From Xinhua News Agency

There are more than 3500 registered people in Linxi Village, Haimen District, Nantong. By Dieshiqiao International Home Textile City, more than 600 people have gone overseas to do business. On 5th February, the reporter discovered during the visit that the villagers who do business all over the world were returning to the village as the Spring Festival was coming.

Yu Liping went overseas for work together with his father when he was 19 years old. He has been working overseas for 30 years. This year he came home alone to accompany his parents in the Chinese New Year. His wife and children are still in Johannesburg, South Africa.

‘If there is work to do, I will not come back.’ 67-year-old Cai Yunsong is one of the earliest batch of overseas pioneers in the village. This year only he ‘stays behind’. His son was running a factory in Ethiopia. His wife, daughter and son-in-law are doing home textile business in Romania. Cai Yunsong said that in the past it took a few months to deliver a letter from home, but now the communication is very convenient. All 8 people of the family are in a wechat group. On the New Year’s Eve, they can make online calls and send red envelopes, ‘even if spending the Spring Festival alone, I won’t feel lonely.’

Since the 1990s, villagers of Linxi Village have carried bed sheets and pillowcases to the world. They did not speak foreign languages, and bargained with a calculator. Their footprints are scattered over more than 40 countries and areas in the world.

Yu Liping, who does warehousing wholesale in South Africa, went to Yiwu small commodity market recently, hoping to find more competitive products, to prepare for entering Mexico market after the Chinese New Year.