Comments on: China: The Biggest Migration Ever

By: fractured.earth / The greatest migration ever…

fractured.earth / The greatest migration ever… — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 09:56:24 +0000

[...] the early 1980s, 120 million people have moved from rural to urban china. More about that here. ( [...]

By: Jazzblowin

Jazzblowin — Sun, 14 May 2006 02:28:48 +0000

I was in China last year. It is amazing to see the growth in smal and large cites. Parts of shanghai remind me of New York, but 10 times larger. The factory towns by the road side are amazing in number. I visited a city 50 miles outside of shanghai/pudong that was a town of factories. Workers live on the grounds, but there was life outside; shops and places to eat. I got the impression that most seemed content to have employment.

My experince makes me pause and not jump the gun on thinking all is bad in china. The migration story is familer. At 15, I left my home town of Albany NY and headed to Los Angeles. I finished school, found work and made a better life.

By: elphaba

elphaba — Fri, 12 May 2006 05:37:09 +0000

Thank you Potter for the link to the article by Leslie Chang. It seems to give a good picture of what is happening in rural China. Two of my daughters are from China and I am printing the article to share with them when they are older. Both of them come from poor provinces. The only study that I know of done on where babies in China available for adoption come from, said that most of them are from poor rural families who have at least one daughter and often more, and are hoping for a boy.

I have been in China three times. The rapid rate of change is amazing. I noticed that even poor cities are becoming more prosperous. Attention was being paid to marketing in the small stores.

I found the agricultural practices fascinating. People were gardening on the roadsides. The agriculture is intensive. Anyone can cultivate unclaimed ground.

By: sidewalker

sidewalker — Thu, 11 May 2006 07:47:31 +0000

Following nother’s lead on another thread, I went and interviewed a couple of Chris’ “farm girls” and a couple of other young Chinese women (in their early 20s) that now are studying in Tokyo. Their experiences and those of their friends were similar to those mentioned on the show, though a couple of interesting points came up. They felt that the harsh factories that restricted workers from leaving the premises were a thing of the past and they had not heard of such a thing recently, though they acknowledge that much of what would be reported in Japan does not show up in the Chinese media.

They worry about the growing disprity in incomes which is reflected in the workplace conditions. They took it as a matter-of-fact that low-wage factories had worse conditions and more sexual and other harassment. But this wouldn’t keep them from going to the city to work and live. One good thing, they said, is that work finishes usually at 5 and they have more leisure time (than workers in Tokyo). Just at the beginning getting set up costs more than expected since unlike on the farm, everything must be purchased.

In terms of the “great migration,” they really didn’t think it was anything special and in a sense, I felt like they thought it was strange to be asked about it. One woman ask back, isn’t this the same everywhere? But two women from the north said in their region around Dailing migration to the city was not that great. Still the family is most important and people do not want to leave home. There are also not the same job prospects. Yet going to one of the booming southern cities is very challenging both culturally and linguistically and they do not know of many people from their who leave.

This latter point shows us that it is important to avoid broad generalizations about China. There may be one political party, but it is a vast, multi-ethnic and multicultural society.

By: spacebo

spacebo — Wed, 10 May 2006 22:00:22 +0000

Would blogging be the way the migrant workers could unify to make their conditions better. check out China Digital Times in time inforamation about Chinese people http://chinadigitaltimes.net/

By: peggysue

peggysue — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:44:37 +0000

I am looking forward to this show because I do not know very much about the Chinese migration. I’m wondering if this isn’t the same thing that has happened throughout the world ever since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution but on a huge scale. One factor that sometimes gets ignored is the environmental distruction that generally accompanies an urban migration. If the industrial or corporate powers take the natural resources from the countryside they get the double benefit of claiming the natural wealth while making the environment less hospitible to supporting the rural population while gaining the cheap labor to turn the natural resources into manufactured goods.

By: Dorian

Dorian — Tue, 09 May 2006 23:45:30 +0000

If “choice” is increasingly becoming a part of the lives of the migrant workers, will Chinese workers eventually “choose” to make a change in their repressive government? I fear the level of crackdown, if this ever becomes a serious threat to the status quo. The results of a perceived worker revolt (the massacre at Tinannamen Square) was covered thouroughly on Frontline’s “Tank Man” episode which aired on PBS recently.

By: Potter

Potter — Tue, 09 May 2006 20:34:20 +0000

Leslie Chang, the guest tonight, wrote a wonderful two-part report for the Wall Street Journal in 2004. I was so entranced by the writing, the story.

Part One is called “The Chinese Dream. Part Two is called“Min’s Return.”. I looked and found what I think is the whole piece on this web site. It’s posted in chunks and the poster says it’s an abstract, but it appears to be the whole two-part article, the last chunk is labeled part 1 when it is really the end of the piece ( as it should be).

http://www.pacificvillage.org/villagevoices/chinaoneworld/archives/000795.html

By: joel

joel — Tue, 09 May 2006 19:59:04 +0000

This country has never actually been able to wean itself from slavery. Products of slavery are merely of those industries moved offshore. Which is why U.S. workers cannot compete anymore and this society imports those low priced items with glee. The large corporate plantations of the Banana Republics, sugar, coffee, bananas, have been around ever since slaves went out of style here. The practice has expanded to nearly everything we buy, especially, shoes and other clothing and all other manufacturing and agriculture products we no longer produce – up to computers and state of the art electronics and now IT and related services. This will continue as long as we crave our inflated wages for what we produce while craving, also, all those cheap imports.

Cheers.

By: h wally

h wally — Tue, 09 May 2006 19:18:04 +0000

I’ve never been to China to actually check out their working conditions but I’ve heard this type of factory mentioned several times by seemingly reputable sources. The sad part is that the US could be a voice against such things but our indebtedness to them seems to silence any official protests. I recently heard a story on Cambodia. They’ve been struggling to keep their garment industry going. They’ve been working hard to stick to the rules we gave them concerning working conditions. Most of the people employed in these industries are women. Some of their representatives recently travelled to this country to get help for their struggling industries. It seems that no one was interested in listening to them. Our politicians are too busy to bother with them. The sad part is that , as reported, many of the women will turn to prostitution to support their families. I wish we could help countries such as this before things get to the point of being a disaster.