CHINA: Chinese migrant workers finally start going home after being trapped by bad weather

Record ID: 348300

  • Title: CHINA: Chinese migrant workers finally start going home after being trapped by bad weather
  • Date: 5th February 2008
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) 41-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT WORKER YOU GUICAI SAYING: "I told them I am going to be back home soon. I am so happy now, I am going to see my family soon."
  • Embargoed: 20th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Weather
  • Reuters ID: LVA2KL7JE9FVCPF8Z530ETBZ55DK
  • Story Text: Thousands of chinese migrant workers endure long delays and tight squeezes to get onto trains home after bad weather left them stranded.
    Thousands of stranded migrant workers wanting to catch a train back home for the Lunar New Year holiday waited at the Pazhou Exhibition Centre, in the hope that transport links will be restored after severe bad weather.
    The centre at the outskirts of China's southern city of Guangzhou acts as a focal point to collect and care for the travellers who have been stranded by the snow storms that have plunged the country's transportation network into chaos.
    Guangzhou authorities set up the centre to encourage people to stop crowding the areas around Guangzhou's main train station.
    The centre serves as a point from where travellers are moved in batches via the nearby subway direct to the train station waiting area. Food and water are also provided here for the stranded travellers.
    Train and plane schedules were starting to return to normal across China on Monday (February 4), and China's state news agency Xinhua said the number of stranded commuters in Guangzhou have been reduced to about 80,000 from a peak of 800,000 last week.
    Most of them were poor migrant workers who make up a majority of the workforce in China's booming southern industrial province of Guangdong.
    China has in excess of 200 million migrant labourers who travel from the countryside to cities for work. Guangdong has more than any other province, with nearly 30 million.
    Internal migration, once tightly restricted, has underpinned China's economic expansion and helped turn places like the Pearl River Delta into the workshop of the world.
    Factories in boomtowns like Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhongshan, producing everything from toiletries to tables, are overwhelmingly populated by workers from outside -- places like Sichuan, Henan and Hunan -- for whom the work beats eeking out a living in a village or town somewhere.
    For most, the Lunar New Year is the one, much-anticipated chance in the year to return home. For some, the week-long break is the only chance to see their spouse, parents and children.
    41-year-old migrant worker You Guicai and his wife, 34-year-old Hu Xiaoying work at a shoe factory in Dongguan.
    The couple whose hometown is in a village near Yueyang in the central Hunan province earn a little more than 900RMB ($125 U.S. dollars) a month and can only afford to go home once a year during the Lunar New Year break.
    Many of their co-workers at the factory abandoned their hopes of going home but they said they were not giving up this chance to see their family, especially their two sons, aged 15 and eight.

    "That is because I miss my family, my parents and my children.
    It's already the end of the year, so I want to go home and see them,"
    said You.

    "There is no choice, I have to go home. Even if I don't feel too happy about the situation, I will still have to go home. When we come here, we don't feel too happy as well. But everyone wishes to have their children with them at home, and the fact is that we are far away from home. My children are young and my boys they don't know how to behave," added You's wife, Hu.
    Together with You and his wife, thousands of people crowded in the exhibition hall.
    Luck came their way after a mere two-hour wait, soldiers and police began to escort their group down through the subway station to take the direct route straight to the train station waiting area.
    As You and his wife squeezed their way with many others into the subway train, their luck got even better.
    They managed to make a brief call on a borrowed mobile phone to tell relatives of the latest developments.
    You had been unable to contact his family for days as his hometown of Yueyang suffered from blackouts and ruptured telephone lines due to the snow.

    "I told them I am going to be back home soon. I am so happy now, I am going to see my family soon," he said, beaming with a wide smile.
    As the group reached the waiting area, it was after another four-hour wait, standing in makeshift tents guarded by soldiers and police, before You's train arrived.
    As night time fell, the crowd was released. You and his wife disappeared into the waves of people running through the station, making a dash to board the train.
    The journey back to Yueyang takes more than 10 hours depending on the weather situation. As the train set off, it carried with it the hope and determination of thousands of migrant workers, just wanting to get home.
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