preface
Subconsciously, I have always felt that the stories of left-behind children must be tragic — that poverty deprives children of the right to enjoy love and pushes them into various abyss. So many cases of extreme school bullying come to mind, as does “The Trauma of Two Cities” by Chai Jing, in which five rural children commit suicide one after another, and the attempted child is similarly closed and silent. In the end, Miss Chai also failed to find out the children’s heart, only to say that the world was a little more unsolved. But after reading ye’s hundreds of posts, I came to understand that “the psychological problems of left-behind children are not imaginary, but real.” As her friend said, “In fact, she has been burying her heart in the dirt for so many years, and the core problem has not been solved. The first chance she gets, she’s knocked right back into her shell.” But Ye says she is consciously “removing makeup,” especially how to be more honest about herself in later relationships. “It’s hard, but I’ll try.” She said.
As Ye Yang sees it, there is always an invisible wall between her and her parents.
On May 16, Ye reposted an article about sexual assault, subconsciously blocking her parents.
“It’s more about not worrying them, but could there be other factors involved? I don’t know.”
1
Ye Yang was still in primary school when she first realized she had been sexually harassed. A school home, three small bullies across five or six meters to ye Yang obscene smile, when the face, one of them was caught off guard to reach out and touch her lower body. Ye stood still and the gang left, and she felt angry, but she did not tell her family “for fear they would laugh”.
A more disgusting one, occurred in the junior three exam preparation stage. Near the entrance examination, Ye Yang began to lose things frequently, glasses, pens… At first she didn’t realize there was anything unusual about it. Until one day, Ye Yang drank water and took medicine, and found that the thermos cup was filled with urine. The teacher in charge of the class verbally said to be strict, but the exam is imminent, and finally did not do anything.
Before ye targeted a classmate, the boy had always said he was close to ye and had fabricated stories about them going out alone.
Ye Yang, who had been going home alone, made an unusual call to his father at the weekend and asked him to pick him up. For a long time afterward, she had an instinctive fear of the “suspicious object” who shared the school bus. But to her parents, she said only that she had been “bullied by boys”.
Subconsciously, Ye did not see asking for help from her parents as an effective and reliable channel.
After the incident, Ye Yang vowed, “We must get away from this place.” But the principal wanted Ye, who was in the top 10 in her grade, to stay at the school, and privately invited her parents to dinner, promising a 10,000 yuan scholarship. Ye Yang’s father is very moved, several times to persuade, Ye Yang verbally agreed, but finally choose to volunteer, or head also did not return, filled in the best high school in Dongguan.
Now, Ye Yang has been used to asking questions before writing back, volunteering, falling in love, doing charity work, doing internship… Occasionally, when her parents disagreed, she was unfazed. “Why are you in such a role? Why interfere with me?”
Two decades ago, when Guangdong’s surging economy swept through the family, Ye Yang’s parents ran a garment factory in Dongguan and had no time to take care of their second daughter, who had just been weaned. Like a wave of left-behind children who emerged in the 1990s, Ye Yang was sent to his grandparents’ home, 270 kilometers from Dongguan.
Ye faced an even more terrible fate when the “son preference” was so deeply rooted in the area that her parents, desperate for a son, tried to give her away to friends who could not have children, but were stopped by the older generation.
For the first ten years, the poplars grew wild and free. This girl, who has neither material nor friends, lacks only the company of her parents and the necessary discipline. When she became slightly conscious, she found that only her parents were not there. Weekend to friends home “wild”, Leaf Yang heart faint envy, she felt “someone in good”. Although the parents of the friends were Shouting and playing mahjong, they would sometimes shout rude words.
It also made her look forward to her parents’ twice-yearly visits.
Sometimes her grandparents would casually say, “Today your parents are coming home,” and she would come to the little bench and sit at the door. Her grandparents’ home is on the side of a ring road in a county town in Heyuan city, facing a 100-meter-wide, 30-degree slope, followed by a sunken field with no line of sight. Ye Yang can see the highway far beyond, and she always thought her parents would drive past it.
But often sit on the bench for a day, the sun falls from the east to the west, Ye Yang also can’t hear the sound of tires rubbing the road, only feel the hopeless time.
But in the parents really come back, Ye Yang will only hide in the corner of the door with a mouth to smile, and in front of people she will deliberately cold, showing the appearance of non-clingy. One night after the New Year, Ye Yang’s parents came back to Dongguan. She hid under the quilt, biting the pillow and crying. When she could not bear it any more, she ran to her grandmother’s bed, got into the quilt, touched her grandmother’s arm and fell asleep gently. The next day her grandmother asked her why she had stolen away, and Ye replied, “I am afraid of ghosts.”
