There's No Place Like Home

Where are you from? In America this can sometimes be answered quickly and other times takes people 10 minutes to explain all the places they have lived and why they could call several of them "home".

Not so in China. The dozens of times I've asked people where they are from, they give me an answer without any hesitation. Though they might be going to a university in a different city than which they grew up, they will undoubtedly tell you that where their parents and extended family live is their home.

Why is that? Its not just because that's where one is most comfortable living, but it all comes down to your hukou. A hukou is like a residence permit that allows people to live, work and study in a specific city, but makes living in another city difficult. Furthermore hukous are required for most companie's housing stipends, insurance, medical coverage, and school attendance. To give you an idea of how important it is to obtain a hukou in the right area, a recent survey asked 3000 graduates whether they would rather have a salary of $14,000 USD/year (very high by Chinese standards) or have a Beijing hukou. Over 2/3rds of them answered they'd rather have the Beijing hukou.

Considerations for applying for a hukou in another province include:
1. College major and grades
2. Where one finds a job in a given city
3. Age (one province made it mandatory the person be under 45 in order to apply)
4. Amount of taxes a certain business has paid in the last 3 years

Like any system of this nature, there are of course a number of other details that I have not come to fully grasp. For example, there are ways to obtain temporary residence permits (necessary for a person or business to come somewhere in the first place and reside for 3 years).

Furthermore, anyone with an understanding of the kind of mass migration that is taking place in China right now is right in assuming all of the people moving from the rural areas to the cities don't necessarily have registered hukous. Just like immigration in the US from other countries, there are certain economic considerations that make the immigration of people who are willing to work for low wages desirable for a city. Jobs of street cleaner, construction worker, and trash man are some of the most common. Its no surprise to me as I look down any street and see people doing these jobs that the number of non-hukou residents in China is in the range of 120 million and continuing to rise.

Of course like anything in life, there are very good reasons why the systems in place are there. The reason I am often given is that if the migration of people in China isn't controlled, the problem will only get worse. This problem of overpopulation didn't truly make sense to me until living here and trying to go anywhere at 5:00 in the evening. Now I understand the magnitude of the problem.

And what does the system result in? Among other things, one positive result is in people who stay more closely connected to and a greater appreciation of the saying, "There's no place like home." A concept that, due to the freedom and economic opportunities in other places, is becoming more and more foreign to the Western mind.