A tale of two cities: digital place-making and elderly Houniao migration in China

ABSTRACT

The last four decades have seen a growing trend of Chinese ageing migrants originating from the North move to the South during winter and return during summer, resembling snowbirds. The flexibilization of the household registration system, increasing urbanisation, and infrastructure development have led to a new spatial pattern of mobility and the search for new lifestyles among elderly populations with the support of ICT, the so-called Houniao (‘snowbirds’) migration phenomenon. Building on the results of a qualitative study with 24 elderly Houniao participants in the city of Sanya, China, this study applies the concept of digital place-making to explore elderly’s use of smartphones and social media in daily practices during their seasonal migration to Southern cities in China. Our study distinguished three digital place-making-related themes: (1) making social contacts and establish a sense of community in their new city, (2) rebuilding their identity and place through food by using digital media, (3) connecting to places and feeling active in older age. The findings of this study revealed the importance of improving the design and implementation of inclusive policies concerning the digital lives of elderly people.

KEYWORDS:

• Seasonal migration
• Houniao
• smartphones
• digital place-making
• ageing migration

Introduction

In the words of Charles Dickens, it is the time of ageing; it is the age of digital mobile technologies; it is the season of (im)mobilities. In contrast to other migrant populations, elderly groups are left in the shadows, overlooked by mainstream scholarship on migration (King et al. 2017), especially those in Global South contexts. As the guest editors quoted in their editorial introduction, two-thirds of older adults (aged 60+) in the world live in developing countries, and this proportion will rise to four-fifths by 2050 (Sampaio and Amrith 2023). According to the latest population data, the number of Chinese people on the mainland aged 60 or above has reached 264.02 million, including 190.64 million people aged 65 or above, or 13.5 percent of the total population (National Bureau of Statistics 2021). Parallel to this demographic trend, the last decades have witnessed an accelerated construction of Internet infrastructure and resources. Continuous digital economic development and governance through the digital have enabled users from lower-tier cities and rural areas in China to gain more access to the Internet and smartphones (CNNIC 2021). The proportion of Internet users using mobile phones to access the Internet is 99.6%. As of June 2021, the size of middle-aged and elderly Internet users has grown the fastest. 28.0% of the total 1.011 billion Internet users were aged 50 and above (CNNIC 2021). Over the past two decades, elderly populations in China have become increasingly more mobile, both digitally and physically. Later-life mobility undertaken by seniors is an ongoing socio-spatial process characterised by multiple movements, placements, and changes. In this context, middle-class and working-class Chinese elderly adopt a seasonal lifestyle of ‘snowbirds’ instead of permanent relocation, meaning that they conduct pendulum mobilities between the place of origin and receiving communities along with seasonal change (Chen and Bao 2021).

This article adopts a qualitative research design that uses in-depth interviews and observations to explore elderly’s use of smartphones and social media in daily practices during their seasonal migration to Southern cities in China. Notably, elderly migrants in this study belong to a relatively privileged group in a socio-economic sense, which includes participants attending a predominantly middle class or working class, with access to digital connectivity and smartphone devices. In this study, digital place-making is used as an analytical framework (Sampson and Gifford 2010) to examine how digital technologies affect older people’s sense of place and belonging while experiencing mobility. In broad terms, digital place-making can be defined as the use of digital technology to build a sense of belonging and attachment to certain places for oneself and/or others (Halegoua and Polson 2021, 573). Given its focus on the individual’s agency in shaping identity and expressing social relationships, the concept of digital place-making can provide a nuanced and critical understanding of the intersection of ageing, mobility, and digital technologies (Chen 2020; Sixsmith 2013).

This paper first gives a brief overview of the recent history of elderly seasonal migration in China, followed by a conceptualisation of the relationship between ageing, mobility and digital placemaking among elderly populations. It will then go on to describe the methodology employed for data analysis. The fourth section presents the findings of the research, focusing on the three key themes: a) making social contacts and establishing a sense of community in a new city, b) rebuilding identity and place through food, and c) connecting to places and feeling active in older age. The remaining part of the paper discusses the results of the study and its conclusions.

Contextualising elderly seasonal migration in contemporary China

Seasonal migration closely relates to Chinese society’s economic growth and urbanisation (Chen 2020). Policy developments and the relaxation of the Hukou residence system in the past 40 years have gradually transformed contemporary Chinese society into a more mobile community (Zhao, Liang, and Gu 2021), providing people with more freedom and options regarding their residence and mobility. With the reform of the Hukou system and China's socialist policies on internal migration, urban planning, transport, and economic development, mobility within the country has increased in recent decades. Specifically, changes in the household registration system and the rapid growth of China’s urban economy and infrastructure have led to a new spatial pattern of mobility among elderly populations (Li 2021), the so-called Houniao migration phenomenon. Houniao resembles snowbirds that fly to the South in the winter and back to the North in the summer. So do the elderly migrants (hereafter referred to as Houniao) in this study. Elderly Houniao move to the Southern cities in the winter and move back to the North in the summer. The primary reasons for this type of migration are the draws of natural and cultural amenities, which enable the elderly to search for a mild climate, low cost of living and health care, and ideal lifestyles in other places (Chen and Bao 2021). They also desire a slow-paced life, a healthy environment, and a community feeling.

