CHIN427 Springgrass

A woman in China, who goes by the surname Yan, is suing after being denied a job at a hotel in Hangzhou.^[1] Why? Yan was not denied the job because she is unqualified but simply because she is from the Henan Province. This form of regional discrimination might confound many, but it is the social norm in China with a history that dates back to the start of industrialization in the mid-twentieth century. When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established, the deprivatization of the agricultural sector and the establishment of the household registration system greatly disadvantaged rural farmers as they received no benefits compared to their urban counterparts. The urban-biased systems and policies put in place by the PRC amplified the differences between rural and urban folks and gave rise to serious regional discrimination in China that continues to prevail today.

As part of the transition to socialism, the People’s Republic of China prioritized industrialization and adopted a planned economy, agricultural collectivization, and various dual institutions under the influence of the Soviet Union. First, the PRC’s goal of industrialization was impeded by food supply issues due to a lagging agricultural sector. To remedy this, the government established a policy that centralized the procurement and distribution of food, which required farmers in rural China to produce crops “based on the quotas as prescribed to them.”^[2] Since the government was in control of agricultural production, they socialized it further by instituting agricultural collectivization. This changed privately owned farmland and other agricultural assets into public ownership, causing farmers to lose property rights, economic leverage, and self-sufficiency. Extreme collectivism, in conjunction with natural disasters, drastically crippled output in 1956 and forced many farmers to flee to the city for better economic opportunities.^[3]

However, once migrant workers arrived in the city, they faced a new set of policies enabled by the government that made it extremely difficult for them to succeed in urban China. In particular, the household registration system, more commonly known as the hukou system, prevented migrant workers from accessing the same economic opportunities and social benefits as city dwellers, which further exacerbated the rural and urban divide. The hukou system was initially established in 1958 with the intention to control farmers’ migration to cities, which otherwise might have become uncontrollable and disrupted the cities’ industrializing efforts. The system distinguished city people from migrant farmers by issuing them an urban hukou, which formally recognizes them as urban residents. People with an urban hukou had access to social security, children’s education, health care, employment security, public services provided by the municipal governments, and more.^[4] On the other hand, migrant workers were granted none of those benefits while they continued working underpaid jobs with long hours and poor conditions. Consequently, the difference in the quality of life, social standing, and wealth distribution between rural and urban dwellers continued to widen. As people with an urban hukou gained social mobility and obtained skilled jobs, rural migrants would work the menial jobs they left behind. This caused urban people to look down upon migrant workers, leading to more discrimination. Thus, the exclusion and neglect of migrant workers in the urban hukou system is a huge contributing factor to rural-urban segregation.

What is interesting about China’s regional discrimination is that it does not target minority groups or people of different social identities like in most countries. Instead, it discriminates against the majority: its rural population. China’s rural population accounts for 68% of the entire population, and it has “long suffered from all kinds of discrimination.”^[5] So what has caused this unconventional form of discrimination? First, China failed to update the country’s social, political, and legal systems in accordance with its rapid industrialization and economic growth. This resulted in several loopholes in the system that caused migrant workers to be unprotected: insufficient labor supervision, poor law enforcement, and no employment contracts, which gave rise to many illegal and unauthorized workers.^[6] While the lagging social, political, and legal systems might have been a mere oversight, it is also important to analyze the people who were responsible for establishing such systems. In the case of the hukou system, it was most likely implemented by government officials who are native or early inhabitants of the city. The original purpose of the hukou system — to control the influx of rural farmers in cities and help identify city dwellers from rural migrants — was well-intentioned. However, the system quickly became discriminatory as those who qualified for an urban hukou had access to many more rights and privileges while rural migrants were completely excluded from the opportunity of obtaining an urban hukou. To this day, China continues to lack “comprehensive anti-discrimination law[s].”^[7] People from other provinces, such as Hubei or Henan, continue to be discriminated against as they are denied employment, housing, and access to services.^[8] If the government truly believes that regional discrimination is a fundamental issue, significant reform would have been instituted to correct this matter. However, not much has changed in the last couple of decades, which brings on the suspicion that the people in power want to maintain the distinction between urban and non-urban hukou individuals and perpetuate regional discrimination.

The practice of distinguishing between what’s considered internal and external in Chinese culture is a plausible indirect cause of regional discrimination. In the case of family, there is a clear classification between who is considered an insider and an outsider. Since women in China’s patriarchal society marry out of their birth family, the family from the maternal side of the family is considered an “outsider.” For example, maternal grandparents are called waigong (外公) and waipo (外婆) whereas paternal grandparents are simply referred to as yeye (爷爷) and nainai (奶奶). The usage of the character wai (外), which means “outside” or “external,” amplifies the distinction between internal and external family members. The effects of these exclusionary terms also have real-life implications. For instance, after marrying into the He family, Spring Grass was no longer a member of the Meng family and so all her sacrifices must be in the interest of her husband’s family. When Spring Grass and Rivers Ho made a sizable amount of money, Rivers Ho would send a couple of hundred dollars to his family while he only allowed at most fifty dollars to be given to Spring Grass’s birth family. The binary classification between internal and external always benefits those who are considered to be internal. Likewise, urban folks very well see themselves as city “insiders” and rural migrants as “outsiders.” This attitude towards rural migrants can also be observed in the language used to define them. Rural migrants in urban cities are often referred to as wailai renkou (外来人口), which means “external population,” or wailai dagong renyuan (外来打工人员), which means migrant workers. The repetition of the word wai emphasizes their foreign and external identity, which may prompt urban folks to view rural migrants as a threat. As a defense mechanism, they enforced the hukou system to ensure that they are still recognized as an internal member of the city with access to internal resources that do not belong to those who are “outsiders.” Thus, the division between internal and external is a mindset that is ingrained in Chinese culture, society, and language and may have influenced the amplification of regional discrimination.

The magnitude of regional discrimination extends beyond China as similar sentiments are observed among Chinese immigrants in the United States. When Chinese immigrants from the Fujian province first arrived in New York’s Chinatown, older Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong Province looked down upon Fujianese people as they perceived the new immigrants as uneducated, loud, ignorant, and dirty.^[9] Even though Chinese people are typically looped to the same ethnic group in the United States, Chinese people further distinguish themselves based on regional origin. This further proves that the idea of making classifications between internal and external is deeply rooted in Chinese culture.

Therefore, China’s rural and urban divide was instigated by urban-centered policies and systems that severely undermined the mobility of rural farmers and migrants. The difference in treatment between urban and rural dwellers intensified their regional difference and this continues to be the root cause of regional discrimination in China. Although regional discrimination cannot be resolved overnight, education and recognition of the issue can help diminish its practice and hopefully eliminate this form of bias altogether in the future. Just like how there is some progress made towards anti-racial discrimination by people learning about the history of marginalized groups in the United States, people in China, especially those with an urban hukou, can learn about the rural farmers’ contribution to China’s economic growth and their inevitable conditions as migrant workers due to a biased system might help remove some of the contemporary stigma surrounding folks from different non-urban regions. It is difficult to combat discrimination, but it is not impossible. An earnest collective attempt to eliminate it can make a huge impact.

Citations & References

^[1] Lekai Liu and Zhou Wei, “Chinese Woman Denied a Job in Case of Provincial Prejudice — and She’s Suing,” Wall Street Journal, lasted modified November 26, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-woman-denied-a-job-in-

case-of-provincial-prejudiceand-shes-suing-11574698024.

^[2] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” in Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China, ed. Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009), 43.

^[3] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” 49.

^[4] Wenran Jiang, “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise,” in Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China, ed. Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009), 22.

^[5] Renren Gong, “The Historical Causes of China’s Dual Social Structure,” 32.

^[6] Wenran Jiang, “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise,” 24.

^[7] “China Must End Discrimination against Hubei Residents and African Migrants in the Context of Containing Pandemic,” Chinese Human Rights Defenders, last modified April 21, 2020, https://www.nchrd.org/2020/04/china

-must-end-discrimination-against-hubei-residents-and-african-migrants-in-the-context-of-containing-pandemic/

^[8] ibid

^[9] Yingying Zhang, “The Changing of Music Chair: Chinatown Old-timers and the New Fujianese,” University at Albany, last modified August 2, 2003, https://www.albany.edu/cimp/nsfemily.html.

In Factory Girls, Leslie Chang shares the story of women in the Chinese city of Dongguan who seek partners through the region’s largest dating agency: The Dongguan Making Friends Club. Among the various clients is a twenty-nine-year-old woman named Wu Chunming. Despite having previously been in a toxic and abusive relationship, Chunming still holds out for romance, hoping to meet someone who loves her and whom she can love. While there are people who marry purely for love, marriage largely remains a social arrangement in China, stemming from traditional views and societal expectations. Due to women’s social standing in China’s patriarchal system, rural Chinese societies traditionally viewed marriage as a mandatory rite of passage, an opportunity for greater social mobility, and a family affair. These beliefs are so deeply ingrained in Chinese culture that they have transcended into modern perceptions of marriages, making it hard for contemporary women to break away from tradition.