Because of this experience, Ye said, the first attachment, fear, pity, guilt, love and pain in his blood came from his grandparents, not his parents.
2
His sister, who was two years older than Ye, was also sent back to Heyuan before she started primary school. My parents soon made money and built a four-storey house for my grandparents. There were flower beds at the door, tiles inside and outside, and sofas and air-conditioners.
Ye and his sister sleep in the same room, but the relationship is not close, often fight, sometimes also together on the wall with Jay Chou, S.H.E. Star poster.
After attending primary school in the town, Ye Yang’s sister began to contact some “equally neglected” children, frequently going to Internet cafes, KTV, and even bars. She would fight with other girls in the toilet, learn to smoke cigarettes, and put “heavy make-up” on her face. The sisters were also “deep pockets” — their father would leave a few hundred dollars in a drawer before he left. Ye Yang followed his sister behind and also went into those places to experience. But in the net bar, she was simply chatting with strangers in the popular way of QQ, saying, “Hey, beauty.”
Sitting in a small bar full of lights and wine, she obviously felt uncomfortable and would only drink drinks in silence.
“Left-behind children do everything!” Ye Yang said with self-mockery, and then laughed again unbridled, with crooked almond eyes, two pointed tiger teeth, and a sly expression in his pleasant expression.
When Ye Yang was five, his younger brother joined the army. Ye Yang had been unaware of her brother’s existence until her grandmother casually mentioned that a new member of the family had arrived, and it was a boy. Because of little contact, the younger brother in Ye Yang’s childhood impression, almost in a vacuum state.
Five years later, despite their elders’ objections, ye Yang and her sister were coaxed back to Dongguan and transferred to a local private boarding school. But they still worked overtime in the factory until 12 o ‘clock every day and night, which seemed to be the norm in Guangdong at that time. “My parents just think it’s better to be around and educate, but in fact they still don’t have time for me.”
Ye Yang was not diligent in her studies, but in Dongguan, her distrust of the new environment stimulated her to keep rising and gain a sense of security by her excellent study. Transfer after the first test, is the class first.
Ye’s sister, meanwhile, has taken a different path. “Maybe the way I want to get my parents’ attention is with grades, but my sister uses’ bewitching ‘,” she says. In those days, my sister was obsessed with chasing stars, spending all her pocket money for Dongfang Shen Qi (a disbanded South Korean idol boy group), facing the computer every day, and learning to carry the latest news of Oba people from the Internet. She became the “little V” in Tieba and Weibo.
As ye entered puberty, he unconsciously closed the door of communication with his sister. “Sister minefield is a lot of, a step on her will be fried hair, as time goes by completely silent.” Although ye went to the same junior high school and occasionally took the school bus with his brother, he never went home with his sister.
When the left-behind children grow up
When they returned home at the weekend, their parents began to pour out their dissatisfaction with their sister and compare ye Yang, who had excellent academic performance, with her, which intensified the conflict instead. In front of Ye Yang’s parents, the elder sister would say, “You are partial!” The most intense one time, the mother pointed at her sister scolding way in the living room: “If I had known that you were like this, I would kill you as soon as you were born. I would rather have a barbecued pork than have you…”
“Now if I heard my mother say that again, I would definitely point out her mistake.” But at that time, his sister and parents were crying in the living room, and Ye Yang often hid in the room, covering the quilt and going to sleep. “I think there are problems on both sides, but I don’t want to reconcile them.”
In the following days, she also noticed the unusual silence of her younger brother. In Ye Yang’s mind, he never expressed his emotions at home. “My elder sister obviously belongs to the rebellious type, and my younger brother’s state is unpredictable.
After she went to college, Ye Yang went home one semester after another. When her brother in the living room saw her come in, he just said, “Hey!” and then hurried back to the room, bag in hand. At that moment, Ye Yang was puzzled by his brother’s indifference. “After not seeing me for so long, wouldn’t you be surprised if I suddenly came back?”
Sometimes the younger brother went out to play, Ye Yang naturally asked, the younger brother back: “you ask so many why ah?”
“My parents are typical Cantonese parents. They only care about making money, but they can’t do anything about education. It’s the forced keeping and stocking that makes the three of us so different.” To Ye Yang, the three siblings are like three peas in a pod, all connected to each other.