Old-age and migration in the Chinese context is not just about exclusion and precarity but also about growing working/middle-classes, new consumption and lifestyle patterns, forms of self-making and belonging, communities and relationships (Chen 2020). Elderly people are moving between and across places more than ever before in contemporary China. The warm climate, excellent ecological environment, high-quality tourism resources, and continuous improvements in infrastructures of Southern cities have attracted many Houniao to migrate there. In North China, elderly people usually have a sedentary life indoors during the cold season when outdoor activities cease due to the bitter chill (Chen 2020). In October, they frequently move to Southern cities and return to their hometown in Northern provinces in May. Frequently, these elderly adults live in private property or rented rooms during their stay, the length of which varies as people come and leave at any time. In the context of the reform and opening-up policy, massive investments have boosted the construction of transportation facilities and infrastructures all over China, making it possible for the elderly to take such a long-distance movement within the country. Furthermore, elderly residents feel liberated from many family duties, such as taking care of their grandchildren (Chen 2020). Such changes give the elderly plenty of free time to seek leisure and undertake seasonal migration trips down South. Old-age mobility in the Chinese context has been associated with new lifestyle patterns, forms of self-making and belonging, community and relationship-building (Palmer and Xu 2013). This study gives an account of the ways in which the elderly Houniao experience these processes using digital media while being on the move.

Digital place-making and elderly mobility

The ongoing intersection of digital technologies with mobility processes and their multiple modes has brought to the fore questions about ‘place’ and ‘place-making’ in media and migration research (Alencar 2020; Labayen and Gutierrez 2021). In the literature, the notion of place refers to a ‘constellation of processes’ that are constantly changing, unfinished, and open for analytical interpretations and social constructions (Massey 2005). Scholars define place as a physical and symbolic location, a social hierarchy, a physical setting, or the niche occupied adequately by a thing or idea (Philipsen 1992). Such definitions combine the following aspects: imagined and actual, cultural and political, emotional and social, human and natural, geographic and physical (Hjorth 2014). In this sense, place is a construct people continually (re)make and (re)signify to negotiate their experiences, identities, and belonging through networks of social relations (Magan and Padgett 2021). ‘Place’ is both complicated and straightforward. Its meaning and concepts distribute centrality to interdisciplinary academic endeavours and everyday life (Cresswell 2014).

In recent years, researchers have examined how people’s experiences of making a place intersect with geospatial technologies and smartphones, highlighting new ways of seeing and imagining places through daily practices. A study has shown that the overlay of locative media with mobile co-present technologies (GPS, camera phones, social media) is ‘part of and constitutive of place’ (48). It creates new forms of sociality and intimacy through image sharing (Hjorth and Pink 2014). Through the concept of ‘digital wayfarer,’ Hjorth and Pink (2014) argue that the practice of photo-sharing becomes part of the ways that people negotiate their online and offline worlds. They emphasise the importance of understanding these emplaced digital visual practices whereby people, the material, and the digital are increasingly intertwined. In this regard, people can develop a sense of place by using geo-locative media in (and while exploring) a particular environment (Halegoua 2020) through engaging in social interactions while being mobile themselves (Hjorth and Pink 2014). With the increasing mobility of populations and the texts they produce, the affordances of mobile media are used and appropriated to navigate everyday realities and transform spaces into socially relevant and meaningful places (Sarria-Sanz and Alencar 2020; Wilken and Humphreys 2021). Halegoua and Polson (2021) define digital placemaking as the ability of people to use digital technologies to establish a sense of attachment to a place. As an analytical framework, the concept of digital placemaking can be particularly relevant to examine elderly migrants’ use and appropriation of digital media and ICTs to see and imagine places, connect to, and gain a sense of belonging and familiarity in place while experiencing mobility.

New communication technologies are increasingly shaping the Chinese elderly’s ageing experiences and relations with place and identity (Lin and Dong 2017). Entertainment, communication, and resocialization have become important personal motivations for ICT adoption among Chinese middle-aged and ageing populations (Chen and Wang 2020; Song et al. 2018). The elderly’s engagement with ICTs serves to fulfil their physiological and spiritual needs. At the same time, a growing body of work has explored the relationship between digital technologies and the elderly’s care, support, and community participation in China. For instance, Zhen and colleagues (2019) examined the elderly’s community satisfaction in the first smart community in Nanjing City, showing that social support through ICTs significantly impacts the elderly’s sense of belonging to their community (Zhen et al. 2019). ICT adoption has also emerged as a vital strand in research on development for elderly people, as technologies are perceived to enable better ‘care’ at a potentially lower cost, such as the use of e-health and assistive technologies (Sourbati 2020). However, scholars highlight that digital health technologies can potentially reduce the amount of social contact and out-of-home mobility experienced by elderly people since physical and social mobility is crucial for healthy ageing (Mollenkopf, Hieber, and Wahl 2017). Digital technology can also be a source of disempowerment for elderly people, who need ever-increasing levels of digital know-how to maintain their sense of inclusion (Hill, Betts, and Gardner 2015), experiencing what Helsper (2021) coined as ‘social-digital injustice’.

