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WANG Ning:
'My Only Child'
My Only Child is an anthology of four graphic short stories about the personal, familial and social impact of China’s One-Child Policy. The stories are written by Chinese author, editor, agent and promoter WANG Ning, who in 2004 established Beijing Total Vision Culture Spreads CO., LTD. As the earliest comic book agent in China to cooperate with European and American publishing companies, he has exported more than 170 original Chinese comics copyrights from more than 90 Chinese authors to European and American countries. My Only Child is illustrated by Chinese artists Ni Shaoru, Wu Yao, Xu Yuran and Qin Chang and was translated from Mandarin by Emma Massara. It was published in English in November 2021 by Fanfare Presents in association with The Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2021. At the Festival, I interviewed WANG Ning online in Beijing about this powerful, personal project. In preparation for this, he generously answered my questions.
Paul Gravett:
You show an official propaganda poster of smiling parents and one child, with the caption: ‘It’s better to have an only child’. Why was the ‘One-Child Policy’ introduced by the Chinese government and how was it received by people?
Wangning:
From 1840 to 1949, China only increased its population by 130 million in 109 years. However, in the 30 years after Chinese government was established, more than 600 million people were born, with a net increase of more than 430 million. At that time, China was still a poor country. The rapid growth of population brought great difficulties to eating, dressing, housing, transportation, education, health and employment, making it difficult for the entire country to reduce poverty in a short period of time. Therefore, the family planning policy was proposed in 1980 and formally implemented in 1982.
In the beginning, many people did not accept it. After about 10 years, they gradually had to do it, because the government had many ways to make you do this. For example, the second child would not have a registered permanent residence and parents had to pay a lot of fines. And the propaganda posters were near everywhere, you could not avoid them. In fact, the one-child policy had not been implemented in the era when I was born, and my parents could have more than one child. However, because my parents were banished to work during the Cultural Revolution and the family was also very poor, so they didn’t ask for another child. But there were very few people who thought like my parents at that time.
What were the positive incentives and advantages for families with only one child? For example, the monthly allowance of 7.5 yuan (about half a beginning apprentice’s monthly salary) as a food subsidy until the age of 14. And a red and gold ‘Old Child Glory Certificate’.
During that period, people could only buy a fixed amount of things such as sugar, rice, noodles, oil, cloth and other items every month. For families with only one child, the state provided them with monthly living allowances because of this little red certificate. And for big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the grants were slightly higher. My parents could get a reward of 5 yuan and a food allowance of 7.5 yuan every month, as well as some food stamps. For a family with a monthly salary of only 30 yuan, almost half of the living expenses could be subsidised, which was still relatively high at the time. This 7.5 yuan subsidy certificate was my last one when I turned 14 years old. It was supposed to be handed over to the government when receiving the money, but my parents did not do it this time because they wanted to keep it. Many cities had their own certificates, which were similar in appearance and content. Some need photos of children; some need the photos of a family, and some only need names. In some places, the only child could get allowances when going to school and hospital.
What were the repercussions on families that ignored this policy and had more than one child? Was sterilzation only ever a threat or was it carried out? And what impact did that have on wider Chinese society?
As I said at the beginning, if some parents still wanted to have another boy, or another child, then they only had two choices: one was to find a place to hide, and don’t be caught be the government. If they were caught before babies were born, the mother would be forcibly taken to hospital for an abortion. However, after 7 or 8 months of pregnancy, it was very dangerous to abort because females would bleed and die. Therefore, everyone was very resistant to the forced sterilization, and something extreme happened.
The most famous one happened on September 20, 1994 in Jianguomen, Beijing. A man called Tian Mingjian killed 32 people by shooting. It was said that he already had a girl, but his wife wanted to have another boy. When she had more than 7 months of pregnancy, she was caught and forced to abort the child. And both of the mother and child died. Tian Mingjian was a soldier. So he killed 23 non-commissioned officers by shooting. After hijacking a car on the way to Tiananmen Square, he was surrounded by the army and police at Jianguomen. After the gun battle, nine people were killed, including Joseph, the Political Secretary of the Iranian Embassy and his 9-year-old son. Another way is to pay heavy fines. For families with a monthly income of only 30 to 300 yuan, a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 yuan was impossible. And this child would also be discriminated against or treated unfairly when going to school, seeing a doctor, or shopping.
