Last Train Home gave a crowd of about 40 students a new perspective on China’s workers on March 29.
WCU Humanities Initiative hosted a screening of Last Train Home, a 2009 documentary by Lixin Fan about the world’s largest human migration—China’s 130 million migrant workers traveling to their home villages from urban centers for the Chinese New Year.
Last Train Home focuses on the members of the Zhang family- Suqin and Changhua, workers at a textile factory in Guangdong Province’s Guangzhou, and their two children Qin and Yang, who live at the family’s home village of Huilong over 1300 miles away. Suqin and Changhua had made the trek for nearly two decades, only seeing their children once a year. The parents send most of their income back to their families, as many migrant workers do.
Qin Zhang in Last Train Home poster. Photo by Will Lehman.
In the film, Qin resents her parents absence, eventually leaving her home to work in a textile factory in Xintang City, traveling back to Huilong Village with her parents that year.
Last Train Home depicts the difficulty of travel before the Chinese New Year—the Zhang parents were unable to find train tickets for a week. Other workers slept at the train station for days in the film.
Dr. Yiqing Yang, professor in the Sociology Department who teaches contemporary Chinese society among other things, introduced the film, describing it as “remarkable and heartbreaking.” She related her own experiences to that of the Zhang family. “I remember that I once sat on the dirty garage of the Beijing train station’s square, holding back my tears, for not knowing what to do next after waiting half a day in a long line only to be informed that there will be no tickets in three days,” Yang described. “I was overwhelmed by the feeling of panic, desperation, anger, helplessness and the unavoidable sense that a single human life can hardly matter.”
Yang said she hopes students understand that globalization has connected many lives across the globe, and that “their lives are connected to the migrant workers in China as well.”
“I hope after viewing this documentary, they will read all news about Chinese ‘growth,’ ‘threat’ and ‘Made in China’ with a different eye,” Yang said.
It seems like Yang’s hopes came true.
“[The movie] gave me a firsthand view of the troubles that a lot of Chinese people face,” attendee, Madison Jackson, 19, said. “I teared up a bit.”
Dr. Will Lehman, a member of the Humanities Initiative, said he wanted to show the film “because it’s still relevant.”
“We were figuring what type of events we could put on on campus that would attract students and bring humanity into focus,” Lehman described. “I saw the film a few years ago and found it very moving.”
The Humanities Initiative’s stated goal is to “communicate the value of the humanities to WCU’s students and faculty” by organizing events like the upcoming Southeastern LatinX Student Leadership Conference on April 12-14.
