Migrant worker mulls going home after living hand to mouth for 20 years

    Martin Li

    martin.mouse@163.com

    My biggest desire is to make more money and earn the respect of urban people.”

— Wang Shanyun, a 60-year-old migrant worker from rural Chongqing, who is considering going home after 20 years in Shenzhen

    WANG SHANYUN, a 60-year-old migrant worker from rural Chongqing in southwestern China, is considering going home after 20 years in Shenzhen. In this time, he has mostly supported himself by doing odd jobs on construction sites. Wang has only 10,000 yuan (US$1,587) to his name.

    Wang is one of many migrant workers in Shenzhen who have no access to social security or medical insurance. These people have to leave when they are considered too old to work. They are known as “naked” migrant workers.

    Leaving home

    Wang used to be a stonemason in his hometown of Kaixian County, Chongqing. In 1992 he was injured in a landslide, throwing himself and his family deep into debt.

    Struggling to make ends meet, Wang was inspired by some fellow townspeople who had returned from the new special economic zone of Shenzhen with impressive earnings.

    In the same year, Wang left his wife and two children to head to Shenzhen with nothing but the clothes on his back.

    After making the 80-hour bus journey, Wang’s first impression of the city was that it was much more developed and offered more opportunities than his hometown.

    Manual labor

    In terms of work, the only option for a man like Wang, with no permanent residency permit and only a primary school education, was the kind of manual labor that nobody else wanted to do.

    For most of the past 20 years, Wang has been demolishing floors and walls with a hammer or spade on construction sites.

    In the beginning, a good day would see Wang earn 50 yuan, which would be enough to buy a pig in his hometown.

    He gradually taught himself the city’s bus routes, as he approached construction sites across the city offering his services.

    More than 40 contact numbers are stored in Wang’s mobile phone, half of which are of people from the same part of the country as Wang. They all work in the construction, demolition or decorating industries.

    Wang would use these contacts to keep himself in work, where he would be paid on a daily basis. Neither Wang nor his employers were willing to buy social insurance, both being satisfied with cash in hand.

    Wang goes home only once a year, but he has never been home during the Spring Festival, a time when the cost of transportation is at its peak. In addition, he can make a little more by working during the festival.

    Life in the city

    Wang spends 260 yuan on rent per month, sharing a three-room apartment with eight people in Chiwei, an urban village in Futian District.

    His monthly living costs include 100 yuan on cigarettes, 500 yuan on food and 100 yuan on transportation and phone calls.

    At least 500 migrant workers from Wang’s hometown live in the urban village, giving him the chance to communicate in his own dialect.

    A mobile phone and a bed are Wang’s only earthly possessions.

    “All I need is a place to sleep,” said Wang.

    Initially, whenever Wang accumulated 3,000 yuan of savings, he would send the money home. He did this until his wife divorced him to marry another man in 2007. He lives a very simple life and has been wearing the same worn-out jacket for four years.

    “My biggest desire is to make more money and earn the respect of urban people,” said Wang.

    Estranged son

    Although Wang’s 24-year-old son works in a toy factory in Longhua New Area, the two men seldom make contact. Wang’s son came to Shenzhen when he was 15 and had five jobs before his current one. While Wang is happy to keep living the way he does, his son is more ambitious and wants to start a business. On the rare occasions they meet, they only exchange a few words, and because they have never really had the chance to get to know each other, they do not intend to meet at Spring Festival after Wang returns to Chongqing.

    Going home

    Because of his age, Wang is finding it harder to get work and spends more time at home. On a recent trip to his hometown, Wang was surprised by how much it had developed since he left.

    Many migrant workers have returned to run restaurants or tea houses in the county.

    A combination of these changes in his hometown and his advancing years mean that living in his hometown now appeals to him.

    Upon returning, Wang plans to plant corn, rice and rape on his own land which is being taken care of by his younger sister.

    In addition, the county government introduced pension insurance for local peasants last year. This is another reason why Wang wants to return home.

    Wang occasionally eats and drinks with fellow natives of Kaixian County. They often sing the song “In the Spring” they can particularly relate to the line “I want to be buried in the spring.”