Recommended Viewing

The movement of Chinese peasants from rural areas to the cities has been called the greatest migration in human history. But not all Chinese peasants are moving to the wealthy eastern coastal provinces in their search of a better life. Han Chinese from Sichuan are also looking for higher wages in China’s far west – Xinjiang and Tibet. Ning Ying’s (寧瀛）documentary Railroad of Hope（希望之路）travels with migrant workers from Sichuan along the 50 hour train ride to the cotton fields of Xinjiang where they can earn more in two months picking cotton than in a whole year at home. The stories and images are searing. I highly recommend it to get a sense of what life under pressure is like in a rapidly globalizing society. The film does not touch upon what happens when these migrant workers get off the train in Xinjiang and come face to face with local non-Han communities. Maybe that is the subject of another documentary.