, and that’s her name as well.’I BEGAN COLLECTING stories on the only children around me in 2000, as I did not think it possible to understand the causes and effects of this phenomenon through hearsay alone. As a mother, to accept these children’s stories honestly and without prejudice was no mean feat. Over the last ten years I have had over twenty ‘close encounters’ like the ones described in this book, all of which took place outside China. As for more distant encounters, if I were to include all those I have come across at various times throughout China, and the only children I have met during my travels across twenty countries, I could add at least another hundred to the tally. As their numbers increase, questions pile up exponentially, and I find myself ever more lost in my search for answers.
Among the mass of questions, one in particular continues to raise its head. How has the birth-control policy affected Han Chinese in cities differently to those in the countryside? There is a difference of several decades, if not centuries, between urban and rural China. If you drive a car west from Beijing, Shanghai or one of the country’s other metropolises, two hours after leaving the city you will see things that you are more used to thinking of as ‘historical’. Everyone in China knows that the one-child policy is really a two-child policy in the countryside, mainly due to the persistence of pre-industrial, agrarian notions such as ‘having no descendants is the greatest of all crimes’ and ‘more sons equals more wealth’. Not to mention land-tax policies still in place after 1,000 years, which perpetuate a higher status for men over women. The birth-control policy was meant to be ‘beneficial to the nation and its people’, but often runs counter to rural people’s beliefs, survival instincts and the well-being of their descendants, both male and female. Are rural people able to adapt to forcibly imposed changes as quickly as city dwellers? Years of research has shown me that plainly they are not. How do their sons and daughters grow up in this struggle of politics and culture?
The vast Chinese nation is developing in a kind of historical dislocation, with living conditions polarised between the distant past and ultra modernity. Five-thousand-year-old traditions living side by side with wholesale Westernisation. An era straddling slash-and-burn agriculture and cloud technology. Education differs vastly across the country, making me wonder about other differences, in upbringing, society, family, school, even the increasing trend in overseas education. How great are the differences among the first generation of only children, as they grow up in different regional sub-cultures and rapidly shifting social status? How do they feel about all these differences?
As questions lead to more questions, the answers become increasingly obscure. Perhaps this project will become a lifetime undertaking.
The vast majority of Chinese students who came pouring into Europe and America like a tidal wave at the turn of the millennium were the first generation not to need part-time jobs, live off instant noodles and stay awake all night worrying about the rent. Most of them came from China’s 656 cities, with only a small minority, like Firewood, from the countryside or poor backgrounds. I was eager to hear about the experiences of students with lesser means and even keener to understand how their families in the countryside viewed their ‘big-nose’ overseas education that ran at a loss or at best broke even. However, before my first book, The Good Women of China, was published, opportunities for contact with overseas students from deprived backgrounds were few and far between.
I had much more opportunity to travel the world after my six books were published and translated widely; this included acting as visiting professor in universities across more than ten countries. According to local professors, not only were Chinese student numbers increasing every year, but their clothes were increasingly expensive and their study tools increasingly advanced. They had become both gods of wealth for universities and something of a headache, often believing that China was the world, that their parents were their personal property and teachers should be the same. They did not understand life outside the classroom, and had little practical experience of society, cultural differences or even basic day-to-day living. They did not realise that homework and thinking require an independent mind. Frugal and hard-working Chinese students were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Some university professors I met had yet to encounter a single one. This was mainly because China’s deprived students could not afford costly Western tuition fees and living costs, and were not aware of the system of scholarships in Western universities.
I was finally fortunate to meet three groups of deprived Chinese students on scholarships, one group in America’s Harvard University, one in Copenhagen in Denmark, and one in Cambridge in the UK. I have changed the times and locations in order to tell their stories freely and without cultural misgivings, and I regard them as my teachers. This is because they have helped me understand many parts of China I have never been to or even knew about.
In 2005 I gave a lecture at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the progress of Chinese women over the past few hundred years.
I noticed that the cavernous lecture theatre contained a large number of Chinese-looking students. But how could I tell whether they were Chinese, and not Japanese, Korean, British-born Chinese or American/Australian-born Chinese? Apart from body language and differences of expression typical of Asian people, I felt that what marked out Chinese students from the rest was that many were dressed in the latest designer clothes. A sense of bewilderment could be seen in their eyes, and they always kept their heads lowered, furiously taking notes on the main points. These habits had been conditioned over ten years in school, where they copied and memorised from one blackboard to the next. European and American students might occasionally jot down a few notes, but they generally pay more attention to eye contact with the lecturer. Probably all teachers have experienced the feeling when talking to a class that some students follow with their brains, some stare with minds far away and roaming free, and some couldn’t care less what you are talking about, and can’t wait to be saved by the bell! My judgements were also based upon the questions asked by students.
I always leave a third of lecture time for questions from overseas students, in order to find out whether they have grasped the content of the talk and encourage their thinking. I like challenges from inspired students, because they help me to think. But asking questions in class is a common difficulty for Chinese students. Teachers from universities all over the world have told me the same crude but classic joke. A tutor has four students, an American, a European, an African and a Chinese. She asks them, ‘What is your personal opinion on the international food shortage issue?’ The American student says, ‘Before I answer the question, I’d like to ask, what’s this “international” thing you talk about?’ The European student says, ‘Before I answer the question, what’s a shortage?’ The African student asks, ‘What’s food?’ While the Chinese student asks, ‘What’s a personal opinion?’
