Was It All a Dream? China’s Migrants and the Last Train Home
Homeward Bound: Youth, Migration, and the New Life of Rural China
In the early autumn of 2009, I sat on a wall outside Shijiazhuang train station. It was a city too unpolished to embody the sleek vision of New China, yet undeniably a reflection of the country’s transformative undercurrents. It was late, and the autumnal air carried the scent of mian tiao noodles and coal dust through the crowds of people waiting for their next train. The station square was bustling, but not with excitement—it was filled with migrant workers sitting on their sacks of grain and tightly wrapped bedding, waiting for trains that would take them to cities far from home.
I sat among them, a foreigner watching a scene that spoke to the ambitions of a rising China. The country was surging forward after the 2008 Olympics, a moment that had felt like a crowning achievement, a declaration to the world of China’s arrival. The narrative was clear: migrant workers, once tethered to subsistence farming and sleepy villages, were riding trains to cities like Tianjin, Beijing, and Guangzhou, becoming the engine of the country’s rapid industrialisation.
It was the same year that the iconic documentary Last Train Home was released, capturing the harsh rhythms of rural-to-urban migration and immortalising this reality. For me, a young graduate working in Hebei province, it felt unstoppable—a mass mobilisation towards modernity driven by hope and necessity. But now, as I reflect on my journey in December 2024, I find myself asking: was it all a dream?
The New Journey: From Cities to Villages
Fifteen years later, the trains are still full, but the movement has shifted. Instead of the one-way migration to cities, there is now a quiet return to the countryside. Young and old, who once sought fortune and identity in skyscraper jungles, are returning to the places they left behind. They are not just coming home to visit family but to stay and plant new roots in old soil.
This reversal is subtle, fragmented, and far from universal. It’s not a mass exodus from the cities but a growing trend shaped by economic forces, personal re-evaluations, and government initiatives. The Rural Revitalisation Strategy, aimed at rejuvenating rural areas, encourages entrepreneurship in agriculture and small-town businesses. Meanwhile, urban job markets have grown increasingly competitive, with wages stagnating and the cost of living soaring. For some, the dream of the city has dimmed; for others, the pull of family and tradition has grown stronger.
This shift has an emotional dimension, especially for those in their twenties and thirties. Many young returnees are part of China’s “post-zero-COVID generation,” shaped by years of lockdowns, economic uncertainty, and a broader questioning of life’s direction. For some, the pandemic acted as a catalyst, forcing them to reassess what they value most. In a landscape where everything seemed to move at breakneck speed, the countryside now represents something different: a refuge from the relentless grind of urban life, even a form of resistance.
A Tale of Two Realities
Yet, this return is not without its complications. The countryside these young returnees encounter is far from the nostalgic ideal that their parents’ left behind. While infrastructure has improved and e-commerce has opened up new opportunities, many challenges remain. Rural areas, which once faced severe population decline, are now seeing some people return. However, they face ageing communities, and access to healthcare and education remains limited. For many, going back home feels like a step forward and backwards at the same time.
Take, for example, the story of Chen Jun, a thirty-one-year-old former tech worker from Guangzhou. Disillusioned by the stress of urban life, Chen moved back to his home village in Guizhou province, where he now grows speciality mushrooms and writes about his daily work in the evenings. On one hand, he has found a new sense of purpose, reconnecting with the land and sharing his life with a growing online community. On the other, he faces the reality that many of his childhood friends will never return, and his village relies on government subsidies and external support.
Chen’s return is both a personal triumph and a reminder of the broader challenges facing China’s rural areas. While he has embraced modern tools like e-commerce to carve out a new life, the emotional toll is clear. “I left for a future in the cities, and now I return to a past that never really left,” he says, acknowledging the weight of the sacrifices that have shaped his village’s present. In some ways, his return is a reconciliation, a way to come full circle. But it also involves confronting a more profound truth—the limitations of rural life, where opportunities are still constrained and many of the structures he once left behind remain unchanged. Chen’s story mirrors a broader rural narrative: for many, returning home is not about reclaiming a lost ideal but building something new amid old constraints.
