The story begins with Luli arriving at the factory complex of Gujiano Technologies Limited, to meet her friend Yun. Luli has just turned sixteen and has aged out of The Institute, an orphanage she has been living since the age of eight when her grandpa became too sick to care for her. Yun also from the same orphanage, had been left on the street as a baby. With a heart defect and four black marks on her face which were considered marks of bad luck she was never put up for adoption. Yun left the orphanage last year and has been working in a factory. Luli had been offered a position at the orphange but when Yun wrote offering to help her get work in a factory she decided to turn it down. Now she finds herself alone, outside the factory waiting for her friend.Luli meets Yun who takes her back to her room in Dorm Number 6, telling her she can share her bunk until she gets her own. Accompanied by Yun's roommates, Hong and Zhenzhen, Luli and Yun go to a restaurant for noodles and pork. However, during their meal Yun gets a phone call and leaves Luli with her friends so that she can meet her boyfriend Liang Yong.
Yun met Yong through her old boyfriend Chen Ming whose father is the foreman for Yun's unit at the factory. Ming was angry when Yun left him for Yong, telling her that Yong is a bride trafficker. But Yun doesn't believe Ming, thinking he is jealous. When she questioned Yong, he told her that he works for a marriage broker, delivering brides to their prospective husbands. This satisfies Yun enough that she willingly goes with him now. They leave Luli, with Yun riding on the back of Yong motorbike. They go back to Yong's apartment where they make love.
In the morning, Zhenzhen takes Luli to see Ming about a job. Luli works on a line "...twisting the plastic-coated wires around the USB cords, then slipping them into tiny plastic bags." Three months pass, endless days with Luli working and saving her money. She doesn't see Yun much as Luli is in a different dorm and after work Yun leaves to see Yong. One day at lunch, Ming reveals to Luli that Yong is a kidnapper. "He is a kidnapper. Or he helps one. They kidnap girls and women and sell them to men out in the countryside." Luli defends Yong telling Ming that she has been told that he helps drive brides to their new home. She believes that Yun is safe, despite Ming telling her it doesn't mean he doesn't traffick other women.
After lunch, Yun arrives for work, late once again. She's confronted by Foreman Chen who lectures her about being late and then fires her. Luli is shocked for her friend, wondering what she will do. After work, Luli encounters Yun just outside the gates and agrees to accompany her friend to the health clinic. Yun shocks Luli by revealing that she needs a pregnancy test.
At the Modern Women's Health Clinic the ultrasound reveals that Yun is definitely pregnant.The doctor tells Yun and Luli that Yun will have to pay the social compensation fee for having an unauthorized pregnancy in order to get a birth permit and be able to give birth in a hospital. She also won't be able to obtain the baby's hukou - the government registration making the baby an official person able to attend school and get a job.
After several more tests Yun is given the choice of a medical abortion (taking two pills) or surgical abortion which is a vacuum suction under anesthesia. Yun leaves the clinic distraught and undecided but determined to find Yong and tell him. Luli wants Yun to marry Yong and keep the baby. However, Yun remembering her time at the orphanage carrying for babies, doesn't want this. Instead, Yun tells Luli that she will borrow the money from Yong and return to the clinic for the abortion. Luli tries to persuade her friend by telling her what Ming said about Yong being a bride trafficker. Yun runs out of the restaurant, furious but also filled with doubt.
She spends the night outside Yong's apartment where she meets a detective, who is also looking for Yong. He tells her that Yong kidnaps young women and takes them the countryside where they are forced to marry men. The detective is surprised that Yun herself has not been trafficked. Terrified, Yun takes the detective's card and leaves. She has nowhere to go and not enough money for the abortion. Luli can't help her. Her only hope is to find Yong and hope he will pay for the abortion. But will he give her the money? Is he really a bride trafficker?
Discussion
Girls On The Line tackles issues surrounding China's draconian one-child policy including the many social and human rights issues surrounding this policy.
In 1979 China's Communist party under Deng Xiaoping implemented its infamous one-child policy. At this time it was felt that China's huge population with its anticipated growth would be a drawback to the country's economic development. The belief at the time was that China would need to reign in its population growth in order to improve the quality of life for its citizens. The one child policy was implemented. This policy raised the age of marriage to twenty for women and twenty-two for men, it restricted families to one child, although later on this was loosened somewhat to allow a couple to have a second child if the first born was a girl in rural areas. Birth control was promoted and abortion was made easily available.
During this time, Western countries saw China as a huge economic opportunity and were willing to undertake new business ventures in the country which was slowly opening up to foreign investment. In 1979, Stephen Mosher, a Stanford University social scientist received permission to conduct anthropological research in the Guizhou Province. While in China Mosher traveled to various villages and uncovered the horrific reality of China's one-child policy: forced abortions, harassment of mothers and their families, even torture and jail. Mosher reported Chinese family planning officials ordered forced abortions of full term babies, while unauthorized pregnancies - even first pregnancies were forcibly aborted. Babies being born without the necessary licence were given a poison injection in the head as they were being born, resulting in death up to 48 hours later. Family members of mothers who refused to abort were harassed and threatened, the fathers beaten and imprisoned. Pregnant women refusing abortion were sent to re-education classes and faced continuous pressure until they relented. If the mother went into hiding to have her baby, family members and relatives were harassed and jailed and many had their homes destroyed by zealous family planning officials. Entire villages and factories were punished if a woman pregnant outside the law went into hiding.
