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Carlos Barria / Reuters
Li Anhua and his wife Shi Huaju wait for a taxi as they embark on the first stage of a 50-hour journey home, in Shanghai on Jan. 27, 2013.
Like millions of migrant workers in China, Li Anhua and his wife Shi Huaju make the annual trek home for the Chinese Spring Festival, travelling for 50 hours by train and bus to see their two children after a long year of separation. Reuters photographer Carlos Barria, who accompanied the couple on the journey this year, takes up the story:
There was not much emotion left after crossing central China on a 50-hour train and bus journey. Just a soft touch on the face and a forced hug was all that Li Jiangzhon and his sister Li Jiangchun got from their parents after a long year of absence.
They are just one story among millions of Chinese migrant workers who have left their loved ones behind to look for a better future for themselves and their families.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Li Anhua smokes a cigarette in the couple's cramped room in Shanghai as he packs for his Spring Festival trip on Jan. 27, 2013.
Every year millions of migrant workers travel to their hometowns during the Spring Festival, a massive movement of people that is considered the biggest migration in the world in such a short period of time. Public transportation authorities expect to accommodate about 3.41 billion travelers nationwide during the holiday, including 225 million railway passengers, according to Xinhua news agency.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Li Anhua (2nd L) and Shi Huaju (C) wait in line at a train station gate in Shanghai on Jan. 28, 2013.
They left their home on a cold Sunday night. Ahead of them: 50 hours of hard traveling conditions and cold, followed by the reward of spending 30 days with their children. Li and Shi have been doing this trip every year for the last twelve years, following the birth of their son Li Jiangzhon. Back then, the couple decided to leave the boy with Li Anhua’s mother in a rural village in Sichuan province, around 1,200 miles to the west.
Preparation for the trip began early this year. They managed to buy their train tickets online (116 CNY each, or about $19), which saved them the headache of fighting for a place in hours-long lines, as in previous years, among a swarm of workers and bulky packages.
They got good seats: a place for each of them, which is considered very lucky. Many migrants can’t get a seat on the train and have to travel standing or curled up in any free space they can find.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Shi Huaju leans on her husband as they travel on board a train from Shanghai on Jan. 28, 2013.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Migrant workers play cards as they travel on a train near Huaihua, in Hunan province, on Jan. 28, 2013.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Li Anhua stands next to his food cart as a student eats dinner in a suburban area of Shanghai on Nov. 26, 2012.
Li and Shi met twelve years ago, after they migrated to Shanghai and took their place among the millions of Chinese migrant workers that play a key role in today’s second largest economy. After working for a few months in a restaurant, they decided to work together as street food vendors in the suburbs of Shanghai. Every day, they push a wooden cart with two wheels to street corners where students from a local university buy their food.
Life is hard on their combined monthly income of 2000 CNY ($320) — just enough to send a little money home and for them to rent a room just three meters by three meters in an old apartment far from the city center. Shanghai is one of the most expensive cities in China.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Shi Huaju reads a text message on her mobile phone as she boards a bus for the next stage of her journey, in Chongqing on Jan. 29, 2013.
After the long train ride and a three-hour bus journey, the couple picked up a taxi in Luzhou and started the final 30-minute leg of their trip. At a dark intersection on a dirt road, the taxi suddenly stopped. Li looked around but he couldn't remember the way to their house. He couldn't recognize the way with all the new construction around. He said, "This factory area was not here last year." Finally a small sign indicated the road to Dayan village.
As the taxi stopped in front of a three-story building a little girl screamed, “mammy, mammy,” and the couple got out of the car. For her and her brother, their most cherished present of this Chinese New Year had arrived.
Carlos Barria / Reuters
Li Anhua hugs his daughter Li Jiangchun as he and Shi Huaju arrive at their home town of Dayan, Sichuan province, on Jan. 29, 2013.
See more pictures of the journey in a post on Reuters' Photographers Blog and more stories by Carlos Barria on PhotoBlog.
Leave a Comment:
Amazing how absolutely crazy people are. China is so overpopulated and yet they continue to try to have more than one child. Africa is another area where the poor have multiple children and can't even feed them. Then you have the countries like Afghanistan with women having 6 plus children. Crunch the numbers and it is only going to get worse. If the west is wise it will stop all immigration secure their borders and prepare themselves for the siege that is coming.
