The author and his family.

I was born into a rural family in the early 1970s. My illiterate, honest, hardworking parents had altogether seven children of whom five survived. I am the youngest.

An ever-present threat of hunger dominated my childhood. During the years of the planned economy, each adult was allocated a 16-kilogram grain ration each month, and children's rations were even less. To eke this out we often went fishing in the then unpolluted local rivers. During slack seasons all able-bodied farmers were expected to work on irrigation projects. On the days my parents went off to perform this quasi-compulsory labor, frequently compensated in grain or food, I would stay up late, anticipating the steamed bread emolument they were to bring home.

This austere way of life did not deter my parents from doing all they could to send us to school. Three decades ago there was an even greater gap of development between  China's countryside and cities. Higher education was the only means for rural children to the urban residence registration that would guarantee work and a stable food supply. Thanks to my parents' support and the low tuition rates at the time, all five of us received a fair education, and now have a decent standard of living. Today, putting five children through school is impossible in the countryside, as school fees have spiraled in recent years.

Education changed my life. I entered senior middle school with the highest mark in my township, and was enrolled by the People's University in Beijing three years later. In 2000 I went to Tsinghua University to take my master's degree. Pursuing higher education enabled me to leave my village, obtain registration as an urban resident, and find a job in the city. More important, study gave me new enjoyment of life, more confidence, and broadened my knowledge of the world. These aspects are, however, of little relevance to my fellow villagers. They hold me up to their children as an example of the more tangible benefits of study.

After graduating in 1992 I got a job in a college, and later met my wife, a rural girl. Many people's advice to a college teacher such as me who had cut himself free of the ties of the countryside, would be to try to marry an urban, rather than rural, woman. There has been little change in the Chinese custom of urban and rural men marrying women of the same residential status. It is generally believed that only urban men of a low income, status or undesirable physique resort to taking a rural spouse.

Not having urban residence registration meant that my wife had no access to stable work or social welfare, which would impose a strain on household finances. I was nevertheless moved by her pureness of heart and unquestioning loyalty, and so married her despite all the difficulties that lay in store.

In 1995 I made just 100 yuan each month. Life became even harder when the college I worked at made a ruling that staff members with rural spouses did not qualify for allocated housing. I protested and pleaded, but to no avail.

I had no choice but to move to another college that provided accommodation for all its teachers, regardless of their spouses' status. A year later we had a child. At that time babies were registered according to their mothers' residential status, which meant that a child born to a woman from the countryside was also a rural resident. In order for my child to have the same privileges of education and work as those enjoyed by urban citizens, I borrowed money and purchased my son's urban status for 7,000 yuan. This was a last resort for rural parents.

As it turned out, while my son was at primary school the residence registration system in my home province of Jiangsu began to relax. I had thus made a superfluous investment, but was nonetheless glad that China was steadily undergoing reforms that promoted the labor flow and development of human resources. Before the 1980s even buying an urban residence registration was impossible.

I began to study for my master's degree in 2000. On graduating I joined another college that also offered my wife a job. Life has been generally easier since I gained a higher academic degree. Until the gap between city and countryside is narrowed, however, and social reforms that stimulate a free flow of talent are launched, residence registration will continue to determine a Chinese person's fate.

JIA HOUMING is a college teacher in Nantong, Jiangsu Province.