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Town is changed as Chinese seek fortunes abroad

By Antoaneta Bezlova
Special for USA TODAY

BAIHU, China -- This tiny village an hour's drive from Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, sets an imposing standard for wealth in a land where, these days, just having a job is considered a luxury.

Half-finished four- and five-story houses line Baihu's only street. Many are simple and solid, built of stone to withstand the area's frequent high winds and typhoons. Others appear to be attempts to replicate the castles of Europe's Middle Ages -- pink-tiled structures topped by towers.

Villagers say the owners were inspired by Western designs. ''Two-thirds of the guys here are abroad to make money,'' says Dong Haohu, a middle-aged peasant who is working on one of the newer houses. ''They saw people there lived in big houses and wanted to build the same.''

Fujian province has for centuries been the launch pad for many Chinese who have sought -- and often found -- their fortune abroad. Most were driven overseas by a lack of arable land and a Mandarin, and later Communist, bureaucracy that frowned on business.

The first wave of immigrants left in the 18th century, when European powers colonized Southeast Asia and tried to tame China itself. Thousands of Fujian natives were sold to work in the colonies in mines and plantations. Then the New World lured Chinese immigrants, many from Fujian and nearby Guangdong province, who made the trip to work as cheap labor building railways, roads and telegraph lines. Today, 8 million -- more than a third of the overseas Chinese -- are originally from Fujian.

Wang Huaze, a resident of Baihu, has never left China. But his son took a tramp steamer to America. He ended up in New York City, working long hours in a restaurant in Chinatown for more than 10 years.

The elder Wang won't say exactly how his son ended up there. But he is proud of the young man's entrepreneurial spirit, which has brought wealth to the whole family. ''He had to work hard,'' Wang says, ''first, to pay people who brought him there, and later, to pay back our relatives who all helped him for his trip.''

The immigrants pay exorbitant fees, sometimes as much as $36,000, to smugglers, called ''snakeheads,'' who promise to get them to the USA, Canada or Australia. The fees often are paid partly by family members, who expect to be more than reimbursed. Employers pick up the rest. Immigrants can be forced to work for the boss until the debt is repaid, a duty that can last for years.

The result, however, is worth the effort, Wang says, even if it takes years and means separation from family members. ''Last year, my daughter-in-law and their boy went over, too. My son is making good money now, and we are building a house,'' he says.

A three-story stone mansion with traditional round-moon gates and matching round windows, the Wang family's house shouts opulence in a land where many still abide by the frugality dictated by traditional Confucianism.

But here, the fruits of the foreign-earned money are on full display. Descendants of people who fled years ago, and more recent immigrants, send back hundreds of dollars every month.

Seeing the riches, many of the have-nots of modern China -- laid-off workers and destitute peasants -- are willing to risk everything to reach the West. ''I want to go, but I can't afford the trip to get there,'' sighs Li Yuhua, who lost his job in a state factory in Fuzhou. ''I know of seven or eight people in Changle county who did it 'secretly,' but they had to pay 300,000 yuan ($36,000) to the 'snakeheads.' ''

Sometimes the real cost is tragically high. Last month, 136 illegal Chinese immigrants were found at ports up and down the North American West Coast. Three of 18 stowaways who made the trip in a canvas-covered container that had been loaded on a freighter in Hong Kong were dead when the ship reached Seattle. Several others were dehydrated and needed to be hospitalized.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao has warned countries not to spark ''a tidal wave'' of immigration from the mainland by granting asylum to stowaways. He said China would strengthen its border controls and crack down on illegal immigration.

Those warnings and even the threat of death are unlikely to discourage laid-off workers in Fujian who are forced to live on handouts of about $24 a month from idled state-run enterprises.

Nationwide, as many as 12 million workers will lose their jobs this year alone, according to Zhang Zuoji, the minister of labor and social security. The total number of people who are out of work or not receiving regular pay has reached at least 30 million.

''There is almost no choice,'' says Chen Hongwu, 36, of Changle county. ''You can either try to sneak abroad or go and work for those Taiwan and Hong Kong bosses that come here because our labor is cheap.''

The pay offered by those companies is miserable, Chen says: ''People there work 10 hours a day, six days a week and get 500 yuan ($60)'' per month.

He says he stayed here because he was lucky to have a sister working in Singapore. ''She helped me with money, and I started my own small clothing factory.''

Only people who don't have relatives abroad who can send back money take the risk of being smuggled out under uncertain and potentially fatal conditions, Chen says. Local people knew some stowaways had died, he says, but there are plenty of others willing to try.

''It is simple,'' Chen says. ''In Fujian, there are more people with no money than people who have got money.''