Did parents in China have a preference for having a boy rather than a girl? And if so, why? And has this created a subsequent gender imbalance in the population and further problems in society?
Chinese parents prefer to have boys, especially in small cities and rural areas. Because farmers need male labor for farming, and boys have the strength to help with the work. There is also a traditional belief that boys can pass on blood, while girls won’t belong to this family after getting married. Therefore, if the first child is a girl, they have to find a way to give birth to a boy. Therefore, if the parents who already have one or more girls do not have the money to pay the fine, they can only hide somewhere and secretly have a boy. Some parents will give away, sell or kill girls in order to have a chance to get a boy. Because of this kind of thinking, the biggest and the most common social problem in China is human trafficking. Some rural families will sell their girls in exchange of a boy. The incident mentioned above was also caused by this.
You give a very sad statistic that ‘every year, some 76,000 families, aged over 50 on average, are bereaved of their only child.’ Has this led to real problems for the state, as parents age and can fall ill, with no child to help look after them? These ‘shi du’ or ‘lost families’ ‘...often affect the mental wellbeing of several families over generations.’ Did these affected families make any complaints and calls for reform of the policy?
If it weren’t for this book, I would never know that there are so many families who lost their only child. I have never paid attention to these people before and never thought about what I would do for them. After I read the articles they wrote and their sad stories, I can fully feel their pain. In China’s traditional views, children are not only the meaning of parents’ life, but also stand for their hope for life. When these hopes are all shattered, the thing they care about most is that who will support their life after retirement. Because the only labor in the family is gone, their financial conditions are in trouble. The state gives them very little subsidies with 50-250 pounds per person per month in the city and 20 -50 pounds per person per month in the rural areas. For the present standard of living, it doesn’t make any sense. Moreover, once the only child is gone, the whole family will face not only great spiritual pain, but also long-term loneliness and the anxiety and sadness in their old age. As they got older, they will feel a sense of security deep in their hearts. For example, no one will know when they get sick, or they can’t ask for help immediately when having accident. The complaints have never stopped. There have always been calls to help these families, but problems are never really solved. Some elderly people chose to commit suicide because of a lack of medical treatment and help after falling ill. Such news is everywhere.
What prompted the more recent changes in this policy, allowing 2 children per family from January 1st 2016, and now 3 children per family from May 2021? Is the One-Child Policy now seen as a mistake or perhaps a necessary measure?
In 1985, when the family planning policy was just started, the government’s slogan was: Only one is good, the government will give the elderly what they need. In 1995, it became: Only one is good, the government will help the elderly indeed. In 2005, it was: the elderly can’t rely on the government. In 2012, it turned into: postponing retirement is good, taking care of yourself is better. The reasons for these changes are population aging, gender imbalance, labor shortage and the increasing difficulty of youth education. The ratio of men to women in China is now 1.16:1. According to it, serious social problems will occur after 2025, that is, “four two one” (“four” refers to the child’s four grandparents; “two” refers to the child’s parents; “one” refers to the child). Under the family structure, there will be 12 million men in China who cannot find a wife. This is not just gender imbalance, it will also become a serious social crisis. In 20 years, there will be 7 to 8 elderly people for each child to support, which is a heavy burden and cost for them. Therefore, the country has gradually relaxed its restrictions since 2016. But not every family can have a second child, but only if one of the parents is the only child. However, this situation has not improved, and the birth rate is still declining. Therefore, the policy of encouraging three births was implemented in May 2021. But I think it’s too late, and it doesn’t make much sense to common people. Because the cost of raising children is too high now, few young people want to do it. From the point of view of the makers, the one-child policy may be effective, because it can improve people’s living standards or solve the problem of food shortages in a short period of time. But the right to giving birth and choose the number of children should be protected. Using compulsive means to interfere with this result is very inhumane. Some people who forced others to sterilize or abort and caused great pain to other families now really regret it and feel ashamed. I personally think that this policy is flawed.