China's one-child policy is believed to have resulted in 335 million abortions and prevented over 400 million births. The one-child policy however has resulted in many serious problems for China. It has not produced the economic windfall the Chinese government forecast and in fact may have serious economic consequences for the country. China's working age population began shrinking in 2013 and will continue this trend for many years. Accompanying the decrease in working adults is an increase in workers reaching retirement age. By 2035, thirty-two percent of China's population will consist of retirement aged people with only 2.4 workers to support each retiree. This is not an sustainable economic model.
Decades of promoting one child families has changed how Chinese couples and Chinese society in general view children. Couples no longer wish to have a second or third child, believing that economically they can only provide for one child. They see children as a financial burden. Not only do they not want more than one child, they also prefer that only child to be a boy. This is because the male child traditionally is the one who is responsible for caring for elderly parents, while a daughter is expected to leave her family to be with her husband's family. As a result sex selection abortion in which girl babies are aborted has resulted in a skewed sex ration of 114 boys for every 100 girls as of 2017. This skewed sex ratio has had a profound effect socially, resulting in men not able to find wives and in bride trafficking.
In Girls On The Line Lui touches on several of these issues. Her friend, Yun falls pregnant outside of the law; she is too young to be married and doesn't have a birth permit, meaning that she is not allowed to carry the child to term and give birth. In the story though,Yun seems to slip through the cracks, not returning to the health clinic, hiding in the factory dorm, disappearing into Yong's rural village and then returning to the factory dorm where she gives birth. Luli naively believes that Yun can have her baby - an option she very much favours.
However, it's unlikely that Yun would have been so lucky in real life. Many women were able to hide their unplanned pregnancies and give birth to their babies, but in most instances, family planning officials caught up with these women and they were forcibly aborted even as they were preparing to give birth. It's unlikely Yun would have so easily escaped the notice of family planning officials who often had quotas and kept strict track of women of child bearing age in their areas. The immense challenges Yun encountered - lack of family, lack of money, and lack of maternal health care - do demonstrate just how difficult Yun's situation would be in a society where the birth of babies is so strictly regulated and where illegal births are so brutally punished. The birth of a baby outside the law meant a heavy fine that would take years to pay in addition to money needed for the child's hukou. Reader's can't help but feel deep sympathy for Yun's situation.
Both Luli and Yun are orphans but Luli has a distant memory of living in a family and being cared for while Yun has never known family. It becomes obvious that there is something deeply wrong with Yun, that she is broken, a fact she herself recognizes. She is unable to bond with her baby and shows little interest in Chun. Her years of caring for babies at The Institute have made her dislike children immensely and she has no concept of caring for another person. "...The babies and little ones, dull and silent most of the time, suddenly wailing around the mealtimes. I remember Luli picking them up sometimes and cuddling them. The first time I saw her do it, I was so puzzled that I asked her what she was doing. She looked at me strangely and simply said, 'Holding her.' "
It is Luli, who understands what belonging to a family means, and who knows the grim reality of the orphanage where the children receive almost no love, who saves Chun. Luli tries to convince Yun that having a family is a good thing. But Yun feels so trapped and burdened by her circumstances, and is so emotionally stunted because of her experience in the orphanage, that she is prepared to help Yong traffick their daughter.
Eventually Luli comes to realize the truth about her friend, that Yun is selfish and self-centered. While thinking about Chun who she believes has been trafficked, Luli thinks, "Yun chose to do this. For money even though I promised to help her pay off the birth fines. For convenience, even though Ma and I would've happily shared the burden of carrying for Chun. Yun's world starts and end with Yun...." It is Yong's Ma who tells Yun what she needs to hear, " 'Just because you were an orphan, you think you can live only for yourself. Hurling forward! Just doing what you want all the time!....But what you don't know is that what you want is right here.' She gestures with her hand at all of us. 'People. Family."
Although Yun doesn't quite respond as Luli might want, she does see her friend making an effort to care for her daughter. There is hope for the future.
Due to the mature content, this novel is recommended for older teens. Girls On The Line offers readers the opportunity to consider how social policies can have unintended consequences both on an individual and national level. The novel offers the chance for readers to explore further China's one-child policy, its drastic effects on family, women's physical and mental health, the effects socially and culturally as well as economically. It also encourages teens to ask questions such as Does a government ever have the right to tell a couple how many children they can have? Have other countries ever had laws regulating who could have children? What cultural influences did Chinese authorities not take into account when they implemented their one-child policy?
Book Details:
Girls On The Line by Jennie Liu
Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Lab 2018
pp. 224
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