‘Secret code’: rural China boy hangs school bag on door as honk-horn signal to driver to avoid missing bus for 30km commute to lessons
- Mother who works far away in city spots secret signal when she views footage from surveillance camera installed at countryside home
- Millions of so-called ‘left-behind children’ populate China’s rural areas as parents move to live and work in cities
The story of a boy in rural China who shares a “secret code” with a kind-hearted bus driver to make sure he does not miss his 30km (18 mile) ride to school has captivated mainland social media.
Chen Shifei is a so-called “left behind child” Secondary Three student who lives in a village in southwestern China’s mountainous Chongqing municipality.
The term “left-behind child” refers to those who remain in rural regions while their parents live and work in the country’s urban centres.
Chen commutes 30km to school from his home in the Wanzhou district every week.
On September 3, Chen’s mother, a migrant worker in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, was monitoring footage from a surveillance camera she installed in front of her village home so she could see her 14-year-old son.
The woman, surnamed He, and her husband left Chen at home with his grandmother when he was three.