Crowds of Chinese piled on to trains yesterday in the biggest migration of humanity on the planet as hundreds of millions travel back to their home provinces for the Lunar New Year.
But some can't afford a family holiday. Many of the poor migrant workers who have flooded into China's cities have been cheated of their wages by their bosses, despite growing government efforts to stop the fraud.
The shadow of sickness has also threatened to dampen spirits this year.
Most Chinese were set to spend yesterday night, the eve of Spring Festival, at home with their families.
But migrant workers slumped over in the shadows of the Beijing railway station yesterday were not going home to their families.
"How can we go home? The boss ran off and didn't give us a cent," snapped Yang Jianguo, a 48-year-old from Hebei province sprawled on the floor.
Breathing fumes of sorghum-based moonshine, he launched into a classic account -- dubious builders, fly-by-night contractors, callous officials -- repeated yearly like a broken record by down-in-the-mouth migrants who fail to collect wages.
This Lunar New Year, China's new Communist leaders are trying as hard as ever to change that, observers say.
End-of-year gross domestic product figures announced on Tuesday saw year-on-year growth of 9.1 percent.
But many of the rural migrants who build China's highways and villas and contribute to that impressive growth are mired in poverty and debt, often because they received no wages.
Hu and Wen have both issued orders to find ways to dig workers and peasants out of debt, official media said.
State television has saturated the airwaves with melodramas about people finally collecting their unpaid wages.
Some must run bureaucratic obstacle courses before breaking through red tape, others simply wait, like one Shanxi province man who has just been paid for work he did on a road in 1993 to 1994.
Populist pressure in the government and state media are making a difference, official figures indicate. In Beijing alone, more than 99 percent of wages-in-arrears on record from last year had been reimbursed.
Try telling that to Yang and his friends.
"Lies," he said. "There is no law to protect us."
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