An undated photo shows the children of rural migrant workers are taking a bus for school in Linyi, Shandong Province. (File photo)   Chinanews, Chengdu, Feb. 7 – “I love this city. I think it’s beautiful and I won’t go back,” said Xiao Yan, a young girl from Neijiang, a small city in Sichuan, who now studies at a senior high school in Shanghai.

 

Although she might miss her hometown from time to time, she definitely wouldn’t go back to that small town any more, which has become a strange land to her now.

 

Xiao Yan has lived in Shanghai for more than five years and has established her own social network in the new city. She aspires to integrate into the city and to become a “real Shanghainese” some day.

 

In a recent survey by the Huaxi Metropolitan News, 90% of the migrant workers who come from Sichuan plan to go back some day in future. However, 70% of the children of these migrant workers say they won’t live a farmer’s life, like their parents do. For these children, they don’t want to be treated as an outsider in cities. Instead, they plan to settle down in the city permanently and gradually integrate into the mainstream of the city.

 

Although 30% of the children of migrant workers do plan to go back to their hometown, they still prefer to live in cities rather than in the countryside.

 

The children of these migrant workers from Sichuan feel comfortable living in the city, although sometimes they also experience some sorrow. This reporter recently investigated some 20 families of migrant farmers who come from Sichuan and now work in various cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xiaman, Kunshan, and Shanghai. The investigation shows that although these families are treated as the lower class in cities, their children are satisfied with their life in cities, since there are more goods available there and they earn more in cities than in their hometowns.