The Mother Of China’s Lost Children

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Meet Ma Jun, “a teacher and mother” to more than 300 “lost children” at a village school in Shaanxi’s mountainous north. This article reports she quit the city life eight years ago to teach children left behind at the village school set up by her father in the province’s mountainous north in 1992. See Article[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]These “lost children’, known in China as Liu shou er tong (the left-behind-children) are “orphaned” by China’s fast-growing out-migration of workers from rural to urban areas in the quest for better paying jobs. More than 9 million minors whose parents who seek these opportunities are left behind – at times with guardians and at times, alone to fend for themselves. The number is as high as 61 million, if children who stay behind with one parent are included.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This out-migration results in the disintegrating of the family unit and typically marks the end of innocence and childhood, as the children take over the role of caring for the house, animals, farms, cooking, and any other chores required of them. The tragic accounts of these left-behind-children have dominated the news for years, but today we are here to share with you a story that is heartwarming and hopeful.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]According to the South China Morning Post, Ma Jun gave up the city life after starting a family to teach at a local school set up by her father where she transformed the school’s rigid “academics first” outlook through training and implemented extracurricular activities such as physical education, martial arts, dance, and singing to name but a few. Her conviction that these vulnerable children need a whole approach to learning has paid off and the students are thriving! “How can there be vigour in a school if there is no one singing or exercising?” Ma asks.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Now a boarding school, it seems that this small community school found a guardian angel in Ma Jun. While this is a happy ending for this school, there is a generation of “lost children” in China that could benefit from reforming the country’s household registration system, The Hukou.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Hukou (huji), established in the 1950s, was set up to control the movement of people between cities and the countryside so these regulations are largely to blame. The system is some sort of urban permit, which limits access to free social services such as education, healthcare, etc to one’s birthplace thus this limits the freedom for citizens to move freely from rural to urban areas. Should one move, children will have no access to doctors, schools etc and the parents are in essence, forced to abandon their children in the desire to provide for their families adequately.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]