Roots in Cantonese Soil

In the 1990s, the tide of reform swept into Lingnan.

A group of farmers from northern Sichuan left their homeland and loved ones behind, carrying what little money they had and squeezing onto trains heading south to Guangdong in search of a livelihood.

Temporary residence permits, endless assembly lines, cold looks from strangers and the occasional kindness: scraping by in the cracks was the daily lot of countless migrant workers.

Wu Wenzhou, a doctor, settled there. His modest Wu Family Clinic was more than a place to get treatment; it also became a haven for people adrift in a strange land. Factory workers, street vendors, and visitors from all corners crossed paths there, bringing the hardships, struggles, and kindness of ordinary people at the bottom of society.

Over twenty-five years, the tides rose and fell. No one is born with a place to call home. These people who had left their roots behind endured the storms and hardship, putting down roots inch by inch in this unfamiliar land of Guangdong.

This is the story of an era and a generation of workers who headed south: long and heavy, yet always marked by a resilience that refused to bow to fate. It records the burning lives of ordinary people as they survived and put down roots amid the tides of their time.