Different Voice about One Child Nation

[Xiaowei Hunt]

On August 6, 2019, I was fortunate that I was given the opportunity to watch a full-length version of Nanfu Wang’s One Child Nation. Honestly I applaud for Nanfu’s bravery in making such a documentary, and I believe she made sensational news with this documentary worldwide. 

I just wanted to tell how I feel about her One Child Nation from the standpoint of a woman and a mother who experienced the one child policy in Mainland China 1978-2000. 

The data in Nanfu’s documentary could have been more sufficient. Throughout the documentary, it seems the people she interviewed were either from the village she was born, from the nearby rural area, from a writer, one or two baby traffickers or an American couple in Utah. I would like to see she also interview people in urban areas in Mainland China who were also impacted by the one child policy. She used limited data to mirror “One Child Nation” which might have been too generalized or stereotyped. 

 

I experienced and witnessed this one child policy 1978-2000 as a woman and mother in a city setting. I had one child only myself. All of my brother and sisters each had only one child. In Urban areas in China, as far as I am concerned, the mindset of male child being more important than female child was not prevailed. I know that people living in urban areas thought it was feudalist ideology (which was considered backward) to put boys over girls for education or jobs.  

To sum up, it would be more convincing if Nanfu and her crew had also interviewed people in other places (metropolitan city, middle-sized city, small town) of Mainland China for this documentary of such a big theme/topic.