That day at Trinity College, as soon as question time came around, and before I had even had time to pick anybody, to my surprise a Chinese student stood up. She was very petite, her face lacked the gloss that comes from being ‘remade’ by high-class cosmetics, her shoulders were drawn in and stiff, quite unlike the casual posture more typical of Chinese students, and she was skinny in a way that reminded me of some forlorn girls I had seen in the countryside. She was extremely tense, breathing heavily, barely capable of speech. I guessed that this might be the first time she had steeled herself to ask a question in public.
I tried to give her time to cool down, saying, ‘This is great. I think you all know what a rare and precious thing it is for Chinese students to be so enthusiastic in class. By the looks of things, not only will China’s economy lead the world, but Chinese students’ questions will lead the world’s thinking. For me, this is the best thing to come out of this class today! Thank you. Actually, you can sit down to ask your question, or you can come and stand next to me. This is a class, there’s no hierarchy. Isn’t that right? May I ask your name?’
‘My name’s Guihua, a real country bumpkin’s name, isn’t it?’ she said, full of self-mockery.
‘Why do you think that? Actually, awareness of the natural world in ancient Chinese culture is much broader and richer than in Western culture. In classical Chinese art, mountains, rivers and streams, birdsong and the scent of flowers all are present. Streets and villages, even our personal names, are mainly based upon a connection to mountains, rivers, flowers and fruit. Names remind us of a season or a landscape. Just like your name, which means Osmanthus Flower. Not only does it tell people that you were born in the autumn, it also tells us you come from a place that’s full of the scent of osmanthus. Or at least your family enjoyed it, and that’s why they gave their daughter the name Guihua, right? That’s not country bumpkinism, it’s beautiful. It helps make us aware of the beauty of nature.’
Guihua’s face opened, gradually losing its expression of defensiveness and self-loathing. I asked her, ‘What’s your question, please?’
She smiled weakly and took a deep breath. ‘Xinran, when you spoke about the plight of Chinese women, there’s one issue you didn’t touch upon. I would like to ask what you know of the phenomenon of infanticide?’
Infanticide? I thought. I wasn’t sure I had correctly understood her English.
Guihua said urgently, without waiting for me to reply, ‘Please don’t tell me that even you don’t know about this? I come from the Chinese countryside, where my father and mother forced my big brother to drown two of my nieces. They were determined to have a grandson. If you saw the bitterness on my sister-in-law’s face, you’d understand how wretched it is to be a woman and all for nothing. It’s just that, well, she, they were her daughters, and she was forced to . . .’ Her voice was lost in sobs.
All the students were thunderstruck by her question. The entire lecture theatre held its breath. Clearly they had never heard of any such plight of Chinese women. The students looked at me anxiously, awaiting my response.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What you say is quite correct. You have witnessed the cultural phenomenon of ignorance in the countryside. When I first became a journalist in 1989, I too was witness to more than a few of these “infant drownings”. Many people in the remote countryside viewed drowning baby girls as just another woman’s task and part of housekeeping skills. Even after more than twenty years of Reform and Opening-up, while one part of China is forging ahead, another is developing at a snail’s pace, with some places still to pass key historical staging posts. I’ve spoken a lot in the past about how baby girls are abandoned because they are not valued as highly as boys. However, I don’t feel strong enough to tackle this issue. It’s not that I’m afraid Chinese people won’t believe it, they will, it’s a fact of life. It’s just that I’m honestly afraid to open myself up to those scary, painful memories. The impact of those stories fades with the passage of time, but the pain of a true experience can wake you up in the middle of the night, isn’t that right? I guess your brother was born in the only-child era, wasn’t he?’
The girl nodded vehemently.
I continued: ‘I’m sure that as far as your mother and father were concerned, their son was the lone sprout in the family. If he did not have a boy, there’d be no one to burn incense for them after they died, and the family line would be cut off, right? Has it ever occurred to you that it’s only because your parents had your brother that you survived? Otherwise . . .’ By this time she was crying again.
‘I know,’ said the girl. ‘I had another two elder sisters who didn’t get to live because they came before my brother. My mum wells up when talking about them, but why did she force my sister-in-law to go down the same old path? Why did she put herself through that unforgettable pain again? I studied as hard as I could to escape, as I was afraid they’d send me down the same road. But when I got into the county senior school and told the townspeople about all these poor babies, they thought I was exaggerating. When I made it to the teacher training college, the city people flat out refused to believe that what I said was true. I was angry and afraid. I wanted to find a place where I could speak my mind and get it off my chest. Now I’m at Cambridge on a scholarship. I thought that once I got to the world’s best university people would understand me, but it turns out that my foreign classmates don’t understand what I’m saying, and the Chinese ones just call me crazy and say I’m making China lose face. Xinran, why don’t people believe me? If you went there and saw my sister-in-law’s face, you’d know immediately how hard it’s been for her and her two lost daughters . . . All because Mum and Dad forced her to have them drowned. They were my two sweet nieces, I even saw one of them and her pink little face . . . Why doesn’t anyone believe me?’ Guihua was desperate, weeping noisily, too choked with sobs to go on.
