#1: As China Booms, Millions of Children Are Left Behind (3145 reads) 作者: ILoveNewYork, 时间: 2007-1-31 周三, 04:42 — 作者：ILoveNewYork 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
As China Booms, Millions of Children Are Left Behind
Families Split as Parents Move to Cities for Work;
Coming Home to the Dogs
By Loretta Chao
The Wall Street Journal
1/24/2007
YINGSHANG, China -- In a sparsely furnished farmhouse, about a half mile from
a main road in the poor, rural province of Anhui, 16-year-old Zhao Yan has lived
on her own for more than two years.
She goes to school, tends to the family rice farm and waits for her father's
periodic visits home. "I miss my dad a lot," says the teen, dressed in jeans and
a lime-colored hooded sweatshirt.
Chinese authorities estimate that 22 million youngsters in China have been
left at home while their parents migrate to cities to find work. The numbers of
the so-called liushou ertong, or "left behind children," are growing steadily in
China's vast rural areas. They represent a personal toll of China's explosive
growth.
As China's economy booms, some 200 million farmers are moving to cities to
pursue opportunities. China's laws make it almost impossible for migrants to
school and care for their children where they find work. With little money, many
simply leave them behind and hope for the best.
Zhao Yan's father, Zhao Changliang, a farmer, left his land and only daughter
two years ago. His wife died when Zhao Yan was a little girl. When she was old
enough to cook for herself, he paid 200 yuan, or about $25, for a ride with
neighbors to Shanghai, joining more than eight million migrants who have left
Anhui to find work in China's urban centers.
Many of the left-behind children stay with one parent. But over 30% of the
children of migrants are left with grandparents or with other relatives with
little or no supervision, according to a 2004 survey by the China National
Institute for Educational Research.
The problem is tearing apart families and creating a generation of children
who grow up with limited contact with their parents and little adult
supervision. Teachers in provinces such as Anhui say it is common to visit or
call a student's home only to find there is no adult in charge.
In one Anhui compound where a cluster of families have created a small
community, an elderly man and his wife are the guardians of five children under
the age of 6, whose parents work year-round in Shanghai.
"Most of the children are still too young to know the difference, but the
oldest one cries every New Year when they leave," he says, pointing to his
granddaughter. "There's no choice in the matter. This is the way things are
these days."
Wu Peigen, a 14-year-old middle-school student in the same county, says his
father left to find work when he was in first grade. After working several years
in a neighboring province, his father's health began to deteriorate. Last July,
Peigen's mother went to care for him. Peigen now lives with his grandparents.
"I didn't totally understand at the time. I was just sad," says Peigen, who
especially misses his mother on weekends. He says his parents "told me to listen
to my grandparents. My mom was sad and she cried. I don't know when I'll see her
again." His parents call about twice a month to ask him how he's doing in
school.
On most days, Zhao Yan wakes early, then takes a 30-minute bicycle ride to
school. She returns to an empty home to cook for herself. Her dogs run out to
the road at the sound of her voice when she gets close to her small brick house.
They sit by her as she begins her daily ritual of lighting a fire in the large
brick oven she uses to cook.
An elderly woman who lives next door occasionally visits, and sometimes Zhao
Yan has friends over. But the dogs and a borrowed black-and-white television are
often her only companions. The middle-school student does her homework by the
glow of the screen and listens to music videos in the unheated house.
"There isn't much to do when my father isn't here," she says.
Even though she enjoys her literature class and thinks it would be fun to be a
teacher, she has difficulty keeping up with school. Several days a semester, she
has to skip classes to work on the family farm. Going to high school isn't
likely; it would cost at least hundreds of dollars a year, which is more than
her father can afford.
Zhao Yan's father leaves about $100 for her each time he goes to the city,
usually for two to three months at a time. She uses the money to buy groceries
-- mostly vegetables, because she waits for her father to return to eat meat,
which is more expensive. Without her father around, Zhao Yan says she sometimes
skips meals. She prefers to cook for him during the Lunar New Year and harvest
seasons when he returns home for a few weeks.
As China's cities continue to develop, the government expects the
migrant-worker population -- and the numbers of left-behind children -- will
rise. The State Council Research Office reported in April that the 200 million
people in nation's rural migrant-labor force make an average of about $60 to
$100 a month. Many of these workers were just getting by on subsistence farming
before leaving.
Ye Jingzhong, vice dean of the school of Humanities and Development in
Beijing's University of Agriculture, says that when children are left behind it
can lead to behavior problems and mediocre performance at school. He blames the
situation on China's hukou system, where farmers who move to China's cities to
work are placed under separate educational and housing regulations -- meaning
they can't apply for public housing and their children have to pay higher fees
to go to city schools. Though the government has said it aims to ease the rules,
revisions made to the system in Beijing and Shanghai apply mostly to
white-collar workers.
Chinese authorities created a coalition of government agencies and nonprofit
organizations in October to propose programs that can help migrant families. No
recommendations have been made yet.
Since her only relatives live about 10 miles away, Zhao Yan's friends are her
greatest support network. They ride to and from school together and spend some
weekends playing badminton or watching TV. When she needs help, they often offer
-- even when she had to fertilize a huge plot of land all by herself.
Mr. Zhao works construction jobs and doesn't carry a cellphone, so his
daughter has to wait for him to call her neighbor's house every few weeks. In
emergencies, she borrows money from neighbors and gets medicine for herself when
she's sick.
During a trip home in November to help Zhao Yan with the harvest, Mr. Zhao's
skin was dark from working outdoors all day, and he looked older than his 50-odd
years. He says he hopes that by working in the city, he will earn enough to
improve the family's living conditions. He has three children: one son in the
military, one son working as a mechanic in Shanghai and Zhao Yan.
"We need to renovate our house," he said. "One day soon, my son will come home
and we'll all need to fit in this house."
