“I was Picked up from a Trash Can on my Birthday”

Original video story by Shaojian Kang

Translated by Cathy He

Revised by Clyde Xi and Weiming Zhao

If I tell you I was found in a trash can, would you believe me?

It's true. 43 years ago today, on March 1st, 1981 according to the lunar calendar, my mom picked me up from a trash can. That moment shaped who I am today.

My mom found me in a trash can at our local hospital during a cold night, with temperatures around 6 or 7 degrees Celsius. Up to that point, my mom had carried me for seven months. Induced labor was forced onto my mom, and yet I survived. I am actually my mom's biological son.

My parents were allowed to have two children, but only if my sister was four years old or older. When I was born, my sister was only three years and seven months old. Consequently, my mom was sent to the hospital and forced into labor induction. The doctor injected at least two doses of oxytocin, puncturing through her belly into my right ear. On the night of March 1st, 1981, I was born alive, but the doctor and nurse discarded me into a trash can at the end of the hospital corridor. I don't know how long I was there, but my mom heard a baby crying, and that baby was me.

During that time, my mom was the only one giving birth. She knew it was me crying. She got out of bed, crawled along the wall, and rummaged through the trash can to retrieve me. She held my ice-cold body against her chest, and crawled back to the patient ward. My body temperature returned to normal after she held me all night.

No one else was in the delivery room except my mom. The doctor told my dad I would be born the next morning, so my dad had gone home, and no one was there to keep my mom company. The next morning, when my dad arrived at the hospital, he saw a baby with xanthoderma. My entire body was yellow-orange, including the whites of my eyes, likely due to jaundice and drug intoxication.

Everyone tried to persuade my mom to give up on me because they were uncertain if I would survive. Even if I did, I might be a dumb kid. But my mom insisted that since she had brought this baby into this world, she must take him home. So, a few days later, my mom carried me home.

I owe my survival to many people especially to an old village doctor of Chinese medicine named Zhang Chunsheng, who was my grandpa’s friend. After I got home, within a hundred days, Dr. Zhang prescribed many herbs for me. My mom bathed me twice a day and prepared herb drinks to detoxify my system.

In the past, when I shared my story with a few friends, I could manage a smile. But today, I can't because today is my birthday. I wonder how helpless and hopeless my mom must have been 43 years ago.

Traditionally, a child is named three days after birth, but that was not my case. My family worried I might not survive and waited until I was one-month old to name me. I actually have two names. One is official and known to everyone: Shaojian Kang. "Shaojian" in Chinese sounds similar to "rarely seen." The other name is only known to local people: Jihua Kang. "Jihua" (计划), means "planning," a name both my grandfathers took a few days to come up with because I survived the government enforced plan of the One-Child Policy. The name "Shaojian" was given by my father. I belong to a generation of our family with a shared common name "Shao" (绍), like the city Shao Xing (绍兴), but he decided to use "Shao" (少), meaning "not many," making "Shaojian" mean "rarely seen." Do you know what it means when you put the two names together? It means that I am a child rarely seen surviving the procedure of chemical induction by the rule of Family Planning Policy.

It is said that a child's birthday is the day when his or her mother suffers. I didn't understand this when I was little, but now I do. On March 1st, 1981, my mom endured great pain to give birth to me. I can't even imagine the pain and hardship my mom endured. I was born too early, at seven months, and I was very weak. When I was one year old, I had severe knock-knees, and my legs turned outward. My mom would tie my legs to wooden sticks during my sleep, trying to straighten them. How great is a mother's love! She used to be quite healthy but developed many illnesses after giving birth to me. I remember when I was young, she often fainted and had constant pains all over her body.

I was "famous" from a young age. Many people marveled at how healthy and also how well educated I became despite being picked up from a trash can. What’s more surprising is that I’m the first one in my village to go to college and the first to earn a Master's degree. I worked hard to get out of the mountains, but people didn't expect that I would eventually choose to return after working in cities for many years.

My family sacrificed a lot because I was born out of state-mandated quota, therefore not given a legal identity. Before each individual family was given a lease on a piece of farmland, we had to farm collectively as a commune the first year of my life, earning credits as a form of wage. Our credits were often deducted to zero as a penalty for my out-of-quota birth. No credits meant no food allocation. My grandfathers had to borrow from neighbors. Because of the lack of food, my mom was unable to produce enough breast milk. My dad tried very hard to buy milk powder to feed me. It was a luxury to drink milk powder at that time.

Before I was five, there was a needle hole through the top of my right ear, which later healed over. That was caused by the needles that went through my mom’s belly to my brain. Miraculously, I wasn’t dumb (laugh). So, I must say that fate and destiny are far more mysterious than we could possibly fathom.

Translated from the video story of the same title at WeChat official account康少见

YouTube copy “我是从垃圾桶里捡来的，计划生育到底有多泯灭人伦”can be found at https://youtu.be/wAarWuuKsWM?si=Y2Vs8GBEfeNNmV6J