While most studies investigating elderly use of digital media and ICTs have focused on healthcare and social support, much less is known about the nexus between digital technologies and elderly migration (Andersson 2019). Evidence suggests that increasing numbers of elderly adults in China migrate between multiple locations within the country with the support of ICTs (Chen and Bao 2020; Chen and Wang 2020). Such phenomena challenge the stereotypes of ‘ageing populations often being in situ, embodying stillness rather than mobility’ (Amrith 2018, p.7), as well as being vulnerable, physically and mentally declining (Ciobanu, Fokkema, and Nedelcu 2017; King et al. 2017). An essentialist view of place remains confined to geographically proximate spaces to the ageing body and are physically bounded. It fails to reveal the multiple, networked social and non-social relations the elderly develop across different spatial scales and over time (Boyle, Wiles, and Kearns 2015) and the connections between ageing and place and older people’s identities and subjectivities. Sampaio and her colleagues critically examine the intricate relationships between ageing, migration, space, and place through an intersectional lens. They emphasise the significance of seeing the spaces and places of the elderly’s everyday lives as an ongoing (im)mobile process in understanding their ageing experiences (Sampaio, King, and Walsh 2018).

This study pays special attention to the elderly's transitions in and out of place and their continuous (re)connections with familiar and unfamiliar places through their everyday digital place-making practices. Recent work by media and migration scholars recognises the critical role played by digital technologies in transnational mobility, caregiving, and family/homemaking among elderly groups (Baldassar, Wilding, and Worrell 2020; Cabalquinto and Wood-Bradley 2020). With a focus on the everyday lives of older adults and their digital place-making experiences, this study aims to contribute to this growing area of research by exploring how older adults’ connectivities, identities, and subjectivities shape and are shaped by their digital literacies, online practices, and media repertoires in the context of elderly seasonal migration. The study of Chinese elderly Houniao migrants and how digital technologies shape their mobilities adds critical perspectives to the ageing-migration nexus and beyond spaces in the global ‘North’.

Methodological considerations

This exploratory qualitative study involved a period of intensive fieldwork in Sanya between October and November 2020. Being one of the tropical Chinese cities, Sanya has undergone exponential tourism growth over the last two decades. It has become one of China’s most popular coastal destinations (Chen and Bao 2021), hosting numerous elderly Houniao every year. According to Sanya’s Tourism Development Committee, the city received more than 23.96 million overnight visitors in 2019. The tourism industry and real estate have become the city’s two pillar industries. In 2019, Sanya’s GDP reached US$ 10.3 billion. Over 1.1 million ‘snowbirds’ travel annually to Sanya (Sanya City Bureau of Statistics 2020), including people from different educational, occupational, and socio-economic backgrounds.

The study combined interviews and participatory and non-participatory observations conducted by the first author of this article across different locations in Sanya. Despite the brevity of his research visit, the researcher explored diverse cases and sites in which interactions of digital adoptions and place-making practices were regarded as relevant for the elderly Houniao. For this study, 24 older participants, seven men and seventeen women aged between 51 and 85¹, were interviewed about their personal stories of seasonal migration, post-migration experiences of everyday life, and communication practices. Interviews (both one-on-one and in groups) took place in public parks, squares, pavements, and people’s homes. Rapport with participants was facilitated thanks to a key informant within the elderly Houniao community, whom the researcher met and interviewed during his visit to one of the socio-cultural activities (e.g. square dancing) organised every year by the elderly Houniao in the city. The recruitment of interviewees was also made possible through snowball sampling. Most participants are retired, and their occupations differ (e.g. teacher, saleswoman, civil servant, workers in manufacturing and forest farms, and farmer). Savings, pensions, and sometimes support from adult children are the primary sources of the elderly Houniao's financial foundation for engaging in seasonal lifestyle migration down south. Such diversity in the participants’ socio-economic background (because the pensions differ among occupations and across regions) was particularly helpful in understanding elderly Houniao adoption of (digital) communication technologies from various perspectives.

