His older brother was the pioneer, more than a decade ago. His son followed three years ago. As recently as last year, his daughter planned to join this exodus of thousands from Fujian province who have gambled that the life of a smuggled immigrant in America would eclipse that of an impoverished native in China.
But she lost interest after her brother's experience.
"Life is much more difficult than he expected, so I regret sending him to America," said the father, Wang, who -- like some others interviewed for this article -- spoke on the condition that only his surname be used. "He is miserable. He says to me, `Why am I working so hard in America? I can get rich at home.' It's very different from the way it used to be."
Ten years ago this summer, human smuggling exploded into international consciousness when the Golden Venture, a decrepit freighter stuffed with 286 Chinese, most from the Changle area in southern China, ran aground off Queens in New York. Ten people died in the cold and pounding surf, and soon, the name Golden Venture became shorthand for a cruel world of exploitation of desperate people.
Today, the smuggling trade continues, though perhaps at a slower clip, people here say, costing US$60,000 a head. But for the first time, many Fujianese feel less urgency about venturing abroad.
They have more options at home, with jobs available in small businesses, steel factories or construction sites. It is far more convenient and less troublesome, some people say, to make small money in the comfort of familiar surroundings, instead of big money in the clutches of a lonely and inhospitable land.
Some smuggled Chinese are even leaving America as soon as they pay their debts, and without gaining permanent residency, because they want a less stressful life at home.
"America is no paradise," said one man surnamed Zheng, who returned to the village of Shengmei a few years ago. He described a seven-year odyssey that started in New York but took him to many other places. "It was the same routine every day for six or seven years," he said. "Get up. Work for 16 hours. Go to bed. Get up again. I was a fool. A machine."
America is still in people's thoughts here. Of dozens of people interviewed in half a dozen villages around Changle, nearly everyone claimed to have at least one relative overseas, most in New York.
In small fishing villages like Houyu, where jobs are scarce, the urge to leave remains strong.
But in many places, that desire is now muted by considerations such as economics, family and safety. Some people attribute their reluctance to tighter security in China and America after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The Golden Venture has defined the discourse for years, and people still have the same ideas about Chinese and smuggling," said Peter Kwong, director of the Asian-American studies program at Hunter College. But things have changed, he said, adding, "The economic incentive is no longer absolute."
The woman accused of being the chief smuggler, or "snakehead," behind the Golden Venture, Cheng Chui-ping, is on trial in New York. The lawyer who represented many of the immigrants, Robert E. Porges, is in jail, after admitting that he helped many of them concoct false stories of persecution to bolster their asylum cases. The ship itself is being used as an artificial reef about a mile off the coast of Boca Raton, Florida.
Changle, a county of about 650,000 people, has changed, too. Several years ago, the county seat, also named Changle, was a dusty, lethargic town with bleak prospects, said Kwong, who collaborated on a documentary film about Fujianese emigrants in the mid-1990s. Now, it is a bustling city crowned by new high-rise apartments, stylish new stores and a new boulevard, North Shiyang Street.
Changle is full of people, like Zhou Xueqing, whose attitudes toward emigration have changed. More than a decade ago, her husband went to New York to work as a cook, and he sends home a few hundred dollars a month. But he is depressed, and his health is deteriorating.
His hard life deterred their son from going to America. He went to Shanghai instead. He now runs a mobile phone business and earns US$12,000 a year, a good income there.
"The average person doesn't want to be smuggled into America anymore," said Zhou, who works at a new bedding store. "The economy is so terrible there."
That view can also be heard on the busy streets of Jinfeng, another longtime starting point for illegal emigration. At her family's fashionable Wei Wei wedding store, Chen Meicun described a conundrum of yearning and conflict, risk and reward.
Chen, 21, said she once thought of joining her brother, who left 10 years ago for Peru. But she is loath to give up her job and the comforts of an upwardly mobile life.
"It's dangerous to go -- look at what happened in England," she said, referring the deaths three years ago of 58 Chinese who were being smuggled in the back of a truck. "Every country has its good and its bad, so why should I leave?"
In village after village, people outlined the same choices. If they got a good job here, they would stay. If not, they would try to borrow enough money to leave. Not one person talked about politics or human rights here, or China's one-child policy. The issue was money.
In a small store in Tingjiang, across the Min River in Lianjiang County, questions about smuggling people into America prompted a lively discussion.
The owner, a 28-year-old woman surnamed Lin, said she wanted her only child, a 4-year-old boy, to study hard and get a job close to home. She could not bear the thought of him going to America. "Everyday life here is not too bad," she said. "Our country is developing very quickly."
One customer, playing cards with some underemployed friends under a creaky ceiling fan, disagreed. "Not everyone can afford to go, but everyone wants to go," he said.
The nearby town of Shengmei is the hometown of Cheng, the alleged Golden Venture mastermind, and she is revered there as a benevolent patron.
But it is also the home of Zheng -- the man who called himself a fool for having gone to America. Zheng, 50, who holds a degree in marine biology from Xiamen University, said he had a miserable existence overseas. Though he was able to send home about US$2,000 a year, he said he never laughed or smiled when he was in America.
His life now is not carefree. He has found only sporadic work, mainly in construction. But at least he can have tea with his friends, go for leisurely strolls and watch his son mature, day by day.
"You don't have to climb too high up the mountain -- just climb to a place in the middle that's more suitable," he said.
"If you make a lot of money but don't have the time to enjoy it, what's the point? Money isn't everything."
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