Death of Hometown: Political Elites and the Fate of Native Place in Modern China

Why has there been a widespread sense of homelessness in China in the recent decades? Can native place still be called home in the twenty-first century?

One man’s story from Anyang – a county in the North China Plain – may hold answer to these intractable conundrums.

Anyang was established as a county when China became a unified empire in the 3rd Century BCE. For centuries, the local people made the county their home, where they buried their ancestors and dwelled with their kinsfolk. Talented...