27 mins, 2007        [password required] Over two hundred million migrants work illegally in China. Coming from the countryside into the cities, they power the country's massive economic growth. This film features two powerful reports which offer contrasting views of migrants in Shanghai. REPORT 1 Kejun is 33 years old. He comes from one of China's poorest provinces. Searching for a better life, he was hired by a construction company in Shanghai, where he now works for 5 dollars a day, 7 days a week. China has approximately 200 million migrant workers. Most live like Kejun. Chinese law prohibits the rural population to move into the cities. But the Chinese economy has become dependent on this cheap workforce from the countryside. So the law is often ignored. Migrant workers live their lives in the city under constant threat. Kejun and his cousin make a visit home to their village. One year has gone since they last saw their children. "I am so excited to come home now," says Ka. "My life in Shanghai consists only of work - I do nothing else. You can get used to it, but it is very lonely." But Kejun's cousin is worried. She is six months pregnant, yet according to the law she shouldn't be. If someone in her village denounces her to the authorities, she will have to pay a huge fine - 600 dollars. Kejun's uncle Changhong is a head-hunter and it was he who hired Kejun. He's on the lookout for fresh workers for Shanghai's building sites. The younger - and the cheaper - the better for him. Uncle Changhong's latest recruit is packing for a new life. He will have to leave his wife and his little son behind. "I am very sad to leave my home," he says, "I will miss everything here - especially my family and my parents. The other workers have told me that you can return home only once a year." REPORT 2 Shanghai - the glittering epicentre of China's boom economy. Xu Chuanruo, a 52-year-old street sweeper, came to Shanghai five years ago, leaving behind his wife and two kids in Hubei province, 1,000km away. In Shanghai Xu can make up to 1,200 yuan per month - about $200. In China that's good money - but this requires a 12-hour day, seven days a week. Xu lives with seven other people in a single room and sends $100 per month back to his family. He spends what little spare time he has practising the disappearing art of calligraphy. Meanwhile in a small workshop a team of migrant workers are making decorations for the New Year's celebrations. The lowest of the low are Zhang Yongqiang and his aunt Zhang Suqing who scavenge for styrofoam scraps. Communist China has no welfare net for its 100 million migrant workers - they either work or go hungry. But the garbage collectors say that even a lowly job in Shanghai is better than the poverty of their village. Yet being a migrant worker doesn't necessarily equal poverty. Yang Mei has been in Shanghai for 12 years and now runs her own restaurant. All the staff in her restaurant are migrant workers. Many waitresses here are young and a long way from home. 19-year-old Zou Heyan arrived from Szechuan - a 4-day train trip - only about a week ago "I'm not used to the life here yet," says Zou, "I feel weak like jelly after a day's work. I suffer from diarrhoea as I'm not used to the climate... At home we didn't have enough to eat. I've experienced hardship, so I can bear a lot."

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