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China’s young migrants think big, smart
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SPEAKING fluent Mandarin and wearing a fine cashmere coat, Ting Chengchun doesn’t look like a migrant worker at all. No one would have any inkling that she is actually from a poor background and spent only nine years in school.
A villager from the hinterland of Guizhou Province, Ting, 36, has spent the last 18 years in the rich southern province of Guangdong, working her way up from factory girl to waitress, cosmetic assistant and, finally, sales manager of a purified water company.
“This year I will see if our business can expand to my hometown,” says Ting.
She says she would undertake a market survey in her home county of Guiding and the provincial capital of Guiyang, with the hope that she can work — and live — closer to home.
Gone are the days when the word migrant worker is synonymous with disheveled people in shoddy clothes with heavy sacks slung across their backs. In fact, many of today’s migrants are resplendent in their smart clothes with matching smartphones.
An Huaibo, 37, from the underdeveloped county of Sinan in Tongren City, left for Guangdong at 20 years old, first working at construction sites and then factories. He only finished primary school and was destitute by 14.
An had never entertained the dream of permanently returning home until he was given a brochure on the train back home for the Spring Festival that listed business opportunities in Guizhou. “Maybe I could set up a fodder factory in my home village?”
There are about 269 million migrant workers in cities across China, according to 2014 figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Measures in the last decade have improved their lives through training, medical coverage, pension schemes and education for their children.
However, as the cost of living in the cities continues to rise, many are starting to think about potential opportunities back home. Just five years ago, many migrants would have said they were working toward building a house in their hometowns. The younger generation, born in the 1980s and 1990s, are instead planning for futures in the cities.
“You don’t have to be a boss to dream big,” says Tian Weitang, 27.
Six years into his job, Tian plans to leave Foxconn Technology Group in Shenzhen, Guangdong Provine, supplier to some of the world’s biggest tech brands including Apple, for a managerial position at a smaller company.
Job swapping may not promise an immediate pay rise, but Tian says he was looking for something more challenging. “There will so much to learn in my new job. I’m tired of working like a robot in a factory.”
His colleague at Foxconn, Yang Jianping, will also move to new pastures after securing a job at an interior design firm in Beijing. “I need to learn new skills while I’m still young,” says Yang, 28. “I don’t want to be on the production line when I am an old man.”
Wang Bin’s sportswear hints at his job: He coaches at a gym in Guangzhou. “I loved running in the mountains back home when I was a kid, but I never expected to make a career out of it.”
He says he had several factory jobs in Guangzhou before his current position, but he is not finished yet: His dream is to establish up his own gym in Guizhou.
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