Born Against the Law (with Shen Yang)

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Introduction – 0:00

 

BLAIR HODGES: This is Relationscapes, the podcast where we explore unfamiliar life landscapes and hopefully start feeling more at home there than we ever expected. I'm journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City and our guide in this episode is author Shen Yang.

SHEN YANG: Not even one excess child wrote anything related to their own experience, and if no one says anything in the future, we would all be erased. So I felt like we have to stand out and say something about this.

BLAIR HODGES: Shen Yang broke the law simply by being born. It was the 1980s in China, and according to the One Child Policy, there she was, the daughter her parents weren't allowed to have. So they sent her away with relatives who had other dreams. What followed were years of cruelty and neglect, but also defiance and the will to thrive.

It's so hard to find excess children telling their stories. So I was so glad to find Shen Yang's book, More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter. She joins us to talk about it right now.

 

EXCERPT: An Unhappy Birthday – 01:34

 

BLAIR HODGES: Shen Yang, welcome to Relationscapes.

SHEN YANG: Thank you for having me.

BLAIR HODGES: I wanted to start with your first birthday, because that's how you start your book. You tell us about when you were born. I wanted to hear you read from the beginning to let people know how you entered the world, what was happening.

SHEN YANG: Chapter One, “New Year Baby.”

On January 1, 1986, on a bright sunny morning, I finally saw the light of day. My mother, with me in her belly, had been on the run from the authorities for nine months. Because I was a New Year baby, they gave me a warm name. Yang Yang, or sun.

However, I was hardly a little ray of sunshine to my family. I had a sister who was four years older than me. I broke the law simply by being born. And if the family planning authorities discovered my existence, my mother would be carted off to the clinic to have her tubes tied and our family would be heavily fined.

So there I was, swaddled in a thick quilt. I may have chosen a lucky day to be born on, but I could not change my destiny. Come what may, my mother had to give birth to a son in order to carry on the family line. The family could not afford the excess birth fine and did not want my mother to be sterilized.

So as soon as I was born, I was sent to my mother's parents, Nana and Granddad. They lived in Sunzha Village, Yanzhou county in Shandong.

BLAIR HODGES: So this isn't the happiest birthday for you or for your birth parents. You were born illegally.

SHEN YANG: Yes.

 

China’s One Child Policy – 03:06

 

BLAIR HODGES: How did China develop a One Child Policy to begin with?

SHEN YANG: It all started with the so-called overpopulation, that they are so worried that there will be not enough food, the economy will not go well, so they have to do this in order to help boost the economy. And in order to do some really meaningful things, they cut down the population, which is really weird because none of the countries in the whole world ever did that. China was the first.

BLAIR HODGES: This began in 1971 when they first encouraged this.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. And then slowly things got out of control a little bit. And then in 1982 when my sister was born, they made it into a law that it's illegal to have more than one child.

BLAIR HODGES: You mentioned that your mother could be carted away to a clinic and they would actually surgically sterilize her. What other penalties would people face if they had more than one child?

SHEN YANG: If you have a cow, they take your cow away. If you don't pay the fine, they tear down your house. They take all the furniture you have. Some were even worse. They take your child away. They say you pay for the fine and we give the baby back to you.

It was crazy, out of control.

BLAIR HODGES: This law stood for 40 years. It wasn't until 2011 when they relaxed it a little bit. They said that only-children parents—so any parents that had a child—could then have two kids.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: And then in 2015, they updated it to all married couples could have two kids. And then in 2016, they started encouraging people to have two kids. And then in 2021, they said you're allowed to have three.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: What caused the shifts? The Chinese Communist Party rules in China, they get to kind of make these laws. There's no voting on this. There's no public discussion on this. You're just told what to do. Why did they start relaxing it after a while?

SHEN YANG: Well, I think this is a global issue now, that we are in a shortage of babies. It's a great global issue that no one wants to have babies. And the reason why they want you have babies is because they want to boost the economy. It's the obvious, clear reason. I think that's the main reason. It's not because they care about babies. It's just because they don't want to worry about the future.

BLAIR HODGES: You say that these policies were always broadcast to the nation through big propaganda campaigns. There were slogans about family life. What do you remember about these slogans?

SHEN YANG: The most common slogan is, “If you have more than one child, we will tear down your house. If you don't pay for the fine, we will take your baby away.”

