While they’ve acted out of love, the parents missed the mark in some regards. The children feel abandoned by their parents, who are only able to visit annually during the Chinese New Year break. The parents push the kids to do well at school so that they succeed academically and don’t end up working in a factory. The children show little gratitude for their parents’ sacrifice and Qin, the eldest at 17, drops out of school to work in a factory in the city.
The strangest thing for me to realise is that this is just one family; the parents are two out of the 150million migrant workers in China’s industrial areas. Life is hard for everyone, and everyone is struggling to make life better for them and their families. When there is a limit on jobs and opportunities, chances are most people won’t succeed.
While discovering the ‘freedom’ of working as opposed to studying, Qin says, “after all, freedom is happiness”. There’s something within all of us that is searching for freedom, but freedom means different things to each of us at different points in our lives. For Qin, freedom was initially being free from the expectations of her parents to succeed at school. After developing a fear of the factory supervisor she says to her friend, “maybe we could just roam around the world”.
They also spoke of suffering and bitterness. The grandma encourages the kids to eat bitter melon at dinner. “Eat the bitter melon first, then sweetness will follow.” The parents have tasted the bitterness, but the hopelessness of their situation makes me wonder if the sweetness is ever going to follow. The father points out to Qin that she hasn’t tasted bitterness; so far, life has been easy for her.
Do we have to taste bitterness before we can truly appreciate the sweetness in life? What is my definition of freedom, and will I ever achieve it? Is success more important than freedom, and is there more to success than money?
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