I walked over to her. ‘Guihua, not only can I testify that your story is true, the facts speak for themselves: there are 30 million more males than females in China.1 All over the internet you hear that rich families prefer girls, while poor countryside families have only boys. Have you heard about this? Why do you think this is happening? And then there’s the 120,000 Chinese baby girls adopted every year by families from all over the world, which only adds weight to your story. I think you are right, I should write a book and tell the world.’ (In 2010 I brought out a book on abandoned babies called Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother.) ‘In fact, the world we live in is full of secrets hidden away by history because they are too humiliating and painful. I greatly admire your bravery and your respect for life. Many people now think that, with so many “facts” available on the internet, they can pick and choose between them. They are therefore unwilling to believe or understand that these ancient, ugly customs continue to survive. But you’ve experienced them, you’ve stood up and spoken out. And unlike many Chinese people, who believe it’s a loss of face, you’re calling out for people to work with you to put a stop to this as soon as possible. If we cannot stop the devastation caused by these appalling customs, after generations of us have gone through a modern education, and we still believe that we have made progress, then what was the point of all this education?’
By this time, hands were shooting up everywhere in the audience. I made a request: ‘I hope you can understand my selfishness, but I very much want to give today’s question time to Chinese students, because they don’t get that many chances to speak the truth, OK? If you still have questions at the end, please leave them with me before you go.’ Half the raised hands lowered, but a few Western students still kept their hands up.
As I was hesitating, a young Chinese student got to his feet. He was tall and skinny. Like Guihua, he was in the grip of a powerful emotion, but expressed it differently. While she gasped loudly, he stood tall like a nail, a pillar, utterly immobile save for two streaks of tears pouring down his face. He made no move to wipe them away as they left dark watery trails on his blue shirt. ‘My name’s Li Jie, and I’m different from everyone else here today because I understand what that Chinese girl is talking about. I’ve never seen her before, but I want to say to her, I do understand you, because I come from the countryside in northern Hubei province. When I got into teacher training college, the whole family, no, the whole village was happy for me. I was the only person in the history of the village to get into university. Girls don’t have a chance in the place I come from, only a few go to primary school, and only as far as their second or third year, then their families make them quit. Boys who finish middle school are rare, mostly they drop out to help in the fields. My university entrance marks were the third highest in the whole province, but I had no money to go to a good university, so I went to the teacher training college, which was free.
‘When I said goodbye to the people back home, I raised a glass of cheap local spirit to thank my grandparents, my uncles and aunts. But the most important person to thank was my mother! I said to her in front of the whole village, “Mum, every day as far back as I can remember I have wanted to give you a present. Today, I finally have something to give you, the big bed at home. I’m twenty-two and off to college. Now at last you and Dad can have the big bed back. Mum, I know that you’ve never slept well. You leave me the lion’s share of the bed, lying on your side against the wall.” I also said to my father, “Dad, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to give you back the big bed before this. You’ve never slept on that bed since the day I was born. Mum couldn’t sleep on the floor because of her arthritis, so you gave up the only bed in the house for me and Mum. As I was growing up you said I had to sleep well in order to study well, and you wouldn’t let me sleep on the damp floor. Mum, Dad, after twenty-two years you can now have a proper sleep, that’s the only present I can give you.” Xinran, do you believe me? When I got my acceptance papers from college, the thing that made me the happiest was that I could finally go to school without it costing them money, and I could give Mum the bed back at last.’
The lecture theatre was filled with sighs, and many of the students present shed tears.
Li Jie continued: ‘My Chinese classmates don’t believe my story. Now that I’m in Britain on a scholarship, I want to save money by sharing a room with another student, but no Chinese students will share with me. They think I’m just a country boy who doesn’t understand their high civilisation. But the more I learn, the more I believe that the civilisation I hold in my heart is greater than theirs, because I was born from motherly love, the most precious thing in life. In twenty-two years I never once heard my mother snore at night, turn over, or heard even the tiniest sound from her. In order to help me sleep soundly, she slept with “extreme caution”. If I spent twenty-two years aware of the trouble my mother went to even in her sleep, how could I fail to respect a room-mate? I’m from the countryside, so I must be a boor? Is that it? China has become big and powerful, but how many people understand those of us from the countryside? Or understand women like my mother? Do you know how good my mother is? She gave up her first daughter, my big sister, just so my father could pass on his family name through me! How can her heart not ache?’
Li Jie was unable to speak any further.
Before the lecture ended, I said to the students, who were all deeply moved, ‘Over 70 per cent of China’s population are peasants, and more than half of them don’t get the chance to finish primary school. However, many of these people have taught me how to appreciate nature, how to experience life and how to struggle against hardship. Those illiterate peasant women might look dirty, speak crudely and not be too particular about their behaviour, but they’ve helped me to learn the steadfastness that comes from their mountains and wild places, they’ve taught me to reach out to nature and find peace in life wherever I am, how to give to my child and pursue nature and beauty while surrounded by poverty and deprivation. Village mothers have told me about the pains of being a woman, and of the beauty of a woman’s spirit that neither time nor space can alter. As pebbles are worn into smooth egg-shapes by a river, so too is the inner heart of each pebble enriched. I give my heartfelt thanks to these two Chinese students and their mothers. I give my thanks to the land and water that raised you so wise and strong. I believe that your stories will be heard by many people, so that increasing numbers will understand how to respect life and the older generation, our parents by our side. We should love those who pass on such things, between cultures, between people. Those who pass on help and understanding between people and the environment in which they live.’