What were the issues which delayed your making this anthology of four comics? And what finally made it become a reality?
This comic was inspired by a meal when I attended the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France in 2014. It was at a dinner held by a publisher, many people attended it. Next to me was an Indian, and the opposite was a French journalist. The journalist drank too much, and he suddenly said loudly: “You India and China are the fucking countries in the world. Almost half of the world’s energy is occupied by your two countries. This is unfair to other countries. Especially China has no human rights. Each family can only have one child.” Although it was a bit embarrassing, what he said was correct. I am an only child, and my parents once told me that they would like to have another one, but who would dare to do it? I’m just an ordinary man doing comics, I am unable to make changes to the China’s system. After going back to China, I started planning to make a comic about the only child. I asked several comic artists to prepare their own stories, but I hesitated after reading them. These cartoonists are post-1980s and post-1990s. So the stories they prepared are basically what I had already thought of, such as the loneliness of the only child, the hope for the love from brothers and sisters and the sharing with younger siblings. This kind of story was not touching, and had no special points. So, I stopped this project.
But after a few years, I find out another way to telling the story from another perspective. Differently, I chose to look back to the past memories as parents who lost the only child, rather than share feelings as an only child. It seems that I am telling the story of these families. But in fact, everyone can understand I am talking about the special policy that has accompanied us for several generations: the one-child policy. Although I still don’t have the ability to make any changes to China’s system, I have the ability to tell the true story for everyone to see. Before making this book, I also had some hesitations, so I joined a website called “House of the families who lose the only child”. Every day, many parents will express their love for their lost children. I asked for their opinions on it with the attempt to know more about them. A mother left me a message: “My only child died at 28. I tried to commit suicide three times and was rescued. I know my child doesn’t want me to die, so I have to live. If your comics can bring more people’s attention to families like us, then my son’s death is worth it. I am willing to do meaningful things for him!” I cried for a day, and then wrote these stories.
About ‘The Making Of’ My Only Child, how did you find and choose the four particular families and their stories for your anthology? What were their reactions to having their painful experiences adapted into comics for a general readership?
Every story in this book is true. There are too many stories of searching for lost children just as the first one. It symbolizes a type of family in real life: their whole life will be destined to live in disappointment and hope, but they still keep hope in their hearts.
The second story is ‘MoMo’, which is a real story. Because she is my wife’s cousin, who died of advanced kidney cancer at the age of 27. I watched that happy family collapsed overnight, and the pain of her parents was unforgettable. This story also represents another type of family: how powerless and helpless it is to accept passively in the face of sudden disasters.
The third story, ‘Love Carries On’, is my personal experience. There are such families around me. For various reasons, their children died, but the parents did not indulge in self-blame and grief. They chose to take the initiative to come out and are willing to continue their love for their children through adoption. Compared with the previous two stories, the endings of this type of family are quite perfect.
The fourth story is also true, but it is the one in which I made the most changes. The prototype of the character is a male, who is still alive now, and is a well-known painter in China. The painting [above] he sold in the book was a household name in China at the time. It was created in 1967 and sold more than 900 million copies, while there were only 760 million people in China at that time. He sold it in 1995 with 485,000 pounds, when the average annual income of Chinese was only 640 pounds. To afford this painting, an ordinary person had to work for 80 years without buying anything, so it was really famous. When the author sold it, many people didn’t know the reason, because he didn’t want to reveal the information about his child. So this is why I changed the gender of the character in the book and didn’t show a lot about the painting. The child had the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and cerebral palsy. Due to the medical technology at the time, the child would not live to be 16 years old. Therefore, the father decisively sold the house and the painting, and bought a villa in the suburbs of Beijing. He tried to provide his child with the best care and a life without regret. And the child finally lived to be 21 years old. It is also true that his child wanted to get married. In order to emphasise his love for the child and his sense of responsibility, I added a plot, that is, he asks the kid a question every day: “If tomorrow is your last day, what do you want to do?” I use the story to represent another type of family which faces a destined result calmly, and strives to leave no regrets for themselves and their children.
Did you consult with the families during the scripting and artwork process and get research materials, photos, and did they want to give their approval? Were some illustrations, eg for ‘Waiting’, based on photographs of the real people involved?