Or let me read one from the book.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah.

SHEN YANG: Okay. “One excess birth and the whole family gets their tubes tied.” This is quite something.

BLAIR HODGES: I see one here in the book that says, “We'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

SHEN YANG: Yeah. “Abort or miscarry. It can never be born.”

BLAIR HODGES: These aren't happy slogans!

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: These aren't like, “One child is best.” These are like, “We will get you!”

SHEN YANG: Yeah. [laughter]

 

Illegal Children Hidden in the Shadows – 06:38

 

BLAIR HODGES: For real. And whenever an additional birth would happen, like with yours, it had to be completely secret. So a family that would have an excess child had to be so secretive about it. These excess children were called “black” children. There's a Chinese word for that. It didn't refer to skin color. It referred to legal status. Tell me about that term.

SHEN YANG: Well, black children is because you are illegal. You are undocumented. And also, it's a matter of, like, that you hide in the shadow. And very often when I was young, when people call me heihaizi, little black child, I thought they refer to the skin, you know, because I was always out playing, I got tanned, and I thought they were referring to my skin.

But it was not. It was until many years later I discovered that it was because I was illegal, because I don't have documents.

BLAIR HODGES: There are official statistics from the Chinese Communist Party claiming that there's probably about 13 million excess children. But as you point out, China's population is 1.4 billion. So you actually believe there's a lot more than that, that they're underestimating.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, of course. I don't think everyone is registered for being black.

BLAIR HODGES: As far back as you can remember, then, there was something different about your life. You were sent to live with your grandparents in Shandong. Hopefully, I'm saying that right. A lot of the Chinese terms you'll probably have to help me with. But you say that this was kind of a wonderful time, actually.

You were sort of their little treasure. Tell me about your life with your grandparents early on. In the book, by the way, you point out a lot of these earliest memories you've had to recover later. You had to talk to family members and hear from people that could tell you what you were like as a little girl, because some of those memories were just gone to you. You were so little.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. When I was born, I was given to my maternal grandparents immediately. And then when I was five years old, I was transferred to my aunt's home. Those five years were the best years of my life because I was the first grandchild ever spending time with them, and they really spoiled me.

My grandfather was a very serious person, but my mom said, “He treated you so well. He spoiled you. He never laid a finger on you.” So I guess that's where I had the most wonderful, amazing time, that was my golden childhood.

BLAIR HODGES: Why do you think your grandpa was so different with you than with his own kids when they were little?

SHEN YANG: Because in China, we have a saying, “Ge dai qin.” You surpass one generation and you are closer to the next generation because you are a grandma or a grandpa. Or maybe because he's getting old and life is more relaxed. Life was not as hard as before.

BLAIR HODGES: Really sweet stories you tell. But as you say, it only lasted until you were five years old. You were taken to your aunt's family, and they treated you a lot worse. Why did you have to leave your grandparents, though? Things seem to be going well there. They seem to love you, and you were kind of their little treasure.

Why did you end up leaving?

SHEN YANG: I had no choice. Ever since I was born, my destiny was laid in the hands of my parents, my grandparents, and my aunt. Later on, I was sent away because my mom gave birth to other two daughters. I had a younger sister who was born in 1987, and a youngest sister was born in 1988.

So the burden was quite a lot. And the whole atmosphere is getting more and more serious. And they have to send my youngest sister also to my maternal grandparents. So it was quite a lot of burden for her with two kids she couldn't.

BLAIR HODGES: It takes a lot of energy.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: Especially since you say you were pretty rambunctious. You know, it sounds like you were a handful.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. I was like a tomboy when I was young.

BLAIR HODGES: As you said, you had several sisters. It seems like from what you read earlier, your parents were trying to have a son. That was kind of the main reason they kept trying to have more kids, right?

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: Why was that so important in China? Why did that matter?

SHEN YANG: It's a very traditional Chinese preference to have a boy because we were an agricultural country, a lot of labor was depending on the boys. And especially in the countryside, if you don't have a son, you will be laughed at by the other villagers. And my father had two brothers. The elder brother had two sons and the younger brother had two daughters also.

So they wanted to enlarge the family by having sons, of course. But I guess, I don't know, I guess it's his destiny to have four daughters. [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: And property rights played into it as well, didn't it? Inheritance.

