Peasants Migrate - China

April 1996
One hundred million peasants have left the land for the big cities.

Tucked away on the brown heath land of rural China lies the village of Xiao Cun. Mr Xiao treks along a ditch bemoaning the loss of his son Liangyu. In Beijing, Liangyu collects rubbish for recycling. In one month he earns what he used to make in a year. He and his family live in a ghetto occupied by people from their own province. These ghettos are a focus of bitter resentment for born and bred Beijing workers who accuse the outsiders of stealing their jobs. Wang Shan, an old style Maoist, warns that migrating peasants have been known to bring down the government. During the Spring festival in Xiao Cun, Liangyu is reunited with his family. On the other side of the village, the Sun household has little cause for celebration. The Sun's retarded daughter spends each day of her life twisting hay into string so that her mother can supplement their income. Such hardship provides an impetus for the tide of workers flowing out of the countryside. Having opened the floodgates, the leadership will be hard pushed to control the flow.

Produced by ABC Australia
Distributed by Journeyman Pictures

Category:

News & Politics

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• villages
• business
• migration
• development
• Xiao
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[tunenas]

Amazing opening scene, like a painting.

[mapscraper]

very classic scenery, like a chinese painting, this is actually the real china, not the faked shanghai or beijing. i like it

[HumanRightsVideosT]

WARNING

The video repeats itself from 13:25 minutes. I emailed journeymanpictures to suggest they remove the second half of this video.

[bmaxingout]

its like watching the same show twice thats stupid

[lukebccb]

Those "hundred million" is an outdated number; it's more like SEVERAL hundred millions now.

[ironmantis25]

@ZHLu

china went back to everything capitalism stands against.

lessez faire, gaint chinese coporations are allowed to expoit their chinese workers, they treat thier workers force than slaves, the chinese worker are force to work long hours, inside poisones enviroments, for barely enougth to eat. The managers are allow to beat their workers, and if the workers complain they are arrested and sent to a goverment prison camp. The goverment do not care about the chinese workers.

[gmspeedfreak]

woolworths, coles and Aldi you all suck! and whoever dropped the tarriffs on imports you ought to be shot.

you have destroyed australia's farming sector and properity and domestic manufacturing in all sectors,

you are also greedy and allowing all our resourses to go to china and india.

Australia and true blue are and extinct species, all we can do is pick up the pieces. bastards

[DeanG19]

lol they use her like a machine for profit.. fucking commies..

[ZHLu]

So much for classless society.

[saigokun]

China's political system will face some huge problems in the future. It dependents on the reaction of the CCP how these will be solved.

[SoldierNOTMartyr]

I love this song by mariah carey.