I spent a lot of time thinking about the scripts before writing it, and I basically wrote it all in one go. When looking for illustrators, I repeatedly discussed the content of the story and the illustration style with them. They were very moved by the stories, and wanted to do something for such families. Several authors even cried when drawing their pictures. I am very grateful for their efforts. When creating “Waiting”, Ni Shaoru set the scene by the location of his home and the small restaurant in his neighborhood. The characters in the book were inspired by actors.
One recurring element in the anthology is the propaganda banners and adverts in the street to promote the One-Child Policy. ‘Waiting’ begins with these and ends with the parents’ own home-made signs. In ‘Waiting’, the parents refuse to give up on their missing son coming home again. I was struck by page 24 (above) which shows how the couple’s traditional home stays unchanged, while the modern, high-rise city transforms all around them: ‘We’ll always be here, waiting for you.’ I was moved by their refusal to sign his death certificate, which would have allowed them to have another child. This must have been such a difficult choice for couples to make.
Recently, there was a movie about how parents found their child after 20 years. And people started to focus on this kind of issues again. So far, only 0.1% of lost children have been found in 200,000 of them each year. When I was writing this story, in accordance with the policy at the time, I specifically gave the parents two choices: one is sign to agree that the child is regarded as dead, if they want to give him up. Then they have a chance to have another child. The other option is to spend their entire lives looking for the child. I kept the small restaurant in the same state to show: no matter how fast and how great the society changes, we should stick to our beliefs and bottom line of life in our hearts. The restaurant left behind is a street lamp for children in a modern city with high-rise buildings. I didn’t give a definite answer at the end of the story, because I don’t know what the final outcome will be. Let each of us be like this pair of parents and have hope in our hearts.
‘MoMo’s Story’ shows the effects of ‘One Child Policy’ on two families. I noticed one character is named Wang Ning - is that you? From your Afterword, it sounds like you and your wife personally know MoMo’s family?
Yes, I kept everyone’s real names in this story, including mine, and this little black dog also named Momo. Momo was my wife’s cousin, the girl in the photo. Because she also liked comics, she often came to my company to read comics. When she graduated from university in 2005, I was holding a comics festival in Beijing. She also came to help me receive cartoonists and do translations. The house where my wife and I lived before we got married was prepared by her parents in advance for her marriage. She often lived in our house to chat with my wife and read comics. And we were together almost every day for a while. She was a cute girl who loved to laugh and play. But she was diagnosed with kidney cancer just before she was about to get married at 27 years old. From diagnosis to her death, it was only about 2 months. I learned the news of her death on January 28, 2010, when I arrived in France to attend the Angoulême International Comics Festival. So I rushed back to Beijing to attend her funeral the next day. You certainly don’t know, but my wife still doesn’t agree with me to make this book and tell Momo’s story. Because she is worried that one day this book will be seen by Momo’s parents. Those parents who have lost their only child are very fragile. They don’t have the courage to face the happiness they once had. But in order to avoid causing grief to the parents who lost their children, I kept real names only in Momo’s story.
In ‘Love Carries On’ [previously titled ‘Adopted Love’] drawn by Xu Ziran, you cover an interesting topic here, that families who lost their only child could potentially adopt. Was this widespread or rather rare?
To be honest, I used to pay little attention to children’s adoption, because I have no children myself. This is not because I can’t, but I don’t want. As I wrote this book, I started to focus on this issue. I read some news before. Many foreign families have adopted a lot of Chinese children and given them a new life, many of whom were orphans who were abandoned because of diseases. It is a universal value for foreigners to do so. Firstly, because of their religious beliefs, they hope that all abandoned children will have a home and loved ones. Second, they do not have the idea of inheriting the family, and their own birth is the same as the adoption. Third, they love social philanthropy and are caring and patient. However, the procedures for adopting a child for a Chinese are much more complicated than for a foreigner, and it must be supported by better economic conditions. I originally wanted to adopt an earthquake orphan, but the related procedures were too complicated, so I didn’t adopt the child successfully. Although the story I told in the book is not particularly common in the real world, I hope it is a choice that can be provided to families who have lost their kids. I don’t think they care if they are their own blood, but the love, emotion and hope for their children are passed on. This love is selfless.
