Migrant workers talk about their left-behind children

Tang Dongqiang, 22, from a village some 40 km away from Hefei, capital city of Anhui province where he works as webpage designer. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

The village I was born in is not very far from Hefei, capital of East China's Anhui province. But the 40-km-distance remains mission impossible for me, a stay-at-home child then, to cross over.

When I was 10, my parents left home for Yinchuan city, capital of Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region and worked there as construction workers for about five years.

I was left to my grandparents, partly for economic reasons and partly for my education. They brought my 1-year-old little brother along with them.

I also learned later that people like my parents were called migrant workers and their kids like me stay-at-home or left-behind children.

Many of the villagers of my parents' age made similar arrangements in their lives and their children's.

The reason why they chose Yinchuan, more than 1600 kilometers away from home, to make their living, as I think, was the summer there was not as hot as East China, so they could work for more days each year. You know, most of the Chinese migrant workers are neither formally employed nor paid by month but by days instead.

I was short and lean then and often bullied by other kids. I was not able to describe my feelings in these experiences. Now I realized maybe what I needed was just a sense of security.

Prejudice from other children's parents was the second heartbreaking fact I had to face. Some of the adults tended to believe children who didn't live with their parents were mostly not cultured, so that some didn't want their kids to play with me. Their prejudice made me feel rather abased.

So I hoped very much that my parents could find other jobs nearer by, or at least came back to see me from time to time.

In the five years as a stay-at-home child, I reunited with my parents only once a year, during the Spring Festival, which falls in every late winter. A single one-way trip from Yinchuan to Hefei or otherwise took more than two days and the costs could be too much for them.

Every year when it started to get cold, I began to anticipate their return. After school, I often fancied that my parents might be sitting in front of the house and waiting for me for a good meal, while the tightly closed doors never failed to bring me back to the cold fact of their absence.

The stay-at-home experience lasted for about five years, until they finally returned to work in Hefei seven years ago. In the years, I complained, I cried, I hoped and I smiled.

Nowadays, there are still many stay-at-home children in China. If they overcome the hardship, they may treasure the experience in their future.

If they don't, the negative influences may be life-long. The society never lacks sad stories about stay-at-home children.

When I become a father, I'll try to stay together with my family. If I have no choice, I will bring my child along with me, because I know from experience that there isn't a child who doesn't hope to spend his childhood with his parents.