smith was a zealous China basher and sort of a racist which he would never admit, who can not withstand name-calling and all other kinds of verbal abuse(you name it) from populous Chinese posters, now appealing to poignant irony to ridicule his dissident and express his stand.
His struggle is a legend in this blog, and can never be harmonized. Seriously, John S is proficient in Chinese history and know a little about Chinese culture. TO those can't distinguish Commie and Vietcong, John is a pundit. To those Chinese youth don't know the unrevised Chinese modern history, he is a mentor. To some Yankee looking for fun, he is the right person they should talk to.
So seriously, John, you should join the CCP and get a job in China, since you are such a bilingual, and shrewd commie preacher. You can find real life in China.
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