In ‘Love Carries On’, you also deal with a more mature couple and issues of ageism towards the father who is mistaken as the grandfather for his young, adopted daughter. Was the choice of adoption widely offered and taken up by ‘shi du’, or was it rare?
In all elementary and middle school in China, you can see family members come and pick kids up after school. Sometimes you can know who are parents and who are grandparents from the appearance and age. When I design the character who seem to be very old, readers will think this is grandfather of the child. But I want this very common social phenomenon to emphasize the contrast. Driven by curiosity, readers may want to explore the reasons, so as to experience the sense of loneliness of families who have lost their own kid. There is no kind of love in the world that can surpass the love that parents have for their children. When these parents lost their children, most of them had reached the age of grandparents. The love for the next generation is the nature of the grandparents. At this time, their love for their grandchildren is more selfless and sincere. But it is an indisputable fact that they can no longer have children, so when they adopt a child, they are eager to have the opportunity to be a parent again. Therefore, I set this role as a father at the age of a grandfather; I also gave him a chance to be a father again in the book.
In ‘Last Wish’, drawn by Qin Chang, you address the issues of the One-Child Policy influencing a mother to delay childbirth and put her comics career and business first. As a result, when her daughter is born with a malignant, inoperable tumour, she blames herself for having her daughter later in life. The mother also loses her husband when the daughter is 3 and has to raise her alone.
First of all, self-blame is the pressure that every parent of a family who has lost an individual must face. This self-blame is helpless. There are both the pain imposed on them by policy issues and the regret that they did not fight for their rights at the time. In that era and under that system, almost all families will give up their own happiness. This was an impulsive selflessness. In the end, only endless regrets were left.
I know one or two Chinese comics creators who are an only child. The effects on their lives and personalities have been profound. My Only Child, as the title suggests, looks a lot at parenting issues, but could you also prepare stories looking more closely at the effects on the children themselves, the pressures and expectations to succeed, their loneliness and isolation, the risks of being spoilt and overindulged, and other effects of the policy on them?
The original title of this book is One Man’s World [cover proposal above]. I intended two levels of meaning: first, in a family with only one child, there are usually six people taking care of a child. It is like a pyramid structure. The child is at the top and is the only center. In the eyes of the child, this world belongs to him alone. Second, when the child disappeared, the pyramid collapsed, and everyone lost their desire for life. For this family, the existence of the whole world is meaningful around a child. If the child is gone, the world will be gone. This also reflects from another angle that this is a human world. All the younger people around me are only children. For us, life as a child was very good, because there were no brothers and sisters competing with us and grabbing food. It looked carefree and the only bad thing I could feel was loneliness. Over time, this generation has grown up in such a spoiling environment, more or less there will be some psychological problems, such as: willfulness, selfishness, weak ability to withstand pressure, withdrawn and so on. The impacts of these only children may take many years and generations to adjust. Because I don’t know how long I can stay in the field of comic publishing. I started to pay special attention to these social issues in recent years. I feel it is very meaningful to turn these stories into comics and inspire people to think about them. So as long as I am still able to do it, I will definitely make more comics on such topics.
My Only Child has also been published on other languages, including in French by Mosquito Editions and in Italian by Edizioni Oblomov, although only the English edition so far contains the fourth tale, ‘MoMo’s Story’. Are there any plans to publish it in China?
The book can still not be published in China now, because it involves the One-Child Policy. Many publishers who have read these stories want to do it, because they were deeply touched by the stories. It is a great pity. Maybe there will be a chance to publish it in China in the future, and people can look back to that period.
Any closing remarks?
Here, I would also like to thank Mr. Paul, Ms. Julie, Ms. Emma, Mr. Stephen, comic editor Ms. Wang Saili, cartoonists Mr. Ni Shaoru, Ms. Wu Yao, Mr. Xu Ziran, Mr. Qin Chang and all the friends who have made efforts for the publication of the book. Thank you all!
Posted: October 20, 2021
