Rethinking time and lifestyle migration: Multiple temporalities, identity formation, and post‐migration life of Chinese Houniao

This paper examines the multiple temporalities of lifestyle migration through the study of the Houniao (“snowbirds”), mostly retirees from northern China. It attends to their seasonal migration to Sanya and Haikou, and explores the reconstruction of everyday practices, experience, and identities in association with their perceptions of past, present, and future. Personal biographies and national socio‐economic transformation over time encourage them to strike a balance between frugality and quality of life, and raise their generational awareness. The post‐migration life and identities of the “snowbirds” are also affected by their future aspirations and active ageing practices. The production of the Houniao's present life is further examined in relation to their perceptions of everyday rhythms and the negotiation of cultural and regional identities. This paper underlines the centrality of time in (lifestyle) migration. It offers insight into the time‐spaces and complexity of lifestyle migration and changing elderly life in modern China.