The basis of traditional views on marriage is that it is non-negotiable: every woman must get married. In Spring Grass, Spring Grass’s mother anticipated her daughter to marry out of the house since the day she was born. She started preparing her daughter’s dowry^[1] around the age when most children started school and deeply believed that “having a girl’s just raising a moppet for someone else,”^[2] meaning her daughter will one day belong to her husband’s family. When Spring Grass reached her teenage years, matchmakers and other townspeople would eagerly introduce her to suitors with the hopes that she will marry off soon. Despite proclaiming having no prospects for marriage,^[3] she still got married to a man named Rivers Ho. Spring Grass’s marriage signifies that marriage is an inevitable fate for women, and it is extremely difficult to escape this tradition. Likewise, in the documentary Leftover Women, 34-year-old Qiu Huamei continues to go on dates looking for a marriage partner due to familial and societal pressure. Although she believes she can rise above the stigma surrounding “leftover women,” she still lives under immense pressure and in a constant fight all because she is not married.^[4] Her struggle between personal aspirations and societal expectations again proves that marriage cannot be rejected. The Chinese government also echoes this notion of marriage by hosting annual blind date events as it views declining marriage and fertility rates as a threat to social stability. ^[5]

Furthermore, women were expected to marry someone of equal or higher status in traditional Chinese society. Hypergamy, the act whereby women marry men of superior social, socioeconomic, and/or educational backgrounds, was practiced as a means for women to gain social mobility. Women often married men from more prosperous families, men who are more economically established, and men with an urban hukou because it would allow them to experience the same socially desirable conditions.^[6] Similar practices of marrying men from a superior background is demonstrated in Spring Grass. Spring Grass’s mother “was satisfied to no end”^[7] when a woodworker from a very wealthy family came to court Spring Grass. Her mother wanted her to marry this man because money meant economic stability and a better quality of life for the entire family. However, when Spring Grass brought home Rivers Ho, whose family is poor, her mother firmly disapproved because she did not want her daughter to lead a poor, tiring life after marriage. Some townspeople, “who would huff disparagingly,”^[8] also disapproved as Spring Grass was breaking societal norms by marrying someone below her family’s status. In the present day, a variation of hypergamy still exists as women generally desire to marry men with a stable career, high educational background, and property.^[9] These attributes signify stability for women and they stem from traditional views of marriage in rural Chinese societies.

Moreover, marriage is a family affair. It is never contingent on women’s individual decisions. Parents are heavily involved in the process because they want what is best for their children and it is never assessed on the premise of love. With Spring Grass, her mother plays a huge role in her marriage prospects by voicing her opinion on the suitors. Similarly, in Leftover Women, Xu Min’s mother, who resides in the city of Beijing, dictates her daughter’s relationship by rejecting men whom she deems are not good enough for her daughter. Parents are heavily involved in their children’s marriage regardless of the distinction between urban and rural because “marriage is a business between two families.”^[10] Traditionally, marriage was strictly a business transaction that pertained to the transfer of property ownership. In the Chinese village of Shouting Hill, marriage was utilized as a transaction to allow for reproduction: “wives are bought with the currency of female blood kin.”^[11] In other words, female family members were exchanged in order to have children and continue the bloodline of each respective family. Since marriages have been historically practiced in this way, certain attitudes still remain. To an extent, families get involved and their opinions are valued to ensure that the marriage is mutually beneficial. The current views of marriage continue to reflect some of the nuances of rural Chinese societies.

A deeper analysis of gender and social dynamics reveals that traditional rural views on marriage are mainly a response to China’s patriarchal society. In Chinese agrarian society, since men worked outside of the house to financially support their family and women stayed behind to manage home life, women’s economic independence was greatly disadvantaged as it was nearly nonexistent. They relied heavily on men for financial support so marriage was quintessential for women to remain supported, which is why a traditional view of marriage is that women must get married. Since social mobility is closely connected to financial status, marriage was one of the most tangible ways for women to move up in social ranking. Consequently, Chinese rural society practiced hypergamy. Women often married men from wealthier families, men who are more economically established, and men with an urban hukou because these were indicators of prosperity and mobility. Next, families often got involved with marriage because parents often wanted what’s best for their children. Since women held the “comparative advantage”^[12] in reproduction and domestic work, they were able to leverage this in choosing a marriage partner, and parents often inserted their opinion to ensure the best choice was made. Gender discrimination in China’s male-dominated society has turned marriage into a mere transaction between husbands and wives.

As women are given more opportunities and greater mobility in modern China, it is expected that they no longer uphold some of the traditional marriage views. However, those views continue to persist because gender roles and societal expectations largely remain unchanged. The three women in the film Leftover Women all received an education and have a stable job, but they still face the pressure of marriage from family and society. They also practice finding men with greater qualities and involving their family in their process. The existence of these practices in contemporary society illustrates how established traditional marital views are.

However, at the same time, there are women who are challenging these conventions despite their persistence. Qiu Huamei, who struggled heavily with martial pressures, ultimately decided to live for herself and not conform to societal expectations. Rather than settling for a man and getting married, she left the country to study in France to advance her knowledge and career. Given her age (thirty-four years old), this decision makes finding a partner and bearing children in the future much more difficult. She is conscious of this fact but still chose what she wanted. Likewise, Wu Chunming pursues relationships based on feelings and not superficial qualifications such as a person’s education, career, and salary. She is challenging traditional practices of marriage by choosing love and abandoning social practices of hypergamy. These women are paving the path for future women and minimizing the weight of traditional marital views.

Thus, there is hope for Chinese women to live in a society where traditional views of marriage as being non-negotiable, hypergamous, and family-oriented are not forced upon. Newfound opportunities and the courage of precedent women will redefine marriage and women’s position in China’s patriarchal social structure. In the case of Spring Grass, although she marries Rivers Ho, she challenged tradition and societal expectations by marrying a younger man from a poor family at the age of twenty-four out of love. It is difficult to escape the traditional views of marriage for women, but small triumphs along the way will lead to a big victory for women in future generations.

Citations & References

^[1] Shanshan Qiu, Spring Grass (Ohio: National East Asian Languages Resource Center, 2016), 3.2.

^[2] Qiu, Spring Grass, 1.6.

^[3] Qiu, Spring Grass, 6.3.

^[4] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[5] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[6] Yan Wei and Li Zhang, “Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women,” Population Research and Policy Review 35, no. 6: 877, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-016-9407-z.

^[7] Qiu, Spring Grass, 6.3.

^[8] Qiu, Spring Grass, 10.2.

^[9] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[10] ibid

^[11] Xinran, “The Women of Shouting Hill,” in The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, translated by Esther Tyldesley (New York: Pantheon Book, 2002), 233.

^[12] Yan Wei and Li Zhang, “Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women,” 879.

^[1] Shanshan Qiu, Spring Grass (Ohio: National East Asian Languages Resource Center, 2016), 3.2.

^[2] Qiu, Spring Grass, 1.6.

^[3] Qiu, Spring Grass, 6.3.

^[4] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[5] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[6] Yan Wei and Li Zhang, “Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women,” Population Research and Policy Review 35, no. 6: 877, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-016-9407-z.

^[7] Qiu, Spring Grass, 6.3.

^[8] Qiu, Spring Grass, 10.2.

^[9] Leftover Women, directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia (2019; Israel: MetFilm Sales).

^[10] ibid

^[11] Xinran, “The Women of Shouting Hill,” in The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, translated by Esther Tyldesley (New York: Pantheon Book, 2002), 233.

^[12] Yan Wei and Li Zhang, “Understanding Hypergamous Marriages of Chinese Rural Women,” 879.

A mild gust of autumn wind dispensed a cluster of leaves from a nearby tree, gently marking the end of their life. The shadow of the falling leaves interrupted the sunlight beaming down on Meng Chengying’s embroidery. Startled by the sudden change of brightness, she turned her head and looked out the window. Watching the leaves sway in the distance while her face basked in the sun, this was the most peaceful and blissful she has felt in a very long time. She stared and stared as her eyelids drooped to a close, slowly marking the end of her life.

Ever since Chengying could remember, she never had a moment of rest. From the break of dawn to late hours into the night, there was endless work to be done both inside and outside of the house. The societal responsibilities inflicted on women in China were arduous enough, but for Chengying, they were only amplified by the loss of her parents at a very young age.

At the age of seven, Chengying had already become a capable assistant to her mother. Every morning she woke up before the roosters’ crow to collect wood for the stove and prepare congee for her father and two brothers who will not be awake for another few hours. As breakfast cooked, she gathered leftovers from last night’s dinner into a metal bucket and brought the concoction to feed the family’s livestock. While she waited for the cattle and sheep to devour the food, she cleaned the farm, replenished the water supply, and laid down a fresh new layer of hay before her mother summoned her to return home. When she reentered the house, she was greeted by empty bowls and half-eaten plates of dishes on the table. Only many hours after she woke up did she have her first meal of the day, and it was always after her father and eldest brother had left for work and school. However, she rarely ate breakfast alone. She was often accompanied by her youngest brother whom she cradled in her arms as her mother left to buy groceries. When her mother returned, Chengyin left the house again to handwash the dirty clothes from yesterday at a nearby river where she is greeted by other girls in the same position. She exerted all her force into rinsing clothes twice her size while sweat dripped down the sides of her face. She desperately needed a moment to catch her breath upon arriving home with the pile of wet clothes, but her mother immediately commanded to start preparing lunch. Chengying took a look at the clock hung above the mantle and it was only eleven o’clock in the morning. It seemed like an entire day had passed but she was not even halfway: this is how she felt every single day.

Chengying was so accustomed to these chores that she never hesitated nor challenged why she was the only child in the Meng family to have these responsibilities. When her parents tragically passed away, not only did she have to take on the full-time role of mother in raising her brothers at seven years old, she also took on her late father’s financial responsibilities. The Meng family was not the poorest in the village, but they were certainly far from being the wealthiest. The savings left behind by her parents were barely enough to put three meals on the table and support their sons through elementary school. While her brothers attended school, Chengying sold dried goods and her embroidery^[1] — stitched after all her brothers fell soundly asleep — at a local market for additional income. Her work ethic and beauty were sought after by many men in the village, and one educated gentleman from a respectable economic background caught her attention.^[2] She longed for the day she would be swept away by a man, away from her tiring burdens; but she always held back from her own happiness until her brothers were old enough to work and establish families of their own. When the time came, her engagement was ended by yet another tragic loss: he had died of tuberculosis.^[3] Before she could start a family of her own, she was already a widow before the age of twenty.

Although her marriage was never certified, Chengying belonged to her in-laws according to regional customs.^[4] Despite having significantly fewer mouths to feed now, her daily workload was not any lighter. All the domestic responsibilities were pushed onto Chengying after her mother-in-law spiraled into depression having lost her only son, and her father-in-law’s diminishing health sent her back to selling at the local market to make up for lost income. She wished there was someone who could share her burdens but there was no one. It was during difficult moments like these when she resented the inevitable fate of being born as a woman in rural China.

