From Reuters:
The parched farmlands of central China hold no future for Li Honglin, but she is trapped there until word comes from a clothing factory far away on the coast where she used to work.
Li’s boss promised to call her back to her job as a sewing machinist when the factory resumes full production. It’s not clear when that might happen, though, as China’s garment exports have been decimated by the economic downturn and orders are thin.
Wearing tight pants and high-heel shoes studded with rhinestones, Li stood with her parents and elderly neighbors as they played mahjong late into the afternoon by a dusty road about an hour’s drive from Henan’s provincial capital, Zhengzhou.
“Almost all my friends have already gone back to the big cities, but I’m not rushing out. You need to have a job to live in the city. It’s too expensive to get by without one,” she said.
