China's migrant workers are moving from the cities back to the countryside

ZAt the end of the day, the kettles are steaming and the sausages are sizzling in Chang Li, the migrant workers' district in the city of Xi'an. With his yellow construction helmet still on his head, Guo Chengshou hurries through the darkness. He carries his work bag over his right shoulder and in his left hand a transparent plastic bag with mantou, steamed yeast dough rolls. Guo doesn't pay a glance to the massage parlors and prostitutes in the shop windows of the shacks. He wants to go to his wife's one-room apartment where they have both lived for ten years.

Guo Chengshou wants to move back to his homeland in January. The carpenter comes from the southwestern province of Sichuan and says he longs to go back to his old village. There he and his wife want to work the fields and lead a quieter life.