Ｄｒｉｆｔｉｎｇ　ｉｎｔｏ　Ｃｉｔｉｅｓ.docVIP

Ｄｒｉｆｔｉｎｇ　ｉｎｔｏ　Ｃｉｔｉｅｓ 　　MOU Runan is a sixth-grader at the Beijing Lantian (Blue Sky) Experimental Primary School, a school for children of migrant workers. “I haven’t been home in five years, and I miss it very much. I miss my fellow villagers and things in my hometown,” she wrote on a painting she did entitled My Hometown. 　　 　　 　　Life on the Move 　　 　　Old Ni and his wife are redecorating an apartment in a residential area in Fengtai District, in southwest Beijing. Old Ni is smoking a cigarette he rolled himself, and cement stains speckle his camouflage uniform. His wife is using a shovel to stir cement in a small basin, and her red kerchief is covered in gray dust. 　　Old Ni and his wife do not have a permanent residence in Beijing. The work team of interior decorators that hires them is called “guerrilla” by native Beijing residents. The team consists of several migrant workers with different skills, such as carpenters, painters, tilers and plasterers. Led by a labor contractor, they take on a variety of redecorating projects. At Liuliqiao and elsewhere, migrant laborers wait for employment, squatting by the roadside with tools such as hammers and saws beside them. 　　Since Old Ni and his work team are engaged in family redecoration projects, they have no insurance. One advantage, however, is that the risk of payment delay is lower. “In general, payments are often delayed when working for companies, but when working for families, payment is never delayed,” he said. Although the work is hard ?C usually he is on the job more than 10 hours a day ?C compared to working for companies he feels freer. Old Ni used to work for big companies, such as B Q, but he complained, “The payment was always delayed, and sometimes amounts were deducted for no reason.” 　　Common issues migrant workers face are intense work schedules and long working hours. Very few people can enjoy an eight-hour workday. “Most of the industrial workers I know rely on extra working hours to make