Dreams of Leaving

(3 of 4)

Passage through Eastern Europe is secured by Ukrainian and Vietnamese gangsters. "These routes used to be for drugs and weapons," says the snakehead, who does not accompany his clients on their journey. "Now they're for Chinese people, too." On average, the snakehead can sneak three people through the Czech Republic a month, but he says a network of traffickers from Sanming brings in a total of 1,400 Fujianese a year, in addition to 600 others from Zhejiang, another coastal Chinese province. "It's a good business, more lucrative than textiles," he says. "But if the people get caught, then I lose all the money I paid in advance."

Often, along their way from Eastern and Western Europe, the migrants — sometimes 50 at a time — are herded into safe houses where they must wait for the right conditions to continue their trip. Besides packets of instant noodles and a rice cooker, there's not much in the way of furnishings. "Staying there is the toughest part," says the snakehead. "When you're in the house, it's easy to get depressed because you have time to think about your family and the things that might go wrong." He estimates that 10% of people crack. They are taken to an area near the Chinese embassy or consulate and told to find their own way there. The fee, in this case, is not collected. "I try to pick people who are young and strong in character," he says. "Otherwise, I lose out."

From the Czech Republic into Germany and beyond — the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Britain — the migrants are switched from minivans to sedans. The Dover disaster alerted police to bigger vehicles, says the snakehead, so it's wise to opt for small cars. The drivers he uses are German, and not a single one, he says, has ever been stopped. The journey takes about two months door-to-door. Once the customer gets to his destination, he calls his family, who then hand over to the snakehead's local contact the smuggling fee — usually a combination of savings and money borrowed from underground banks. The immigrant will then begin slowly working off the debt through poorly paid labor — a process that can take from two to 10 years. "Most people pay off their debts," says the snakehead. "It's not because we threaten them. It's because we know their family and their friends back home. People don't want to lose face in front of them."

"Chili beef," says Big Lin, ticking off the English words he can say with ease after a decade in Britain. "Lemon chicken. Garlic chicken." After that, the 32-year-old's voice trails off. There's not much more he can rattle off fluently. Life as an illegal immigrant has deflated the dreams he once had. Still, he must keep up appearances for his family back home. His brother thinks Big Lin owns his own restaurant. In reality, he sweats over a wok at someone else's takeout joint, six days a week. Nor does he own a house, as Little Lin believes. Instead, Big Lin lives in a small room in a Cambridge boarding house along with other migrants from Indonesia, Malaysia and Poland.

But he can't admit any of this. "I tell my little brother not to come," says Big Lin. "But I can't really tell him why." For every tale that burnishes the myth of immigrant success, there are many others that speak, if not of failure, then of drudgery, loneliness and a future in a land that will never quite be home. Back in Fujian, Big Lin had a decent job with a construction firm. He made enough to play games of pool with his friends and occasionally treat himself to a seafood feast. Still, Fujian is a place which young men leave, so Big Lin made preparations in 1997 to go abroad, too. More than anything, he recalls, he wanted to see more than the rice paddies, potato fields and squat factories of his hometown. "I wanted to make lots of money," he says, "but I also wanted to have fun and see the world."

Big Lin says his journey was easy. First, he took an economy-class flight to Prague — Big Lin's sister already lived in the Czech Republic, where she ran an import-export clothing company. She pulled the right strings and procured him a business visa. Then, all Big Lin had to do was invest $10,000 in a Prague business venture. It's not clear who pocketed that money, but less than six months later, Big Lin says he received a Czech residence permit. The Czech document enabled him to get a tourist visa to England, which he overstayed. Six years ago, Big Lin cut his final link to home by "losing" his passport. Many other Chinese do the same to ward off deportation — it's hard to send someone home if their nationality is not clear — despite a British law mandating up to two years' imprisonment for illegals who destroy their ID.