Chinese Migrants Return to Rural Roots

"There are no jobs worth having back home. It's either work there or farm here," he said. Unlike many of his fellow laborers at the factory, whose farms have been converted to industry or housing, he said, "at least we have land to come back to -- not that we can make a living working it anymore."

Local governments are worried that hamlets such as Deng's village on the outskirts of Wanzhou won't be able to absorb the returnees. They have begun to implement job creation and retraining programs. But Deng insisted that he would leave again no matter what. He said there's something about the freedom and independence of migrant work that has always attracted him, despite all the uncertainty -- or maybe because of it.

"My father loves to wander," the younger Deng piped in.

He was vague about his own plans: "I'll think about it when I have to," he said. "I heard there's a sweater factory that will teach you to knit patterns with a computer," he said. "You work for free until you master it." He paused. "I think that would be okay."

His father looked at him. "I tell him he can do anything he wants, as long as he can support himself," Deng said. Pausing, he lowered his voice: "Because I can't help him."

After half an hour, his son pounded his fist on the top of the cab. It stopped, and he helped his father hop out. The youth flagged down a motorcycle, climbed on the back and loaded their bags onto his lap. His father wanted to walk the last mile home.

Their village has been almost entirely rebuilt in the past 15 years from the money sent home from the factories. Almost every house along the main lane is handsome and new, with multiple floors built from cement and colored tile with sturdy windows; the one older earthen house that remains near the center of the village seems a jarring relic.

Everyone Deng passed in the lane greeted him with delight: old men bent over their walking sticks, young mothers chasing their toddlers, and young men cutting vegetables outside their houses in the afternoon sun. "You're back!" they said. "Did you make a lot of money? Back so soon, you must be rich!"

Deng just smiled and shook his head.

Their homecoming had none of the emotion one might have expected for a family with two of its three members gone for months or years at a time; Li Zuoxiang, 37, the wife and mother left at home, simply said she'd grown used to their coming and going.

They celebrated with lunch at their newly purchased wooden table, round and sturdy with eight matching stools: porridge, stir-fried cabbage from the garden, Sichuan bacon and onions. No talk of work while eating -- a house rule.

But later that afternoon, their journey over for the moment, Deng returned to his uncertainty.