SHEN YANG: Yes, the times have changed. Who could have imagined that in 40 years girls can inherit everything just like the boys. And most of the parents were taken good care of by the girls, daughters, not sons. That was quite ironic.

 

Damn Brat in the City – 12:05

 

BLAIR HODGES: So you move to live with your aunt's family. This was also not just a change with the main people in your life—your grandparents having been more like your parents at the time. Now you've got these new parental figures. It was also a culture shift because you're now going to the city and you felt kind of out of place there.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. Because everything was totally different. And that city is 500 miles away from my grandparents and it's a totally different province. They speak a different dialect, they eat different food. My whole world just collapsed and just changed.

BLAIR HODGES: As a five-year-old. That would be so hard.

SHEN YANG: It was very hard. I was crying like hell the whole way on the train. My aunt was so pissed off! [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: Instead of feeling compassion for you, this kind of sets up what it was going to be like with her. You're on the train with this aunt and you're crying and she's not comforting you, she's not putting her arm around you and saying like, oh, come here, sweetheart. In fact, her favorite thing to call you was “damn brat.”

SHEN YANG: Yes.

BLAIR HODGES: That's basically your name to her.

SHEN YANG: Yeah! That's what she would always say, “damn brat.” in Chinese is called si nizi. She's not the kind of person who comforts others because yeah, she was never treated like this by others. So she doesn't know how to treat others nicely.

BLAIR HODGES: This is where you first found out about what it meant to have “black” status. You heard adults gossiping about you and that's when you first learned about it. I can't remember, did you ask your aunt, what does this mean?

SHEN YANG: Yeah, I think I went back home and asked her, what does this mean? And she was like, just shut your mouth and eat your food. [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: When did you really wrap your head around it to say, like, oh, actually, I'm illegal. Like, my parents weren't supposed to have me. How old were you?

SHEN YANG: I think it was when I started to go to school. Gradually you realize, oh, wow, I have a different name and the birthday is not mine. Everything is different. It's fake, it's not me. Then I started to realize gradually that, yeah, there's something wrong.

BLAIR HODGES: Obviously there's a lot of cruelty coming from your aunt, but you say she was also in a difficult position because having a child like you, she needed to account for that. And she had to get you a fake ID.

And that wasn't cheap. It cost the equivalent of $3,000. Is that right?

SHEN YANG: Yeah, more or less. And you have to know, it was the 90s. That was quite a lot of money for them.

BLAIR HODGES: And that was just so you could go to school. You had to have legal papers to even attend.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. And I don't know, I was so angry. Many years later, I was asking my parents why, because I had papers actually, at my mom's sister's home. I didn't write it in the book, but it was too complicated. I had it at her home, registered under my mom's sister's home, but I was not living there, so they canceled it for me.

I was blaming my mom, Why? You have three girls. Didn't you even think one time, one second, that your other daughter needs document to go to school? She said—well, she didn't tell me, but she told my other sister—"I left her there. I totally forget about her.”

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, no! [laughter] Well, it just shows you're not top of mind to her. And people might wonder, like, okay, well, how did your parents get by? They had multiple kids at home, how did that work? Why did you get sent away? Your sisters were at home.

SHEN YANG: My elder sister, she was lucky. She was raised as the only child and she was four years older than me. So she was quite spoiled by my parents. They even took her to Beijing, to a lot of other big cities to travel. She was like a little princess. [laughter]

And then I was hiding at my grandparents place, of course. And then the younger sister came. She was given to my maternal grandparents.

BLAIR HODGES: That's what bumped you to your aunt's.

SHEN YANG: Yes. And then my aunt wanted to actually adopt the youngest daughter. But my grandma told her, “Well, take Yang Yang. She's too naughty for me. I couldn't handle her anymore. I have tiny feet. I can't catch her!”

BLAIR HODGES: Maybe that was partly why your aunt was frustrated with you. Like she wanted the other kid. And then she's like, oh, I got this kid. Oh no.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, “I got the naughtiest one.” [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: Oh man. Well, you also talk a bit about your uncle in the book. You say that he could be really cruel as well, but he also had some kindness about him. Talk about how it was with your uncle.

SHEN YANG: With my uncle, now that he passed away several months ago, I have to admit he played a very, very important role in my life. I didn't realize this before, or I don't want to admit that he was actually basically my father. We shared lots of wonderful memories together. Of course, also bad memories that can be called my “childhood trauma.”