It was through these two young people that I got to know a group of Chinese students who were standing on their own two feet and making themselves strong. The majority were first-generation only children, but compared to their spoiled contemporaries, their lives and attitudes to responsibility were as different as heaven and earth. In May 2008 I received a letter from one of them.
Xinran,
I believe that you must be weeping for China’s children, as we are. In the great earthquake on 12 May, over 1,000 school buildings in Sichuan’s earthquake zone collapsed completely, killing approximately 9,000 schoolchildren. (In fact, nobody knows the true number of deaths from the Wenchuan earthquake, because the government has not released an accurate figure.)
We did some simple research and discovered that, after the great Kantō earthquake in 1923 in Japan, the Law for the Promotion of Earthquake-Proofing of Buildings ruled that all public school buildings must be extensively earthquake-proofed, and new schools had to be built in accordance with the newest rigorous earthquake-resistant standards. Existing schools had to undergo regular earthquake resistance testing, and those with problems were required to be reinforced or rebuilt. From that time on, Japanese schools became refuges from natural disasters and war.
On 10 April 1933 a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Long Beach, California, leaving 120 people dead and 50 million dollars’ worth of damage. Seventy schools collapsed and 120 were badly damaged. The Field Act, sponsored by Californian congressman Charles Field, was passed a month later, and, once implemented, Californian schools and hospitals became some of the safest buildings in the world.
China’s seismologists and architects must all know that much of China lies on the Pacific earthquake belt. There have been seventy-eight large earthquakes since records began, with more than ten in the last century alone. However, our notions of earthquake-proofing have not evolved with modern civilisation; still less have we drawn any kind of lessons on how to protect our children from the price paid by hundreds of thousands in the Tangshan earthquake of 1976. The schools of Wenchuan in Sichuan province became demons that devoured children’s lives. Many of the buildings that collapsed in residential areas were schools. By approving shoddily built ‘crumbly tofu’ projects, corrupt officials and their unscrupulous lackeys cut off almost 10,000 lives in the bud, with countless families losing their only child.
We also learned that the majority of those buried in these paradises of learning were children from small countryside villages, while there was no major loss of life in city schools in the same area. Xinran, can it really be that the poverty gap makes the difference between life and death? Does poverty determine our chance of survival in random natural-disaster statistics? Do those parents of only children, who’ve never had a day’s rest from toil, have to endure this agony all because of inequality? What’s wrong with China? Is it an illness? Or has the country’s conscience been totally eroded by money?
There is a sound basis for these questions. Thirty years ago I started to realise that Chinese people were so busy with internal struggles and politics that nobody had any time for science and day-to-day life. We’ve been preoccupied with making money for ourselves and our families for so long that nobody has stopped to think about the negative side effects of this frenetic activity. In another thirty years our children will be the victims of today’s busyness. However, it never occurred to me that today’s children would have to pay for our blind busyness with their actual lives. This should be a source of painful remorse and resentment, if we can still feel the pain of human nature, buried beneath all that money.
In 2009 I visited Denmark, where a group of scholarship students from China had invited me to speak at an academic conference. After the talk was over, a PhD student came and spoke to me. ‘Teacher Xinran, I couldn’t get in to your talk, but I sat outside listening all the way through. I was overcome with emotion. It’s been years since I’ve felt so deeply moved. I just want to ask you two questions: when will I finally be ready (she used the English word), and when I’m ready what is the most valuable thing I can do for China?’
I asked her, ‘What do you mean when you say ready?’
‘I mean when I have enough knowledge and ability,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I’m studying charities, and want to make a contribution of my own by building up China’s NGOs.’
‘Well then,’ I said. ‘Why do you think that China to this day has no charity laws? Why does it not acknowledge the NGO system?’ I wanted to learn more about this from her.
‘I think it’s probably because charities come from the principles of Christianity. Developed countries in Europe and America regard NGOs as one of the three pillars of government, economy and society. They support them in commercial law and give them appropriate government funding. However, in China, where there is no freedom of religion or an independent judiciary, NGOs might be misunderstood, exploited, or even get drawn into bribery and corruption. Apparently, a draft of the first charity law is being debated in China at the moment. But in reality, Chinese people are always several steps ahead of the government and the constitution. Chinese volunteers are already devoting themselves to charitable work, it’s just that the safeguarding systems and training for charities are not up to much. On the one hand, there are many people already helping charities develop. On the other, they are hindered by the lack of results from charitable projects.’
I greatly admired her attitude. ‘That’s just how it is. China currently has a very primitive perception of charitable endeavours. Many people hold the simplistic belief that charitable cultural activity is just going to the countryside, herding children into a classroom and making them study something. But in many rural areas, parents need their children’s help at home, so they are understandably strongly opposed to their children sitting down and studying. I often wonder why volunteers use city methods for countryside children? Does learning have to take place in a classroom? If these children spend all day carrying water and firewood, but have nothing to eat when they get home, why don’t we set up classrooms on the road where they will pass by when carrying water? Why don’t we help them carry water and scavenge for firewood, and teach them reading, maths and history at the same time? Then their parents might support the volunteers. I have to ask you though, why do you think you need to finish your studies before you can be ready?’
