From September 30th to October 7th, 2018—during China’s National Day holiday—20 teachers and students from ADRI and Shanghai University conducted a survey in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province. The survey was part of the project “Research on International Migration in China and the Countries of the Belt and Road Initiative,” which is funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China. The aim of the project is to understand the impact international migration has on communities, families, and people in both places of origin and destinations. In Yiwu, focus group discussions and questionnaires were used to gather information from a total of 268 foreigners from 30 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The investigation explored the working and living conditions of foreigners in Yiwu, including the business environment, their perspectives on marriage and family issues, and the education of their children, among other topics.
Prior to this investigation, ADRI members travelled to Yiwu to conduct preliminary fieldwork, and ADRI Ph.D. candidate Amr Abdelwahed conducted case studies in Egypt of left-behind family members. In Yiwu, Ph.D. and master’s students from ADRI were guided by ADRI director Leiwen Jiang, Dr. Chen Chen, ADRI administrator Yu Zhang, and professors Baochang Gu, Kaoru Kakinuma and Jiawei Hou. Dr. Chen Chen organized trainings for the interviewers before the survey began. Students appreciated the opportunity to do fieldwork, to learn about research methods from sociology and demography, and to develop their abilities to analyze research problems. The information collected by the ADRI team provided insight into the lives and experiences of international migrants in China.