Cognizant of the importance of considering and understanding how to collect and interpret the subjective experiences of ageing, place, and mobility among people(Johansson et al. 2013), we reflect on the ways in which our role and positionality have shaped research decisions in relation to methodological choices as well as the analysis of empirical findings. The first author is a young male researcher who was born and raised in Northeastern China, which placed him in an advantageous position to examine the socio-cultural and spatial contexts of individuals interviewed for this project. His grandparents’ upbringing granted the researcher the empathy to understand the older adults’ experiences, facilitating trust and communication with informants, while at the same time encouraging interviewees to be honest about their thoughts and experiences in Hainan. The second author works as an associate professor in the Netherlands, where she specialises in the study of digital media, migrant mobility and place-making. The researcher’s knowledge background and experience of investigating the uses and appropriations of technology by different migrant populations played an important role in developing a methodological approach that situates the analysis of elderly Houniao’s digital practices in relation to their everyday life, subjectivities, and socio-cultural environments.

Ethical considerations are valued at every stage of the research process. In all cases, various measures were adopted to guarantee the participants’ confidentiality (e.g. use of pseudonyms).² They were properly informed about the study goals and scope and that their responses would be used for academic purposes. All participants were asked to sign an informed consent or give their verbal consent to record the interviews. At the end of each interview, informants were asked if they had any feedback regarding the interview process, such as the setting, the researcher, or the topics discussed.

Interviews were conducted in Chinese, transcribed verbatim and translated into English. The transcripts were then entered in NVivo11 for data analysis. Following Boeije’s (2009) thematic analysis (Boeije 2009), we used the sensitising concepts of digital place-making and elderly mobility as starting points for the analysis of interviews. These concepts provided us with a general sense of reference and guidance in approaching the empirical materials. The phase of open coding resulted in the emergence of themes and categories related to elderly Houniao’s migration trajectories, everyday life in the city, social contacts, community building practices, and technology adoption. During axial coding, these categories were carefully analyzed to detect variations and nuances in meaning. Finally, selective coding allowed us to establish connections between the concepts and categories, facilitating the subsequent merging of the findings. The following sections explore how digital technologies are employed in elderly Houniao’s everyday lived experiences of building a place in the city.

Digital media use among elderly Houniao migrants

Overall, the findings of this study revealed that the smartphone is the most used digital device among the elderly Houniao. Some participants reported using smartphones for more than five years, whereas many only acquired their device in the year prior to the research. Most elderly interviewees mentioned that their phones were bought by their adult children or grandchildren. Only three of them purchased the phone themselves. Jixiang, an 85-year-old male retired civil servant, said he and his wife, Yanfen (a 77-year-old retired civil servant), started using the smartphone in 2014, encouraged by the positive experiences of their elderly peers in engaging with this technology. Jixiang also stated that his daughter and son-in-law bought him a very expensive smartphone device as to show that they care for their elderly: ‘They bought me the most expensive iPhone8 plus, because they said that we were getting older, and we saw things blurrily. […] And the children love us and want to give us the best, so this phone must be good. It is a symbol of love.’

ICTs and digital media have become increasingly integrated into the everyday lived experiences of elderly populations (Zhao, Liang, and Gu 2021). Many participants shared that the possibility for the elderly to actively engage with the phone functions and apps can make their lives easier in Southern cities. Anxin, a 51-year-old retired female accountant, bought the phone herself in a moment when switching to smartphones became a trend. Anxin described the importance of the phone in her daily life in Sanya: ‘I cannot go anywhere without my mobile phone. My phone is a wallet, a map, and a bus card. Going to a hospital, going to a bank, or working with government departments […] in all places I need to use a mobile phone to fill out online applications and apply for services’. In all cases, the participants reported using WeChat, one of China's most popular smartphone apps that provides several functions, including chat, video/voice call, access to other apps and public accounts, and payment functions (Sandel et al. 2019). In line with previous research (Guo 2017), the fact that WeChat integrates multiple affordances makes older people perceive it to be manageable. A common view amongst interviewees was that once they learn how to use WeChat, they can deal with many everyday life situations in Sanya. However, some of the elderly Houniao participants were not familiar with smartphones and apps in the context of their mobility in and around the city. The challenges of navigating different apps to access services in the city have prevented them from handling businesses in many places and scenarios, such as banks or hospitals. In recent years, the province of Hainan has vigorously promoted the construction of ‘Smart Hainan’ featuring advanced digital infrastructures that can enhance the digital divide for elderly people in China, instead of creating more inclusive digital spaces for the elderly. In the context of Sanya’ growing digitalisation, the following sections analyze the different dimensions of digital place-making by the elderly Houniao during their seasonal migration to the city.