But I was also thinking it also might be that when I was young, nobody protected me. So I might exaggerate a little bit about what happened at that time, because I never got people to comfort me. So I might exaggerate what happened between me and my uncle. But you know, you are a child. If somebody's cruel to you or beat you, your whole sky felt like it was falling down upon you.

BLAIR HODGES: See, that sounds like such a huge deal to me. Physical abuse against children is just unacceptable, hitting a child. And so to hear you were physically abused there—but this was again, as you point out, sort of part of the culture. This was generally acceptable?

SHEN YANG: Yeah. It was quite common. In China, if you ask the 80s and 90s generation if you were beaten by your parents or relatives, I think 90% would tell you yes, it's quite the norm. And also later I realized, when I asked my cousins, were you beaten by your mom, my aunt, they all tell me, “Yes, of course she beat the hell out of us!”

I was like, oh, now I feel comfortable. I feel fair. [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: Like, “Okay, well, it wasn't just me then” [laughs].

SHEN YANG: It wasn't just me!

BLAIR HODGES: As long as everyone suffered—

SHEN YANG: Yeah, everybody. Then I'm happy. [laughter]

 

A Pair of Red Boots – 18:56

 

BLAIR HODGES: Your parents stayed in touch with you a little bit. When you were ten years old, they visited you for New Year's. This really got you thinking about what your life might have been like if you were back home with them. What was going through your mind as a 10-year-old when your parents came.

SHEN YANG: It was a disaster because they came, and then they left without even saying goodbye. To me, it was like a second abandonment, a second time I felt like, okay, so they are just guests coming to visit you. They are not here to save you. They are not here to take you home. They are just here to say hello and then they are gone without even saying goodbye or promise you when they are gonna take you home.

So it was a total disaster for me.

BLAIR HODGES: The chapter where you write about this is called “A Pair of Red Boots.” Tell me about the boots.

SHEN YANG: Because in the early 90s, it was quite common for all the little girls in school, to have a pair of red boots, fake leather, of course. No one could afford real leather ones. And I was really eager to have one pair just for myself. But my aunt, of course, she would never buy for me.

She didn't even buy uniform for me, not to mention a nice pair of fancy boots. But my mom, somehow she knew this. She bought me a pair before she left. But what's the point of that compared to motherhood, compared to having a mom, a family? This pair of red boots doesn't seem to be attractive anymore.

BLAIR HODGES: You got the boots. But it was really a motherly relationship you really needed. Where were you looking for examples of mother relationships? How did you at that age have a sense of what a mom should be?

SHEN YANG: Oh, wow. I had a classmate. Yuan Xiaohui. And his mom? Wow. Because we were not only neighbors, but also classmates, and we were even desk buddies later on, so I observed every little detail of how she treated her son. She was like a real mom who really cared about her son.

She picked him up when it rained. She took him for breakfast in a small restaurant. Wiped his mouth when it's getting dirty. And you felt, wow, I wish I had a mom like this. And that's when I first realized how a child should be cared for.

BLAIR HODGES: And it also seemed that you had two sisters living with your parents back home at this point, they had paid the fine. They had gotten square with the law so they could live there. But they weren't doing that for you. And it also seemed like they were just wealthier, that they had more means, which meant they could be more comfortable or they could have more possessions or kind of be better taken care of.

So you thought about the emotional, relational things with your mom, but also the security and not having your aunt tell you all the time, like, “I'm not giving you a penny,” like, “Get out of here.”

SHEN YANG: Yeah. My aunt, she was not poor. I later learned that my uncle and even my cousins, they give money to my aunt. Actually, she was the one who's in charge of the house, who has all the money in her pocket. She was just like my father, very strict with money. If you ask for money, no, you have to beg her to have money.

Even for breakfast money, you have to really beg. And I didn't realize that for many years. My aunt told me your father never gave me a cent when you lived here. I was like, wow.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, wow.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. I was like, shame. Shame on him. You had a daughter there, and you don't give a cent to your sister. I was like, okay, fine. Now I understood why she was petty. Because the brother never gave a scent to her.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. And I think it's still wrong to sort of take it out on the child, but at least it's a little more understandable to know this. It's not like your dad was sending her money and she's keeping it from you. She kind of felt like, wow, I'm taking care of this child that's not really my child.

