Over the last year, somethingrnstrange has been happening on the mainline platforms of China's vast eastern cities. In normal times, they're the site of mass seasonal migrations, as millions of migrant workers catch the train back home for the holidays, returning in equal numbers when work resumes.rnSince 2008, though, the stations have also seen a steady trickle heading west in more ways than one: they've lost their jobs and, for the moment at least,rnthey're not coming back. As global recession squeezes the life out of China's export-led boom, around 20 million rural migrants have returned to their villages - fuelling Beijing's age-old anxieties about a countryside seething with discontent.
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