For example, even tho I was born in Guangzhou, I was still treated as though I was born in my father’s village in terms of Hukou (the actual place of birth on the birh certificate would be with Guangzhou as the birthplace, but that doesn’t matter to Hukou).
Even though my parents work in Guangzhou (广州), I couldn’t attend public school in Guangzhou, and my parents have to pay for a separate, privately-run “school”, which according to my mother, was worse than the officially government run public schools. But they still had the same “patriotic education” (This “patriotic education” would be considered indoctriction by most westerners). Same with my older brother.
If my family hadn’t left China, my mother told me I was gonna have to go back to somewhere in Taishan (That’s 台山，not 泰山) to continue beyond primary school because of there was supposely problems with getting enrolled in a Guangzhou middle school / highschool or something.
So like you’re basically treated as immigrants… sort of…
(I don’t know all the details of Hukou, I might ask my parents about it later.)
But even in the US, for example, even undocumented immigrant children (at least before the current admin, idk about now) could still enroll in public school, meanwhile China is denying their own citizens from attending public school, just because their ancestry is different. You could be born in Guangzhou and live your entire life there, and still have problems with your rights. It’s like countries within a country.
P.S. I remember my mother said she was a teacher before giving birth to me, but becuase she violated the One Child Policy, she can’t ever get any government-related jobs ever again, that includes being a teacher, or possibly even working at state-owned factory/warehouse.
Before 邓小平 (Deng Xiaoping)'s 开放改革 (Opening up and Reforms), you are not allowed to move outside of your Hukou. The Hukou we had was in 台山 (Taishan), so you were basically stuck there before, unless you have official matters or something.
After the 开放改革, people were allowed to move to cities. 广州 (Guangzhou) was the capital city of 广东 (Guangdong), so thats where a lot of people, my mother amongst them, moved to, for economic opportunities. All the rural places have is farming, farmed sucked, there were no machines at the time, unlike American farmers. As for the education thing, she said if we hadn’t immigrated to the US, that was gonna be a problem. We’d have to go back to Taishan for Highschool, because the 高考 (Gaokao, similar to SAT/ACT but like 10x harder) has to be taken where your Hukou is. And Hukou is also for social benefits, if your Hukou is rural, you get less of any social benefits you might have (which was barely anything to begin with).
And, although Hukou transfers existed, Guangzhou did not do them, so it was impossible.
I asked: “So its like being a permanent 2nd class resident?”, and she said Yes.
As messed up this administration is, at least naturalization still exists, my maternal grandmother just got approved for naturalization, the oath ceremony is next month. I know its weird, jumping from one burning pot to another, but a lot of our relatives are here, so… it is what it is. People say “Move to Canada, EU, etc…”, but, as my mother say, (paraphrased) “you can move to a lot of places, but can you find money there?”
We already have investments here almost everyone is already a US citizen, relatives are also US citizens, like what other options are there? In EU, for example, you gotta learn another language, have zero knowledge of where everything is, how thing work, income, zero relative to ask to borrow money if thing are dire, etc… All assets have to be liquidated, so… yeah… its unrealistic.
Not the best home ever, but its the one we have, it has been home for over a decade for us, its a home to 5 million of the Chinese diaspora, and its a diverse country, people aren’t as hostile as some other places in the world, like even Europe is pretty much a homogenous white society with not much diversity. So… this is home, the best that we can have given the circumstances. Lets hope 2028 election goes well and the constitutional order in the US is restored.
And god forbid, please no fucking USA-China conflicts, I don’t wanna get targeted by both governments (China would target me of being “Han-Traitor”, and the US would try to do the “Internment Camps” again), it would be the worst timeline ever.
Did the rural Hukou mean you cannot move into a city?
You can, but there are rights being limited.
For example, even tho I was born in Guangzhou, I was still treated as though I was born in my father’s village in terms of Hukou (the actual place of birth on the birh certificate would be with Guangzhou as the birthplace, but that doesn’t matter to Hukou).
Even though my parents work in Guangzhou (广州), I couldn’t attend public school in Guangzhou, and my parents have to pay for a separate, privately-run “school”, which according to my mother, was worse than the officially government run public schools. But they still had the same “patriotic education” (This “patriotic education” would be considered indoctriction by most westerners). Same with my older brother.
If my family hadn’t left China, my mother told me I was gonna have to go back to somewhere in Taishan (That’s 台山，not 泰山) to continue beyond primary school because of there was supposely problems with getting enrolled in a Guangzhou middle school / highschool or something.
So like you’re basically treated as immigrants… sort of…
(I don’t know all the details of Hukou, I might ask my parents about it later.)
But even in the US, for example, even undocumented immigrant children (at least before the current admin, idk about now) could still enroll in public school, meanwhile China is denying their own citizens from attending public school, just because their ancestry is different. You could be born in Guangzhou and live your entire life there, and still have problems with your rights. It’s like countries within a country.
P.S. I remember my mother said she was a teacher before giving birth to me, but becuase she violated the One Child Policy, she can’t ever get any government-related jobs ever again, that includes being a teacher, or possibly even working at state-owned factory/warehouse.
That’s very interesting. I heard it could be harder to change your hukou in some instances than it is to change citizenships.
Okay so new update: I asked my mother about it:
Before 邓小平 (Deng Xiaoping)'s 开放改革 (Opening up and Reforms), you are not allowed to move outside of your Hukou. The Hukou we had was in 台山 (Taishan), so you were basically stuck there before, unless you have official matters or something.
After the 开放改革, people were allowed to move to cities. 广州 (Guangzhou) was the capital city of 广东 (Guangdong), so thats where a lot of people, my mother amongst them, moved to, for economic opportunities. All the rural places have is farming, farmed sucked, there were no machines at the time, unlike American farmers. As for the education thing, she said if we hadn’t immigrated to the US, that was gonna be a problem. We’d have to go back to Taishan for Highschool, because the 高考 (Gaokao, similar to SAT/ACT but like 10x harder) has to be taken where your Hukou is. And Hukou is also for social benefits, if your Hukou is rural, you get less of any social benefits you might have (which was barely anything to begin with).
And, although Hukou transfers existed, Guangzhou did not do them, so it was impossible.
I asked: “So its like being a permanent 2nd class resident?”, and she said Yes.
As messed up this administration is, at least naturalization still exists, my maternal grandmother just got approved for naturalization, the oath ceremony is next month. I know its weird, jumping from one burning pot to another, but a lot of our relatives are here, so… it is what it is. People say “Move to Canada, EU, etc…”, but, as my mother say, (paraphrased) “you can move to a lot of places, but can you find money there?”
We already have investments here almost everyone is already a US citizen, relatives are also US citizens, like what other options are there? In EU, for example, you gotta learn another language, have zero knowledge of where everything is, how thing work, income, zero relative to ask to borrow money if thing are dire, etc… All assets have to be liquidated, so… yeah… its unrealistic.
Not the best home ever, but its the one we have, it has been home for over a decade for us, its a home to 5 million of the Chinese diaspora, and its a diverse country, people aren’t as hostile as some other places in the world, like even Europe is pretty much a homogenous white society with not much diversity. So… this is home, the best that we can have given the circumstances. Lets hope 2028 election goes well and the constitutional order in the US is restored.
And god forbid, please no fucking USA-China conflicts, I don’t wanna get targeted by both governments (China would target me of being “Han-Traitor”, and the US would try to do the “Internment Camps” again), it would be the worst timeline ever.