1997-2006： Chinese Peasants

Wang Sha's tears

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In the afternoon of the New Year's Eve, 2003, I was taking photos on a cropland in Fushou Village, Huaiyuan Town, Chongqing City, Sichuan Province.  I was just about to leave as it was getting dark when a disabled peasant came to me as she saw I was taking photos there.  With bleeding nose, she kept sobbing out something but I could only hear her cry—the cry from the bottom of her heart. She told me that she had been beaten by some officials from the local land administration office.  On hearing her story, I suggested to visit her family and tried to know more of her story. Her house covered an area of about 40 m2 and its interior was very dark indeed. There was a sty in one of the rooms and besides it was laid a small bed. She told me it was her daughter’s bed. It was too dark to take any photos, as I had no flashlight with me. After returning to the hostel, I decided to go back to her house with flashlight. Upon my second visit, her daughter—Wang Sha, a middle-school student in Huaiyuan Township, Chongqing City, Sichuan Province—had come home from school. She was fourteen years old. No sooner after she saw me did she burst into tears for which she had good reasons. She had to pay the school RMB700 a year and the total annual income of her family was RMB1000. The RMB1000 was from her father’s selling sand after digging the riverbed. They wanted to raise more pigs so they built a small sty besides the road. But as it turned out, her mother was beaten to nose bleeding by some officials from the local land administration office and the sty was demolished. I asked them how much money was needed to build a sty. The mother told me it would cost her RMB50, while weeping. I advised them not to quarrel with the officials because the farmers were in a disadvantaged position. I gave them 100 yuan and suggested that they find another place to build a sty. I really hoped that I could give the little girl the money she needed for school. But I did not have much money. I wanted to help more children to go to school through my work.