Looking at the Outside of Houses

Just like most places in America, there were new houses and old houses. The old houses were what I expected. Many people still live in them. The new houses are built, but very slowly. People mostly go outside the city to earn money and they build the houses over years. They earn a little extra money and will buy the windows. So the "new" houses have a very incomplete look to them because most of them are still in the process. Because people leave to earn money, many of houses were completely empty. They will return at Chinese New Year and then live in the bigger cities the rest of the time. To many of them, their big house is the goal and want the pride of having their own home. They are kind of like townhomes, some people buy the single wide or double wide and a very few are triple wide. Then some are just 2 stories, others 3, or even 4 stories tall. This is Jane's parent's home, a double wide - 4 story home. These are the houses that you see out the back her house.

This is the outhouse off of main street, still used these days, just go sit on the wooden edge and do your business for all to see.

This is 4 houses all connected in a square with the courtyard in the middle. The one on the left was the house Jane grew up in, where her mom's dad now lives.

This is the view of the courtyard area from inside her old home.This picture shows that many houses are still being worked on. The homes are added to as their owners earn money (a couple of bricks here, a couple of windows there). These newer homes were mostly empty while we were there because most of the money earned to build these is earned outside of the village.

Villagers from all over China go to the bigger cities to work, only returning for three weeks for Chinese New Year. For example, Shanghai has a population of 25 million -- 18 million Shanghainese and 7 million migrant workers. It is the migrant workers who are doing all of the construction jobs, manual labor, and maids here in Shanghai.

Most of these workers leave their children with family back in the villages because, for example, only Shanghai citizens have insurance for Shanghainese hospitals, can attend schools in Shanghai, etc, and getting big city citizenship is impossible for migrant workers.