Yantai - Central - Sitting outside a fast food restaurant in the centre of the city, a Muslim migrant worker selling fruit from baskets, covers her face with her hands - afraid that I (the photographer) will discover that she is not registered as a legal citizen of Shandong province. (This I assume is from habit)
In China all people (Men, women and children over thirteen) must carry "id"; cards, these are used to identify your residential status, your ethnic origins as well as which "work-unit", you belong. A work unit is for example - if you work for a factory you belong to that factories work-unit.
China currently is experiencing the largest movement (migration) of people the world has ever witnessed, this is causing great dissorder in many of the eastern (more developed) cities, due to the poor conditions and the lack of employement opportunities for "unskilled" labor.
Yet many from China's north and west continue to migrate south and east in search of a better life for themselves and their children, some legally but most illegally.
photo: mhobbs
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