She looked at me thoughtfully for a while before answering. ‘I belong to the first generation of only children. When I was growing up, both my parents were busy with their work, which took them away from home. My granny raised me from when I was very small, in an extremely poor, deprived village. I didn’t go to the city to live with my parents until I reached middle-school age, but by then I’d already developed a phobia of the outside world. It felt like the only safe place was the classroom, and if I stuck my head out into society I’d fall into a deep abyss, so I just kept on studying. Now I’m about to finish my PhD, and I’m running out of things to study. Besides, I’ll be thirty soon, so I think I must be ready, right?’
This is an opinion I often hear from Chinese students. They only feel ready at the very end, but miss so many chances while waiting for it. When learning English, they feel that they need all the vocabulary before they can open their mouths and speak. When looking for work, they feel they have to have a university diploma before they are up to scratch. Even in marriage, they think they must wait until they have a car and a flat before they can work on marriage itself . . .
I said to her, ‘I don’t know if I can say precisely whether or not you are ready. Ready is not the ability to summon the wind and rain, it isn’t about whether you can build a whole new world by yourself. Being ready is a kind of faith that comes automatically to anyone alive. Take me, for example, I’m only one drop of water in the vast river of China. I’m not as fresh and lively as a spring, nor as wide as a river, but the drop of water I represent might be able to keep one blade of grass green, and someone a little bigger could perhaps water a tree. I believe I am already ready.
‘Running an NGO and carrying out charitable work should follow the same reasoning. Take the example of helping children study. If the children in a family get an education because of your support and help, the whole family’s faith in life gets a boost. So many of our people are educated now, and if each person helps one child then the whole family will benefit from the education, and all the happiness and good things that go with it. When the child has children of their own, still more people will reap the benefit. When will we be ready? I think that as long as we can manage the simplest things in life by ourselves, like finding food and shelter, then we’re ready. Besides, just now you mentioned something very interesting. Why do you think the classroom is safe, but you’ll fall into a pit if you stick your head outside into society?’
When she heard this question, her wise, thoughtful eyes darkened. ‘My dad didn’t like me because I’m a girl. He thought I’d made him lose face, and soon after I was born he packed me off to live with my grandmother in his home village, in the poorest part of Henan province. There were no toilets in the village, just two big cesspits about a metre and a half deep. Over 200 households, with only one pit for men and one for women, surrounded by maize stalks smeared in mud for a wall. There were two wobbly planks set over the big pits, where men and women, young and old, all squatted to relieve themselves. I was terrified of falling in when I was small.
‘When I was about five I started to work in the fields and about the house, as Granny said that girls who don’t work get no food. The jobs were so tiring that the cesspit became my refuge. I’d sneak off there, squat down and read. When Granny found out she took my books away, saying, “What’s the use of a girl reading? If you were meant to study your dad wouldn’t have sent you here.” But there was nowhere else where I could get away from the back-breaking work, let alone find a place to play, so I would to squat on the two planks above the cesspit, and look down on the little maggots crawling about on the bottom. Those poor maggots, only the size of a couple of green beans, climbing up the wall of the pit. Arching their bodies with each wriggle, most got halfway up and fell back; hardly any of them made it all the way up. After struggling through extreme difficulty for half an hour, many of them would make a wrong turn and go tumbling back in! The ones lucky enough to escape were mostly trodden on or poisoned by farm chemicals, barely any lived out their natural lifespans. All because they were maggots, a lower form of life. How was this different to the fate of us country girls out in the wilds?
‘After I returned to the city for middle school, every time I did my homework I would “see” those little maggots. I told myself, I’m climbing up just like them, I’ve got to get to the top, I’ve got to do well in my exams. If I blow my exams then I’ll fall back down into that pit! Even after I got to university, and then to Denmark, I was still beset by this fear. Just like those little maggots, I was afraid that one moment of ignorance or a single mistake would bring a great foot down on my aspirations, crushing my faith to death. I’ve always been too embarrassed to tell anyone, but the truth is, my whole life’s struggle was inspired by those little maggots in my granny’s village cesspit!’
I have been to similar places in the countryside, and squatted above similar large cesspits. I too have been moved by the tireless perseverance of those maggots, but it never crossed my mind that they could become a source of culture and entertainment for a young girl. Still less that they could be transformed into the motive power behind her success. All this in the age of China’s power and prosperity!
When the young woman I remember as ‘Ready Girl’ learned that I was writing a draft of this book, she sent me an essay from a report by journalist Cheng Ying, in the 37th issue of Outlook Asia Weekly.
It is estimated that there are currently over one hundred million only children in China. The issues and risks surrounding this enormous group, which are the result of exceptional historical circumstances, are attracting ever-increasing attention.
Since 2002, Professor Mu Guangzhong from the Centre for Population Research at Beijing University has stated many times that ‘one-child families are intrinsically risky families’.
