The Reason for it All

- Yingying Lu, 2008 Beijing Volunteer


Sunday was the fastest I had ever walked out of the Zufang village 
migrant worker community. I wasn’t rushing to anything, but 
desperately trying to escape from a seemingly unconquerable pile of 
mental frustrations: problems that began as minor difficulties had 
seemed to morph into major roadblocks in the span of a few hours. I 
needed space to process my own emotions and sort out the conflicting 
thoughts. After saying goodbye to the two girls I spent the afternoon 
with and finding myself alone for the first time that day, I let the 
smile fall from my face, erasing the façade of happiness I put on for 
the kids. Patches of wetness clung to the edges of my eyes and 
threatened to explode, ready to burn an even hotter path down my 
already-flushed cheeks.


I clutched my purse closer and walked even faster. The sun was 
setting, and the mass exodus of commuters who left the neighborhood 
early every morning was beginning to trickle back. Men with dirty 
sleeves and sweaty foreheads, returning from plumbing and construction 
jobs; women heading back to their own homes after ten hours of 
cleaning strangers’; girls my age with their uniforms on from selling 
clothes at roadside stalls or doing low-end clerical jobs for small 
businesses. Whether walking or on bicycles, the migrant workers always 
looked forward, no doubt driven on by tender thoughts of their 
children, spouses, or parents waiting for them to eat dinner.


This was only the first wave. At around eight or nine, those who 
worked even longer hours would be returning home. They would look 
markedly more exhausted, but tell themselves that they were lucky to 
even have a job and a source of income—at least for the time being. 
Watching the influx of migrants used to conjure up deep feelings of 
compassion and even empowerment—here was a reason for me to keep 
working, to keep caring—but lately I felt only irritation. These men 
and women represented just one of the problems with China’s rapid 
development; they were the manifestation of an ever-widening gap 
between urban growth and rural opportunities. Gazing across the sea of 
tired faces, I felt the heavy weight of a country’s collective dreams— 
and saw clearly the depth of change that would be required to realize 
them. Against this tide of people rushing inwards, did I still have 
the strength to push back, to swim the other way?


These thoughts had contributed to an increasing disenchantment with my 
project. I had just finished reading James Kynge’s China Shakes the 
World, and concluded that fairy tales can be harmful. The world does 
not have the resources to sustain 1.3 billion Chinese living as 
Americans, yet dreams of living like Westerners drives urban 
consumption. Certainly, many of the migrant parents I had talked 
harbored lower expectations or none at all, but they are nonetheless 
trying to make the best life for themselves and their children given 
their situations. A theme of my conversations with these parents was a 
ubiquitous awareness of Beijing’s growing inequality, encapsulated by 
the oft-repeated phrase “有钱的人很有钱，没钱的人特别没钱”—“those with money have lots 
of it, while those who don’t really don’t.”


I had to keep reminding myself of the purpose of my work, fighting 
against doubts that that continued to resurface. What good was making 
recommendations for Dream Corps if the organization may never be able 
to measure the direct impact of its work? At the Beijing site, the 
majority of children leave the city once they reach middle school. 
They return to their rural hometowns, or “老家,” to continue school 
there. This reality makes it difficult to ascertain a long-term 
impact; how do we know that the same children who frequent the New 
Century Library (Dream Corps' library in Beijing) now will continue to 
see the value in reading and learning once they return home?


The impatient, policy-minded aspects of my personality fueled my 
doubts and contributed to my insecurities. If not supported by 
appropriate top-down policies—such as those that would make it easier 
and more financially feasible for children without household 
registration (户口）to enroll in quality, local schools—how could 
families hope to break out of vicious cycles? I enjoy helping others 
with their problems—I am an RA at Duke—but here, I was constantly 
listening to people talk about problems I felt utterly powerless to 
fix. I believe in the power of dialogue in building mutual 
understanding—but how much was too much? Was I spending so much time 
talking with people when I could be taking on a more proactive 
project? And if I did, what would this approach look like?


“Yingying 姐姐!” Hearing my name jolted me out of my thoughts. I looked 
around for the source of the call, recognizing the voice as belonging 
to Li Qian, one of the girls I had said goodbye to not long ago after 
she and her friend, Yu Jiao, walked me to the main road. After buying 
the girls popsicles, I had told them to go straight home, since it was 
about to get dark. They had reluctantly turned around… but yet there 
they were, looking down at me from behind the railing that bordered 
the other side of the road along which I was walking. I felt my 
insides swell up as I realized what was happening—the girls hadn’t 
gone home! They must have watched and seen where I was headed, and 
then trailed along on the nearby hill. “姐姐, 再见! Goodbye!”


I stopped walking. As I turned around to face the two girls, they 
moved closer to me, gripping the metal bars that separated us. “Li 
Qian! Yu Jiao! 你们快回家吧!” I was screaming across the street, trying to 
tell the girls to stop following me. They seemed not to hear me. We 
stood there for what must have been a mere minute, but felt like an 
eternity—me on the sidewalk, telling them to go on home, and the girls 
behind the railings, illuminated by the setting sun, with nothing but 
pure happiness written across their faces. Next to them, a green 
banner with the phrase “One World, One Dream,” fluttered, attached to 
a lamppost. Less than thirty days to go until the Olympics, and these 
streamers had gone up this morning, in line with a citywide trend. I 
marveled at the irony of the juxtaposition: even within a single city, 
there is definitely more than one world.


And finally, the tears that had been waiting to fall did, and I cried 
for the first time since I had been in Beijing. But these weren’t 
tears of frustration, or of helplessness. Here, right in front of me, 
was the reason I had committed myself to this community in the first 
place. Fueled by my own idealism, I had gotten too wrapped up in the 
big picture of China’s interconnected problems, as well as the small 
troubles of my daily run-ins with logistical issues. I had forgotten 
that, in the end, I could only do my best in working towards what I 
believe in. I had option of walking out of this community—and did so 
every day—but these girls were caught behind the rails of limited 
opportunities. They could only follow me so far before the metro 
tracks prevented them from going further. Perspective and strength 
came in the form of two children with smiles on their faces.