Not great. It's still not great.

SHEN YANG: But yeah, she was on good terms with my dad, and she felt happy to help him because, like I said, she has all the money in the family. But it's just, I don't know, maybe it's her character. She just likes to yank you with the money. I don't know. [laughter]

 

EXCERPT: In for a Penny, In for a Pound – 23:26

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, there's an example I wondered if you would read from the book. This is on page 100. This is where one of the more traumatic times when you asked your aunt for some money. You experienced your first period, you're going through puberty. A really difficult time for a lot of kids regardless, shame and embarrassment and curiosity and wonder and all these feelings you're dealing with. And then, on a practical level, you need to find a way to keep yourself hygienic, to have menstrual pads and stuff. This part of the book was really powerful.

SHEN YANG: Okay. This was the most humiliating day in my life, but I'm gonna try to read it without crying. If you make me cry, I'm going to America! [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: Well, I want to meet you, so—[laughter]

SHEN YANG: In for a penny, in for a pound.

I had to find a way myself since my aunt was refusing to give me money for sanitary napkins. That evening, I sneaked into the salon when she was cooking in the kitchen, carefully opened the cash drawer, grabbed some, and ran. As far as I was concerned, my plan was flawless and there was no way Auntie Wenjie would find out.

However, by the next afternoon, she had rumbled me. When I got home from school, she greeted me with an outburst of suppressed fury. You needn't think you can pull the wool over my eyes. You'd rather die than admit it, wouldn't you? But I know what you've been up to. I knelt it in the yard, holding my head in my hands as she took off her trousers belt and whipped my back with it.

You've been a thief all your life, and I've had enough, she spluttered in rage. My uncle sat at the front door and silently watched her beat me. You start with a needle, you'll end up stealing gold. If I don't beat it out of you now, you'll go to prison for it. She reached out and gave my ear a vicious twist.

Own up. You stole money from the salon, didn't you? I protected my poor ear from my hand and refused to utter a word. I'll break you if it's the last thing I do. She hauled me upright with both hands and pulled her belt tight around my neck. She was exerting all her strength and I struggled and coughed, trying to get a grip on this thing that was choking me.

For a moment I really felt that she was going to strangle me. Suddenly I felt a stream of something warm running down my legs, and I realized I was still alive. Alive and soaked in my own urine. My survival instinct finally kicked in. I took it. I cried. If you hadn't admitted it, I would have strangled you.

You'll grow up vicious if you go on like this. She let go and I could see the marks from the belt on her hand. I scolded down and cried and coughed, feeling the red marks on my neck. Tell me straight up, she demanded sternly, still clutching her belt. What did you spend all that money on?

I got to my feet, still sobbing, and went into my room. I came out again with a plastic bag and taped the contents on ground. My aunt and my uncle were dumbfounded. Three bags of sanitary towels and a vest and two pairs of knickers with a carton Design on them lay spilled out in front of them.

My uncle got up slowly. My aunt let her belt drop. That was the most humiliating day in my life. Even after 20 years, the scene is still etched vividly in my memory. If I reach out to my neck, I can feel that belt tightening around it. That night, I locked myself in the room and licked my wounds.

Auntie would never apologized to me because no matter what I bought with the money, there was no denying that I had stolen it. If you stole, you were a thief. Curled up in the corner of the bed with my hands around my knees, I thought of my sisters at home in Shandong. They were with our mother, and I was sure they did not need to worry about vests, knickers and sanitary towels.

Girls with mothers got school uniforms every year for sure. In the darkness of the night, the tears scowled my already battered ego. What made me cry was not being beaten or being poor or being inferior. It was because at 11 years old, I felt utterly helpless, terrified and despairing of life.

BLAIR HODGES: That’s Shen Yang reading from her book, More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter. She was an excess child in China who didn't legally exist, and one of the millions of these invisible children who was forced to live in the shadows of Chinese society.

Thanks for reading that for us. I know that must be difficult and you don't spare us any details. This is a very detailed account and I wanted to hear what it was like deciding to put this in the book and to let the world know about this experience.

SHEN YANG: Well, I'm sure there were even worse treatments like this for some other children. Even though, like I said, it was the most humiliating day in my life so far. I guess once you have the guts to face it and tell the truth, you might slowly recover from it. Because the more you want to bury it, the more painful you might feel.

