The economic rise of contemporary China has seen mass rural migration to the cities, which is unmistakably one of the most significant social and collective experiences of the country. To comprehend the rapid and overwhelming development of such magnitude, one peculiar way is to build on the biographical personal experiences of the migrants. This paper is a continuation from my long-term ethnographic studies since 1997 on the Miao (Hmub, a cognate of Hmong) villages in the highlands of eastern Guizhou. It aims to explore the subjective experiences and identity of the Miao (Hmub) language-speaking migrants through the personal biographical accounts and narratives of their lives. Besides data collection, examination and analysis, the changes in behavioural, living and language practices are also noted. This paper especially aims to describe and discuss how the subjectivity and identities of different generations of Hmub migrants took shape through the speaking of their personal accounts. The paper will further explore what and how the variations in the forming of the experiences of the migrants relate to the historical contexts across the following four periods: (1) 1930–1940, the decade before the Chinese Civil War. (2) 1950–1970, the time of socialist transformation. (3) 1980–2000, the era of economic reform and development. (4) 2000–2010, the economic rise of China. The empirical data of this paper is based on in-depth interviews, participant observations and historical research.
陶曉萱
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