When both of her in-laws passed away some odd years later, they left the remaining asset all to Chengying as a sort of compensation.^[5] This new chapter of life was a stark contrast to her last thirty years: no more mouths to feed but her own, no children to look after, and no one’s demands to attend to. Life was extra sweet because she had her own money and was able to support herself. For this very reason, Chengying never remarried. Why would she willingly relinquish her newfound independence for a lifetime of hard work and forfeit the sizable wealth she had inherited? Many older women in the village pitied the ill-fated widow and called her foolish for refusing to resettle, but Chengying was content with her life. With money, she no longer had to break her back day in and day out or endure the criticism of others. She also thoughtfully considered leaving this village and resettling in Nanjing, a large city she always dreamt of visiting. However, she recognized that the realities of being an illiterate middle-aged woman in China were not going to take her very far on her own. So, she had no choice but to stop daydreaming, obediently remain in the village, and move in with her eldest brother’s family.

Life back at the Meng household was characterized by irresolvable tension and unrest. Her sister-in-law gave birth to three sons and a daughter, so in the eyes of her sister-in-law, having another mouth to feed — a useless one for that matter— was more unwarranted burden as Chengying did not contribute to domestic work but still pranced around as the matriarch. To her defense, although she never formally had a family of her own, she had already fulfilled her duties as a woman when she raised her brothers with her two bare hands. If she had a normal life — one with children and a husband — her position would not differ from that of her sister-in-law, but the Old Man in the Sky^[6] has other plans for her. Chengying strongly believed that a woman’s fate is predetermined at birth.^[7] It cannot be changed and dwelling on it is time wasted. The fate of every mother is to tend to her family, and it should remain unchallenged.

Although Chengying never expressed this verbally or physically, she is quite impressed by the strong-willed woman that is her sister-in-law. Not only is she capable and hardworking, but she also blessed the Meng family with three healthy boys and a daughter without mishap. Secretly, Chengying envied the family and children that her sister-in-law could call her own. A part of her feels empty inside as a woman without a family, an emptiness that no amount of money can fill.

Chengying treated the Meng children as her own, especially Spring Grass, whose appearance and personality greatly resembled hers. Chengying would have wanted her daughter to receive an education and learn the skills and knowledge necessary for a job with a stable income. She greatly admired her distant cousin who finished high school and landed a job as a secretary at the government building in town. Her cousin did not have to look after her own two children or take on most of the domestic responsibilities. She was able to hire a nanny using her monthly salary and still have a sizable portion of money left for spending. Chengying fancied trading lives with her cousin just to experience it for a day. She strongly believed that if she had received an education, she too would have led a life beyond the confines of her home with greater liberties and opportunities.

Chengying often emphasized the importance of school to Spring Grass, but her sister-in-law refused to enroll her daughter because she did not see the need for girls to go to school. Her sister-in-law finished elementary school at the top of her class but still ended up working to death making ends meet for her family.^[8] It was for this very reason and the family’s financial limitations that Chengying’s mother never allowed her to go to school with her brothers. As a woman in rural China, Chengying was highly unlikely going to change her fate, but she could only hope that girls in future generations have the opportunity to venture beyond the bounds of the village and live a purposeful life unlike herself.

On a bright, sunny fall day in the mild month of October,^[9] Chengying passed away unfulfilled inside like the unfinished embroidery^[10] she worked on moments before her last breath. She left her remaining asset for Spring Grass to go to school because she understood the importance of education for girls. Chengying’s most fervent wish was to see a glimpse of the world past the mountains,^[11] a wish she left for an educated Spring Grass to hopefully turn into reality.

Citations & References

^[1] Hershatter, 194. “I spent the money I earned from embroidery to buy food. The pocket money in my family mainly depended on my embroidery.”

^[2] Qiu, 2.4. “The villagers saw that she was capable… finally settled on a man with a comfortable economic situation and an education.”

^[3] Qiu, 2.4. “How could she have known that he had tuberculosis?”

^[4] Qiu, 2.4. “According to the custom in those parts, she was already the new daughter-in-law to that family.”

^[5] Qiu, 2.4. “Were she to remarry, she would need the blessing of her in-laws, who guarded their silence on the matter.”

^[6] Direct translation of 老天爷 from the Chinese version of the text, meaning God and/or the Heavens

^[7] Spring Grass TV Show, episode 1, 11:37 – 11:38

^[8] Qiu, 2.3. “I work myself to death for your Meng family.”

^[9] Qiu, 2.3. “Who knew her aunt would suddenly go ahead and die. She died on a bright, sunny fall day in the mild month of October.”

^[10] Spring Grass TV Show, episode 1, 14:55 – 14:59

^[11] Spring Grass TV Show, episode 1, 11:54 – 12:01

中华文化博大精深，从人们口中的谚语到四字成语，从唐诗到宋词，从脍炙人口的故事再到现代散文，中华文化经历上千年的沉淀，向人们诉说着一个又一个深刻的人生道理。在本篇文章中，我想结合春草的故事，来谈一谈中国的“贵人”文化，以及它与西方世界“关系网”文化的相似之处。

贵人，字面上来说指的是一个人生命当中出现的非常珍贵的人。在第十七到第十九章中，春草经历了许许多多的波折。从倾家荡产匆忙带着孩子从家里跑出去，到遇到孙经理慷慨借款送她们母女俩回家，到偶然遇见的警察为春草提供一份临时的工作，再到张阿姐主动提出帮春草照顾元元并带着春草做生意，最后到春草遇见娄大哥毫不犹豫的借给春草2000元来支持她经营自己的店铺。可以说，以上列举的都是春草的贵人。没有了这些所谓的“贵人”以及“关系”，春草必定寸步难行，仍然停留在房子被抵押债务不得翻身的阶段，更不要去谈春草最终能拥有自己的春草炒货店了。

然而这些“贵人”都是从何处而来的呢？为什么他们都愿意帮助春草，在她最困难的时候帮助她度过难关呢？原因就在春草自己身上。在中国的“贵人”文化中，一个人生命中的贵人用一句话来概括：是可遇而不可得的。一个人很难刻意去做些什么来遇到自己的贵人，而贵人就是在你最需要的时候毫无征兆地出现了。而要想遇到贵人，在你困难的时候有人愿意帮助你，这些都与平时自己的言行举止以及待人接物的方式有关系。

春草就是这么一个讨人欢喜的姑娘。她无论到哪里都是笑眯眯的，一副吃苦耐劳的样子。和她相处过的人都知道她那认真热情的性格，以及伶俐却不缺乏朴实的口才。正是她的吃苦耐劳以及待人接物的坦诚，才能让她遇到如此多的贵人来帮助她度过难关。孙经理愿意借春草钱来送她们母女回家，是因为春草曾经在山西做生意时，她的认真负责和无人能比的热情给经理带来了很深的印象和巨大的收益；路上偶遇的警察愿意为春草提供工作，是因为春草的朴实以及在大年夜还在认真工作的态度，警察同志认为这样吃苦耐劳的春草能够胜任照顾他母亲的工作；旅店里遇到的张阿姐愿意帮助春草带孩子以及带着她一起卖炒货，是因为春草的随和以及她的聪明，她既是心疼春草的伢儿没人照顾，也看中春草聪明的生意头脑能够帮她一起卖出更多的炒货；娄大哥愿意慷慨地借春草2000元来资助她开店铺，一是因为春草乖巧的小嘴诉说了她悲惨的经历，二是因为春草并没有拿着不能找零50块跑路的朴实，娄大哥认为春草开的炒货店一定会发达，所以才选择把这2000元投资在春草身上。这每一件事，每一个贵人，看似都是春草的运气比较好，偶然碰到了这么多贵人愿意帮助她，靠着一段段关系度过经济危机。然而，这些其实一点也不是偶然，而是春草靠着自己的人格魅力，吸引了如此多愿意帮助她的人。所谓“贵人”其实并不是靠着运气，而是依靠着自己平时的努力以及人格魅力才能积累下这些“贵人”和“关系”，在困难的时候才会得到帮助。在中国做很多事情都需要“关系”，没有关系我们将寸步难行。在中国古代就有这样的一句话：“一个好汉三个帮”。在书籍《三国演义》中，刘备三顾茅庐用自己的诚意打动了诸葛亮，而诸葛亮也成功的成为了刘备的贵人，帮助刘备赢得了无数场战役。与春草与娄大哥的故事相似，刘备也是用自己的真诚换来了贵人的帮助。由此可见，中国自古以来就有着“贵人相助”的传统。

说完了中国的“贵人”文化，其实在美国也有相似的文化，只不过说法不同罢了。在我看来“Networking”和“领英”，就是美国的认识“贵人”的一种方式。与春草通过自己的人格魅力吸引了那些贵人相同，领英的目的是让用户们维护他们在商业交往中认识并信任的联系人，俗称“人脉”，也就是“关系”。Networking也并不是一朝一夕的功夫就能有所成效，而是依靠着人们在平时的生活中依靠着真诚的待人和对事情认真负责的态度，慢慢建立起身边愿意帮助自己的人，也就是以后的 “贵人”。在美国的商业文化中，除了领英，也有很多其他的方式来建立自己的关系网，比如：咖啡会议。网络课程，招聘会（校友招聘），网络研讨会等等。而现在，中国也有越来越多的人开始使用领英，在校的学生们也积极的参与公司的校园招聘来扩充自己的关系网。总的来说，趋势也越来越接近美国。这证明了中国的“贵人”文化与美国的“关系网文化有了越来越多的相似之处。

一个人能否成功，这与他/她是否有贵人相助以及他/她的关系网有着很大的联系。光靠自己一个人的力量，在没有任何其他人帮助的情况下，在这样一个群居生活的社会中将会寸步难行，很难成功。而不管是中国文化以及美国文化，都强调了“贵人”以及“关系网”的重要性。每一个人的成功都不是偶然的，因此我自己总结出了一个“贵人/关系网”文化的公式：自我-人脉-机会。在提升“自我”的前提下，才能积累生活中的“人脉”，从而产生能够成功的“机会”。在满足这一公式的前提下，再加上一些运气，才有可能达成自己的目的。