And like I said before, I was not the only one. All my cousins were all beaten like this. Because my cousin, she told me one thing similar to this. When she was young, my aunt accused them of stealing, but they didn't. But she couldn't find the money. She lost it. So she beat them one by one. She asked them to kneel down on the ground and beat them one by one. So it's like she was just this tyrant. So then I understood. She wanted to beat me because she wanted to make me remember this and don't steal from others or from anyone. She wanted to educate me. But she used the most extreme, inhumane way.

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, it could have been life-threatening. And also, the reason you stole wasn't taken into account at all, that you needed help. This was a health-related thing. This wasn't you just trying to go out and get some candy or something. And I wouldn't even necessarily begrudge a kid for making a mistake like that, you know, whatever.

But in this case, you needed this. Your needs weren't being met. To me, you stole out of desperation because of how you were being treated.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, we all knew that. But she didn't know. She doesn't care. Because it was typical that they don't ask you why, they just beat you. They beat you first. Then they discover, “oh, it was because of this.” But it was too late. The harm was already done.

 

Protecting Her Story – 30:47

 

BLAIR HODGES: Have you spoken with her about this incident since then?

SHEN YANG: I think it was like many years ago. We talked a tiny bit about this. She was accusing me of being naughty and stealing her stuff. And I was like, wow, there's a reason. There is always a reason why a child steals. If she has everything she needs, why would she steal? If you were more responsible or you really cared about me, you wouldn't let me steal.

But yeah, they just don't want to admit they were wrong or anything.

BLAIR HODGES: And the book I have in my hands, it's in English, it's translated into English. Is there a Chinese version of this that your aunt could even read?

SHEN YANG: No. Luckily no! [laughter] And I don't plan to publish this memoir in Chinese. I would rather rewrite as fiction. And I'm planning to do that.

BLAIR HODGES: Is that to save relationships, or are there legal fears or anything? What would stop you from saying, hey, I want them to see this as-is.

SHEN YANG: I don't want them to see this. Especially my father, if he sees everything, he reads everything, he might chop me into pieces for talking about it! [laughter]

Because, you know, the chapter I wrote, I dedicated one chapter just for him. I wrote so many things, horrible things he did to us, to me. But I want to say that, like I said before, I might exaggerate it a little bit because as a child, these things seems to be huge to you. I might exaggerate the emotion.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, and I want to be clear on this, when you say exaggerated, you're not saying like you wanted to make it up. You're saying you're telling us from how it felt to you as a child.

SHEN YANG: Yes.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay, good, because when you say you exaggerated, some people might mistakenly think you're like, oh, I kind of made it bigger than it was for the sake of being juicy.

SHEN YANG: Oh, no, no, no. [laughter]

 

Comparing Grass – 33:02

 

BLAIR HODGES: You mentioned your dad too. You kind of felt like you thought life would be better if you went back home, right? Then you actually went back home on a trip because your grandfather on your dad's side died. And this isn't the grandfather that you lived with until you were five years old. This was your other grandfather. And on that trip is the first time you were really with your birth family for an extended time. And it was not great. In fact, your dad at one point flew into a rage and beat you on this trip.

Talk about what happened when you went back and found out maybe the grass isn't greener on the other side.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. As you know, the daughter was always living under other people's roof. And you finally went back to your biologic parents home. You were expecting them to treat you with enthusiasm, care, but on the contrary, they didn't give a damn.

And my sisters tricked me to buy chocolate. So I went out to buy it. When I came back, he kicked me and he scolded me. He beat me for going out with without telling him I was going out. People might discover my existence and he might get fined. So he was so worried that people might, you know, point me out.

BLAIR HODGES: Like recognize you maybe and be like, wait a minute.

SHEN YANG: Because I look, I'm sorry to say this, but I really resemble him a lot.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow.

SHEN YANG: So, yeah, I understand. Just like I said, in this family, no one talks to you positively or tells you things in a soft way or in a nice way. They always either beat you or scold you.

BLAIR HODGES: You and your sisters, who you didn't really know, that wasn't great either. You thought, maybe it would be cool to get to know these girls who are your actual sisters. But that wasn't great.