The Five Risks of Only-child Families
Risks in growing up, in particular of dying young or serious illness. According to statistics, out of every thousand newborn babies approximately 54 die before they are twenty-five, and 121 die before the age of fifty-five. According to figures from the fifth population census in 2000, over 570,000 families in rural areas have been left without descendants after the death of a child. Moreover, the survival of only children directly influences the survival of their families. If problems arise in the early stages of life, they can be alleviated through remedial education, but if an older child dies early or suffers a serious or debilitating illness or injury, then the impact on the family is often disastrous.
Expectations that the child will be exceptionally talented. The saying goes, ‘A single stick of firewood is hard to burn, and a single child is hard to teach.’ A variety of factors including excessively focused parental love, excessively high hopes, and unscientific childrearing and teaching methods have resulted in a number of only-child families overestimating the achievements that their children can realistically be expected to make. Moreover, if the parents become seriously ill, die or divorce, this also adversely influences the child’s life, studies and work.
Provision for old age within the family. Along with the above two risks, there is also the risk of providing for old age. Even if the former two risks are avoided, provision for latter years is still a problem. The economic circumstances of a child’s family, relations between the two generations, allocation of living space and many other factors may lead to problems in ageing parents’ day-to-day care, emotional support and economic provision. Only-child families are less able than multiple-child families to look after their elderly relatives, as there is only one source of support, which leaves little room for manoeuvre. If an only child moves away or suffers an unexpected accident, the parents will be left without alternative means of support in their old age, and no other forms of help currently exist.
Risk to social development. The aforementioned risks also affect the development of the whole society. Only children must enter society, and the question of whether they can adequately fulfil their roles as citizens is of vital importance.
Risk to national defence. If a war were to break out, or some other occasion requiring only children and their families to make sacrifices, risks to national defence would exist to a certain degree.
Professor Mu stated that from the point of view of life cycles, the only-child generation bears the heaviest burden. When only-child families come up against the challenges of only-child ageing or no-child ageing that come at the end of their life cycles, they will lack even the smallest room to manoeuvre. Only children have no experience in kinship between brothers and sisters, and growing up in an environment without companions has left them bereft of opportunities to learn from others, or the possibility of helping and being helped by others. This precious culture of close family feelings has been lost.
A few far-sighted people are aware of these risks to only-child families. But what can we do to minimise these risks?
By the summer of 2011, practically all the dangers that Professor Mu warned of in 2006 had come to pass. Families shattered after losing their only child in the Sichuan earthquake numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Cases of only children ruined by excessive wealth are no longer newsworthy events. The number of only-child families struggling under the burden of caring for their parents in old age is growing daily. Disturbances in society caused by only children appear one after another. Not only are rifts forming between different social classes, but the bitter struggle between city and countryside is becoming ever more heated. Experts and scholars are increasingly concerned that the exceptional nature of family structures and parent–child relationships in one-child families have affected this generation’s physical and psychological health, and their scientific, cultural and moral education. These factors, among others, will affect recruitment into the army, and its strength, in ways that are hard to predict. This made me think of what German social scientist Ulrich Beck said in his book Risk Society, that, today, risks in general are greater and no longer only refer to the natural world but also to man-made ones that form part of the wider social environment. Are China’s man-made risks increasing in severity because of the only-child phenomenon? Could it be that our thirty years of toil are similar to the little maggots in Ready Girl’s memory? No sooner have we clambered to the edge of the pit than we go tumbling back in again because of a single mistake?
In the spring of 2010 I visited Harvard a second time with a group of Chinese students for a debate titled, ‘Are we carrying out a globalisation movement, or are we just entering an anglicised world?’ A fair number of Western students were also present. When the discussion turned to communication between nations, everybody thought that this should be multicultural in nature and for the mutual benefit of all, not just a uniform, simplistic strengthening of English-language culture.
A female student asked in a quiet voice, ‘But Xinran, if there is no common language, how can races with no common culture communicate?’
I like talking with students because of their naked, unadorned questions, which often bring me back and force me to reconsider the basics. ‘That’s an excellent question!’ I said. ‘My husband’s English, and every time I go back to China with him I feel sad, because it’s my customs and native soil, but I have to speak to him in his language and respect his cultural practices. How is that fair? We account for a quarter of this huge world’s population, but where can we hear the voices of Chinese people speaking out? I once told him that when he goes to China, he should speak our language and get used to our customs and life – you know, when in Rome do as the Romans do, right? My husband pulled a sour face and said to me, “I’ve learned Latin, a very difficult language, but that was at university. Isn’t it a bit late for me to start learning Chinese now, at over sixty? Besides, in the past there were very few people who talked about China, and even fewer who dared to go there. I went when Chinese people’s thoughts were still bright red and their clothes blue-grey, but when I came back to the Western world I couldn’t find anyone in our society who was interested. When I first raised the idea of representing Chinese authors in the 1980s, everybody said I was crazy. Publishers even asked me, who cares about China?”
‘He continued: “Although China has started to make its mark in today’s world, everyone uses English to discuss China, because at the present time it’s the international language of communication. This has led to a lot of unfairness, as people believe that global communication must be carried out according to the conventions of the English-speaking world. But the cultures and customs of English-speaking countries are often at odds with the majority of other countries in the world, and this is unfair to them. So what fair, commonly used method of communication should we use between different nationalities?
