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Mounting anger among migrants treated like city outsiders
By Bai Xu, Gu Qianjiang, Che Xiaohui and Ye Qian |
June 21, 2011, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE young woman has been working in a factory about 30 kilometers away from the prosperous city of Guangzhou in southern China for two years, but the only place she has ever visited in the city is the railway station.
"I go back to my hometown once a year before the Spring Festival, so the railway station is the only impression I have of Guangzhou," said 18-year-old Tong Mengshi, who comes from southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Tong works in the township of Xintang in Guangdong's city of Zengcheng, which has been called China's "capital of jeans," since it produces 800 million to 1 billion pairs of jeans a year, accounting for 60 percent of China's jean production and 40 percent of the country's jean exports.
But the small city of Zengcheng recently became well-known for another reason. About one week ago, hordes of migrant workers, allegedly angered by the mistreatment of a pregnant migrant vendor, took to the streets, some hurling bottles and bricks at government officials and police vehicles.
Some experts believe the unrest was triggered by the mounting anger of migrant workers, many of whom left their hometowns to seek their fortune in the cities, but found several years later that they were still "outsiders."
There are many factories in Xintang, with workers hailing from the provinces of Sichuan, Hunan, Henan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Walking on the township's streets, one hears a variety of different accents and dialects. Official statistics show that Xintang has a local population of about 200,000, but also as many as 500,000 to 600,000 unregistered migrant workers.
Unlike migrants in years past, who typically came to cities by themselves, many migrants like Tong Mengshi have taken their families with them. Tong's 10-square-meter room is separated by a curtain into two bedrooms, where she lives with her parents.
Li Xiangyin, who came to Xintang from southwest China's Sichuan Province in 1992, now works and lives with his children and grandchildren in Xintang. Li and his 10-member family live in a 60-square-meter apartment, just a short walk from his factory.
Locals refer to the area where these workers live as the "village inside the city." Many of the locals moved out and rented their homes to the migrants. In these "villages," buildings are lined up like dominoes, sometimes so close together that they are called "handshake buildings," implying that people in two separate buildings can shake hands with each other through their windows.
Li rents his apartment for about 650 yuan (US$100) a month. More than 30 other migrant families live in the same building. This means that the family owning the building earns more than 20,000 yuan just for renting the apartments, an amount equal to the total combined salaries of Li and his other family members.
"The gap between the rich and poor gives local people a sense of superiority and gives migrants a sense of inequality," said Liu Mengqin, a vice research fellow with the Guangdong provincial Academy of Social Sciences, adding that the two groups are kept apart by an "intangible barrier."
Li knows that in the eyes of his neighbors and relatives in his hometown, he and his family are "city people."
"But our life is still like it was in the village, and the people in the community here are our fellow villagers. Nothing has changed, except that we are working in factories now," he said.
Last straw
China began implementing its hukou system, or household registration system, 52 years ago. The aim was to reduce the mobility of China's citizens and maintain social order. Many basic rights and social welfare systems became attached to the hukou at that time.
In the 1980s, after the country's reform and opening-up, extra laborers in rural areas started migrating to cities to seek jobs with large companies and factories. Large-scale migration began in 1992, when China was developing a market-based economy.
The number of migrants soared from 60 million in 1992 to 120 million in 2003, making another great leap to 220 million in 2009.
However, these millions of migrants have been met with a slew of problems related to the hukou system. In a survey of migrant workers by the Guangzhou trade union, 48 percent of those polled said they hoped the government would help improve their social status, while 45 percent believed they were unfairly treated at work.
Social facilities in cities have been unable to meet the needs of the migrants. "Migrant workers don't have much to entertain them during their leisure time," said Feng Yushu, director of the office of education, science, culture and public health in Xintang. "They don't have much money to spend in this area. The government has failed to provide cheap social services such as gyms, libraries and movie theaters for them," he said.
Under these conditions, any incident can attract the attention of migrants, such as a dispute between a pregnant migrant vendor and local security personnel on June 11 in Xintang. "I get excited whenever something happens in the street," said 24-year-old Li Xiaopeng, who was among the spectators.
But experts tend to believe that the unrest was simply an outlet for the mounting dissatisfaction of the country's migrants. "It is now time to reform the migrant worker welfare system," said Lu Xueyi, a renowned sociologist who has paid great attention to the problems of rural people, including migrant workers.