综上所述，“贵人”与“关系网”都不是依靠着人们的运气而得来，而是日常生活中的积累。古今中外，没有一个名人的成功离得开贵人的帮助，从而体现了贵人对于一个人成功的重要性。无论是中国的“贵人”还是美国的“关系网”，都要经历自我-人脉-机会这都三个步骤。其中最重要的就是自我，只有做好了自我，才有可能得到贵人的帮助以及成功的机会。从这点上来说，中国和西方的“贵人”都是以自我为根本，是极为相似的。尽管美国在现阶段收到阶层固化问题的困扰，但通过建立关系网并且获得贵人的帮助，是打破这一问题的有效途径。也由此可见建立自己关系网的重要性。

我紧紧地贴着阿远的后背，跟他上了火车。这里有很多的人，有着一列长长的冒着浓烟的车。我知道有很多人在用奇怪的眼神打量着我，但我没有精力去管他们的看法。这是我第一次出门，第一次坐火车，第一次真正开始自己的人生。

在上火车的前一天晚上，我难以入睡。一是因为从来没坐过火车十分激动，二是想起了许多的往事。还记得过去的二十几年我都在姆妈的唠叨下活着，从来没有过可以选择自己生活的机会。无论是读书，还是帮着家里干活，我永远都是被牺牲的那一个。即使我读书比哥哥弟弟都好，拿了奖状，姆妈仍旧是看也不看我一眼。我一直梦想着能够离家里远一些，这样我才能有选择自己人生的机会。明天，我将坐着火车前往一个遥远的城市。我曾经去过最遥远的地方就是县城，而如今我要跨越祖国的南北。我能够感觉到我的人生会随着我明天踏上火车开始慢慢改变。也许更早，在我决定和那个在长途汽车上相遇的男人结婚时，我的人生就已经不一样了。所有人都否认我春草的观点。他们都觉得女人就应该早早地嫁人，在家孝顺父母照顾孩子，而不是像我这样做一个怪胎。他们诅咒我不旺夫，生不出孩子，我偏要向他们证明我才是对的。他们没有资格来对我的人生指指点点。我不需要听任何人的安排，也可以自由自在地选择自己想做的事。也许我还要感谢那场大火，是它帮助我下定决心离开家乡，离梦想更近了一步。虽然没了我的孩子让我很难过，但一切都是命运最好的安排，我只要去奋斗就好。

除了兴奋的心情之外，我还有些紧张。我希望自己能成为一个有用的人，让阿远真心觉得他娶我春草是娶对了人。我要挣足够多的钱衣锦还乡，让姆妈和其他乡亲们对我另眼相看。我担心自己在一个新的城市大字不识无法生存，成为阿远的负担。在城市里我会被人瞧不起吗？城里人会去欺负我吗？我没有文化，会不会因为这个原因被欺骗呢？我带了这么多的被面，能都卖光赚钱吗？我的孩子完全交给姆妈我放心吗？这些都是我非常顾虑的问题。但千里之行，始于足下。一条路哪怕再难，也要迈开步子开始走了，才能知道结果。

正当我还因为自己的情绪忐忑不安的时候，阿远对我的一声叫唤将我从自己的世界里拉回了现实。因为没有座位，我得看好大包小包的行李，免得被人偷了去。花了短短几分钟的时间就把行李都整理好，阿远回来后惊讶地看着我，夸我怎么这么能干。我心里乐开了花，从小到大都没人夸过我，说过一句好话。我很开心能够有人来肯定我的价值，哪怕是收拾行李这样的一件小事。我突然很想上厕所，但找了半天都没有一个女厕。后来进了厕所却又更害怕了，总感觉马桶下的洞要把我吸了进去，从火车里掉下去。我哪里还敢再在火车的厕所里多耽搁，只好等到到站了再匆匆忙忙地下了火车解决了生理问题。

在短暂的停靠后，列车又开始开动。阿远进了厕所，而这时我突然两眼漆黑，什么也看不见了。我害怕极了，不知道发生了什么。我被吓得大叫了一声，阿远赶紧冲出来握紧了我的手。直到感觉到阿远手中传来的温暖和听过阿远对隧道这个东西的解释，心里才慢慢好受了些。这隧道也就像夜晚一样，我就当做现在是晚上好了。神经慢慢不那么紧张之后，车厢里的人都渐渐进入了梦乡。我没睡，但却突然地感觉有些孤独。在即将抵达的陌生的城市里，我的身边除了阿远没有任何的亲人。我的一切都需要我自己去面对，曾经那个顶天立地撑起了整个家庭的姆妈已经不在我身边。我在想多年前姆妈刚刚嫁给爸爸的时候，也是无依无靠却要撑起整个家庭，是不是也像我现在的感觉一样有些孤独。不知道身边的孩子都离开后，姆妈的生活会不会有些变化。身边少了可以骂骂咧咧的孩子，不知道姆妈会不会有些不习惯。黑夜使我清醒，也让我想起了更多姆妈的事情。我不知道为什么会突然想起姆妈，可能因为她一直是我的依靠，这个家的顶梁柱。虽然她做了很多让我始终无法原谅很多事情，比如读书。我突然又很想爸爸，又想起了我的孩子。想着想着，也就慢慢睡去了。

第二天一早就遇到列车员来找麻烦。阿远本要与列车员好好地争执一番，可我却觉得不大合适。我们夫妻俩在一个完全不熟悉的环境里，我想着还是能少些麻烦比较好。我和那列车员说我帮忙打扫车厢，自己牺牲点希望能让他不再找我们的麻烦。其实和这么多年帮姆妈做牛做马来说，这点委屈也不算什么。这点我倒是真正的要感谢姆妈，不是她对我的苛刻，我哪里能有一个这样能吃苦的性子。

接下来的旅途虽然十分匆忙，但也比较顺利。随着一声汽笛的声音列车的速度渐渐慢了下来，停靠在了这个陌生的城市。我拎着大包小包的行李跟在阿远后面，开始了一段新的人生。

在传统的中国农村，女子大都是不可以读书的。为什么？这哪里需要问为什么？不需要任何的理由与解释，女孩子就是不需要读书的。如果一定要说个理由的话，女孩子生下来就是别人家的，为别人家的孩子投入钱财没有必要，趁着女孩子还在家时多让她做些活才好。在《春草》中的第四章，春草短短一百零六天的读书生涯结束了。《春草》第一章中有一句话“春天你往脚下一望，便可看见千千万万这样的草从地底下冒出来”，春草就如同这地上的草，没有什么特别的，只是千千万万无法受到教育的可怜女孩子中的一位罢了。而书中有个小细节说明了为什么女子的教育不受重视，让我不禁落泪。

春草在期中考试得了两个满分，以全班第一的成绩兴奋地从老师那里领取到奖状的时候，可以想像得出她是有多么地开心。作为一个十几岁的孩子，她是多么地渴望这次的奖状能够让她在母亲那里得到一些夸奖和鼓励。从小到大，她都没看过母亲对她有过好脸色， 她希望这次考了全班第一能让她母亲为她感到骄傲。她想向母亲证明送她去读书是正确的选择。一路上对着亲戚朋友们炫耀，期待着到家时母亲也能笑眯眯地夸奖她：“你真棒！”然而到家时，母亲却连一眼也没多看，根本不屑一顾。甚至还为春草迟回家而生气。读到这里，我的心中感情五味杂陈，有难过，有愤怒，而更多的是无奈。我明白了为什么看到春草拿着奖状回来母亲是这样的反应。因为从心底里，母亲根本就不在乎春草读书读得好还是不好，这根本就没有任何关系。无论春草考试考得好不好，母亲都只在乎她是否为家里做完了活，能否为家里多赚一些钱。在那个时代的中国农村，无论是谁都会认为女孩子读书是一件没有用的事情。就算春草读书好又怎么样呢？她又不是男孩子，读书有什么用？每个人都同意这种想法，没有任何的疑问。而如果大家都有着这样的想法，女子的教育又怎样能受到重视呢？春草其实也明白这个道理，所以她在看到母亲受伤的那一刻就开始绝望。她明白了她的读书生涯已经结束了。她拼命地逃跑，希望能逃离她的命运。然而她无法反抗，也没有办法逃避。她能做的只有默默地从墙上摘下那张唯一的奖状，把读书的这段时间当作一个美好的回忆。

女子无法受到教育对女子的影响有很大，而我想挑选其中的两个方面来讨论一下。第一个是女子缺乏对自己的保护意识。在那个不重视女子读书的年代，她们极度缺乏各种知识。这其中就包括性知识。春草和她的堂伯就是一个很好的例子。尽管堂伯已经如此明显地对春草进行性骚扰，而春草仍然不是很明白堂伯是要对她做什么。正是由于性教育的缺乏，让春草没有办法去合理地保护自己。最后，春草几乎是依靠着自己的本能才从堂伯家里逃了出来。如果春草受到过教育，也不会被堂伯占便宜。

第二个就是女子的人生目的。似乎在中国农村，甚至在有些城市中，女子的唯一目的就是嫁人然后孝敬父母。和女子不读书不需要任何理由一样，女子的目标就是要嫁个好人家。这种观点也不需要任何理由，似乎是司空见惯的。因为大多数女子没有受过教育，所以她们只能听从家里的安排。家里如果认为有一个好人家，就会为你安排下婚姻。哪怕都没有和这个男人见过面，不知道他的性格。但如果他是村长的儿子或者家境富裕，这就是一场好的婚姻。女子因为缺乏教育很少会有自己的想法，也没有女子会去思考婚姻是不是自己人生唯一的目的。这非常地残酷，但确实无法受到教育也让女子失去了很多决定自己命运的自由。

