Last semester, I told the story of one of my students who is from a small and poor village. As I have gotten to know this girl better, we have become great friends. The better we get to know each other, the more I learn about her life. It turns out that when she was born, her parents decided they didn't want her since she was a girl. So, they began looking for someone to give her away to. My friend's uncle decided to take her in, but he was really not interested or capable of all the responsibilities that come with fathering a child, and so she was raised by her grandparents. As a result of all this, she rarely talks to her birth mother and says she feels unloved by her family, aside from her younger sister (who was not given away) and an elderly grandmother to whom she is very close. What amazes me, though, is the strength and compassion and optimism of my friend.
I know that the culture here is so different from what we know and that a son is seen as the family's only welfare system in old age... But it breaks my heart that any child is ever discarded solely because of her sex; and that because of it, girls all over China feel "not good enough".
Monday, April 27, 2009
