Stay in Guangzhou or Return Home | Generated by AI
Question: In the 1990s China, should a person in their 20s or 30s stay in Huizhou or Guangzhou to chase construction projects and earn money, or return to their hometown (Meizhou, etc.) to build a house and do local business?
Answer:
This is a classic 90s migrant worker dilemma — and the answer depends heavily on what “winning” looks like. Let me reason through it historically.
The 1990s Context
China’s economic boom was heavily concentrated in the Pearl River Delta. Guangzhou and Shenzhen were absorbing massive internal migration. Construction was exploding. Labor arbitrage was real — a Meizhou farmer could earn 3-5x more in Guangdong than locally.
Case for Staying in Guangzhou/Huizhou
Upside:
- Construction wages were genuinely much higher — 30-80 RMB/day vs 10-20 locally
- Network effects: connections to contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers compound over time
- If you were entrepreneurial — starting your own construction crew (包工头) was the path to real money. Many 包工头 in the 90s became the construction company owners of the 2000s
- Huizhou specifically was cheaper to live in than Guangzhou, with booming residential development — good arbitrage
- Capital accumulation speed was faster in the city
Who won here: The guys who stayed, saved aggressively, built a crew, got subcontracting relationships, and eventually registered a construction company. By 2000-2010 they were worth millions.
Case for Returning to Meizhou
Upside:
- Land and housing costs near zero — building your own house in hometown costs labor + materials only
- Local business had less competition in the 90s — small shops, transport, materials supply, food
- Family support network, no rent, lower cost of living
- Some hometown businesses (stone quarrying, local construction, agriculture processing) did well as local economies grew
Who won here: People who identified a real local market gap — often transport (trucks), materials, or food supply chains feeding the workers who did go to Guangdong.
The Honest Historical Answer
For most people in their 20s-30s in the 1990s: staying in Guangzhou/Huizhou was the higher EV move, if they had the discipline to save and the ambition to become a 包工头 rather than a pure laborer.
The trap was:
- Staying in the city but spending everything, sending little home → net zero
- Going home too early before capital was accumulated → missed the boom
The optimal path most successful Hakka/Meizhou migrants actually took:
- Go to Guangzhou/Huizhou in early-mid 90s, work construction
- Build a crew, become 包工头 by mid-late 90s
- Accumulate capital through late 90s
- Build the hometown house around 1998-2003 as a symbol of success, not as a primary strategy
- By 2005+, either scale the construction business or pivot into real estate / materials
The Regret Cases
- People who returned home in 1993-1995 to do small local business mostly did okay but missed the 10x wealth creation window of the Pearl River Delta boom
- People who stayed as pure laborers without moving up the stack also missed it
- The hometown house built in 1995 felt like a win but was actually opportunity cost
Short answer: In the 90s, for a healthy 20-30 year old with any ambition — stay in Guangdong, become a 包工头, accumulate capital, then build the hometown house later as a victory lap, not as the primary strategy.