在作者Hua Zhou[1]等人的文章中，有着大量的统计数据来证明当代的中国女子与男子在教育上的差别并不大，甚至女子在某些方面比男子更加优秀。在排除了一切变量之后得到了一个非常科学的数据，证明男女在受到教育后得到的效益是相同的。然而，即使把这些科学的数据放在春草姆妈的面前（在假设她可以看得懂的情况下），姆妈仍然会选择不让春草去上学。因为不让春草去上学的原因并不是春草读书比家里其他的男孩子差，而是从根本上来说社会不需要女孩子读书。这是任何的数据都无法说服的。春草姆妈的这种想法是中国几千年的历史的传承，并不会因为科学的数据而轻易改变。想让男女能平等地受到教育，只有通过知名人士的言论或教育讲坛等方式改变女孩父母的重男轻女的想法，否则再精确的科学数据也没有任何作用。

总的来说，消除男女不平等需要两个条件，教育和时间。在作者Wong Yin Lee[2]的文章中，提到在近代有几位为了消除男女间的不平等做出了很大的贡献的学者：周作人，李大钊，和胡适等人。这些人都有一个共同点，就是他们都是非常有思想，受过教育的人。如果受过教育的男子都能如此积极地推行维护女子权益的运动，女子在有着对同性更加强烈的同理心的情况下更会如此。我认为这很好地证明了我上述的观点，只要越来越多的人们受到教育，就会有越来越多的人愿意为了消除男女间的不平等去努力。而对比1920-2000年，Hua Zhou提到2013-2018年男女间在教育上的不平等已经在慢慢消除。只要再多一些时间，再加以一些政府政策的扶持下，这种不平等会越来越小。

[1] Zhou, Hua, et al. “The Gender Gap among School Children in Poor Rural Areas of Western China: Evidence from a Multi-Province Dataset.” International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 15, no. 1, 2016.

[2] Wong Yin Lee (1995) women’s education in traditional and modern China, Women’s History Review.

In Spring Grass, when the protagonist migrates to the city and starts working at the department store selling her wares, her incomparable enthusiasm and work ethic breathes a new life into the store. When the time comes for the election of an “Outstanding Worker” however, her rural background prompts the employees to rethink nominating her for the award. This hesitancy, because of and prejudice against her rural origins, is merely a small projection of a greater wound of the Chinese society: the systematic discrimination between the rural and urban citizens. The divide between the urban and rural population is not unique to Chinese society either. In Turkish society, there also exists a historic divide, albeit significantly milder. This division may be classified as an inevitable side effect of the rapid modernization of the nations. However, this brings a question into mind: Is the rural/urban divide in a modernizing society inevitable?

One striking similarity between the Turkish and Chinese societies is the presence and the role the rural population and culture played in the formation of the nation-state. In both cases, the main force of the movement came from the masses of the rural regions. In the Chinese Communist Revolution, after the communist party’s retreat, they decided to embrace and lead the peasant movement that was already brewing in the countryside (Wikipedia). Mao Zedong in one of his reports mentions that the peasants are a mighty storm that’s rising and “every revolutionary party and revolutionary comrade will be put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide” as an emphasis to the power the peasants would wield (Mao 1927).

In the Turkish Independence War, it was also the rural people that were galvanized to fight for the nation. They were the foundation of the independence efforts and it draws some parallel to Mao’s incorporation of the rising revolutionary sentiments of the peasants. However, the similarities end at that point. After the revolution succeeded, Mao’s policies took a turn to significantly favour the city dwellers over the farmers. It was not the general public who discriminated against the rural people, but the state and the legal institutions (Gong 2009, 32). The embracement of the Soviet socialist model can be seen as the root of this change. As the Marxist ideology hopes to achieve the ultimate welfare society to transcend exploitation, the rural life was seen as a remnant of the old primitive and feudal societal ages. It was not something to be strengthened but to be eventually gotten rid of (Kurt 2014). And the Soviet socialist structure embodied this ideal. So, by implementing the Soviet model in China, Mao turned his back on the peasants. Thus, the urbanites, in the eyes of the state laws and policies, were “favoured […] as the ‘superior’ breed” (Gong 2009, 51). In a way, he became a class traitor to the farmers, the majority of the nation’s populace.

On the other hand, in the wake of the Turkish Independence War, the country was in need of a national identity to embrace the people after centuries under the highly heterogeneous, multicultural, and segregated Ottoman rule. The culture in the cities was highly influenced by many foreign factors and did not represent the majority of the population that was made up of villagers. So, the search for the Turkish national identity was directed towards the rural life where the cultures were unaffected by outside influences and were thought to represent the core of the Turkish identity. This search for a national identity influenced many writers and artists in the early years of the Republic. A new movement of rural romanticism took hold in the literary circles. Papers, novels, articles were being published, praising and exemplifying the rural life and the peasant as the hero of the Turkish national epic. To a certain degree, it was true. However, for the most part, penned by people who have never experienced rural life, the romanticisation was far from the reality. The Turkish example glorified the rural life and praised its culture, whereas the Chinese culture put them down as something inferior to the life of the city and discriminates against them. Even though the reactions were different, both cultures end up ignoring the realities of the rural life

One of the primary reasons for the divide as mentioned in the Turkish case was the difference in the levels of education and economic power between the urban and rural populations, a difference reflected likewise in the Chinese society. In China, the educational and economic divide was a direct result of the state investment policy. Investment in the heavy industry was thought to be the best way forward for a strong national economy as influenced by the Soviet model. 88 per cent of the investment went towards the heavy industry whereas only 7.1 was invested in agriculture (Gong 2009, 39). Since the industry was being developed in the cities, this led to a major gap in the money flowing into the urban and rural regions. The poor rural regions were not getting the funding and resources they needed to get out of poverty and catch up with the cities. Moreover, not only were they not receiving any investment, but they were also getting squeezed dry of what they had to propel urban development. From this, the trickle-down approach to public funding becomes evident as the urban projects were heavily prioritised against the rural development (Brock 2009). And with how trickle-down economics does not work in reality, the funding scheme followed by the government only led to increasing the divide between the urban and the rural regions.

The Turkish example followed the opposite approach to the Chinese by making the rural regions its priority in investment. Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, says, “Peasants are the masters of the people,” emphasising their importance on the national scale. Aware of the exaggerated divide between the rural and urban regions, the modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture took precedence over the establishment of heavy industry. Through the investments into agriculture, in a few decades time, there was a rich farmer population forming and the nation was becoming self-sustaining on its own produce. Some of the current major cities in Turkey sprouted at this time around the rural regions where these newly financially elevated farmers lived.

Having a wealthier farmer population was seen as the foundations of a stable and prosperous nation. But even more important than agriculture was the education of the people. Historically education in the Ottoman era was limited to state officials and people from the high society of the capital region. This created a stark difference not only in the educational and intellectual levels but also in the language in a way that was one step more extreme than the misunderstandings between Rivers and Spring Grass in the novel. Getting rid of the illiteracy of the population and this barrier between the people could only be achieved by investing in the education of the rural regions.

Towards the mid-20^th century, educational complexes called Köy Enstitüleri (Village Institutes) were being opened across rural Turkey. A Village Institute was a school specifically for the rural children with the goal of raising and educating teachers who in turn would go back to their hometowns to teach, educating the rural populace. Rural children would go to these boarding schools and learn modern agriculture practices, maths, sciences, literature, music, and many modern skills practical for the village life— very much like a liberal arts education focused on raising rural teachers. This was the epitome of the rural education that was changing and modernising the very fabric of the Turkish society out of the dark, illiterate, and bigoted past. However, with the onset of multi-party democracy, the schools were accused of being “communist nests” in a politically charged climate and were shut down. With the closing of their doors, the dream of a modern educated rural population was also shut down. Later governments choose to mainly invest in the cities and the rural population was left further and further behind in terms of resources and education.

Unlike the Turkish example where rural education became a political tool in a clash of democracy and was lost, the Chinese policies of rural education were more stable albeit much more discriminatory. Even though great progress has been made to combat illiteracy in China, further education practices remained highly segregated. The rural children were not allowed to join even the compulsory education program of the urban schools even if they lived in the city with their parents (Jiang 25). They were barred of their most basic right to education on the basis of their origin. However, it can be seen that education was of paramount importance for urban and rural people from how much Spring Grass constantly bases her self-worth and insecurities on her lack of education. Even beyond the urban sphere, the funding of the rural schools has been inadequate at best. Since the 1980s the public education was designated as a provincial responsibility rather than a national one (Brock 2009), meaning the local tax revenues would be used to invest in local institutions, disenfranchising the rural children from a good education. For higher education only 5% of rural graduates get accepted to universities compared to 70% of urban students, further widening the gap. The odds being stacked against the rural people’s education formed a vicious cycle where only under 60% of the rural parents wish for their children to pursue higher education compared to 95% among urban parents (Yang 2019). This difference in educational attainments fuelled by state policies is the driving force behind the cultural divisions at large, and most of the rural stereotypes seem to be based on a question of character and education. In prioritising and even defining the Chinese national identity through the urban people and discriminating in their favour, the rural population has lost what little footing they had before. It becomes apparent that both the Chinese and Turkish rural population have played sacrificial roles in an ideological clash of their nation’s politics.

Ultimately, even though the urban/rural divide in both nations at first glance seems to be a side effect of their rapid modernisation and industrialisation, when looked deeper it clearly stems from the policy choices of the states. If the initial sentiments of the Turkish model towards economic and educational investment towards the rural regions were to be preserved, a more stable and equitable society could have been achieved alongside the urbanisation of the nation. And the initial and continued discrimination against the rural people by the Chinese state simply leaves no room for bridging the divide, and the longer it remains unaddressed the harder it will be to patch up in the future. So, the answer to the question remains that the inevitability of the urban/rural divide exists so far as the state wills it into existence through its policies.

