City kids in all but name

• Source: Global Times
• [21:59 April 19 2009]
• Comments

Zhang, however, is an exception. Most of her peers at Xinli have had almost no contact with local children.

“We don’t talk much about our families or life. We just play online games together,” classmate Li Jiancheng said.

“Beijing kids all know a lot about computers, but I know just as much as they do,” she said.

Chai Mingxiang, headmaster of Xinli, said, “These children are a different species. They haven’t suffered the hardships their parents endured.”

The first migrant workers were employed as cheap labor at construction sites or to do other manual work such as sweeping streets or cleaning houses for wealthy families, he said.

“They were willing to do that because their lives in the countryside were even worse and their poor education did not allow them to do anything more complex,” he said.

The new generation, however, with the knowledge and skills they have gained in the big cities, will have a better chance of finding jobs in factories or the service industry, he said.

They’re also more aware of their legal rights.

“I won’t bear the injustices my parents encountered,” Zhang, whose parents moved to Beijing from Jiangsu Province in 1987 and now own a small business, said.

Youngsters like Du and Zhang sometimes appear different even to the new arrivals from the country, Wang Chunguang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

“They’re almost insulated from the countryside, while the newcomers are still struggling to get used to city life,” he said.

But not all of Du and Zhang’s friends see the countryside as alien territory.

Luo Di said she often has romantic thoughts about her parents’ home in Anhui Province, even though she has spent only a few days there in her entire life.

“It’s a beautiful place,” she said, “I don’t see why I won’t live there in the future.”

Classmate Li was quick with a witty response.

“But what would you do there? I don’t remember you knowing anything about farming,” he said.

Chai said that although he has had few dealings with “real” city teenagers, he perceives them as being “cooler” and “more streetwise” than his charges. But the pupils at his school know more about life, he said, as they have learned things about the countryside from their parents and their occasional visits there.

Luo agreed. “We do know more,” she said. “They have never seen sheep or cows.”

According to Liu Xia, a scholar at Beijing Normal University’s College of Psychology, second generation migrants are city kids in all but name.

“I would call them the children of Beijing without a hukou,” he said.

A hukou is a type of household registration certificate that defines the holder as a citizen of a particular town or city and allows them free and full access to all the social security, healthcare and education benefits provided by the local authorities.

Liu’s research shows that children of migrants who have grown up in Beijing perform almost as well in examinations as youngsters who were born in the city, and much better than their peers who still live in the countryside.

The lack of a hukou, however, does set the new generation apart and creates many challenges for them, he said.

“It’s like a label that’s stuck to them, reminding them they’re still outsiders,” he said.

The challenges become more apparent when students prepare to go to college.

Although Zhang was born in Beijing, if she wants to sit the National College Examination, for example, she will have to go back to Jiangsu where she has a hukou.

“It’s just too much trouble,” she said. “I don’t want to leave Beijing, so I’ll have to go to a vocational high school to study fine art.”

Zhang said a lot of her friends are frustrated by the rules.

The ever-optimistic Li said, “I just hope I can find a decent career after finishing middle school.”

Liu said the problem students like Zhang face is that they see themselves as city kids.

“They were brought up and live in big cities, so they compare themselves to their local peers, not to the youngsters from the countryside.”

While the problems associated with the hukou system might provide the biggest challenge for the second generation of migrant workers, there is no doubt that Zhang and Du will have more opportunities than children brought up in rural communities.

The problem, however, is that they are “always subject to discrimination,” Liu said.

For example, all primary and middle school students in Beijing are entitled to an 80 percent discount on public transport, he said.

“All except the kids at Xinli and the other schools for migrant workers’ children,” he said.

These feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction must be handled carefully to avoid later acts of revenge on society, he said.

The children are very sensitive to their differences, even if at times they are reluctant to admit the differences even exist, Liu said.

Chai said that as a result of the authorities in Beijing reducing their subsidies to children of migrant workers, this year is the first that his school has seen a decline in the number of students enrolling.

“Governments in rural areas are exempting children from tuition fees and providing them with free books for the nine years of their compulsory education, so lots of parents are sending their kids back home,” he said.

For Zhang, however, it’s not about free books or bus rides, it’s about having a sense of identity.

“I’ll never acclimatize to the countryside,” she said.

“Sometimes I can’t help thinking that the people there are vulgar and rustic.”