From Washington Post:
By the time their train pulled into its final station, Deng Hongshu and his teenage son had been standing in a packed aisle, shoulder to shoulder, for 38 hours. Like many of their fellow migrant laborers on Train 1009 from Guangzhou, they were out of work and headed home.
Their boss at the American Overseas Fur Factory laid off half of his 300 workers without pay for three months. He tried to be reassuring: Americans will start buying again after the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, he said. Come back to your jobs then.
So Deng, a 43-year-old man with shaggy hair, kind eyes and an easy gait, and his son, Yixin, 17, packed their belongings into two small red duffel bags and began the three-day journey from Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, to their home in the mountains high above the Yangtze River in central China. They are among the millions of workers who have powered China’s economic juggernaut, but now they are retreating to their rural roots.
