China’s Uprooted Peasants Find Life in ‘City’ Is Awash in Difficulty

In a carefully orchestrated show of socialist bravado, about a dozen east coast Chinese provinces opened the floodgates this summer to some of the 1.2 million peasants displaced by the world’s largest hydroelectric project.

Even the crowded metropolis of Shanghai joined the cause, paving roads and building homes for 5,500 transplants set to pour in from the Three Gorges area.

But a month into their new lives, the more than 600 Chongqing-area peasants who docked here in August find that Shanghai’s high cost of living and dim employment prospects are chipping away at their enthusiasm.

“I’m having trouble sleeping at night,” said Xu Jibo, 39. He was the first in his village to sign up to move to Shanghai. Now he’s having trouble finding a job. “Before, I could at least support my family. Now I’m not sure I could do that.”

Since 1992, about 30,000 dam-area residents have been moved to higher ground nearby. Experts say the region cannot sustain more immigrants without causing severe harm to the fragile ecosystem. The population density is twice the national average. The already low percentage of arable land is rapidly shrinking.

Last year, the government persuaded the rest of the uprooted farmers to trade in their poverty-line existence for the promise of brighter prospects in eastern China. In the next few years, about 70,000 transplants will resettle in areas including Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Fujian and Guangdong.

“I’ve never been to Shanghai. I wanted to see it,” said Liao Qinglan, Xu’s wife.

But Liao may never have an address near Shanghai’s fabled Bund--a waterfront row of European-style buildings--or fancy high-rises. The final destination after a 70-hour boat ride from central China to the end of the Yangtze River was not the ritzy city but rural Chongming--China’s third-largest island and Shanghai’s most backward suburb. It’s an hour away, by ferry, from Shanghai’s urban center.

Waiting for them were two-story cement-colored homes, small plots of land and neighbors who don’t speak their dialect. The local hosts did their best to showcase a smooth transition, sidestepping the corruption and mismanagement that have dogged the resettlement drive. Earlier this year, state auditors implicated 14 people in an embezzlement ring that siphoned off $57 million in resettlement money.

To deter any flare-ups or organized discontent, authorities scattered the immigrants among 47 distant villages. To make them feel at home, the locals greeted their new neighbors with jars of Sichuan hot sauce and sacks of rice.

It did feel like one happy family at first. Then reality set in.

For giving up a home in Chongqing, the government gave the Xu family a $3,000, five-year, no-interest loan to purchase a house, plus a payment of less than $2,000.

Half that money went to buy furniture and a TV. The field in front of the house is not expected to yield any profit right away, so both adults must find other work. Liao was hired at a textile factory, from which she brings home about $38 a month, and for two years the family of four will receive a monthly relocation subsidy of about $18. But that income is barely enough to cover basic expenses.

Food, medicine and clothing all cost more than the couple expected, and they are afraid to think about what will happen when the state subsidies run out and the loans come due.

“The biggest challenge facing the Three Gorges project is how to take care of the emigrants,” said Zhang Ren, a professor of hydroelectricity at Beijing’s Qinghua University. “That’s because their number is so high and it involves a lot of potential social problems.”

But the government argues that the projected benefits outweigh the social costs. When completed in 2009, the dam is expected to produce 18,000 megawatts of electricity and tame legendary floods that have plagued the country for centuries. With an estimated price tag of nearly $70 billion, the colossal project is supposed to symbolize the prowess and vitality of the current political system. But it has also become a national embarrassment, with millions of dollars gobbled up by corrupt local officials, some of whom have been executed for their crimes.

The government hopes to avoid further tarnishing the project’s image, so much is riding on the successful resettlement of the first wave of outer-province transplants.

“There is a lot of propaganda value in this move,” said Sun Changmin, director of the Institute for Population and Development Studies at Shanghai’s Academy of Social Sciences. “But what the people really need is practical help.”

That’s what farmer Xu has been hoping for. Every day, he looks for work, willing to sweep streets or collect garbage. But so far he has found nothing.

Transplant Chen Minjiang, 33, also is worried about supporting his family. At home he had a small shop selling timber. Now his Shanghai neighbors must teach him to tend the land, something he has never done.

Next door lives Shu Shaobo, 39, a truck driver who must find another line of work, not an easy task in a city with ballooning unemployment.

On top of finding jobs for legions of laid-off state workers, the city has to make room for an estimated 100,000 former Shanghai residents moving back home every year, said population specialist Sun. They were expelled during the Cultural Revolution to work in remote provinces, and their return makes it even harder for the Three Gorges residents to compete, particularly in the low-skill job market.

The Three Gorges transplants left behind families and friends who either didn’t have to move or have relocated elsewhere. Pride tells them to keep their frustrations to themselves.

How could Xu tell his aging parents that for Moon Festival last week, a traditional family holiday celebrating the autumn harvest, he could afford to buy only 11 green apples? How could he tell them there were no sweet moon cakes, no feast of meat?

The eldest son of eight children, Xu was the only one tapped to move, because he remained on a family farm located in an area to be flooded by the mighty Yangtze. His farewell to his relatives was a scene repeated over and over among families swept apart by the unprecedented mass migration.

“More than 30 relatives came to see me off,” Xu said. “My bus was leaving, and my sister kept saying, ‘Brother, don’t go, don’t go!’ She chased the bus for three miles. Finally they stopped the bus. My sister grabbed my left arm from the window. She was crying and crying. I had to use my right hand and force her to let go.”

Like his fellow villagers, Xu wants to believe in the future. He wants to see the baby tree he plucked from the mountains where he grew up pierce the sky above his new front yard.

“I was born there, my parents and grandparents were born there,” Xu said. “I thought, starting with my children’s generation, we should have a taste of life in the big city.”