Lu refers to the young workers as "migrants of the second generation," who are more interested in contemporary culture than their predecessors. "On the other hand, they are not as tolerant as their fathers when faced with inequality," he said.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
"I go back to my hometown once a year before the Spring Festival, so the railway station is the only impression I have of Guangzhou," said 18-year-old Tong Mengshi, who comes from southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Tong works in the township of Xintang in Guangdong's city of Zengcheng, which has been called China's "capital of jeans," since it produces 800 million to 1 billion pairs of jeans a year, accounting for 60 percent of China's jean production and 40 percent of the country's jean exports.
But the small city of Zengcheng recently became well-known for another reason. About one week ago, hordes of migrant workers, allegedly angered by the mistreatment of a pregnant migrant vendor, took to the streets, some hurling bottles and bricks at government officials and police vehicles.
Some experts believe the unrest was triggered by the mounting anger of migrant workers, many of whom left their hometowns to seek their fortune in the cities, but found several years later that they were still "outsiders."
There are many factories in Xintang, with workers hailing from the provinces of Sichuan, Hunan, Henan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Walking on the township's streets, one hears a variety of different accents and dialects. Official statistics show that Xintang has a local population of about 200,000, but also as many as 500,000 to 600,000 unregistered migrant workers.
Unlike migrants in years past, who typically came to cities by themselves, many migrants like Tong Mengshi have taken their families with them. Tong's 10-square-meter room is separated by a curtain into two bedrooms, where she lives with her parents.
Li Xiangyin, who came to Xintang from southwest China's Sichuan Province in 1992, now works and lives with his children and grandchildren in Xintang. Li and his 10-member family live in a 60-square-meter apartment, just a short walk from his factory.
Locals refer to the area where these workers live as the "village inside the city." Many of the locals moved out and rented their homes to the migrants. In these "villages," buildings are lined up like dominoes, sometimes so close together that they are called "handshake buildings," implying that people in two separate buildings can shake hands with each other through their windows.
Li rents his apartment for about 650 yuan (US$100) a month. More than 30 other migrant families live in the same building. This means that the family owning the building earns more than 20,000 yuan just for renting the apartments, an amount equal to the total combined salaries of Li and his other family members.
"The gap between the rich and poor gives local people a sense of superiority and gives migrants a sense of inequality," said Liu Mengqin, a vice research fellow with the Guangdong provincial Academy of Social Sciences, adding that the two groups are kept apart by an "intangible barrier."
Li knows that in the eyes of his neighbors and relatives in his hometown, he and his family are "city people."
"But our life is still like it was in the village, and the people in the community here are our fellow villagers. Nothing has changed, except that we are working in factories now," he said.
Last straw
China began implementing its hukou system, or household registration system, 52 years ago. The aim was to reduce the mobility of China's citizens and maintain social order. Many basic rights and social welfare systems became attached to the hukou at that time.
In the 1980s, after the country's reform and opening-up, extra laborers in rural areas started migrating to cities to seek jobs with large companies and factories. Large-scale migration began in 1992, when China was developing a market-based economy.
The number of migrants soared from 60 million in 1992 to 120 million in 2003, making another great leap to 220 million in 2009.
However, these millions of migrants have been met with a slew of problems related to the hukou system. In a survey of migrant workers by the Guangzhou trade union, 48 percent of those polled said they hoped the government would help improve their social status, while 45 percent believed they were unfairly treated at work.
Social facilities in cities have been unable to meet the needs of the migrants. "Migrant workers don't have much to entertain them during their leisure time," said Feng Yushu, director of the office of education, science, culture and public health in Xintang. "They don't have much money to spend in this area. The government has failed to provide cheap social services such as gyms, libraries and movie theaters for them," he said.
Under these conditions, any incident can attract the attention of migrants, such as a dispute between a pregnant migrant vendor and local security personnel on June 11 in Xintang. "I get excited whenever something happens in the street," said 24-year-old Li Xiaopeng, who was among the spectators.
But experts tend to believe that the unrest was simply an outlet for the mounting dissatisfaction of the country's migrants. "It is now time to reform the migrant worker welfare system," said Lu Xueyi, a renowned sociologist who has paid great attention to the problems of rural people, including migrant workers.
Lu refers to the young workers as "migrants of the second generation," who are more interested in contemporary culture than their predecessors. "On the other hand, they are not as tolerant as their fathers when faced with inequality," he said.
(The authors are writers at Xinhua news agency.)
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