Boy who touched hearts forced back home
Print Edition
A 14-YEAR-OLD boy, whose story of fending for himself in a remote mountainous area of China for four years touched the hearts of a nation, has been forced back home after little more than two weeks at a summer school in south China’s Guangdong Province.
When staff at the privately run Cambridge International Institute in Shenzhen saw a TV program about the teenager’s plight, they offered him a place.
Donations from the public quickly rose to almost 5 million yuan (US$802,000).
Chen Jingsi, a reporter from Guangxi TV, originally told the story of Yang Liujin, and his struggle to survive.
The program, aired on May 23 in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, told how Yang’s father died when he was just 6 and his mother married again, leaving home and taking his brother. Yang was left with his grandparents, but they passed away in 2010.
Since then, he has lived alone in De’e Town. He had around just 10 yuan a week to live on, thanks to his cousin, Yang Qulin, a migrant worker.
To feed himself, the boy had to dig for wild grass and herbs, try to catch fish and sometimes stole eggs from birds’ nests.
Kind-hearted neighbors, when they learned of his plight, provided him with rice and cooking oil.
“I just steamed half a bowl of rice because I lived alone and I just need half a bowl,” Yang told the TV reporter. He said he had rarely tasted pork because of the high price.
Life was tough, he told the program, but what really hurt was losing his family.
“If I am sick, no one will know about it because my father died of diseases and my mother got married again. Other children often bully me, saying I don’t have a dad,” he said.
Following the program, the Shenzhen school offered him a place and after a journey of almost 4,000 kilometers he arrived at the school on June 6. He was soon making friends and studying the Chinese classics, according to a report on China Central Television.
However, his cousin, De’e Town officials and his old headmaster arrived in Shenzhen on June 20, telling him he had to return home.
Footage aired by CCTV showed Yang trying to escape from the arms of the officials screaming again and again: “I don’t want to go back.”
Later, in an interview with CCTV, he said: “I want to stay here because my hometown is not as good as here. I have sisters and brothers here and I feel happy every day.” Yang was back in De’e Town on Monday.
Officials said Yang had to take his final exams in Guangxi and there was also the matter of donations to deal with.
Chen, the Guangxi TV reporter, dismissed speculation the town’s government was taking advantage.
She said Yang had asked for temporary leave from his school rather than applying for a transfer to Shenzhen. If he wanted to continue his studies in Shenzhen, there were procedures he needed to go through, she told CCTV.
The donations have gone into Yang’s personal bank account, Chen said.
Yang’s cousin told CCTV he was planning to quit his migrant worker job to take care of the boy.
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