A dozen elderly people, some wearing the blue tunics and black slippers of Mao Zedong's more doctrinaire era, are waiting in the rain beneath a bus shelter, not far from the village school in Hechuan. At lunchtime, the children stream out, many wearing the red scarves that show they are Young Pioneers of the Communist Party.
The grandads take the kids' schoolbags and they head off in different directions in this village about two hours away from the city of Chongqing. There is a whole generation missing in Hechuan and thousands of places like it.
A feature of China’s opening-up and reform process since 1979 has been massive urbanisation and the youngsters’ parents are among the 298 million migrant workers that have gone to the big cities to work.
There are about 100 million migrant workers, with more than 60 million such children “left behind” – stranded in their home towns in rural areas, often brought up by grandparents.
Former stonemason Wang Yongfu has a 14-year-old granddaughter in middle school.
"I've raised her since she was four. Her mother is in Guangdong working in a factory, she's divorced. The older generation looks after the children now. They are our offspring and it's our responsibility to do this," said Wang (68).
Because of residence permit or hukou rules, migrant workers can't bring their children with them, because the strain on education and health services would be too extreme. This puts pressure on the social fabric, even in China where the family unit is very tight.
The government is funding a study to assess the situation for left-behind children, and there are support groups trying to help the ones abandoned by their parents.
As Wang speaks, Ting comes along from school. The teenager is taller than her grandfather, and fiddles with her phone. "They take good care of me, my grandparents. My mother calls once a week. I miss her a lot but I went to Guangdong to visit her at Spring Festival [Chinese New Year]," she said.
Liu Qiti, a 68-year-old motorbike courier, is enormously proud of his two granddaughters, aged 11 and 7. Their parents are in the eastern city of Hangzhou, working in a wig factory.
“They are lovely children, they always listen to me. When I made a bit of money, I bought them two bicycles and they always get top scores at school. We are four grandparents living in this village and we don’t want to go too far from them. They see their parents at Spring Festival and talk to them on the phone, it’s hard, but they have to do it because they want to build a house for their children,” said Liu.
Psychological impact
Some left-behind children have problems at school, or suffer abandonment, and there were suicides last year. The grandparents shrug when asked for their views on the psychological impact for children.
Everyone accepts it’s not ideal, but the economic realities mean it is unavoidable.
He insists we see the children in his apartment a few metres away. The kids are running around after lunch, getting ready to return to school.
His 11-year-old granddaughter Liu Yingyi is in fifth grade, and a Young Pioneer.
“They do a great job of looking after me. Once a week I talk to my parents, I call them or they call me. And I see them at Spring Festival,” she said.
Liu said his wife was offered a well-paid job as a carer but she turned it down because she likes spending time with her grandchildren. “It’s tough because rent is 4,000 yuan [€544] a year, but family is more important than money,” said Liu.
What is striking is how big a role the grandfathers play in caring for the children, something they missed the first time around with their own children.
Zhen Qingchun has seven grandsons, aged 11 to 20, which makes him a bit of a legend in small-town China.
"Our situation is very common. The parents go away to work, the older generation takes care of them. You have to make money, and you usually can't take your children with you," said Zhen, who is cooking lunch for his grandson, Dongyin. "We looked after all of them. All of my children are working in other places, in Chongqing, Guangzhou, Singapore, " said Zhen.
Zhen was in the army when his own children were growing up. “I didn’t see my children very much when they were growing up. But now I have a good relationship with all of the grandchildren,” he said.
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