Life
in the Countryside
| How
do we research the ophans in the countryside? |
| Traveling
to the countryside in China can be arduous as the roads
are unpaved and during rain become miry slush. Also
many of the children live in the mountainous areas with
narrow or washed out roads that curve up and down making
the trips truly hazardous. Nonetheless each time we
have enough funds to help more children the trips must
be made. We collect data from any living relatives,
neighbors and if they are fortunate enough to be in
school we go to the schools. After taking photos and
collecting data we return, pray and discuss and determine
which children are in most need of our help. |
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Guo
Song wei's
old grandma
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The
previous home of
one of the children
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| Why
there are so many poor orphans in Xinmi area? |
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There
are many factors that account for our children being
orphans and part of the reason is centuries of traditional
customs and ideas that you can read about in some of
our updates. Often when a father dies and the mother
is left burdened with children and no income she deserts
her family never to be heard of again. Since XinMi has
many coalmines and many are independent privately run
they are really dangerous and many men are killed as
a result of collapsed mines and gas explosions. Another
problem is that of the terrible traffic conditions and
of course as with any poor person, poor diet and medical
care lead to a greater degree of poor health and disease
leading to earlier death.
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| How
do the children feel about SANCS home? |
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After
we determine which children to bring in the
homes, we must purchase new clothing, shoes
and coats for them and the day they arrive in
their new home always is a time of unbelief
for each of them. They all say they think it
must be something like "Heaven". To a little
hopeless, hungry, unloved child it truly is
a piece of Heaven.
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To
the left: Wu Chun Mei visited her old grandma
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Farmer
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Countryside
Well |
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China
is rapidly changing.
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This
horse and donkey trotting down the highway recently is
a rare scene
today.
Five years ago this became illegal but prior to the
new law, horses and carts added interest and color to
the roads. Of course with modernization they became an
additional hazard while
competing for space with the cars, trucks, motorcycles,
buses, bicycles, pedestrians and endless other racing
conveyances. Our area of the country is still lagging
behind yet ever making slow progress in change. In the
midst of poverty and lack of education change is more
difficult to achieve. |
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| Why
Do So Many Mothers Desert Their Children After the Death
of their Husbands? |
This
topic is not new; I have written about it before but we
have new readers who cannot help but wonder at this phenomenon.
The dynamics of living in the Chinese countryside are
far different from those of the Western world. Change
comes slowly to traditions and behaviors that are hundreds
of years old. Women still have a poor plight in the countryside.
Since after marriage she no longer is a part of her own
home and she belongs to her husband's family, if her husband
dies she still belongs with her father-in-law as do her
children. But should her husband die, and should she also
have no father-in-law living, others that live in that
village will consider her an outsider; consequently she
will have nowhere else to go. Women cook, have babies,
wash clothes in streams or pans by hand, clean the house
and also work in the fields, so their life is hard. Some
of course also suffer abuse. Therefore, when life gets
just too hard to bear for many of the peasants they have
nervous break downs or as the Chinese say, "They
go crazy"; while others may simply run away and never
return again, leaving their spouses and their children.
Most will marry another man and have another child and
will never ever even contact their in-laws or first children.
The dynamics of family living among the mostly uneducated
peasants of China are complex because of generations of
traditions and the simple need of existing. When China
developed their family planning policy of allowing each
married couple to have only one child, they frequently
ignored the fact that the country people would often have
many children. The peasants do not adapt to, nor understand
the need to reduce their family size. The absolute need
in their minds is to have a son who will care for them
in their old age and this is reasonable. They use this
valid excuse to have babies until they have a son and
then of course, a second son is better insurance so they
continue to have children. The city dwellers of course
feel this is really terrible but the solution to this
phenomenon is still to be found. I really failed to understand
the dynamics of the Chinese peasants for years but through
the research of orphan children I have come to realize
what we in the West might consider foolish or unreasonable
is still a very deep and real dilemma to this sector of
Chinese.
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