‘“Over the course of human civilisation, these difficult issues have been tackled numerous times, such as Arabic numerals that are commonly used in every culture, and the system of picture warning signs for emergency and rescue, which have been in use since the First World War, and which are getting more comprehensive all the time. Then there’s red, yellow and green traffic lights, which are not limited to language, region, technical know-how or anything of that sort. But we seem not to have drawn any lessons from these truths. In the process of globalisation, our knowledge of other cultures and customs should increase, instead of one side giving and the other receiving. But nowadays, all nations have come thronging to a cultural crossroads, pushing and shoving, complaining and blaming each other, because there is no traffic light system in our cultural communication that everybody can understand and where everybody is equal. So, what is this traffic light system? A system of government, economics or education? Or law, democracy and human rights?”’
Two or three voices disputed this. ‘Then what exactly is democracy? A society with the family as the unit? If there’s a family of a mum, dad and children, do the children have a right to free speech or a right to vote?’
One young man said, his face full of self-righteousness, ‘Of course they do, otherwise it’s a feudal family.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said a male voice from the corner, each syllable clearly enunciated and seemingly very sure of its own opinions. ‘Most of us come from only-child families, and have no experience of a big family, but it’s not hard to figure out if you use your head. In a “democratic family” with many children, if every child is able to exercise decision-making power, that family will never have a family holiday, or even a family dinner! It’s the power of the mother and father in the family that brings family education and life together, and forms them into something meaningful. If human society has its roots in the family, why are we using so-called democracy to destroy the foundations of human life?’
The proud and self-righteous student replied, ‘Well, perhaps the true importance of democracy has more to do with elections, human rights and freedom, not just freedom of speech?’
The voice from the corner came louder now, the tone a little heavier. ‘Do citizens who have the right to vote necessarily have any concept of national security, or spare any thought for social fairness? If they lack these then their vote is led by the media and by whatever benefits them personally. Is there an impartial media anywhere in the world at present? Has humanity evolved away from selfishness and greed? If you’ve got a family with three children, and the children decide not to go to school and play computer games all day, should the parents, who are in the minority, go along with that “democratic decision”? Or should they force their children to go to school for their own good? This is a very big source of ambivalence in China’s only-child society; we simplify democracy, the political system and the law into statistics and whatever benefits us. It’s impossible for a couple with one child to have democratic education within the family, you either get a child mollycoddled with soppy love, or you get oppression. We have no brothers and sisters, so there’s no possibility of equal communication inside the family!’
‘That seems to be true,’ said several girls, nodding their heads in agreement.
‘I think,’ continued the voice from the corner, ‘that China lacks the ability to communicate with Western developed countries on a level playing field. Because of the differences between cities and countryside, the gap between rich and poor and between generations, it’s impossible for us to communicate with them as a single, unified China. Only children who grow up in cities find it very hard to understand their classmates from the countryside. Country folk seem stingy and antisocial to them, but this is only because they’ve never had the material wealth to be consumers.’
‘That’s a bit strong, isn’t it?’ the other interrupted. ‘It’s not like we’ve never been to the countryside, and are we really unwilling to help our poverty-stricken classmates? The reason we don’t get on so well is more down to cultural differences.’ Clearly these students all came from the cities.
The debate had become like drops of water falling into a pot of boiling oil, where neither could exist alongside the other. I could barely distinguish who was saying what. It was plain that several of the Western students had never seen battle lines drawn up like this, and some were plainly lost. I thought that no matter how good their Chinese, they would not be able to follow a debate carried out in this tone and at such a speed! I raised my hand for silence. ‘I’m sorry, I have a suggestion: in our “democratic discussion” shouldn’t we respect each other’s right to speak? If we Chinese people can’t agree on a way of communicating between ourselves, how can other people taking part in the debate follow our train of thought? If we can’t communicate properly then we’re no more than a pile of fragments, which the world will have to try to piece together to form a concept of China. And whose mistake will that be?’ I pointed to the voice in the corner, ‘I believe you hadn’t finished what you were saying before you were interrupted. Please continue, but keep it short so there’s time for the other students.’
‘I know that you city people all have good hearts,’ he continued, ‘and I know you’ve helped us poor students in the past. But what I’m trying to say is that you’ve never lived in poverty. You don’t have a family who worries every day about keeping warm and putting food on the table, nor are you anxious about the possibility of returning to that poverty. Although we’re all only children, we don’t belong to the same class in society. It’s like what we’ve just been saying about globalisation, the West’s concern for China, their help, is perhaps like city people’s attitude to country folk, a one-off giving, not living side by side for a generation. Equal communication just does not exist. What we need is not one-off gifts, but understanding and respect that lasts a generation.’ The voice in the corner disappeared back into the shadows, but his words seemed to have pushed the whole classroom into a corner of silence.
After the talk, many of the students continued to debate internationalisation, China and family democracy. That was my hoped-for result, as I believe that stimulating young people’s ideas into life is one of the most important principles in education. That one-and-a-half-hour lecture ran for three hours, right up until we had to call a halt for supper.
When I was leaving the lecture theatre, I noticed a very skinny, frail Chinese student standing at the back, who had not said a word the whole time. I guessed that he was either politely letting others go first, or else he was shy. Every time I give talks in the West, I always do what I can to give Chinese students a chance to speak, because they get so few opportunities to hear guest lectures from Chinese scholars. I took the initiative and approached him.