Reflections on a Dream Deferred
As I reflect on my experiences—watching those migrant workers in 2009 and seeing the shift in migration today—I am struck by how the dreams of a modern China have evolved. Once seen as the ultimate aspiration, the city’s dream has been replaced by many with a desire for something else—stability, community, and a return to a sense of belonging.
Looking back to that night in Shijiazhuang, I wonder what those migrant workers sitting on their sacks would make of today’s reversals. Would they see their children’s return as a triumph of tradition or as an acknowledgement that the cities they helped build are not the beacons they once seemed? The cities, which once promised opportunity and escape from rural hardships, have also become places of intense competition, alienation, and burnout. The great migration from rural to urban China has now come full circle as the children of those workers return to their roots.
The real question is not whether the dream was real but whether it was ever sustainable. China’s rural and urban realities have always been deeply intertwined, with the migration between them shaping each other in complex and often unspoken ways. The return of youth to the countryside is not the end of the dream but the beginning of a new chapter—one where rural life is not merely endured but reimagined.
For me, seeing a packed train station still stirs the same emotions it did in 2009. The movement of people, whether toward cities or villages, reflects a deep yearning for something more—for opportunity, stability, and belonging. As I sit with these thoughts, I am reminded that the journey, not the destination, shapes us most. And in rural China, the journey is far from over.
On The Last Train Home and the Cycle of Return
The 2009 documentary Last Train Home, directed by Lixin Fan, has long stood as one of the most poignant depictions of China’s rural-to-urban migration. The film follows a family from Sichuan province as they make the gruelling annual journey home during the Chinese New Year. The parents, who work in factories in Guangzhou, embody the sacrifices made by millions of rural migrants, labouring in cities to provide a better future for their children while leaving behind the emotional bonds of home.
For me, the film felt like a mirror held up to the China I encountered in those days: bustling train stations packed with weary faces, suitcases bursting with gifts for families, and a tension between hope and disconnection. Last Train Home captured the vastness of China’s ambition and the intimate struggles of its people, offering a human lens on the staggering numbers that defined the country’s rise. It was a portrait of a nation in motion—literally and figuratively—and a reminder that every journey, no matter how epic, carries the weight of personal sacrifice.
Now, as more young people like Chen Jun in Guizhou return to the countryside, the themes of Last Train Home feel especially relevant. The film’s portrayal of the emotional costs of migration resonates deeply with the returnees’ stories today. Just as the characters in Last Train Home wrestled with the painful tension between personal ambition and familial connection, today’s returnees face a similar emotional complexity. While the initial journey to the city was driven by the dream of a better life, returning to the countryside often entails confronting the reality that their former homes, like the families in the film, have changed in ways that cannot be undone.
Watching it now feels particularly poignant in the context of young people returning to the countryside. It’s not just a film about migration but about identity, longing, and the cyclical nature of homecoming. Finding a copy can be tricky—it’s been screened at festivals and on platforms like Amazon Prime, but at the time of writing, its available here.
this is fantastic. unfortunately, due to a litany of factors, these types of stories are seldom heard in china. we hear all about migrant workers, but in the harsh, judgmental tone of “外地人.” there is a horribly elitist preference for city life. it has its economic origins, but it erodes at social values and cohesion. people have become so privileged that they have no clue of the realities of their country. hell, neither do i. so many smaller towns i’ve been to have indeed been revitalized, but they carry the culture of the city. they commodify the rural experience. the people who own spaces and earn money are unsurprisingly people from cities moving back. it is still common to see the locals making a couple bucks from food carts set up around busy areas, kept in check by police.
maybe my experiences have only been in places city folk go to delude themselves into believing they know the countryside. that said, the explicitly non-tourist towns I’ve spent time in still seem to mimic the services and tastes of the city.
it disappoints me, as what i see is an insidious type of ignorance; hyper-commodification of cultural experiences masquerading as national pride.
A really interesting article and comments. I've been reading out rurual eco-tourism development in Jiangxi - it appears to be based on consultation with local people and supporting the development of traditional culture (eg Hui architectural styles) - but I havent been to visit. I'd be interested in your take on this