Fang Zhiqian loves the smell of firecrackers. The pungent, burning chemicals takes the 16-year-oldback to scenarios of family which he often missed during his childhood.

Zhiqian was only three years and four months old, when his mother, Xie Kui'e left their home at a plain village in Luoshan County of central China's Henan Province to look for a job.

He was seven, when his father left him and his elder brother and went to join in their mother in eastern Zhejiang Province as a pedicab driver. Zhiqian became one of the "left-behind children" in China, whose one or both parents work far away from home, leaving them taken care of by their grandparents or other relatives.

"My parents aren't in my most pleasant memories," says Zhiqian. The quiet 12th-grader is reluctant to talk about his childhood, because he always felt lonely at that time.

As China sped its way from poverty to prosperity, the world's most-populated country has confronted an old problem --- the poor-rich disparity. China's vast rural population has begun to enjoy the country's development, though later than their urban peers, as more and more farmers have moved to cities to seek fortune.

However, it's a bittersweet process for most of the wage hunters. While they earn more than they did back home, they pay the price of a family integrality. Children, like Zhiqian, are the prime victims.

A report released by the All-China Women's Federation in May reveals that China now has more than 58 million rural, left-behind children. Almost triple the figure in 2006. And over 69 percent of them are under 14. These children are inferior to peers who enjoy full family care. The left-behind are also behind in physical and psychological health and learning, and more vulnerable in security.

"The issue of the left-behind children, which is the concern for millions of migrant workers and their families, is of great importance to China's social harmony and stability," says the report.

Fang's hometown Luoshan has a population of 730,000, about 90 percent of which live in rural areas. Since the mid 1980s, more than 220,000 people from Luoshan have moved to work in cities, mainly to Beijing and the eastern coastal provinces.

"They seek jobs in the construction and catering industry", says Xiong Xingming, head of the county's labor and social security bureau.

"Almost every family has at least one member working in the cities and the villages now are only home to the '38-61-99' troops." These three pairs of figures refer to the dates of Women's Day, Children's Day, and Elderly's Day in China.

Faced with the fact that the family yearly income was less than 2,000 yuan (US$293) in cash, Fang's mother Xie Kui'e made the difficult, practical, but heart-breaking choice between attending her two sons and earning more money for the family.

Though she insists that she has never regretted her decision, her eyes turn red when she recalls the scene the day she left home for the first time in 1997.

"Zhiqian cried and went to lay on the ground, holding my legs and yelling 'don't go'. I managed to release myself from his arms. I ran out of the house, starting to cry," Xie recalls.

"Of course I worried that the boys would not behave when we were not around. But if we didn't leave, they might not have enough food, let alone the money for going to school."

For Zhiqian, it was hard to adapt the life of being a left-behind child. He remembers clearly the day a classmate gave him the "special title" for the first time when he was at the third grade.

"I was scared. I thought it meant that my parents were dead and I had become an orphan. I punched the boy," says Fang.

The Fang couple found a few means to maintain the connection to their boys, except for a phone call every 10 days. During the regular 30-minute conversation, they mainly talk about the children's study. Their sons' inner thoughts, however, remain unfamiliar territory, which they seldom try to explore.

The Fang couple hoped that the sons would be mature enough to understand their leaving was for the best. They thought it would also sharpen the boys' independence, but Zhiqian was still young and believed that love comes from their parents' caring all the time.

"My brother and I often asked them on the phone when they would come home. They usually repeated that we would be letting them down if we didn't study hard," complains Zhiqian. "They rarely asked how we felt about their leaving."

Xie Kui'e is ashamed that her sons see her as neglectful and uncaring. She suffered the pain of "irresponsible mother" guilt when her sons often mistakenly called her "granny" as they spent their first summer vacation with them in Zhejiang.

"But what can I do? Other children in our village live the same life," says Xie.

The Fang brothers are now both spending their last year at the Luoshan High School and preparing for the college entrance examination in June of 2010. They board at school and have one day off to see their grandparents some 90-minute ride away.

The long-time parental absence has shaped Fang. It has taught him to believe that order and disorder in his life were not due to fate or the actions of others, but self-determination.

"He is no doubt more mature than his peers. He is quiet, cautious and patient. These qualities are often seen on other left-behind children," says Fang's teacher Wang Shihai. He notes that nearly 20 percent of almost 6,000 students in the school are left-behind children.

"I often hide from strangers and I seldom talk about my worries with others," Zhiqian says. "My brother is even more withdrawn, and he has more pressures on study. He is already getting grey hair."

Independent researcher Ruan Mei has closely observed the lives of the children. She has spent four years interviewing more than 3,000 left-behind children in the six major migrant worker-exporting provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hunan, Hubei, Anhui and Henan. She just wrote a book entitled Pains Of The Century: Investigation Into China's Left-behind Children.

"The reality is astonishingly painful. What concerns me is how ignorant we are of the pains of the children. They grow upon their own," says the former reporter of the Huarong Newpaper based in Huarong County of Hunan Province.

The 44-year-old woman says two suicide cases of left-behind children inspired her to look into the issue four years ago. "One boy committed suicide for not studying well and another girl drowned herself for being pregnant. Many such cases, including rape and murder, also appeared in my investigation."

"But the most serious problem that the children face concerns their psychology. More than 40 percent of my child interviewees are obviously impaired," she says.

More than 16 percent of the children thought that their parents didn't love them and more than 80 percent said they felt insecure.

The left-behind children are usually of low self-esteem, oversensitive, and don't get along with others. Many hide their emotions and pretend to be happy.

"Their pains are like the moon during the day; invisible but it's still present," she says.

The "left-behind children" issue has aroused the attention of the Chinese government. A special work team, led by the State Council, was set up to establish a long-term strategy to protect the legitimate rights and interests of left-behind children through laws and regulations.

In addition, some local governments have provided left-behind children allowance for their living and medical care, while the Ministry of Education has built and renovated more than 10,000 boarding schools in central and western China to ensure the children receive an appropriate education.

However, Ruan insisted that family and school, the main caregivers for the children, are the key to tackle the problem.

"The educational level of adults supervising these children is generally not that high. Often they can only care for the children's safety and daily living, but their educational, behavioral and spiritual needs," says Ruan.

She suggests that family education should be added in the vocational training programs for migrant workers to teach how to communicate and educate the children. Psychology courses and psychological teachers should be introduced in schools.

"Regular letters from their parents and chats with teachers are the best remedy," says Ruan.

Xie Kui'e went back to Luoshan in the last June to take care of the sons till they finish the college entrance examinations. She rents a flat in downtown and sends meals to the two boys everyday.

Although she is still worrying about the expense of their college education, she hopes the rare reunion would help their studies.

Her return is a great encouragement for Zhiqian, who said his happiest moments now were when he has lunch with his brother and mother.

"Now I have people to talk to about my troubles and worries. I feel supported," he says.

In the future, Xie Kui'e and Zhiqian have different pictures: Xie hopes she can support her two sons while they finish their college education. Then she will renovate their house. Zhiqian dreams of studying economics at university and going back with that knowledge to develop his hometown after graduation.

"Then, nobody will need to leave home to earn money and there will be no left-behind children anymore," he says.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2009)