August 18, 2012, 8:30 p.m.
I
am traveling through a country that is often referred to as an “emerging
superpower” of the world, yet 36% of the population lives on less than $2 a day
and 56% (700+ million people) in the country live in the rural communities. Of
these 56% of people, roughly 20% of them will leave their community to take on
low wage jobs in the city, hoping for a greater success and more money for
their families (their children not able to go with them). Within the rural population, only 1% of secondary students will
move on to college or university, and there would be approximately 1.5 health
care workers per 1,000 people. If you were living in this rural community, you
would go to the bathroom in squatters – holes in the ground - where the urine
and feces would collect and potentially contaminate the soil or water within
your community.
As
a citizen in China, you are automatically part of the hukou system – a system
in which your household must register for the government. Once you register your
family with the government, that place becomes your home and certain
restrictions guide your life. For instance, if I am registered in the Gufupu
community (a rural community about two hours outside of Beijing), because my
parents and their parents grew up in this community, I would then be restricted
to that community when it comes to education, health care, work, etc. I could
choose to head into the city to find work, which as you read roughly 20% do,
but my children would have to stay in Gufupu and be raised by my parents
because they would not be allowed to attend school in Beijing. We could get
health care in Beijing, but we would have to pay for it, which many rural
community members cannot afford. Also, if I am choosing to work in the city in
attempts to support my family, I would be listed as a “migrant worker” and
certainly not be paid as much as city
dwellers would be. Finally, there is the one child policy. Every person in
China must be registered with the government, otherwise, they have no identity,
and if they have no identity they cannot go to school, get health care, etc.
Each family is allowed to have one child, to slow the rates of over population,
and then it is common for one of the parents (mostly the women) to be
sterilized. This poses problems because in China, it is very desirable to have
a boy so he may carry on the family name, therefore, it is undesirable to have
a girl. Legally, you cannot find out the sex of your baby until it is born
because otherwise there may be forced abortions, however, you can sometimes pay
off a doctor to find out. Also, there is the chance that the girl may be killed
or sold off after she is born if the family either does not want to have a girl
or cannot afford it (think dowry when she is older and needs to be married).
These
trips always amaze me because they force me to look at hard issues from two
stances. On the one stance, I look at it as a human, a global citizen, an
activist. How can people kill their baby based upon the sex? How can a
government tell you that you can only have one child? How can a government hide
a massacre, a part of history? How is it that the rest of the world isn’t
exposed to this side of China? Why is it that we refer to it as a superpower
when so many of their own citizens are struggling to survive and maintain a
proper identity? These experiences force you to consider the other side as well
though. How is an overpopulated country expected to maintain order if they
don’t have records of its citizens? How is an overpopulated country expected to
keep its cities clean and safe without restricting people from constantly
migrating in? If there’s anything I have learned on this trip so far, it is
that nothing is black and white. There are many gray areas to the Chinese
government whether we like to admit it or not.
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| Tang Jia Qiang, the boy who stole my heart |
Today
we visited a Kung Fu orphanage that we will be volunteering at all week. It
wasn’t until later tonight that I realized... if these kids are orphans, they
don’t have birth certificates, therefore having no identity with the Chinese
government. If they need health care, Kung Fu Daddy (he heads the orphanage)
pays for it out of donations. They have teachers at the orphanage to educate
them but the children have no future in further education because they have no
identity and no way to take high school exams for college admission. That means
Tang Jia Qiang (or John as he allowed me to give him an English name), the
sweetest, most obedient, and soft spoken 5-year-old I have ever met, with the
softest touch as he held my hand, will never have a fair shot at his own basic
human rights. Unless he makes it big with Kung Fu or gets a good break through
Kung Fu Daddy and can leave China, he doesn’t have much of a future here. He’ll
grow up in an orphanage, with a family of teachers, coaches, and 80 other
orphans, loved more than anything... but as soon as he turns 18 and has to move
on (whether he chooses to teach there or move on), he will still have no
identity. Unless something changes in the policies of the Chinese government...
