Posted on 09/06/2003 3:21:53 PM PDT by tullycraft
HANGLE, China — His older brother was the pioneer, more than a decade ago. His son followed three years ago. As recently as last year, his daughter planned to join this exodus of thousands from Fujian Province who have gambled that the life of a smuggled immigrant in America would eclipse that of an impoverished native in China.
But she lost interest after her brother's experience.
"Life is much more difficult than he expected, so I regret sending him to America," said the father, Mr. Wang, who — like some others interviewed for this article — spoke on the condition that only his surname be used. "He is miserable. He says to me, `Why am I working so hard in America? I can get rich at home.' It's very different from the way it used to be."
Ten years ago this summer, human smuggling exploded into international consciousness when the Golden Venture, a decrepit freighter stuffed with 286 Chinese, most from the Changle area in southern China, ran aground off Queens, New York. Ten people died in the cold and pounding surf, and soon, the name Golden Venture became shorthand for a cruel world of exploitation of desperate people.
Today, the smuggling trade continues, though perhaps at a slower clip, people here say, costing $60,000 per head. But for the first time, many Fujianese feel less urgency about venturing abroad.
They have more options at home, with jobs available in small businesses, steel factories or construction sites. It is far more convenient and less troublesome, some people say, to make small money in the comfort of familiar surroundings, instead of relatively big money in the clutches of a lonely and inhospitable land.
Some smuggled Chinese are even leaving America as soon as they pay their debts, and without gaining permanent residency, because they want a less stressful life at home.
"America is no paradise," said one man surnamed Zheng, who returned to the village of Shengmei a few years ago. He described a seven-year odyssey that started in New York but took him to many other places. "It was the same routine every day for six or seven years," he droned. "Get up. Work for 16 hours. Go to bed. Get up again. I was a fool. A machine."
America is still in people's thoughts here. Of dozens of people interviewed in half a dozen villages around Changle, nearly everyone claimed to have at least one relative overseas, most in New York.
In small fishing villages like Houyu, where jobs are scarce, the urge to leave remains strong.
But in many places, that desire is now muted by considerations such as economics, family and safety. Some people attribute their reluctance to tighter security in China and America after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The Golden Venture has defined the discourse for years, and people still have the same ideas about Chinese and smuggling," said Peter Kwong, director of the Asian-American studies program at Hunter College. But things have changed, he said, adding, "The economic incentive is no longer absolute."
The woman accused of being the chief smuggler, or "snakehead," behind the Golden Venture, Cheng Chui Ping, is on trial in New York. The lawyer who represented many of the immigrants, Robert E. Porges, is in jail, after admitting that he helped many of them concoct false stories of persecution to bolster their asylum cases. The ship itself is being used as an artificial reef about a mile off the coast of Boca Raton, Fla.
Changle, a county of about 650,000 people, has changed, too. Several years ago, the county seat, also named Changle, was a dusty, lethargic town with bleak prospects, said Mr. Kwong, who collaborated on a documentary film about Fujianese emigrants in the mid-1990's. Now, it is a bustling city crowned by new high-rise apartments, stylish new stores and a new boulevard, North Shiyang Street.
Changle is full of people, like Zhou Xueqing, whose attitudes toward emigration have changed. More than a decade ago, her husband went to New York to work as a cook, and he sends home a few hundred dollars a month. But he is depressed, and his health is deteriorating.
His hard life deterred their son from going to America. He went to Shanghai instead. He now runs a mobile phone business and earns $12,000 a year, a good income there.
"The average person doesn't want to be smuggled into America anymore," said Ms. Zhou, who works at a new bedding store. "The economy is so terrible there."
That view can also be heard on the busy streets of Jinfeng, another longtime starting point for illegal emigration. At her family's fashionable Wei Wei wedding store, Chen Meicun described a conundrum of yearning and conflict, risk and reward.
Ms. Chen, 21, said she once thought of joining her brother, who left 10 years ago for Peru. But she is loath to give up her job and the comforts of an upwardly mobile life.
"It's dangerous to go — look at what happened in England," she said, referring the deaths three years ago of 58 Chinese who were being smuggled in the back of a truck. "Every country has its good and its bad, so why should I leave?"
