Documentary filmmaker chronicles lives of China’s left-behind children
Jiang Nengjie was member of first generation left behind by parents looking for work in cities
When he was a child, Jiang Nengjie’s parents left him behind in their Hunan village when they went to find work in Guangdong province. Now he’s a filmmaker who’s made four documentaries about left-behind children.
Unaccustomed to the fast pace of city life, Jiang, 32, lives in his home town and splits his time between making films and taking care of three village libraries he established in the county for left-behind children.
How do you define left-behind children?
There are two kinds: those whose parents have both gone to work in cities and those who’ve had one parent leave and the other stay at home. What scares me most is children who grow up without love. Some parents, even though there don’t stay at home, will come back to visit their children. I am one of the first generation of left-behind children, born in the 1980s. Many of us have children now. How do we, who grew up without our parents at home, educate our own children? That’s a big issue for the second and third generation of left-behind children. Humans need company, love, and education after they are born.
Beijing says the number of left-behind children in China has fallen from 60 million to 9 million. What do you think led to such a big change?