Works Cited

Brock, Andy. Moving mountains stone by stone: Reforming rural education in China, International Journal of Educational Development, Volume 29, Issue 5, 2009, Pages 454-462, ISSN 0738-0593, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2009.04.015. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059309000443)

Gong, Renren. “The historical causes of China’s dual social structure.” Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China, edited by Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009, pp. 30-69. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ckpdk1.8

Jiang, Wenran. “Prosperity at the Expense of Equality: Migrant Workers Are Falling Behind in Urban China’s Rise.” Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China: Chinese and Canadian Perspectives, edited by Erroi P. Mendes and Sakunthala Srighanthan, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2009, pp. 16–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ckpdk1.7

Kurt, H . “Türkiye’de Kent-Köy Ve Kentli-Köylü Algısı Üzerine Bir Araştırma” . Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 3 (2014 ): https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/mkusbed/issue/19568/208591

Zedong, Mao. “Report on the Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan.” Mar. 1927, http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/ps/china/mao_peasant.pdf

Yang, Wensupu. “China’s Rural Education Challenge.” Chinafocus, UCSD, 4 Feb. 2019, chinafocus.ucsd.edu/2019/02/04/chinas-rural-education-challenge/.

Wikipedia. “Chinese Communist Revolution”, Wikipedia Foundation, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution

It was with great pain that Spring Grass parted with Richie at Mungsville to go to the city to work in the novel Spring Grass. She has left behind one of her children as she migrated to the city, not to see him again for a couple of years. Richie is not alone in his predicament; he is just one of tens of millions of left-behind children in rural China. The number of left-behind children has been ever-growing since the beginning of the economic leap that prompted many families to migrate into the city in search of employment. Barely able to accommodate themselves in the city, many migrant parents left their children behind in their hometown as they left for work and the promising economic prospects of the city. Even though most parents would migrate with the goal of providing for their children and supporting their future, the social conditions that drove them to this decision and the lack of care from the government makes it impossible for the majority of the children to have a bright future in front of them, left to be a generation of lost children.

First and foremost, the effect of the lack of a parent in the early life of a child has on their emotional and psychological development is the single biggest factor and is at the root of all the subsequent conclusions. Many psychological studies conclude that the role of the parent in the early years of life is irreplaceable and its absence has long-lasting adverse effects. Children growing up with absent parents perform significantly worse across emotional, social, and academic domains compared to children growing up with their parents (Tong 2019). Many parents leave off to the city looking for work to better provide their families back home, to better feed and support their children economically. However, is the cost of leaving their children behind made up for by their earnings in the city? In 2015, in Bijie, 4 siblings of age 5 to 14 were found dead after drinking poison with a note that read, “Thanks for your kindness. I know you mean well for us, but we should go now” (Miller 2015). The parent has been providing them with food and money to take care of themselves, but that was not enough for their wellbeing (Wang 2015). The absence of parental figures and living alone might’ve been a major reason that drove their decision. Yet suicide is definitely not such a simple event as to only be linked to a single cause. There were many other apparent factors such as negligence from the government for children’s mental health and also the presence of domestic abuse from the father. Unfortunately, the tragedy in Bijie was not unique. Many more children face these kinds of extreme decisions in their parents’ absence. The psychological harm of their absence is thus exacerbated by a lack of care from the governmental and educational institutions for their mental and physical wellbeing, in spite of knowing how widespread the LBC problem is.

In extreme cases, the children are left behind to fend for themselves, but most of them are left in the care of their grandparents similar to Spring Grass leaving Richie with her parents. Even though separation was not a foreign concept to the Chinese family, it has never been to this extent and this desperate. Most of the time, fathers would leave the household to work for long time periods and provide for the family. However, seeing that how both parents are leaving the countryside to work in the cities shows the stakes they’ve been pitched against. As seen from Robbie’s struggles to keep his factory operational against the constant demands and extortions, the corruption of the local authorities didn’t provide many opportunities for the locals to make money and gain prosperity. Coupled with the state’s need for cheap labour in the factories in cities leading to their inaction on the issue, it didn’t leave the parents many choices but to follow through. Thus, they left their children behind with their relatives to go out and work. They bagged their hopes and desperations over their shoulders and set off.

The parents hope that even if they can’t save themselves from this kind of hard life, they can work hard in the city to save their children from following through in their desperate steps. Most of the hope was banked on the children’s academic success, as that is the clearest way out of the harsh conditions they face into prosperity. However, it is not so easy for the carp to jump over the dragon gate.

In the absence of the parents in the household, their responsibilities are taken up by the children. Especially the older children become the parent figures to their siblings. They start caring for themselves and their siblings in addition to the household chores. If they’re living in a farming household, they also have to help with the fieldwork that would be taken care of by the parents. All these added responsibilities take away from the time the children could be focusing on their academics. However, it is not fair to put all their burdens on the absence of their parents. The lacklustre state of the rural education system is also to blame for the academic disinterest and low success rates of the children. Scattered throughout the rural landscape many children sometimes take hours to walk to their school. These are hours they could’ve spent studying, working, or taking care of the household. Facing all these hardships on top of the lack of parents to offer emotional and physical support through their academic journey, it is significantly harder for them to succeed compared to the children in the cities. Hence, against their parents’ wishes and hopes, they grow disinterested and jaded of academics. In most cases, they barely complete their compulsory education before leaving to work in the city, like the girl from Last Train Home, at the age of 15 following the footsteps of their parents. This created a constant cycle of migration from generation to generation, with the younger ones carrying the additional emotional trauma of their absent parents in their baggage on the way to the city. The parents are thus unable to break their children free of the fate they themselves faced and lived through. They failed the most fundamental reason that drove them into the city, away from their children, in the first place, and reunited with them by the conveyor belts that separated them for years.

The economic growth spurred by the years of cheap and abundant labour the migrant parents offered in the factories of China seems negligible compared to the social fallout that is the left-behind children. About a third of all the children aged 18 and below in China belong to migrant families. These children grow up in unstable environments and absent parents leading to social and emotional trauma. Even if they went with their parents into the city, proper education remains highly inaccessible to them. This means that a large proportion of the next generation is going into the society severely lacking in education, emotional, and social development. This comes as a potential threat to all the progress and social modernisation efforts of the past years. In the years when the ageing population has overtaken the children for the first time, the quality of their upbringing and education matters more than ever before (Chi 2017). In focusing exclusively on the growth of their national GDP, the government has severely neglected the social welfare of its people. Their policies that caused the migrant parent phenomenon, made no effort to care for its fallout. The numbers took precedence over the people that they represented, a sorrow that many other societies across the world have been and are still facing.

In conclusion, left with no other option the migrant parents who leave to provide a better future for their children ultimately fail in their hopes and goals. They become involuntary cogs in a machine that churns out generation after generation of migrants, stuck in a cycle that they themselves cannot break out of. Their separation was a necessity of the times forced onto the entirety of the rural Chinese society by the government policies and the economic demands. In the stage of globalism, China is not alone. Many families migrate great distances in a search to provide a better future for their children. What China and the world faces today is just the never-ending sorrow of human displacement on the most epic scale.

Works Cited

Chi, Dehua. Debate on solutions for Chinese left-behind children . 1 June 2017. April 2021. <https://findchina.info/debate-solutions-chinese-left-behind-children>.

Last Train Home. Dir. Lixin Fan. 2009. Documentary.

Miller, Michael E. The heartbreaking reason four Chinese siblings drank poison and died. 15 June 2015. 5 April 2021. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/15/the-heartbreaking-reason-four-chinese-siblings-drank-poison-and-died/>.

Tong L, Yan Q, Kawachi I. 2019. The factors associated with being left- behind children in China: Multilevel analysis with nationally representative data. PLoS ONE 14 (11): e0224205. <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224205>

Wang, Xiaodong. “Deaths ‘expose plight of left-behind children’.” 12 June 2015. China Daily. 5 April 2021.

In the first three chapters of the novel Spring Grass, we see the relationship between Spring Grass’s mother, her sister-in-law who lives together with them, and Spring Grass. The mother is at arms with the aunt for her idleness and unwillingness to contribute to the household, yet the aunt’s money acts as a safeguard against any real conflict between the two. On the other hand, the mother resents Spring Grass because she is a girl. In her mind a daughter is nothing more than an extra mouth to feed who will ultimately leave the household with nothing to contribute. All of these conflicts can be traced to a common ground: money.

Given the setting the first part of the novel takes place in, the basis of the conflicts between these three characters being money should come as no surprise. In the 1950s rural China where the post-1949 economic reforms were just recently starting, the population was still very poor. Most of the households were trying to get by with the earnings of one person, the husband/father of the house, since women were yet to be included in the workforce. Even so the workload of the women was not low. The domestic tasks were endless. In such families budgeting of resources had to be extremely strict, for even a couple pennies could mean one more meal for them. In Spring Grass’s family this was her mother’s responsibility. As the person taking care of all the cooking and shopping coupled with her strong personality in opposition to her relatively quiet husband, she was in charge of the family economics. To the mother money was an essential resource for the survival and wellbeing of the family. In its scarcity, she became the instigator of the conflicts against her sister-in-law and her daughter, both whom she saw as the source of their economic hardships.

The mother’s conflict with the aunt is really based on two facets: one is bred from the traditional in-law relationship, the other comes from the fact that the aunt has money. In the absence of their parents, the aunt has taken on the in-law role of the family. She spends her days in idleness, without contributing to the domestic tasks of the household, but living and eating under the same roof. It is the daughter-in-law’s, the mother’s, job to serve and accommodate her in-laws and the aunt seems intent on taking advantage of this custom both as a way to get back to the mother and also to enjoy herself in the remaining of her days. The aunt’s idleness while she is working day and night infuriates the mother and conflict is ever present between the two. This is the point where money comes into play. The money that the aunt has acts to incapacitate against the mother. Knowing that when the budget gets tight, she will have to ask money from the aunt, the mother cannot be too forceful with the aunt. Having money is a form of protection for the aunt, a form of freedom albeit restricted to her household.