Making social contacts and establishing a sense of community in a new city

Prior to migration, the elderly Houniao learned about life in Sanya among other peers through WeChat and news on social media. In most cases, elderly groups migrate as individuals or as family units or with friends and peers. The implications of Houniao migration and thus of their digital place-making illustrate their creative and active use of smartphones and digital media in everyday encounters and collective activities. Indeed, physical health and well-being constitute key aspects that motivated many Houniao migrants in this study to move to locations with gorgeous weather and leisure amenities (Chen 2020). Attracted by warm temperatures in Southern cities, Chinese Houniao considers the pleasant climate beneficial for their health and disease recovery. Lianqiu, a 77-year-old former secondary teacher, and her husband, Jingshan, a 79-year-old retired male worker, shared that when they moved to Hainan, they believed its weather would help them physically. Lianqiu reported doing lots of physical exercises and spending more time outside of the house. She said she felt happy to participate in outdoor activities (e.g. square dancing and ball dancing) where she can also meet many people from the Northeast, elderly Houniao like her. Nevertheless, Jingshan had a very different experience upon arrival in Hainan. He talks about the negative consequences of the city weather for his health: ‘the humid weather made me suffer from eczema and rash’, which affected his motivation to engage in outdoor physical activities, limiting his socialisation in the neighbourhood. Social connections and networks constitute an essential aspect in the making of place and regaining a sense of community (Alencar 2020; Halegoua and Polson 2021). Similarly, Fuchuan (78 years old, male, retired worker), describes that life in the South is not as he imagined. The lack of socialising impacts his experiences in the city and feelings of belonging.

Even though I can see and talk with my friends on WeChat, I feel lonely in Sanya. I am not good at socialising. I do not know anyone there. In contrast, I feel more comfortable in my hometown with my old colleagues. I am familiar with the environment, and I am more comfortable with the food.

Place as a collection of interactive social processes shapes the trajectory of migrants. Digital media play a crucial role in facilitating encounters among migrant communities and as virtual settings that can ease social connectedness (Sarria-Sanz and Alencar 2020). Digital placemaking creates porous hybrid spaces for leisure and community building that shape identity by interspersing here and there, online and offline, in a delicate balance between difference and assimilation. For Lijuan (78, female, retired primary school teacher), the captain of the elderly Houniao Yanggo Team³, WeChat is seen and used as a notice board and team management tool for their plaza dance (Chen and Chen 2018). In the past, she had to inform everybody about the exercising times and performance arrangements by calling them one by one. There were nearly 80 members in the group, leaving a massive task for Lijuan to handle. When she bought a smartphone herself and learned from her offspring about how to use WeChat, she encouraged the Yanggo team members to do so. Being the group administrator and using the @all function in group chat, Lijuan could reach out to all the members easily and quickly. Besides, group members support each other by answering questions and sharing experiences about navigating the city, community, and life-related issues.

Actively participating in the planning and construction of neighbourhood spaces is also a form of digital placemaking for the elderly Houniao. Some people like Jixiang helped establish the local community's administration, with WeChat being their voice channel. Based on his pre-retirement work experience, Jixiang noticed that there was not an owners committee in the community where he lives and handed in a proposal in their community WeChat group highlighting that older people as relevant human capital should be involved in the management and construction process of their community areas. As Jixiang noted, ‘many elderly residents in our community have diverse talents and experiences within different aspects as well as the enthusiasm to help in whatever capacity they can.’ Taken together, we claim that these digitally mediated social actions as strategies for community development can further the elderly's experiences of belonging and place (Mollenkopf, Hieber, and Wahl 2017).

At the same time, we are also aware of the exclusions caused by digital placemaking and the barriers to mobility among older adults, which in turn can hinder opportunities for social engagement in their community. The disadvantages of digital technologies stand out way more apparently under the COVID-19 circumstances. In Chinese cities, people must present a health QR code attached to their smartphone to record their recent whereabouts and daily health status. Registration of this code requires authenticated personal data such as resident ID numbers, addresses, contact information, and biometric data (Tai, Yu, and He 2021). Both WeChat and Alipay offer health code systems. All residents are required to register to be assigned a QR code with a colour indicating their exposure risk: green (lowest), yellow (medium), and red (high). Access to public places, such as hospitals and restaurants, and checkpoints in transport and gated communities, requires the use of the green health code. This system may be particularly challenging for elders who do not own smartphones or know how to use QR codes (Wang and Jia 2021). These technological obstacles directly affected participants’ mobility across urban spaces, as they navigate the unfamiliar territory of QR codes and the digital city landscape. Xiuping (63, female, retired, primary school teacher) explained how difficult it is to go out during the pandemic, especially for elderly people.

Nowadays, there are health codes everywhere. They require that a health code be bound to a mobile phone to use a function in Alipay. We do not have this application on our phone. We also don't know how to tune it out. In many stations and places, there are too many people, and the inspection speed of the inspectors is very slow. There are also elderly people like us who don’t have mobile phones or health codes, so they are stuck there. You must be curious about how we passed the inspection. My brother-in-law said, just take your phone confidently, walk near them, shake it quickly, and then just walk forward, as if you have a health code yourself.

