SHAKEN LIVES OF CHINA’S ONE CHILD FAMILIES
On Sunday, Liu Li received a simple Mother’s day present from her only child : a basket
of red, pink and white carnations wrapped in purple rice paper. That afternoon, the 15
year old returned to boarding school knowing he has made his mother the happiest
woman in their village.
Liu and her husband never thought about defying China’s one child policy. They already
had everything they could hope for in their son. Meng Hao was not only a good student
and star athlete, he was also the tallest kid around.
On Wednesday, the mothers day flowers were still fresh in the family’s living room, next
to the rows of merit certificates from school. But Liu’s beloved son was dead. “When I
heard he was gone my whole body became numb,” she said, “I felt the sky falling”.
As the death toll rises from the worst earthquake that hit China in 30 years, Sichuan
province had become a valley of sadness. Schools were among the mostly damaged
buildings, and some of the most grief-stricken residents who lost their only child.
Liu, 38, slumped Wednesday ito a chair in a make shift tent here among the wheat
fields. Not only are parents mourning the loss of their only child; the next generation is
expected to look after their parents in old age in a society where the safety net is
disappearing.
In Sichuan, China’s most populous province, the one child family is strictly enforced
among poor farmers. About 90 percent people here have only one child. A farmer said,
”it takes a lot of money and effort to raise a children, we farmers have a hard time even
supporting ourselves, how can we afford to pay fines of having more than one kid.”
The name of this town, Xingfu, means happiness. But it has become hell for parents
who first thought they had escaped the tragedy. A husband and wife who hardly
survived the quake after getting seriously injured, a new shock arrived, a few hours after
their brief re-union amid the wreckage their son died about an hour away in the hospital
where he was rushed for treatment.
One of Meng’s schoolmates told that everybody knew Meng. He was nearly 6 feet tall
and wanted to become a pilot. There were 66 students in our class, all but seven or
eight made it out alive.
Meng was in a third-floor classroom. Most of the students of that floor were trapped.
Parents say the school was built in early 1990’s, which is old by Chinese standards and
quality, and that students were to move in a new building next year.
“Bitter villagers suspect shoddy construction was partly to blame for the school’s
collapse. Even our humble rural homes built by hand didn’t collapse completely” said a
villager, “how can a big school building collapse? Something was definitely wrong in the
school.”
Across an open field filled with makeshift shelters, another mother is so paralyzed by
grief that she had not been able to get out of bed to face the world.
The body of her 15 year old son was pulled out of the rubble about 24 hours after the
earthquake. “His father is a migrant worker far away in northern China so his son can
have money to go to school” said Wang. “We only told him he is still being rescued. We
don’t dare tell him the truth.”
Outside their temporary shelter, a plastic tarp wrapped over sticks, Wen’s grandparents
were surrounded by neighbours trying to distract them from the tragedy. It wasn’t
working. “The child is gone. We can never see him again,” Wen’s silver haired
grandmother sobbed. “It should have been us.”
-DR. NAVRAJ SINGH SANDHU, www.navraj@gmail.com