If you think the world is overpopulated just wait twenty years when the greatest generation is dead and their children start dying. I imagine in forty years I will be hearing about the coming population crash. That is if we can avoid another massive world war.
fff, not many Chinese try to have more than one child. This couple is from a rural area and people in many rural areas are allowed to have two kids. Besides, TWO people having two children is not increasing the population. Think about the stupid and irresponsible poor single young women in the US having a lot more (by various fathers who do not support the kids, I might add). Which is more detrimental to society??
The world owes a profound gratitude for the dedication and sacrafice these Chinese migrant workers working in factories remote from their home town. Their hard labour produces comsumer goods the rest of the world enjoy at an affortable price.
Cheers to these noble migrant workers.
Heil Mao Henrich!
I think the crazy Chinese are screwing up this world. They need to stop growing polluting cities and export cheap stuff to screw the world economies, all while constantly stealing intellectual property, attempting to hack American national defense computer systems and corrupting Africa.
The Chinese are good normal people, but they are controlled and repressed by their government. It's their abusive communist rulers that suck. The Chinese people shouldn't have to live in these conditions. I call for them to have a REVOLUTION.
You sound delusional perahps a result of your repressed early life under the state care.
Possibly, but at least it wasn't the Chinese state care.
It takes more than hard labor to produce consumer goods the rest of the world enjoy at affordable prices. It takes a work force who, taking the example from the article, work all month to bring in a combined income of $320 while living in poverty conditions. Why should the world feel a "profound gratitude" for what amounts to the repression and financial difficulties of others who work for the enrichment of the few who hire them? I find it amusing that you call someone else "delusional" and speculate about a "repressed early life under the state care" as being the cause of what you call delusional thinking. Maybe, in your case, it's due to playing with too many lead painted toys from China. (Imagine the "health safety benefits" of the workers who are exposed to that all year and just keep feeling your "profound gratitude.")
save the environment
Possibly, but at least it wasn't the Chinese state care.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That was my first reaction to the words I read. If Henrich von Dorf is at all informed about working conditions in China, I would have to call that a Freudian slip. If he's not, then it's just an amusing irony.
Hi Holly,
Yes I think Heinrich is a Chinese "German". Which is fine...We are all just expressing our opinions here.
but when the producers ( that couple) have a hard life, and the end users ( us and others) have a hard life, you got to ask yourself why the situation is sustained? who benefits? Maybe Henrich Vony Dorf import/export business?
Sad that a combined effort of two parents produces a proverty, ramshackled apartment and the ability to see their children once a year, Sounds like slavery in the 1850's. And this is a life they feel fortunate to have.
In those images . . .
I see indomitable spirits that are willing to work hard to live a better life. I see people that do the seemingly impossible to get things done; people who endure hardships for what they believe is important. In short, I see the real image we try to find in our mythical west, in our gold rushes, in our periods of industrial greatness and in many other iconic events in this country. I also see a country that tries hard, and makes make hard choices, which we Americans are unwilling to make, to resolve a population problem that has existed far longer than the Communist regime.
I have no sympathy for the Communist Party, but I also have little for the Republicans, and all of their subgroups, or the Democrats. This country looks more and more like a snotty, third generation rich boy, who wants to bring back the glory of his grandfather's time without working for it. We are living on the trust fund left us by, among others, the "greatest generation" and their parents. The coffers are getting thin, but we are so ruined by the spoiling we had as a child that we can do nothing about it, and we may well end up in the gutter, except for a slim chance that we can right ourselves and find a job.
I see politicians who would rather do nothing than risk re-election. We are grid locked because we cannot make the hard choice to pay our collective bills. We are grid locked becaue any controversy in this country turns into a racial battle, fought by both sides rather than face the reality that its is economics, rich v. poor, and not skin color that really divides us. The rich don't give a damn about us. They are going to give us bread and circuses until the Goths, the real ones, appear at the gate and destroy us.
Then I will see nothing.
All for the sake that we get our IPhone's, IPads, other electronics, clothing, etc. cheap. There is a huge human cost to the things we take for granted everyday.