Rebuilding identity and place through food

ICTs and digital placemaking have created new embodied practices and relationships to space. Food plays an influential role in shaping migrant life and identity and functions as indexes or markers to evoke a sense of homeland and place (Janowski 2012). Digital food-related practices reflect how identities and places are negotiated and exploited through memories, feelings and tastes. Preparing, procuring, consuming, and sharing food are particularly relevant to the elderly Houniao's experiences and connections with their hometown (Chen and Bao 2021). According to Fischler (1988), food is used to assign meaning to oneself. Making food is not only a practical decision influenced by access, environmental factors, and nutritional needs, but one that is fundamentally social, cultural, and psychological (Rozin 1980). As Lianqiu said: ‘To warm the heart, warm the stomach first. The more properly one eats, the more comfortable he/she would feel. When the body gradually adapts to the environment, the spirit will gradually adapt to life here’. Research on the post-migration life of Chinese elderly Houniao demonstrated that collective memories and complex emotions of the past characterised by poverty and shortage and personal histories together exert a great influence on their personalities, values, and ways of life (Chen and Bao 2020). This is also embedded into the reconstruction of everyday routines in their destinations.

Most elderly Houniao in this study expressed no interest in dining out because they think it is a waste of money. They keep abstemious lifestyles, which are imprinted on previous life trajectories and social transformation. Participants shared that they usually choose to buy ingredients from groceries and cook at home. They are proud of their bargain techniques with small retailers, which they regarded as wisdom for life (Chen and Bao 2020), allowing them to purchase at a ‘reasonable’ price. The elderly Houniao’s preference for Northern flavours over Hainan cuisines makes them go to shops and supermarkets run by Northerners to buy specialties and food typical of the North. During fieldwork visits to these locations, it was also possible to observe that grocery stores providing home-style ingredients became spaces for the elderly Houniao to connect with their hometown culture and where they could meet people with similar backgrounds. Smartphones and WeChat serve critical and assistive roles in these contexts, contributing to the Houniao's community integration and placemaking. In the case of Anxin, she reported becoming friends with a local market owner in her 20s and that despite their age difference, they always talk to each other via WeChat. Through these conversations, Anxin said that she learned more about young people’s worlds and thoughts, which helped her better understand her son. During casual encounters at the groceries, other participants also mentioned that they often swapped WeChat contacts and used the group chat to create an online space for sharing food promotion, discount information, and other useful resources among their elderly peers, reducing the tension resulting from a lack of familiarity with their new city. Social interactions in such physical settings also encouraged the elderly Houniao interviewees to actively use their smartphones. In this regard, the growth of grocery stores owned by Northerners also contributes to increased smartphone usage among the elderly Houniao, as theses businesses support cashless payment via WeChat. Likewise, these shop owners establish WeChat groups to invite older customers to join in and share discount information.

On the other hand, many older migrants from Northern cities mentioned that food is an essential factor shaping their migration decision to become a Houniao and stated that they moved to the South to help manage the restaurants owned by their adult children. There has been an increasing demand for restaurants offering Northern cuisines to supply the food needs of Houniao migrants on the island. This is particularly the case of Lide (57, male, farmer) whose son runs a restaurant in Sanya. Lide reportes that he has been assisting his son with the restaurant’s stocking and uses WeChat to order and purchase ingredients. He considers WeChat an essential communicative and commercial tool to contact shopkeepers of the market as well as for promoting and advertising their restaurant. For instance, Lide shares that he regularly posts pictures of some dishes his son made on WeChat Moments (Pengyouquan, 朋友圈).

Another aspect related to food as an entry point to understand digital placemaking by the elderly Houniao is the relationship between their daily practices concerning food sharing and their sense of home and family. Although she currently resides in Hainan, Lianqiu never forgets where her roots are: ‘Whether you are old or young, the feeling of homesickness is the same. In my opinion, eating with family is a nice experience’. Lianqiu commented that sharing the food she makes with neighbours not only gives her the joy of sharing, but also makes her feel she is at home eating together as a family. The smartphone affordances of multimediality and simultaneity enable Lianqiu to keep her children’s digital presence in daily practices of cooking and sharing food (Hjorth and Pink 2014; Madianou and Miller 2011). For instance, she reported making video calls to her children when she prepares a delicious meal, which helps her get over homesickness while away. In this context, food sharing practices also intersect with smartphone use among the elderly women interviewed as a way of coping with their physical absence within the family. Talking about this issue Lijun, a 74-year-old retired worker, said: ‘I watch videos on Douyin (Chinese equivalent of TikTok) and Kuaishou to learn how to cook. In the videos shared by others, the food they make is beautiful and appealing. I learned and practiced myself […] When I return to my hometown, I can make things for the children.’

