Narrated by: Wang Taomei Written by: Jin Yang Translated and edited by: Clyde Xi November 7, 2024 Abstract This is the account of an ordinary mother navigating extraordinary constraints. Set against the realities of rural life, family obligation, and state policy, the narrative traces how private choices are shaped—and sometimes broken—by forces beyond one’s control. Written in a mother’s own voice, the story does not seek judgment or absolution, but bears witness to what end

Original Author: Jin Yang Editor: Clyde Xi Source: Nanchang Project 4/15/2023 Birth Parents Two days ago, I met a mother in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, who has spent many years searching online for her daughter. In phone calls and WeChat messages, she told me that she has not gone a single day without thinking of her child since the moment the baby was taken from her. Her daughter was born on September 30, 1995, her second child. The birth took place in secret in Xin

Narrated by: Zhang Guifang  Compiled by: J Yang  Edited by: Clyde Xi February 6, 2026 Abstract In this heartfelt memoir, Zhang Guifang describes the extreme hardship her family endured in late-1990s China. After years of costly infertility treatments and crushing debt from family illnesses, their long-awaited daughter was born in 1999, only to be diagnosed with a rare, severe congenital heart defect. Unable to afford or access life-saving surgery in China—where the risks incl

Narrated by: Lily Zeng Chinese Writer: Jin Yang English Editor: Clyde Xi Date: November 20, 2025 Abstract This memoir is a firsthand testimony of a mother separated from her child under China’s one-child policy and her thirty-year journey through fear, loss, endurance, and eventual reunion. Through lived experience rather than retrospection alone, the narrative documents how state policy intruded into the most intimate realms of life, turning pregnancy into risk, motherhood i