A tiring 40-hour journey, but for one little girl it brings happiness
Print Edition
WANG Xintong struggles to contain her excitement as she looks around the carriage. The 8-year-old is on a train heading back to her hometown for New Year celebrations.
Her joy turns to fatigue after just a few minutes, and the 2,000-kilometer journey before her promises nothing but monotony.
“I’m suffocating in here! I don’t want to be on the train anymore,” she frets to her father, Wang Xiangquan.
“Daddy used to have to stand for over 20 hours going home on the train,” he says. “Just have a little patience.”
Xintong is one of the millions of children “lucky” enough to accompany her migrant worker parents who work far from home. Many other children are left behind with grandparents and see their parents just once or twice each year.
Dad is a van driver. Mom works at a factory making water pipes. Xintong has been almost constantly on the move with them since she was 3 and, currently, the family live in Fuzhou, 40 hours away from the rest of their family in Chongqing.
Xintong shares a single 20 square meter room with her parents, dominated by an ancient 21-inch television. Two beds and a makeshift wardrobe comprise the rest of their belongings. This is her world.
“She locks the door and plays on her own after school,” her mother, Yu Gaifen, said.
When asked how many friends she had in Fuzhou, the girl gave what appeared to be an OK sign. “Three?” “Zero.”
Moving five times in five years, it has been hard for her to make any friends. Though entitled to attend local schools, it can be difficult for outsiders to fit in.
“I don’t understand the games my classmates play at school. I don’t like being with them,” Xintong said.
Her happiest time is now, Spring Festival, when her parents take a break and she can see her friends at “home.”
It is a long journey. First they take a bus to Fuzhou railway station, then a train laid on for migrant workers.
The train has seating for 1,700, but will carry over 2,500 passengers, so about a third will be standing for the next 28 hours, or will perch precariously on stacks of luggage.
Everyone is carrying armfuls of New Year gifts, and the overloaded, over-heated train is as comfortable as it sounds. But no one complains much. Everything can be tolerated on the way home.
After some fitful sleep, the bleary-eyed family stumble off the train in Dazhou where they wait five hours for another train to Liangping County where they spend the night, before taking a bus to their final destination, Hongqi village.
The family’s 40-hour journey is nothing special at this time of year. Most of China’s 270 million migrant workers are heading home, and the Ministry of Transport expects people to make 3 billion trips around New Year this year. For many, seeing their families is a once-a-year event.
As soon as she gets off the bus, Xintong rushes into her grandma’s arms. Grandpa Wang Yiping has taken a day off to welcome them.
Wang, who works in a restaurant in a neighboring town, became a migrant worker in 1985, and has worked all over the country. At age 14, Xintong’s father quit school to join him. “Nobody here was looking after him, so we had no other option,” the 64-year-old said.
Xintong’s parents are adamant that their family history will not repeat itself.
“Xintong once said that she wanted to be a migrant worker when she grew up. I said no way,” Yu recalled.
“We want our daughter to go to college some day,” her father said. “We are working hard to save money for her education.”
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