Min's Story by Julia Jones
Chen Min was born in Fujian Province, China. He was an only child in a rural family. When he was very small his father left home to work in the city. So many other men had done the same that Min’s village was nicknamed the Village of Living Widows. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in China has been a period of huge internal migration -- the largest in human history -- as people flood from the country into towns to work in factories. Though the scale is different it’s hard not to be reminded of Britain in the mid-nineteenth century when internal migrations made this the first country on earth where more people lived in towns than in the country. Like many c19th British migrants Min’s father suffered from poor working conditions, overcrowding and lack of healthcare. The traditional Chinese "Hukou" system means that people born in the countryside cannot expect education for their children or social welfare in the cities. They have no rights, they are a...
