A recent survey shows that average Chinese children sleep about
an hour less than their American counterparts. Researchers
attribute this to the heavier academic burden placed on Chinese
children.
But Xiaodan, a 12-year-old girl in Chengdu, sleeps a lot less,
even during the summer vacation. It is not because she has a lot
more school work to do or because she is a slow pupil. She has to
get up early to join her aunt and help her clean a section of the
street by the Jinjiang River.
In fact, Xiaodan started in August, when her aunt hurt herself
in a fall, and was hospitalized. Sometimes Xiaodan has to get up as
early as 3:00 am and work in the rain.
Ever since pictures of the girl cleaning the streets of Chengdu
appeared on the Internet, she has drawn a lot of media attention.
All the major Chinese language Internet portals as well as several
newspapers and a local TV station have carried Xiaodan's story.
While a lot of netizens have praised her as "the most beautiful
city cleaner of Chengdu", others have mulled over the resilience
and tenacity of the 12-year-old.
They marvel at the fact that Xiaodan could be such a hardworking
and understanding person. Her story testifies to the Chinese saying
that "children of the poor grow mature early".
Indeed, I have heard some college teachers complain that some
students have been so spoiled at home that they do not even know
how to use a broom or a mop. Some of their mothers actually travel
several hundreds kilometers by train to university campuses
regularly to help wash the clothes of their children.
The story of Xiaodan also exposes the disparity between the
urban and rural areas. Xiaodan is a girl from a rural family, whose
mother has mental problems and who has been raised by her
grandmother. She started to help collect grass to feed pigs when
she was 5 years old.
However, at least to her aunt, Xiaodan is not really unique.
"Our children cannot compare to the boys and girls of Chengdu," she
says. "She must labor more in order to know life is not easy and to
study hard."
But the story of Xiaodan underscores more than teaching children
how to grow up.
Even though her aunt has recovered, Xiaodan still works in the
streets on most weekends. That way, she says, she can help relieve
part of her aunt's work so that she "would not fall down again".
Meanwhile, she also helps her aunt to earn her full salary.
Otherwise, "her salary would be cut," she says.
Without doubt, Xiaodan becoming a temporary street cleaner
reveals that street cleaners work without sufficient social and
medical safety nets, which has affected their life and the life and
studies of their children.
While we praise and admire Xiaodan and children like her, we
must recognize the problems that have forced a 12-year-old to take
the place of her aunt as a street cleaner. We must also push the
government and other related institutions to work out measures to
help relieve the burden on the young shoulders of children like
Xiaodan.
It is laborers like Xiaodan's aunt who make the city clean and
urban life convenient.
The city beauticians are entitled to the necessary safety nets
which provide them and their children a better living. Xiaodan, and
children like her, would be able to get proper hours of sleep.
(China Daily November 22, 2007)