Wang Ming lives in a village in Anhui province and sees her husband about once a year.
Wang Ming and her pigs
Men who have migrated to cities to earn a better living have left about 47 million women behind in their rural hometowns, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The largest and fastest urbanization drive in the world has caused men to flock to cities in search of better incomes. Most of them cannot afford for their wives to join them so they stay in the countryside taking on the burden of the farm, children and elderly relatives alone.
In my post about women’s day I said I would introduce one of these women. I met her last year as part of research for a book on China’s left-behind women.
Wang Ming’s husband works 45 kilometres away for a construction company. He doesn’t have fixed accommodation but lives onsite wherever the current building project is. Asked when she and her seven-year-old son see her husband, the 41-year-old smiles, and says, “If someone dies or there is a big family event he will come home, oh and Spring Festival.” She’s amused, giving a smile which shows the ruddy colour of her cheeks, which spend hours a day outside, because she thinks that, I, a westerner, have romantic notions of marriage that don’t apply in rural China. “It’s not the same as in your country,” she says. “It’s better that he is away than we are together here and poor.” She’s unlikely to agree but a growing number of experts believe women are paying the highest price for China’s development. She just says that her generation is making the sacrifice to live apart so that the next generation will have better lives.
She looks after the family’s small farm and sells vegetables and pork. She earns 10,000 Yuan (£959) a year and says she is happy, that her main priority is her son who she wouldn’t want to be separated from, as many Chinese migrants are.
Her other concern is her pigs. Last year she raised about 30. She shows me to an outbuilding where she keeps them. Desperately house proud, she sweeps up the stray strands of hay, straw and leaves outside before I can approach. Asked how she learnt to raise pigs by herself, she said: “I read a few books and talked to people.” It took two years. Her ambition is to enlarge the farm, raise more pigs, start keeping chickens, and for her husband to eventually return home. The bricks lie ready and the space has been cleared for the new pigsty she wants to build. The chances are she’ll get this wish long before her husband comes back for good. I say to her, “I admire you,” and she looks at me, completely dumbfounded, unaware of the remarkable strength she and her millions of compatriots exhibit.
