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There’s a group of people in China who are called the tribe of ants .

Like ants, they are of humble roots. Like ants, they work diligently for small rewards like bread crumbs.            

Like ants, they live in big clusters in crammed spaces.

They are recent college graduates who flock to big cities seeking to improve their lives their families’ but find themselves in uphill battles.

Reporter Yanmei Xie visited a so-called “ants village” at Beijing’s outskirt.

It’s hard to walk in this street without knocking into something.

Through loudspeakers, vendors are hawking everything from scarves and socks to pirated movies.

As the night falls, streams of buses enter into the cramped street, spitting out throngs of people from their swollen bellies.

This village called Tangjialing sits at Beijing’s outskirt. It’s a sprawling compound of plain brick buildings, mud houses and a tangle of garbage-infested alleys.

It hosts nearly fifty thousand residents. Most of them are young renters working at the nearby software park.

Twenty-four year old Zhang Ruiyuan just got of one of the buses He works at the service center of a computer company. His job is to answer clients’ questions or appease angry customers.

“There was this one guy who started cursing when I picked up the phone. The cursed me out and hang up. I don’t know who he is and what his problem was.”

Ruiyuan came to Beijing from a small town in northern China more than a year ago right after college.

He says he’s learned to brush aside cranky callers. But what bothers him is that going home doesn’t quite feel like going home.

Ruiyuan trudges through a chain of dark and narrow alleys, hopping around icy slush and garbage dumps before reaching a five-story building.

“This is not home. Look at the layout, the beds, and the space. They don’t make me feel good. I just come here to sleep.”

There are two twin beds butted together, a rickety desk, a computer and a rented TV.

The rest of the space is enough for one person to pass sideways. Ruiyuan shares the room with another young guy. Tangjialing is full of buildings with these pigeonhole-like rooms.

Local farmers started a construction frenzy five years ago, when the software park ballooned and young employees swarmed here for cheap rents.

The buildings huddle closely together and many were constructed in haste. Even a villager says she sees disasters brewing.

“Look at the power lines and the buildings. If there’s a fire, nobody can run out and fire trucks cannot get in. And with so many people, who can guarantee that there won’t be any accident?”

Ruiyuan says he doesn’t think about the fire hazard too much. But he does dream of moving out of Tangjialing one day and buying an apartment of his own in Beijing.

“But it seems so far away. My savings of a year is not enough to buy one square meter.

A scholar at the Beijing University called Lian Si coined the term “ant tribe” for low-income college graduates like Ruiyuan.

Like ants these young people are intelligent, but vulnerable and live in groups.

Ruiyuan’s mom was laid-off when he’s at elementary school. His dad was half-paralyzed when he’s in junior high. Now, Ruiyuan says he sends all his savings home.

"As the only child in my family who’s grown up and is working, of course I need to give back to my parents. It feels really good to bring money home.”

The ants come to big cities hoping to translate their college education into well-paying jobs.

But they often lose out to competitors whose parents are better-connected and become disillusioned.

Twenty-two-year old Zhang Pei, for example, feels he’s seeing his dream slipping away.

“The dream felt easy when I was in college, but it feels further and further away after I started working.”

Pei worked in sales for an advertising company. He quit yesterday after a fight with his manager.

“It may have something to do with my personality. I am direct when I speak, and the bosses may not like this type of people.”

Pei went to a private college in Beijing. Since China relaxed regulations on higher-institutions ten years ago, privately-run schools sprouted up.

They let many more people get college degrees, but their graduates are often valued less than those from better-known state-run universities.

“We are different from those who graduate from brand-name colleges. There are too many college graduates. I feel I am not capable enough and don’t have much skill, so I do feel somewhat helpless.”

Still, Pei is not giving up on Beijing yet. He wants to open up his own company one day, although right now he’s hoping for anything that pays. It’s a hard climb to get to their dreams, says Ruiyuan.

“We are low in the social latter right now. We are at the foot of the mountain going up. We may tire out before we get halfway, but we still have to keep going.”

Ants are small but they have great strength, Ruiyuan says, they can lift things several times their bodies’ weight.