There are lots of differences between China and America. (This may perhaps be the understatement of the century!) I remember learning during my first visit to China that many families live apart from one another; husbands and wives often work in different cities, and children often live with grandparents in laojia, or their hometowns. In my self-righteousness, I decided during that first visit that any family who lives this way is making a horrendous choice for their family.
Fast-forward several years, and I’m now living in China, coming in contact with people who live this reality every day. As I’ve listened to their stories, I’ve heard the despair and longing in their voices and seen the sadness in their faces as they discuss their families’ situations. God has softened my heart, and I’ve begun to see with His eyes – the eyes that LOVE the Hui and the Chinese people who are often put in difficult situations and have to make hard choices for the good of their families.
Chinese people each have a registration card listing their hometown, and this card can only be changed through marriage or a good job in a new city. Sometimes couples have to work apart so they can access jobs they need to provide for their families. In these cities, there are often no options for childcare, so grandparents are the caregivers, and many times, the grandparents want to stay in their hometowns rather than move to new cities. Even if the grandparents do live in the cities while their grandchildren are toddlers and preschool-aged, when it comes time for first grade, they have to move back to their hometown so the children will be able to attend school in their registered cities. What’s more, these families are typically only reunited once or twice a year during week-long national holidays.
Once, I was talking to a mother of one of my son’s preschool classmates, discussing where our kids would go when they start first grade, and she looked heart-broken as she told me her son would have to go back to her hometown as there is no way he can attend the schools here in the big city. Any remnant of my self-righteousness fled at that point, and in its place was a mother’s sympathy at having to be separated from her child.
There are, however, exceptions to these situations. I have a good Hui friend who is pregnant with her second child. She and her husband are an anomaly; their young son lives with them instead of with his grandparents across the country, and, after their second child is born, they plan to keep both children with them. My friend and her husband want to invest in their children, but they’re busy from sunup to sundown with their noodle shop and sometimes question whether they’ve made the right choice for their family. While I encourage them in their efforts in raising their own children, I know they face challenges that I’ll never have to. They worry every day about their son’s educational opportunities. He’s in preschool now, but they will have to pay expensive school fees for him to go to a local school in a few years. With two children to care for, plus work in their noodle shop, my friend will face daily exhaustion on top of that worry.
Despite their worries about the future, though, this sweet family has opened up their lives to ours. We love spending time with them, and our boys love to play together. Our relationship with their whole family is part of why we’ve been able to invest so much in them. I know that God is working in their lives, and oh how I desire to see their household come to faith.
For a Hui family to come to faith is counter-cultural, but this family has already proven that they’re willing to make counter-cultural decisions for the good of their family. Please pray with us that they’ll “taste and see that the Lord is good“! (Psalm 34:8)