Chinese_Migrants_Return_to_Rural_Roots经济英语阅读.doc

Chinese Migrants Return to Rural RootsLaid Off by Struggling Factories in Distant Cities, Laborers Find Few Prospects Back Home By Lauren KeaneWashington Post Foreign ServiceFriday, January 2, 2009; A08 WANZHOU, China -- By the time their train pulled into its final station, Deng Hongshu and his teenage son had been standing in a packed aisle, shoulder to shoulder, for 38 hours. Like many of their fellow migrant laborers on Train 1009 from Guangzhou, they were out of work and headed home. Their boss at the American Overseas Fur Factory laid off half of his 300 workers without pay for three months. He tried to be reassuring: Americans will start buying again after the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, he said. Come back to your jobs then. So Deng, a 43-year-old man with shaggy hair, kind eyes and an easy gait, and his son, Yixin, 17, packed their belongings into two small red duffel bags and began the three-day journey from Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, to their home in the mountains high above the Yangtze River in central China. They are among the millions of workers who have powered Chinas economic juggernaut, but now they are retreating to their rural roots. Their future is uncertain. Many do not know whether they will have jobs again in the factories. What they will do back home without work is equally unclear, but their expectations have been raised by years along Chinas prosperous eastern coast. Many say that after a break at home with their families, they will head right back to the factories to try their luck again. What choice? There is no choice, Deng said. Of course Im going back, if not to Shenzhen, then somewhere else. If we stay here and farm, we can eat but we make no money for anything else. At least back there, theres the possibility of work when things get better. Deng and his son had spent most of the past four months standing knee-deep in hot vats of dye, an animal skin in one hand and a spear in the other. They picked the skins from a