Connecting to places and feeling active in older age

The process of making place is increasingly constituted through the intersection between online and offline spaces (Hjorth and Pink 2014). Digital representations of everyday life can provide in-depth accounts of the spatial, social, and temporal dimensions of place shaping elderly’s experiences of ageing, defined as ongoing (im)mobile processes in time and space (Boyle, Wiles, and Kearns 2015; Sampaio, King, and Walsh 2018). The comment below illustrates how elderly Houniao’s creative engagements with their phones help them make sense of the processes they go through: ‘I occasionally watch other people's short videos, and I also make a few short videos to record my life, reflecting my own inner world and my daily life’ (Anxin). The importance of place in shaping digital media practices among the elderly Houniao is also reflected in the ways they negotiate old age identity. In this study, creating photo archives with their phones and documenting their experiences constitute strategies that the elderly employ to cope with ageing. As Hjorth and Pink (2014) noted, playful practices using smartphone devices, such as recording and sharing everyday moments, can add ‘social, emotional, psychological, and aesthetical dimensions to a sense of place’ that go beyond just the geographic (42). Jixiang for instance stated that he likes to use his phone to produce content (photos, videos) that normalises the ageing experience as part of life, which can also offer opportunities for self-actualization and identity-building. Once, he said he took a picture of his wife doing housework and posted it on WeChat with the following captions: ‘Be crazy in time, or it will be too late when we are old’. When asked why he added this sentence to the photo, he explained, ‘I want to show I am not afraid of ageing. I think ageing is something that everyone will encounter […] It is imperative to have a positive attitude, take the initiative to do something to face and welcome ageing’.

In this sense, the adoption of ICTs by the elderly can potentially alleviate power imbalances within their community (Chen and Wang 2020). Through Internet use, the elderly Houniao in this research highlight that they can convey their voice and attitude to society, while also being able to obtain information, resources, such as education and entertainment-related skills acquisition based on their interests. Nevertheless, the active, independent use of digital technology does not entail full autonomy regarding ICTs but instead emphasises the older adults’ general attitude towards the digital aspects of their daily lives (Hänninen, Taipale, and Luostari 2021). Despite the opportunities provided by digital technologies, some participants expressed concerns over the risks of sharing information about themselves (including personal and biological data, location information) and their finances through smartphones and other devices:

[…] Many apps require me to authorize these platforms to log in. If I use an app more often, I will agree to log in, but I will resist it and not agree to authorize their access to my personal information if I am not familiar with it. Also, I will not deposit much money in the account with Alipay and WeChat, used for cashless payments. I will transfer part of it to a secure account because I am concerned that technology is developing too fast. If your phone is lost or stolen, others can even transfer the money on your card without knowing your password. I still pay more attention to this kind of protection (Anxin).

Overall, embracing digital technologies among older migrants proves and strengthens the process of active ageing, with family support and communication playing an important role in elderly adoption and use of ICTs (Cabalquinto and Wood-Bradley 2020). A recurrent theme in the interviews was a sense amongst interviewees that daily usage of digital technologies can help them exercise their memory and improve their cognitive abilities. Xiancai is an 80-year-old male retired worker living with his son and daughter-in-law in Sanya. After Xiancai was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, his family decided to give him a mobile phone so that they could locate where he is by locating his device. At the same time, his son and daughter-in-law shared their hopes that Xiancai will be able to exercise his cognitive ability by operating the mobile phone. During the interview, Xiancai reported using his mobile phone to take pictures and record videos to help him remember things: ‘If there is something I can't remember, I take out my phone and flip through the album, and I can slowly remember what happened before’. However, his motivation to continue engaging with the phone goes beyond health-related purposes. Recently, because his grandchildren also became parents, he became a great-grandfather. Xiancai now says he actively asks his family members to teach him how to use WeChat videos so that he can see his great-grandson. Many participants also demonstrated a growing willingness to explore the mobile phone's different functions. Fenglian (63 years old, woman, retired salesperson), lived alone when her daughter bought her a ‘Xiao Du⁴’ speaker with an intelligent voice assistant to help her manage home appliances and execute instructions. Fenglian mentioned that she can also use it for various purposes (e.g. play music, radio, cross talk, query for information, weather forecasts, etc.). She mentioned that she became particularly interested in using mobile phones after she learned that intelligence voice assistance could also be operated directly through voice dialogue on the phone.

Aside from the influence of family care on elderly’s self-development and well-being through the digital, other participants emphasised the significance of developing their knowing ways when using technology. For instance, Lianqiu stated that, ‘people who find it (smartphone) difficult will not use it, and those who know it will not find it difficult. It may seem difficult, but you can figure out some usage and logic by studying it yourself […] after all, you are never old to learn’. The study of Song et al.’s (2018) argues that if technologies are beyond the elderly’s cognitive scope and daily habits, older adults tend to feel unmotivated to learn how to use them in different ways, resulting in normal functions repeatedly practiced and unfamiliar parts to remain unfamiliar. Further, the lack of necessary guidance regarding the adoption of smartphones among the elderly and insufficient adaptation to ageing in many places can potentially lead to resistance to using smartphones (Chen and Wang 2020; Song et al. 2018), as well as a negative perception of ageing. A small number of those interviewed had difficulties in using certain functions of their phone, making them feel that being old is a burden. In the case of Jingshan, he reported feeling embarrassed to let their kids know that he had issues using his phone and did not want to bother his children by asking them for help. ‘Although my wife can use a mobile phone, she is old after all, and it takes time to learn new things and operate new applications […] And our children are not around … we are embarrassed to cause them trouble, as this will make us feel that we are very useless’.