In village after village, people outlined the same choices. If they got a good job here, they would stay. If not, they would try to borrow enough money to leave. Not one person talked about politics or human rights here, or China's one-child policy. The issue was money.
In a small store in Tingjiang, across the Min River in Lianjiang County, questions about smuggling people into America prompted a lively discussion.
The owner, a 28-year-old woman surnamed Lin, said she wanted her only child, a 4-year-old boy, to study hard and get a job close to home. She could not bear the thought of him going to America. "Everyday life here is not too bad," she said. "Our country is developing very quickly."
One customer, playing cards with some underemployed friends under a creaky ceiling fan, disagreed. "Not everyone can afford to go, but everyone wants to go," he said.
The nearby town of Shengmei is the hometown of Ms. Cheng, the alleged Golden Venture mastermind, and she is revered there as a benevolent patron.
But it is also the home of Mr. Zheng — the man who called himself a fool for having gone to America. Mr. Zheng, 50, who holds a degree in marine biology from Xiamen University, said he had a miserable existence overseas. Though he was able to send home about $2,000 a year, he said he never laughed or smiled when he was in America.
His life now is not carefree. He has found only sporadic work, mainly in construction. But at least he can have tea with his friends, go for leisurely strolls and watch his son mature, day by day.
"You don't have to climb too high up the mountain — just climb to a place in the middle that's more suitable," he said. "If you make a lot of money but don't have the time to enjoy it, what's the point? Money isn't everything."
Good, then get the f*** out.
Good!
If the only reason you want to be smuggled into this country is for the good economy--we don't want you.
The founding fathers risked their lives, livelihoods, personal well-being and economic security--in short, everything.
Putting anything less on the line won't impress any of us.
The biggest thing America offers you is freedom. Freedom, which includes the opportunity to achieve what you wish to.
Take the Korean grocery stores you'll find in rundown sections of Los Angeles. Entire families pitch in to make the business work...and now their children--first and second generation Americans--are going to college and excelling.
Is it any wonder?
In tact families sacrificing so the next generation can do better than they did. (And they did very well, indeed, when you consider they came 1000's of miles from their homeland with no money in their pockets and unable to speak a word of English.)
These kind of immigrants make our country better. They are a modern day embodiment of the spirit which lived in the founder's hearts.
Their contributions are welcome, needed and appreciated.
The leechers described at the beginning of my post and in the article above can stay home.
When we make it illegal for illegal aliens to wire back their earning to Mexico. Mexico has never reformed itself, because they can alway let their excess population migrate to the US rather than build up their own economy to create employment in Mexico.
That could happen. After the Second Coming.
In America, they Actually have to decide what color Socks to wear!!
Only the Intellectually Competent are capable of making an "Easy Transition" to a "Free Society!"
Those who operate as "Drones" in a Totalitarian Society have a MUCH harder Time acclimating to a Free Society.
SO, Sadly, It Is!!
Doc
The Chinese get to pick their own socks. Furthermore China hasn't been "Socialist/Communist" in decades, its fascist. China also has a fiscal burden of government 2X lower than the United States. The average American is far more Socialist than the average Chinese. The Chinese know their government doesn't give a damn about them, meanwhile allegedly conservative Americans are making the greatest expansions of the welfare state since LBJ.
I've known several Chinese scientists and businessmen who have left the United States to open businesses back in China. I can't say I blame them.
My BRIEF (Albeit Narrow & Biased) introduction to the "Chinese Communist Government" leads me to believe that the "Chinese" are constrained by their Communist Government.
If, in Fact, the "Chinese People" are free to engauge in "Free Enterprise," then it is OBVIOUS that their "Central Government" has lost control of their Population!
SO BE IT!!
You are Describing a "Situation" in which the "Titular Communist Ruling Elite" have LOST CONTROL of the Population!!
HOW DELICIOUS a PROSPECT!!
"LET the GAMES BEGUIN!!!"
Doc
I wonder how many immigrants the NY Times had to interview before they found these self pitying losers.
Hardly. Fascism is a way of making coercive collectivism economically viable. Rather than nationalize the means of production, Fascists nationalize the terms and results of production thereby preserving a veneer of private ownership and some of the incentives of the free market.
Probably WORSE THAN straight Communism.
Doc
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