China's migrants think twice about making trip home The largest annual migration in the world is in full swing, as hundreds of millions of Chinese squeeze into trains, planes and buses to make it home in time for Lunar New Year's eve on Thursday. The holiday is the most important in the Chinese calendar, the one time of the year that the country's 245m migrant workers leave the factories and cities where they work to return to their hometowns and elderly parents. Shops are locked and boarded up and city streets emptying out in most major Chinese cities, a testament to the role the migrants play in the urban economy. But a small, growing minority have no plans to return home for the holiday. Their decision to stay put reflects the changing face of Chinese cities, amid an urbanisation process that has already cut many migrants" ties to the countryside. Over half of China's people now live in cities, according to official statistics, with another one per cent making the transition each year. An Dingqi is a proud member of that one per cent. The 23-year-old is looking forward to his first New Year in Beijing, away from his parents in Linfen, which once held the dubious distinction of being China's most polluted city. The coal dust and brick villages of Shanxi Province do not hold much attraction for Mr An, who already sports a single black stud in his right ear and a fashionable city haircut. It's really boring at home, it's always the same every year. Migrants like Mr An, a waiter at a coffee shop, also reflect another change - the rising role of the service sector, which outstripped the industrial sector for the first time last year to account for 46 per cent of China's economy. Only 15 years ago, all shops, restaurants and food markets would close for a week or more during the Lunar New Year. But the holiday is now the busiest time for many restaurants and tourist attractions, which shut for a day or two if at all. Cooks, waiters and security guards have no choice but to stay in the city. Miao Weidong, a street sweeper, will ring in the Year of the Horse with 50 co-workers at their Beijing cafeteria while his wife and 20-year old son remain in their home village in Henan Province. "We will eat meat, there will be fish dishes, I won't be lonely at all," he said. Rather than losing its workforce for a fortnight, online retailer Jingdong offered a Rmb3,000 ($500) subsidy to migrant employees with children to pay for the kids to travel to join their parents, rather than the other way around. Founder Liu Qiangdong wrote that he offered the bonus after reading in the newspaper about a child who hung himself after learning his father would not come home for the holiday. A lot of our brothers need to serve our customers, so they can have a better holiday! But we can't forget our children either!" he wrote, in an announcement studded with exclamation marks. China's restrictive hukou, or residence permit system, means that most migrants still lack the full rights of city citizens, particularly the right to buy homes and educate their children in city schools. Many face the difficult choice of leaving children far away to be raised by rural grandparents, or bringing them to the city where school fees are higher. Shopkeeper Zhang Jiandong, who sells vegetables and sweets in a migrant slum squeezed into one of Beijing's smallest neighbourhoods, brought his nine-year-old son to live permanently in Beijing from their native Anhui Province. But his wife works in a different city, and the family decided they could not afford to make the trip home together this year, he said, staving off tears. It just depends on whether you feel you have enough spending money or not. It's not worth it if the one you care about won't be there, plus it's disruptive for the child. For those who do go home, the holiday is a joyous time but as with any family gathering it can also be fraught. The journey itself is uncomfortable, with some migrants travelling in diapers to avoid using clogged and crowded train toilets. For many families, longstanding grievances make the visit anything but harmonious. Family friction keeps some people from making the trip at all. I've called you many times but you didn't answer, maybe here you will see this note. Dad and Mom won't force you to get married. Please come home for New Year," read a handwritten note printed on the front page of a Chinese-language paper in Australia earlier in January. It was signed "your mother, who loves you."