Wearing a small bib patched with different-colored pieces of cloth, his cheeks roughened by long exposure to the cold winter weather, 17-month-old Huang Jie from Guanqi village, Guantou township, Fujian province, appears no different from any of the other local children.

Despite his young age, he spares no effort to move a chair taller than himself from one room to another, repeating the deed several times a day.

Fearing he may hurt himself, his grandmother, 48-year-old Liu Huizhen, sometimes bends at the waist and with outstretched arms follows the little boy’s steps. The scene is repeated many times every day.

“Olsen! Stop and take a rest!” shout the passing villagers, who can see the boy through the open doorway. Whenever he hears the word “Olsen,” the boy stops and raises his head in the direction of the sound before resuming his “work.”

“Olsen” is what the local people like to call the boy, and after hearing it so many times he has already managed to make the connection between the name and himself. However, when people call him Huang Jie, he makes no response.

Giving their children English names is fashionable among young couples in China’s larger cities, but Olsen’s grandparents are farmers, and their knowledge of social fashion is limited. However, their daughter has told them to call the boy Olsen, because it’s the name on his passport.

Olsen Huang was born in New York in July 2011. His parents are both busy working they don’t have time to look after him, so his grandparents took him in when he was sent to the village aged just 100 days.

There are many small foreigners living there, according to the village head Li Xiaoming ― and he should know: his 1-year-old nephew, Li Youwen, is one of them.

“He’s my brother’s son. My brother went to the United States five years ago. The boy was born in New York, but my brother works at a restaurant in a southern state,” said Li Xiaoming. “The boy was sent to Guantou when he was eight months old. For the past four months, he has cried heavily at night and we know he’s looking for his mom.”

Large-scale emigration

Currently, more than 2,000 overseas-born children, known in China as “left-behind” kids, live with grandparents or relatives in Guantou.

“Almost every family here has someone working overseas. Although their footsteps cover more than 30 countries, most have gone to the U.S., Canada and Japan,” said Lin Xiuzhu, president of Guantou Overseas Chinese Kindergarten, the largest in the town, where more than 90 percent of the students are foreign nationals.

“When I opened the kindergarten in 2005, there were only 80 foreign-born kids, but the number has increased sharply year by year. We have nine classes now and the number of kids has soared to 380. To guarantee quality of tuition, we no longer recruit children younger than 3,” she said.

Other regions in Fujian, such as Mawei district in Fuzhou, Fuqing city, Changle city and Luoyuan county are also playing host to kids born to Chinese parents overseas.

Around 20,000 children with U.S. nationality live in Fuzhou, said Zheng Qi, president of the Fukien Benevolent Association of America, quoted in the Fuzhou Evening News. If you include those holding other nationalities, the number could be as high as 60,000, he said.

Guangdong province and a number of other costal regions are experiencing the same thing. Enping in Guangdong has acquired the nickname “Little United Nations” because of the number of children born overseas.

Large-scale emigration means that the population of Guantou is mainly composed of elders and children. Most young people in the town hail from Sichuan province.

“Because most Chinese living overseas do manual work, in restaurants and suchlike, or run their own small businesses, the heavy workload makes the task of taking care of small children impossible, irrespective of whether they have been granted foreign nationality,” said Lin Xiuzhu.

In addition, many countries have strict child-care regulations. If parents are perceived to be failing their kids and are reported, they run the risk of having their children taken into care. Some parents could even be imprisoned.

Many young couples see no alternative but to send their kids back to their parents when they are only a few months old. The kids are often taken abroad again aged 4 or 5 to attend elementary school.

“Although we have plenty of students, we see kids leave and go abroad every month. Kids generally leave China aged 5, because their U.S. passports are only valid for five years. However, when they arrive here they are at a good age to learn a new language; the earlier they come here, the easier it is for them to integrate,” according to Lin Xiuzhu.

Onscreen parents

Lin Dandan, Olsen’s mother, saw him off at the airport last year. However, the boy was too young to remember that his mom was the one crying like a baby.

Since then, at 11 a.m. every day, Liu Huizhen, Olsen’s grandmother, ensures he is sitting in front of the computer, ready for a video chat with his mother when she gets home after her day’s work.

“We have a video chat almost every day. Seeing Olsen’s cute face and the little changes as he grows is the best time in my day,” said Lin Dandan.

Although Olsen’s grandmother has told him repeatedly that the two people in the computer are his mom and dad, the length of their separation means the little boy has little interest in the people waving to him on the screen and trying to attract his attention.

However, practice makes perfect, and with lots of practice the penny seems to have finally dropped. Even though Olsen still doesn’t fully understand, he always points at the computer when people ask him where his parents are.

Most of those who went overseas years ago now have a foreign nationality, but more recent arrivals still have a long wait ahead of them.

Huang Hui, Olsen’s father, went to the U.S. in 2002 and now works as a chef in New York. He was granted U.S. nationality last year, but Lin Dandan, who joined her husband in 2008 and works as a waitress, is still waiting. She works more than 10 hours a day and earns $2,500 a month.

She’s pregnant again, so to save money the couple lead a thrifty life, but they still provide for Olsen. In addition to sending him baby formula and diapers, they often mail clothing and toys.

“We can’t be with him, so we just want to give him gifts to compensate for that,” Lin Dandan said.

“My daughter hasn’t been home for five years. She often cries when we are having a video chat and says it’s because she misses us and Olsen. But I know she has a hard life overseas,” said her mother.

By He Na and Hu Meidong

(China Daily)