Even though there isn’t much mention of it within the novel, at that time in rural China, the state was coming forward with many policies to get the women involved in the production. The women could now work in the fields and get paid, which prior was exclusively for men. Women were no longer strictly restricted to the domestic sphere, by working in the fields they could partake and take space in the public sphere. As far as social gender equality was concerned, this move alone was a major first step for that goal. As for the economic effect, this implied a degree of financial independence for the women. Much like how money was a way for the aunt to buy freedom, it likewise meant having some degree of freedom for the working women as well. They were no longer as tightly bound to the earnings of their husband to live and get by. However, in practice that was not so true. Women were getting paid significantly less than men even though most of them outperformed men, and when even a man’s salary was not enough to feed a family there was little a women’s salary could do. The new income earned by women would just go into the household and used to put meals on the table or, under the still strong traditional values, it would go towards the sons of the family. Moreover, the women did not have any real freedom in choosing their jobs either. Technically anyone qualified for a position could apply for that posting and work. Nonetheless the strict traditional social codes did not look kindly towards a woman sharing the same space with a man, who was not her husband, for extended periods of time. This idea of indecency drove many qualified women away from high-paying jobs that would have them working side-by-side with men (Small Happiness: Women of a Chinese Village). So even though money was something that could mean freedom and independence for women in rural China, it was severely lacking in its power against the social traditions to realise that meaning. Likewise, to the aunt the freedom granted by her money was sorely limited to her household, yet in the worldview of young Spring Grass her aunt was almost invincible.

Spring Grass learns her meaning for money from her aunt’s apparent invincibility against her mother. She sees money as a protection: protection from her mother and her oppression. To some extent Spring Grass has the right idea. If her household had more money, her mother would most likely not have treated her the way she did. This is directly related to the societal views on boys and daughters in a family. Even though one can easily chalk the difference in treatment to Confucian traditionalism, in poor rural households it comes down to a simple inhumane calculation of return on investment. Since the daughter will be married away once she is about 20 years old and leave the economic unit of the household, the parents consider raising a daughter almost like raising a child for another family. Whereas the son will stay within the household contributing to the income of the family by working, and his wife will be helping with the domestic work, so a son is seen as much more valuable than a daughter. This notion leads families like Spring Grass’s mother to overwork their daughters to squeeze as much use out of them as possible before they leave the household. Any kind of resource spent on the daughter is seen as a waste for the future of the household. The inequality in treatment only intensifies the poorer a household gets. In Shouting Hill village where five sisters only have one item of clothing to share between themselves when the boys get full clothing is a prime example of this (Xinran 2002). On the other end of the spectrum, it would be impossible to say that the children of different sexes will have the same treatment. However, it can be safely argued that with an abundance of resources to share among the children, the “toll” of raising a daughter would be negligible in the household’s calculations. At that point the economic driving force behind the family’s resentment towards their daughter would leave its place to the oppression by traditional Confucian values of the society. As now can be seen, the conflict between Spring Grass and her mother is arisen from the exacting calculation of household economics. The root of the conflict is once again based on money.

From the relationships and conflicts presented by Spring Grass and her mother, and the mother and the aunt, an individual’s current and future value to the household holds precedence over their kinship with the household. In poor rural China the driving force between almost all the relations can be attributed to money. Even in its abundance, the millennia of economic calculation that included women as a resource glooms the present day in the form of tradition. Ultimately, it seems only after removing money as a divisive factor between the genders could we hope to cure the whispers of tradition that keep an instinct for a society that should no longer exist alive.

Works Cited

Small Happiness: Women of a Chinese Village, Documentary, 1984 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kcPvggrn4M

Xinran. “The Women of Shouting Hill,” in her The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices, pp. 226-242. Translated by Esther Tyldesley. New York: Pantheon Book, 2002.

2013年发布的一份报告估计中国有1.055亿儿童属于流动人口家庭，约占中国18岁以下儿童总人口的三分之一。 留守儿童通常就是指来自农村地区的父母为了寻找经济收入和工作机会而移民到城市，但是把自己的孩子留在家乡或另一个城市。这种现象在农村和城市的某些地区造成了一个留守儿童弱势群体的现象。  比如说，在《春草》这部小说中，春草的儿子万万就是一个留守儿童。在第二十章，春草因为需要先挣钱来偿还债务所以把小儿子万万留在农村给她的姆妈与父亲照顾。两三年后春草要把万万带去城市，但是那时万万就跟外婆很亲了，甚至不叫春草姆妈，连抱也不让抱。同时，在中国也有许多农民工父母带着他们的子女一起流动到了城市，这样的孩子可以叫做流动儿童。人口普查表明中国有3,580万流动儿童居住在城市。 在2013年，6-15岁的农村儿童中大约有63％与父母一起移居到一个新的地方。^[1]在《春草》这部小说中，春草的女儿元元就是一个流动儿童。在第二十章中，春草在桂花东街的菜市场开了一个炒货店，而母女两人住在店的后面。她们房屋的状况非常恶劣，而且开炒货店的活路也非常辛苦。春草每天从早忙到晚，元元小小年纪就得承担起照顾自己的责任。这些现象对儿童的身心发展有长期不利的影响。研究显示与其他中国儿童相比，留守儿童和流动儿童在情感、社交与学习各方面会有一些缺陷。在本篇文章中，我将通过心理学研究与现实生活中的例子来证明留守儿童和流动儿童在各方面的缺失，特别是在情感感知和情感表达方面，是由于照顾者与孩子之间的“不稳定性依恋”，由于这些缺失造成儿童的心理健康问题。首先，我将呈现留守儿童与流动儿童产生心理健康问题的比率比普通儿童高的数据。其次，我会用一些著名的心理学研究来证明高比率的心理健康问题可以追溯到留守儿童与流动儿童与照顾者在情感方面上的缺陷，而这是“不稳定性依恋”造成的。之后，我将解释为什么“稳定性依恋”在儿童的人生中有重大的积极影响，而“不稳定性依恋”（通常就是中国的留守儿童与流动儿童和他们照顾者之间的关系）在儿童的人生中有重大的负面影响。最后，我将讨论一些会增加留守儿童与流动儿童产生抑郁或焦虑几率的因素，以及给留守儿童与流动儿童提供心理帮助的有效方式。

统计数据与现实生活中的例子都显示留守儿童产生心理健康问题的比率比普通儿童高。 心理学研究证明了这些心理健康问题与儿童期照顾者的存在和照顾有重要的关系。在心理学上，心理健康问题可以归类为两种：“外显”症状或“内化”症状。内化症状是指社交恐惧（逃避接触通常会喜欢的人和活动）、躯体症状（“一个人本来有情绪问题或者心理障碍，但却没有以心理症状表现出来，而转化为各种躯体症状表现出来”）^[2]、焦虑（情绪持续低落或对以前喜欢的活动失去兴趣，导致日常生活中的重大障碍)和抑郁症（对日常情况持强烈、过度和持续的担忧和恐惧) 等。外显症状是指行为问题（有注意力不集中、多动、冲动的症状）、犯罪或攻击性行为。^[3]社会学家发现城市和农村的留守儿童与流动儿童都比其他中国儿童更可能有内化症状或外显症状。研究发现，留守儿童，尤其是生活在低收入地区的留守儿童，更可能犯罪或从事高风险的行为，例如吸烟、喝酒、少女怀孕和性暴力。对于内化症状，社会学家通过电子数据库系统地评估所有关于留守儿童的心理健康研究。他们发现，与同龄人相比，留守儿童产生抑郁症和焦虑症的几率较高。据报道，他们抑郁症的患病率在12.1％至51.4％之间，而焦虑症的患病率在13.2％至57.6％之间。^[4]这些几率差异那么大是因为研究中所使用的工具和临界值不一致并很难比较。尽管现有的研究有一些不足，但是在所有有关留守儿童的研究中有90％的报告都显示留守儿童的心理健康风险确实更高，而且这些结果在统计学意义上都有很明显的差别。这些惊人的数字表明这是当今中国急需解决的紧迫问题，因此也是本篇文章调查的重点。在《归途列车》这部纪录片中，张琴与她父母的关系是真实生活中的一些很明显的例子，足以说明这些研究结果。这部纪录片记录了一个流动人口的家庭。这个家庭中的父母因为家乡没有工作机会而流动到城市，但是决定把女儿张琴和儿子张杨留在农村让祖母照顾。但是祖母年纪大，除了准备食物、给他们衣服穿以外没什么办法管教他们。 张琴父母要求她努力学习，将来找一份好工作来养家糊口。 但是张琴发育时期开始出现行为上的问题，长大之后变成一个躁动不安的叛逆少年。 她觉得她自己的父母只是离自己很遥远的两个陌生人，从来没有得到过父母的爱，甚至说对爸妈感到愤怒。 她最终自己搬到广州在工厂工作，并坚决地不寄任何工资回家，把收入全部都花在自己身上。这一系列的事件真的是很悲惨的。张琴的父母在她非常年幼的时候抛弃了她选择去外地工作最终也是为了她和她的弟弟能够有更好的生活条件。他们也不可能想到他们的离开会造成张琴感受不到家庭的温暖，导致她心理以及性格上的一些缺陷，最终与家庭离散。而更令人担忧的是，张琴破碎的家庭仅仅是许多中国家庭的现实的一小部分。这个例子也明显地述说了农民工父母给留守儿童的负面影响，也提出发育过程中父母给儿童关注和帮助的重要性，这一点与依恋理论有关。张琴从小就没有一段与父母“稳定的依恋关系”，从而导致了她性格上的缺陷。至于什么是“稳定的依恋关系”我在后文会有解释与定义。

