Word: fujian
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...courtroom as his family in China, who live in the same village as Lin Liang Ren's relatives, had already been threatened and his father beaten. Perhaps Little Lin, on the coast of China, dreaming of a restaurant in Cambridge, is right after all; there are ways in which Fujian and Britain are closer to each other than you might think...
Ocean waves dance around Little Lin's toes before the water is pulled back out by a distant force. That faraway energy is tugging at him, too, drawing him away from this muddy beach in China's eastern Fujian province toward Europe, to a better life he is sure will one day be his. Last year, the 29-year-old told a snakehead, as traffickers who help smuggle Chinese abroad are known, that he was ready. Many of his friends and family members have already gone. Now it is his turn. He wants to follow his older brother to England...
...Little Lin is not alone. Tens of thousands of Chinese from his home province of Fujian alone have traveled from China to Britain in recent years. A coastal region with a booming middle class, Fujian produces a disproportionate number of China's overseas migrants. Back in the mid-1800s, Fujian released its first major wave of migrants, men bound for the Americas to build railroads, can fish and pan for gold. Other coolies, as they were known, headed for European colonies in Asia. Those who left have helped those who stay behind; today, Fujian's annual per-capita income...
...Despite Fujian's relative wealth, many talented youth still don't stick around. Instead, they entrust their lives - and their life savings - to the snakeheads who will shepherd them to new beginnings in the U.S., Japan and, now most of all, Europe. Around 20 people from Little Lin's own hamlet of 300 have left for Europe in the past decade, each one stopping in front of the village's holy banyan tree to ask for protection during the journey...
...many middle-class Chinese risk a perilous crossing, mountains of debt and years of grueling labor to start over in a strange land? Life in Fujian is not one of mass starvation or political persecution. But the lure of overseas gold remains great. When his restaurant in England is busy, Little Lin's brother, Big Lin, can make $600 a week, tax free, and despite his underground status, his life is hardly a misery. Big Lin does not know anyone who has been held hostage by a snakehead or enslaved in a factory. Nor has he ever been stopped...