‘Hello, you’re waiting very politely for your turn, aren’t you? Perhaps a bit too politely, even? Holding back in such a gentlemanly way,’ I said to him.
‘No, it’s not like that,’ he replied. ‘I’m not at this college, so I don’t want to take up their time. My old classmate, the one in the corner, has already said what I think. I’m not an arts student, so can’t express myself that well. Besides, I only came here to see you because you remind me of my mother,’ he said, with some embarrassment.
‘Where is your mother?’ I asked. Perhaps because I have a son of my own, I am always touched by sons who think of their mothers.
‘She’s at home, in the countryside outside Guiyang. A little village that isn’t marked on any map. Look at the book I bought for her.’ He waved an English hardback edition of The Good Women of China; the look in his eyes appeared to be coming from the bottom of a deep, dark well.
‘Does your mother read English?’ Several Guizhou women I had interviewed appeared in my mind, pickers of mushrooms in the wild mountains. Practically none of them could read.
‘No, she can’t even read Chinese. My mother only knows the character for woman, , and that’s her name as well.’
‘Then why would you buy her an English book?’ I really could not think of any reason.
‘Because the stories in your book are a lot like her experiences,’ he said.
‘How does your mother know about my book?’ I asked.
‘I often read your column in the Guardian, and I noticed that your photo looks a lot like her. My family isn’t well off, and she’s never had her picture taken, so I used your photo to stand in for hers, and stuck it over my bed in my dormitory,’ he said awkwardly. ‘At Chinese New Year, I borrowed my classmate’s mobile phone and gave my uncle a call. They were all getting together for New Year, and I told my mum about some of the stories you’ve written. When she heard them she said it was like they were written about her. She said she never thought that there would actually be people who bothered their heads about small women like her. So I bought the book and kept it to give to her. She can’t read it, but she can keep it at home anyway. It’s full of Chinese women’s stories, her stories.’
Tears were starting to well up in my eyes. ‘Did you come abroad on a scholarship?’ I asked.
‘Yes, a full three-year scholarship for a doctorate in maths, with more money than I can use.’
More money than he could use? I thought. There’s actually a Chinese student who doesn’t know how to spend all his money?
His name was Zonghui, which means ‘bringing glory to the ancestors’, and he was in his second year at Harvard. I gradually got to know his group of poor Chinese students who had all come out together, including the voice in the corner. Their professor told me that they represented an alternative image of Chinese students at Harvard, owning only two or three sets of clothes for all the four seasons. They had no mobile phones or computers and never wasted food. They were always reading, and excelled at their studies. These were the pride of China! I later learned that Zonghui survived on a daily diet of fifty cent chips. He never used washing powder, but washed all his clothes by hand with a bar of soap. Whatever he could save from his scholarship he took home to his mother, because she had never felt able to spend money, and had never bought herself so much as a comb.
Zonghui told me that when he left to go abroad to study, his mother could only see him off as far as the end of the village because she had no money for a long-distance bus ticket. He would never forget the few words she spoke at their parting, which came chasing after his heart: ‘My child, study well, live well! So many kids have never even touched a book. When you get on the plane, don’t open the window, don’t let yourself get blown by the wind!’
When I heard this story, I too could hear that mother calling out to her son: ‘My child, study well, live well!’
That day, I sent myself an email.
Live well, my friend, for the sake of those ancestors who laboured in poverty. For the sake of those children who have never touched a book. For the sake of those mothers who have never been on a bus or plane. For the sake of those sisters who never had a chance to live. For the sake of former generations who gave us today. Every mother, every season, every stone, every leaf. Live well, live very well!
But what is living well? Do our children understand it? Why is it that children who grew up in poverty, who never had the chance of an education, are able to enjoy every crumb and morsel of what they do have, while children who grew up fed and clothed, educated and cherished, often end up sighing over their woes? Why do so many children from rich families regard their relatives as the enemy, and treat love as a source of resentment? Do we parents truly understand what it is to live well? We raised our children to adulthood, but did we nurture their faith and life skills?
As we approach a society of solely only children, these are questions that we all seek the answer to, including me.
How do you view the Yao Jiaxin incident? Why is Chinese society debating him (a past-80s man) so fiercely?
Zonghui’s answer:
In my opinion, the Yao Jiaxin tragedy, and please allow me to call it a tragedy, is the very image of a tortured soul, and reflects the sadness that has infected society. His parents never taught him the basic moral principles of how to be a good citizen, or even a good human being. This kind of thing is happening all over China now, so stories like this and other less extreme ones are quite understandable.
However, as a relatively normal college student myself, I don’t really understand how he could act like this. His inability to face up to the world and his lack of any sense of responsibility is really shocking. I know everyone’s different, and that the young are always a bit self-obsessed, this is normal, but it shouldn’t go as far as killing, it’s unbelievably selfish. And all the arguments on the internet at the moment are just adding to everyone’s fear. Everyone’s thinking, What if some rich kid were to run over me or my family?
1 In 2009 the Population and Development Research Institute at Nankai University’s School of Economics, and the Chinese National Committee on Population Planning, calculated a surplus of 33.31 million males compared to females in the population born between 1980 and 2000.