Today, my younger brother’s grades in the second year of high school are still at the bottom of the class, while my older sister is more like being immersed in the backwater of life. After dropping out of school, going to South Korea and studying in a technical school, my older sister seems to have lost the spirit to fight for it and is still unemployed at home.
Sister often in the middle of the night in the circle of friends exclamation, such as “feel their life will not be good, want to start over”. Ye Yang was worried and secretly speculated that her sister was suffering from depression, but she did not tell her parents because she thought “they would not understand”.
On the night of National Day in 2016, my father and my sister quarreled with each other again. Hearing my father say “get out of here”, my 23-year-old sister did not hesitate at all. She dragged her suitcase out of the house and then refused to answer the phone and return to WeChat. When she was found by her parents, she was hiding in a small hotel, eating takeout and watching Korean dramas.
After persuading her sister to steal back a dog in the name of “foster care”, Ye thought it would be a turning point — in order to keep the schnauer with dog plague alive, her sister took the lead to ask around and buy Chinese medicine. She also persisted when her parents despised the incontinence dog. But after seven months of his life, the dog was gone.
After the dog died, Ye Yang saw that her sister had posted a circle of friends. She thought that her parents would be happy and could not be comforted. She began to chat with her sister, saying, “Sometimes there are too many helplessness in life. Although after this long string of comfort, my sister did not respond to her.
She also started calling home to talk to her brother, who still only said “oh,” “um,” and “ah.”
3
Ye Yang’s memories of his first life in Dongguan are as much of an academic success as of shyness, insecurity and difficulty in adapting to a new environment, and the rejection of all the girls in his class, especially nightmares.
At that time, sometimes Ye Yang was just writing her homework on the desk, and the girls would gather together, looking at her and laughing loudly on purpose. There are girls on the surface of her very kind, at the end of the class came over with arm in arm ye Yang, but secretly with nails ruthlessly pinched her arm. Ye Yang dare not move, not to speak of resistance, no one opened the sleeves, only to see the deep shallow crescent moon.
Despair makes Ye Yang more cautious, she began to deliberately ingratiate herself with the initiative to talk to her girls, more sensitive to observe the surrounding environment. Perhaps seeking a sense of security, Ye fell in love with li in sixth grade — she quickly agreed when Li Qing, whom she met on a school bus, told her he loved her.
“Did you have any sense of emotion?”
Ye Yang nodded, his Cantonese accent a little unclear, but speaking very fast. “Of course I do, and I always remember from time to time afterwards, a lot of emotions, a lot of problems, the first taste, the first thought, it was all from him. Really grateful.”
At first, Ye was so twisted that sometimes when Li Qing sat next to her, she would say stiffly, “You go away.” One weekend home, Li Qing did not bus, Ye Yang felt empty. When a classmate handed over her phone, Ye received li’s explanation, but she responded with a mock indifference: “Oh, ok.”
“Li Qing asked.” Aren’t you disappointed?”
Ye Yang asked, “Why should we be disappointed? “
“But I miss you so much”, when Li Qing said this, the shell that ye Yang had sealed up for a long time suddenly opened, as if touching the deepest softness in his heart. She realized, “I could express myself that way.”
During the summer vacation, Ye Yang returned to his grandparents’ home and secretly went to the first floor to get a landline to call Li Qing every day, chatting for an hour. “In the words of Mary Sue, it was like someone suddenly walked into your heart.”
Just like people who have experienced severe famine, they will have a different kind of emotion for food in their whole life. Ye Yang cannot restrain his inner desire for companionship and intimacy. After her first love, she had another boyfriend in middle school, high school and college.
Li Yongjia and Ye Yang were good friends in high school. At that time, Ye Yang seemed to have a lot of personality. After being found in puppy love in high school, he could stand up straight and refute the teacher: “Our grades are not bad, why can’t we be together?
4
The ye Yang in the life, appear ancient and clever and strange, like to wear lively skirt of condole belt, the hair also dyed maroon, look have no unhappy thing. Li Yongjia was deeply impressed by Ye Yang. After the broken leg was put in plaster, she took a picture with people everywhere, holding a walking stick. “That stupid X”.
“After I went to college, I gradually learned through some things that she was so sensitive and vulnerable inside.” In March of this year, Li Yongjia saw Ye Yang Posting “want to fall in love” and “xx fitness instructor is so handsome” in his circle of friends. He even replied a dozen “ha ha ha” in a state. He noticed something unusual and called Ye Yang. Did not expect just connected, the other side cried into a river flood. “All the blame is on her boyfriend of two years.”
