This year, laborer Fan Fu and 20 or so colleagues working on the Zixia Garden apartment complex in Hebei province have not joined China's legion of migrant workers returning home to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families.
Instead, they have camped in the offices of the property developer's subcontractor, demanding almost a year's unpaid wages, too angry and too proud to go back to their native towns and villages empty-handed.
With China's economy growing at its slowest in 25 years, more workers face Fan's predicament and labor unrest is on the rise, a concern for Beijing as it seeks to avoid social unrest even as financial pressures build.