SHEN YANG: No. They had this tiny little flower cake they were hiding behind a wardrobe. And when I asked them why there's no cake for me, they were like, “oh, mom only gave us $2. It's not enough.” I was like, whatever.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, they're not ready to, “oh, this is our sister who’s visiting. Let's do something sweet for her and make her feel welcome. It was like, oh, you're here.

SHEN YANG: I don't even think they take me as a sister because that was the first time I went back. They might think I was just this little girl who came to this house and played with them.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow. Oh, right.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

 

Connecting with Other Excess Kids – 35:28

 

BLAIR HODGES: Let's get to something that was sort of a relief. We've talked about a lot of the trauma, but you were also, in a lot of ways, a happy child. You had friends. And one of the biggest reliefs to me was when you met other children like yourself, when you realized that you weren't all alone and you were able to meet other excess kids.

Tell us about some of those kids, what you learned from them.

SHEN YANG: I had two best friends who were also excess birth children in primary school. One is Lu Yangguang. One is Wei Wanjun. They were all excess birth children. And we shared similar emotional turbulence. We could relate to each other because they were also the victims of the One Child Policy.

For Liu Yangguang it was even worse. He didn't live with his parents and lived under different relatives’ roofs. But he was still this good student and who was always positive, who was grateful for people who gave him shelter, food. And I was like, in front of him I always felt like I was so ungrateful because I lived with my uncle and aunt. I not only have a shelter, I have a huge yard with 18 grape vines.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, the grape vines that you loved that your uncle planted and you could eat some grapes.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. So compared to him, I was like this lucky child. A lucky child who sometimes got beaten by the aunt of course. [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. You say he kind of taught you gratitude.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, it was from him I learned how to be grateful. As long as people offer you shelter and food.

And about Wanjun, the other friend, she had a disease.

BLAIR HODGES: She was born with hydrocephalus.

SHEN YANG: Yes, hydrocephalus. She was born with this disability and she was always having low self-esteem. She was always looked down upon by others and always pointed out by others and yanked by others. I was like, wow. At least no one pointed to me and say, “You little damn brat, black child,” or gave me all sorts of nicknames there. Of course, also because I had a very strong character, I beat whoever yanked me at school! [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: People learned not to mess with you.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, yeah. So I learned that from her, well, you have to be grateful. You are a healthy child.

BLAIR HODGES: I’m glad you befriended her. You could see past the disability in a way because of your disadvantages. I liked the friendship you developed with both of these kids. It made me realize that you weren't just completely alone in the world. You had some people that you could think fondly of and have good relationships with. They were sort of short-lived relationships though, right? You didn't get to spend a ton of time with them.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. Because one dropped out of school, and the other one, I finished middle school, I left Nanyang, I went back to my hometown and people. And then she became this teenager kind of out of control. And because I cannot accompany her and help her all the time, she has to fight for herself.

But you know, I was busy with my studies and I was handling my own at my hometown. So I was also this teenager, this intruder with my own life.

BLAIR HODGES: You all had a lot to deal with.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

 

A Teacher and Mentor Made a Difference – 39:04

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, speaking of help, there was a teacher who really helped change things for you. Mr. Shen. You were 14 and you just weren't really applying yourself academically. You were like, whatever. But he saw something in you. It seemed like he kind of changed your mind about what education could be about.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. He was my mentor, My very first mentor. My master, my sunlight, my ray of hope. [laughs] He changed my life, let's say dramatically.

BLAIR HODGES: Was he an English teacher? I can't remember what subject.

SHEN YANG: Yeah, he taught us English and he graduated from Zhengzhou University back then, majored in English. He was very cool. You know, he was not a traditional teacher who just read the textbooks. He was very cool and the way he taught us was very creative.

BLAIR HODGES: What set him apart from other teachers?

SHEN YANG: Oh wow. He was like a friend to us. It was like a big brother. He just pointed out the most important points in the textbooks and then teaches us how to pronounce it. And then he would just tell you, okay, you need to recite all these. You need to listen to the tape over and over again to cultivate your intonation, to really cultivate how to pronounce everything instead of just preparing for the exams.

And then later he would just teach for 15 or 20 minutes and then the rest of the 20 or 25 minutes he would just tell us all sorts of other things.

BLAIR HODGES: And you weren't used to that.

SHEN YANG: We all loved it. But some of the "good students" didn’t!