The breakup was initiated by Ye Yang himself, as on previous occasions. She always feel that they do not deserve each other’s love, also afraid of each other to leave, always forced her boyfriend Zeng Gravel: “if we later do not have feelings how to do?”
This time, Zeng Replied, “I don’t know.” The thought of being left behind is unbearable to Ye, as in Gu Cheng’s poem, “To avoid the end, you avoid the beginning.” She felt negative and stupid, but she was defeated by her extreme self.
Just be together when, ceng Gravel ever is ye Yang “sunshine” infatuated, this long hair and waist, eye socket is deep then, the girl that is wearing round frame glasses, usually in total smiling, lie silkworm bend into a seam, do what thing all have 12 cent vigor. But in the course of the relationship, he gradually felt the defense on Ye Yang. “She never said what she really felt, and at first she avoided her family and past.” He also found that Ye Yang always asks “do you think of me” and “do you like me?” instead of saying “do you think of me” or “like you” in a straightforward way.
When quarrelling, Ye Yang refused to communicate, but directly blocked all contact information, always impulsed to say goodbye. “In other people’s eyes, she’s very independent and driven. But she is very dependent on her emotions and will deliberately act as if she is independent.”
After the breakup, Ye confessed to Zeng, “I really really really enjoy being a ‘little girl’.” In real life, Ye Yang’s father is rigid and bad-tempered, and his only communication is the regular transfer of living expenses every month. She projected the ideal image of her father on Zeng, who yearned for absolute tolerance.
On May 27, Ye Yang walked alone to the east Lake trestle at the back door of Wuda and cried for an hour. The lake was cool and the water splashed against the concrete shore, and she reflected on the feelings that had just ended. “Through this period, no matter who I will be with in the future, I will become more frank and open to my real thoughts and desires. I will be a person who does not hurt others and does not hurt myself because of melodramatic.”
5
After arriving at college, Ye Yang slowly tried to look directly at the pain of growing up.
When she was a child, she could not respond to her parents’ dependence and could only wrap herself up with strength. You want to be first in everything, but you always have doubts about yourself.
Sometimes, she dreams of being bitten by a dog and silently watches its teeth go deeper without hesitation. “It feels very familiar, like the moment in everyday life when you are waiting for the pain that is coming, hidden in the emotion of violence and joy.”
In the third year of high school, the internal confrontation was too much to bear. She began to suffer from anxiety and insomnia, and her hands could not control cramps. At one time, she suspected that she was suffering from mania. She tries to soothe with “a letter to a future partner” — “I can only rely on you as all my beliefs.”
As she expanded her horizons, she realized that her inner insecurity and inferiority were the legacy of her family’s lack of love. Now, should she “take off her makeup”? Are you trying to reconcile with yourself?
As a senior, she plans to spend the rest of the year working on public welfare projects. “Ideally, I would like to go to Liangshan,” she said.
In Ye Yang’s left-behind childhood, she was left to play around wildly, taking a bus with her friends for an hour, leaving the county town for the countryside. When a good friend took her to an abandoned house in the countryside, Ms. Ye walked through the front door, across the patio, pushed open an old creaking wooden door and into the backyard.
She still remembers the shock and emotion she felt when she opened the door. There was nothing in the backyard except an old tree, which had been standing alone and proudly for many years, its branches spreading unchecked, almost overshadowing the whole sky. The yellow leaves covered the ground, a foot on the foot, the sole of the foot is surrounded by leaves, so gentle Yang did not dare to force. A gust of wind blows, the leaves clattering on the tree, accompanied by the sound of feet on the fallen leaves, Yang excitedly cried.
It was the first time in her memory that she had been stunned by nature. This touched ye Yang for many years.
Afterword.
In her sophomore year, Ye took classes at a public welfare organization for left-behind children in Wuhan. After spending the day together, the principal of the institution asked her, “You must have been left behind?” “It was like being electrified,” Ye asked the principal. “How do you know?”
The principal smiled. “I can tell by the look in your eyes.” He went on to say that left-behind children who lack parental care in their childhood grow up to become degenerate and rebellious, or mentally strong, but both are desperate for love. Looking optimistic and energetic, Ye Yang always wants to separate himself from the world, but he is ambivalent. He wants to transform his inner desire for love to the outside world, so as to alleviate his anxiety.
“I think he’s on to something.”
(This article was specially commissioned for the “2017 White Paper on the Mental State of Left-behind Children in China — Non-fiction Writing Section”. At the request of the respondents, the names involved in the article were processed.)
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