Source: Southern Metropolis Daily 2013-02-07GA10

Written by: Jin Kelou, Ma Qiang

Translated by: Wang Hui

Southern Metropolis Daily news This afternoon, Qin Yao, a sophomore in the Department of Journalism, Sun Yat-sen University will take the train from Guangzhou to Chongqing and begin her journey home which she has expected for a long time. Different from the previous year, this time she will act as an observer, recorder and thinker to accompany Wan Xiaoyu, a migrant worker in Shenzhen, back to his hometown Chongqing for the Spring Festival.

Besides Qin Yao, 7 students from the Department of Journalism in other universities in Guangzhou will also accompany the new generation of migrant workers who work in the Pearl River Delta back to their hometown before the Year of Snake. From struggling to buy tickets online to taking trains and buses, from cities to countryside, their footprints will cover Henan, Fujian, Anhui, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Hainan and Chongqing. They will experience the joys and sorrows of Chinese migrant workers on their way home. The quasi-journalists who are university students now will record this special journey in their experiential reports. Their experience and reflection will be professionally commented by Yu Jianrong, Director of the Social Issues Research Center of the Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Zhang Zhian, person in charge of the activity “University Students Accompany Migrant Workers to Go Home to Celebrate the Spring Festival” and Deputy Dean of the School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-sen University said that, nowadays many university students come from cities and towns so they don’t have enough understanding of the countryside, farmers and migrant workers. He hopes that the students can know about the gap between city and countryside and the issues in rural areas and understand China through such practice.

"This huge migration is their hope of 365 days," said Yang Yanfang, a sophomore in the Department of Journalism, Sun Yat-sen University based on her experience. Through this activity, she has learnt to think about the individual’s destiny in the background of a great era.