Conclusions and discussion

Building upon data analysis of participants’ experiences, we identified the determinants and reasons for elderly migration, practices of elderly digital placemaking through ICT adoption, and digital coping strategies of active ageing in China. The current study demonstrated the various ways smartphones shape the placemaking practices of the Chinese elderly Houniao, helping them develop digital skills and leisure practices to deal with uncertainties of daily life after migration.

Likewise, the importance of connecting with other elderly Houniao and the local community through the use of smartphones and the WeChat App reinforces the agency of these migration networks within mobility processes. In line with previous research (Joshi, Kononova, and Cotten 2020), elderly Houniao are willing to invest time and effort in learning and adopting new technologies to contact family and friends, connect with elderly communities, and fulfil their life goals. In our study, participants’ specific (physical and emotional) needs to get in touch with family, obtain valuable information about different aspects of life in their new place, and connect with peer interest groups explained in most cases their attendance to smartphones. However, current findings highlight that despite the multiple affordances and advantages offered by ICTs, technological and cognitive barriers, such as limited digital literacy and access to ICTs, concerns of personal data exposure, as well as threats of digital financial frauds and misinformation can constrain elderly’ agency and adoption of digital media. Elderly users are also conscious of the (potential) disadvantages of digital technologies, as several respondents explained their concerns over the risks of sharing information and their finances through their smartphones and other devices.

Moreover, we pay attention to digital technologies’ underexplored affordances in Chinese migration contexts. This study has shown that elderly migrants creatively engage with smartphones for preserving memories, recording their experiences through the storage of pictures and videos taken of precious moments and places experienced. Such storage practices shed light on the importance of investigating the social, structural, and technological processes of elderly identity construction and their mediated mobility. The elderly's smartphone usage could reflect strategic, physical aspects of their migration and placemaking experiences.

This article presents an exploratory study of Chinese elderly Houniao's tales and experiences of navigating ‘here’ and ‘there’ between their origin hometowns and Southern destination cities, moving beyond the ‘global north’ intersectional context of ageing and migration. This paper revealed the complexity of China’s internal migration and provided a broader perspective on amenity-driven internal mobilities in China. The theoretical framework of digital placemaking draws on insights from mediated and localised approaches to conceptualising the nexus between ageing, migration and digital media practices and serves as a solid base for exploring the presence and importance of digital media in (re)creating a sense of place (Alencar 2020). It provides a means of materialising the agency and subjectivities of Chinese elderly Houniao. Methodologically, mobile ethnography and interviews proved helpful in expanding our understanding of how elderly internal migrants use WeChat to make their place concerning their social, psychological, and spatial needs. This study also contributed more nuances, depths, and contexts to large-scale survey and cohort research of internal elderly migration and the literature of elderly placemaking in the Global South context.

The findings of this research have a number of practical implications. Explorations of digital place-making processes among the elderly Houniao highlighted their lived experiences, situations, needs and subjectivities, providing important insights that can help improve the design and implementation of policies concerning the digital lives of older people. Greater efforts and cooperation from governments and local communities are needed to ensure the development of appropriate technological infrastructures and services for the ageing population, assisting them in adapting to new (digital) environments.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the helpful feedback and suggestions from the anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft of the paper. Sincere thanks to all the participants for their selfless sharing of their fascinating life stories. Special thanks from Yongjian Li to Mr. Bo Zhang: ‘your vital support and encouragement made me be proud of and fight for myself, which I will never forget.’ This paper is dedicated to my grandfather, Mr. Chunlan Li, all my family members, and my beloved friends both in China and the Netherlands.

Author contributions: YL, AA designed the study; YL analyzed the data; YL, AA wrote the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the China Scholarship Council [Grant number: 201908420262].

Notes

1 Although according to international standards (WHO, 2021) and China’s relevant laws (the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of the Elderly), people over 60 years old are seniors. However, many people think that when they become grandparents, they become part of the older generation. Others believe that entering a new stage of life after retirement makes them belong to the group of older people. In China, the minimum average retirement age (female workers) is 50 years. In this research, we adopt an approach that is more inclusive of these different understandings and experiences of ageing.

2 Ethics approval for this study was granted by the Ethics Review Board of the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

3 Yanggo is a kind of folk dance from the Northern region of China. It can be seen as a type of Guangchang wu (plaza dance), an amalgam of dance and gymnastics directed by professionals or semi-professional teachers. Different groups have their own songs, sites, and costumes. In most cases, Yanggo is carried out by groups in public areas such as plazas, squares, and parks (Chen and Chen 2018).

4 Xiao Du is a smart speaker developed by the Chinese Internet company Baidu, resembling Google assistant, Microsoft Cortana, and Apple Siri.