与留守儿童一样，流动儿童比普通儿童有更高产生心理健康问题的风险。这是因为他们跟普通儿童相比面临更多不同的障碍，包括缺失照顾者，恶劣的生活条件以及贫困的生活。流动儿童能获得城市中的优质资源，但是他们同时也得忍受艰苦的生活条件并遭受各种形式的冷眼与歧视。 在城市里，农民工家庭的社会地位很低，大多数只能得到最低的工资也没有医疗保险。他们通常住在条件恶劣的旧房屋里。比如说，他们住的房屋可能没有适当的通风、暖气与牢固的基础设施。 在《春草》这部小说中，春草与元元在城市里的生活是个明显的例子。 在第二十章中, 春草舍不得倒掉她中午没吃完的面条，最后把肚子吃坏，不停地拉肚子。春草病得从下午到天黑连续跑厕所跑了五六趟，并且“冲到门外喘了一会儿又开始吐”。那天晚上她突然醒了之后感觉自己的嘴巴又苦又干，很想喝水，但是没有人照顾她。春草只好强撑着爬起来烧水，之后还得继续工作，甚至靠着墙壁炒花生。这不仅描述了一位农民工母亲的艰辛，而且也证明了流动儿童从很小年纪开始就必须承受的负担与压力。春草病的时候，元元就懂事地问，”姆妈你生病了吗？… 我不饿… 我就是有点想吃饭” 。当春草病得起不了床做饭时，元元自己在炉子上烧泡饭。”真是穷人的孩子早当家”。虽然元元了解她姆妈的处境并且承担起照顾自己的责任，但是不可否认的是，生活在如此贫困的境况中，缺少她唯一的照顾者（春草）的关注，在那么小的年纪一定给她沉重的心理负担。在第二十一章中，春草和元元因为天气很热所以得把床搬到街上去睡。这导致元元生了一身的痱子，但是因为不能洗澡就只能用水擦。 这再次描述了许多流动人口家庭恶劣的生活环境。而他们的情况也影响着生活的其他方面，比如身体健康。这种情况对照顾者与儿童之间的依恋有负面的影响，而这对儿童心理健康发展也有负面的影响。

心理学研究显示留守儿童与流动儿童在情感方面上的缺陷可以追溯到儿童发育期时缺乏父母的亲情、支持和监督，而这会造成儿童心理健康发展的停滞或恶化。研究发现，长期离开儿童中断孩子与父母的“依恋”，会加剧对孩子的忽视。这两个现象都负面地影响儿童的心理健康。“依恋”是人与人之间亲密的情感关系，随着时间和情况的变化仍会持久表现。^[5]从生物学的角度来讲，为了安全和舒适，人类从出生开始就会显示出倾向于接近照顾者的行为。比如说，婴儿天生有建立“依恋”的行为让他们得到照顾者的注意力，比如照顾者离开时婴儿是天生会开始哭的。成人也会直观地呈现“依恋”行为让他们更可能注意婴儿，比如在婴儿在场的情况下，成人会提高声音、抱起孩子或安抚孩子。这些行为与增加婴儿的生存率有直接的关系。照顾者是婴儿与人类社会之间的第一个社交关系。婴儿不仅为了食物而依赖他们的照顾者，而且也是为了得到情绪上的安慰。照顾者是婴儿成长中最重要、最固有的一种关系：照顾者教婴儿如何做事、与别人沟通和维持人际关系。心理学上有一项经典实验—哈洛的“猴子实验”—证明了“依恋”的确是灵长类动物固有的一部分。在哈洛的“猴子实验”中，研究人员吓坏一只猴子，然后给他两个选择：一个选择有食物，但是也有不舒适不温暖的金属物“母亲”，另一个选择没有食物，但有温暖舒适的毛绒物“母亲”。10％的时候吓到的猴子跑到有食物，不舒适不温暖的金属物“母亲“那儿，而90％的时候跑到没有食物，但温暖舒适的毛绒物“母亲”那儿。哈洛证实了婴儿发育时情绪上的安慰确实是重要的：“猴子实验“里没有食物，但温暖舒适的毛绒物“母亲”不但给猴子提供身体上与心理上的安慰。另一个例子是在历史上，罗马尼亚的王室1980年至2000年禁止节育并要求每个妇女生育孩子，而造成有15万的孤儿被送到孤儿院被政府收养。 因为有那么大量的孤儿，孤儿院的人员不足，没有办法与每个婴儿在感情上建立依恋关系。那时的调查显示在所有的孤儿中，只有20％的和孤儿院工作人员（他们的照顾者）有亲密的关系，而80％的有障碍性依恋或完全没有依恋。 研究人员发现了令人惊讶的结果：这种缺乏情感依恋的现象影响了婴儿的身体健康：虽然孤儿院的婴儿并没有特别的营养不良，但是他们的发育比普通婴儿较迟缓，而且他们的头部也更小。这再次证明了依恋的重要性：依恋会影响人们生活的每个方面。^[6]

心理学家也找到了证据来解释为什么“稳定性依恋”在儿童的人生中的每个方面有那么重大的积极影响，而“不稳定性依恋”（通常是中国的留守儿童与流动儿童和他们照顾者之间的关系）在儿童的人生中的每个方面有那么重大的负面影响。婴儿与照顾者之间有健康、稳定的依恋关系是被称为“稳定性依恋”。心理学家能用一个简单的方法来测试婴儿与照顾者之间有什么样的依恋类型。要是照顾者在场时，婴儿有信心在陌生的环境玩，这就显示婴儿与照顾者之间有“稳定性依恋”。要建立“稳定性依恋”，照顾者必须花足够的时间与精力照顾婴儿，并对婴儿的需求体察入微。^[7]“稳定性依恋”教会儿童如何在生活中有更好的人际关系和情感功能。研究发现要是婴儿在发育时期缺乏“稳定性依恋”，他们就没有机会学到这些社交与情感的技能，造成他们长大以后在生活中更可能遇到某些障碍，比如更可能患上抑郁症，产生行为问题等。这就解释了为什么中国的留守儿童与流动儿童产生抑郁症或焦虑症的几率较高。农民工父母长期离开他们的孩子，也就很少有机会满足孩子的需求陪伴孩子。中国的留守儿童与流动儿童和他们照顾者之间的关系属于“不稳定性依恋”的类型。 研究也证明了这一点：敌对或虐待的照顾方式、丧失实际上或象征性的依恋关系，比如说儿童与他们的照顾者分离（留守儿童与流动儿童的现象）、照顾者的死亡与父母的离婚，都会增加儿童的脆弱性更容易抑郁和焦虑。^[8]而更证明这“依恋理论”的第二个原因是当父母离开孩子后，孩子被忽视的可能性通常会增加。这是因为当孩子留在家乡时，他们通常被祖父母或家庭里的其他亲戚照顾，而这会增加他们被忽视或虐待的风险。同样，孩子在生活的早期被忽视对他们之后的社交与情感发育也有害。将来这些儿童在生活中也更可能与其他的人保持“不稳定性依恋”。^[9][10] 但是，除了“依恋理论”外，还有没有其他因素呢？

研究确认了在留守儿童和流动儿童的群体中也存在着其他某些会更增加他们产生抑郁或焦虑几率的因素。首先，照顾者离家时孩子的年龄越小，或照顾者与儿童分开时间越长，产生抑郁或焦虑的几率就越高。这再次加强了依恋理论，因为它显示出从非常小的年纪儿童与照顾者之间建立“稳定性依恋”就非常重要。其次，母亲比父亲离开家乡对孩子的心理健康有更严重的负面影响。这是因为母亲在家庭结构中通常扮演照顾者的角色。第三，更高的社会经济地位会减少孩子因为照顾者离家而产生的负面心理健康影响。 这是因为尽管这些儿童缺乏“稳定性依恋”，但是他们会拥有更好的生活条件。正如在研究中所证明，更低的社会经济地位与产生抑郁或焦虑较高的几率相关。因此社会经济地位可能在一定程度上能够解决缺乏“稳定性依恋”对心理健康的负面影响。

因此，研究明显表明，与其他中国儿童相比，留守儿童与流动儿童在情感、社交与学习各方面会有一些缺陷。这一群体约占中国18岁以下儿童总人口的三分之一，所以这在中国是一个迫在眉睫、需要解决的紧迫问题。虽然政府不可能阻止农民工移居到城市，但是政府必须尽快采取行动来支持这些为数百万受到这些问题影响的留守与流动儿童。研究发现父母经常打电话给孩子比回家去看孩子有更多的好处。并且，孩子们其实最讨厌的是父母无视他们，而不是父母离开家乡。进行这项研究的研究者发现这一结果表明了两种为留守儿童与流动儿童提供心理帮助的有效方法。第一是提高留守儿童与流动儿童的自我评估能力。自我评估的意思就是了解自己的看法、价值观、技能和意愿等。这种知识能帮人们更理解并提高自己当下的能力，让他们在虽然没有父母的情况下变得更加独立，而在情感方面上变得更成熟。比如说，非营利机构“在学校路上”在农村里的校园创建了“小雨点广播平台”。这是一个通过发布教育故事，音乐和常识来提高儿童的识字与自我评估能力的广播频道。这个计划基于对留守儿童情绪状态的研究。第二是帮助留守儿童与流动儿童改善他们与照顾者的关系。^[11] 首先，各地区政府应该努力地培训农民工父母或其他的照顾者，确定他们理解亲子沟通与“稳定性依恋”的重要性，并集中精力提高照顾者与孩子的沟通技巧，比如上述研究提出的经常给孩子打电话。此外，当地社区应该更早地支持最脆弱的儿童群体，比如社会经济地位低，被家乡的照顾者忽视，年纪很小父母就离开家的孩子等。政府应该在有大量流动人口的社区里进行针对家庭，改善父母与留守儿童或流动儿童之间的沟通的干预措施。^[12] 我相信，如果政府能够及时地给予这些弱势群体提供帮助，留守儿童与流动儿童的情况会有显著的改善。儿童的健康关乎中国的未来，是一个急待社会共同努力解决的问题。

^[1] Tong L, Yan Q, Kawachi I. 2019.The factors associated with being left-behind children in China: Multilevel analysis with nationally representative data. PLoS ONE14(11): e0224205. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224205

^[2] 张小乔．心理咨询的理论与操作：中国人民大学出版社，1998

^[3] Achenbach, T. M. (1991). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18 and 1991 profile. Burlington, VT: University of Vermont, Department of Psychiatry.

^[4] Cheng J, & Sun YH (2015) Depression and anxiety among left-behind children in china: a systematic review. Child Care Health Dev 41(4): 515–523.

^[5] Bowlby, John. (1957). SYMPOSIUM ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF CURRENT THEORIES TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 30(4), 230-240.

^[6] Harlow, Harry F. (1958). The nature of love. The American Psychologist, 13(12), 673-685.

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