BLAIR HODGES: You point out these goody goodies on the front row. These front row students who were used to teachers who they knew how to please. If they do these particular things they get this outcome.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: And they weren't getting that with him. He saw education on a more personal level and they didn't like that. And that's when they started to actually try to get rid of him. And they succeeded.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. I always thought he was what God sent to me to save me. And then he finished his mission. He just left.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah. I'll read what he said to you before he left. He resigned because of all the protests against him. But before he left, he said to you, “I'm leaving, but don't get upset. If I hadn't been pushed out today, I would have left sooner or later anyway. I have my dream and now I'm going off to be the real me. You're my star student. Remember, you're in charge of your own learning. And you should learn because you love it and work hard because you want to, not because the teacher or your parents make you or because you have to take the exams. Give it your best effort and the day will come when you make a name for yourself. And as long as you remember your old teacher, I'll be happy.”

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: So that was personal. That's great to have a teacher that's so personally encouraging to you.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. I still remember him now. His name is Shen Jianping. The same pronunciation, Shen, but not the same character.

BLAIR HODGES: What ever happened to him? Is there any way you could find him?

SHEN YANG: If I go to the police station and I might find him, but because back then we don't have email or computer to, you know, or QQ or anything like a WeChat, anything like that, so who knows? Maybe I will try in the future.

 

Birth Family Reunions – 42:43

 

BLAIR HODGES: When you turned 16, things actually get bad enough at your aunt's house that you actually called your dad at this point and said that you wanted to go home. And I was surprised that your parents did bring you back at that point. What had changed by the time you were 16 to where they would say, okay, you can come back and live with us?

SHEN YANG: Because they promised me when I went back home the first time, they promised me that when you finish primary school, you could come back. And then when I finished primary school, they told me, oh, they find this lame excuse, because they have torn down the village, they are going to build new apartments. So once the new apartment are done, you can come back, live in the new house.

I was like, oh, come on. I don't care where I live. Even if I live in the most shabby place, I don't care. I just want to go back. But they said, you have to stay. You don't have a choice. So I stayed another three years, which was a disaster because then I was this teenager!

BLAIR HODGES: You weren't the compliant, quiet little person, right?

SHEN YANG: No, no. To make things worse, I was only one year older than my younger sister and two years younger than my youngest sister. So three teenagers at home. Can you imagine? [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: Those can be really tough years. And when you went back, you're 16, so you're bringing all the work of another teenager into that home. And you start talking to your sisters. This is where you're talking to each other about who had it worse.

SHEN YANG: It was really hard for them to relate and agree with me because they didn't really try to put themselves into my shoes for one second. And maybe because I didn't make myself clear. I was always angry or alone by myself. I didn't want to argue. I gave up. I just wanted to be left alone. I felt like it was useless to talk to them. Like no one can understand me.

BLAIR HODGES: It didn't seem like they tried to. And meanwhile, your dad, you found out he was really terrible to live with. You talk about him being mean, and chain smoking in the living room, and basically not caring about anybody else. Being really stingy with money. Not letting people use the air conditioning unit. He would keep the TV on constantly.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: You say, he was “the ultimate selfish man.” [laughter]

SHEN YANG: Exactly. And he is still like that. That’s why I flipped his table over when I took my aunt home three months ago, we had a huge fight.

BLAIR HODGES: Really?

SHEN YANG: An argument. Yes. He’s still like that. Even in his 70s. And I couldn't bear it anymore. He told me, get lost. I told him I would never, ever step into his house again. Even when he passed away. So nobody tell me.

SHEN YANG: That was my last sentence in that house.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow. Wait, so this is just recently. Okay, if anybody's lost here, let me kind of put pieces together. So you recently visited China a couple months ago for the funeral of the uncle who raised you. He was basically like a father to you.

SHEN YANG: Yes.

BLAIR HODGES: And while you were there, you took your aunt back to your birth father's place and you were staying there. And you and your birth father got into it. There were arguments?

SHEN YANG: Yeah. He was really unpleasant to live with. The reason why I took my aunt home was because I want her to feel closer to the Shen family because her husband passed away, right? And I want her to feel like, you know, you still have a home in your hometown. You have all the siblings there.

That's why I took her back home. It was quite interesting because when I was young, she took me back home. Now that her husband passed away, I took her home. She felt like a little girl. I felt like this adult. So our position changed.

But it was really difficult to live with my father because he was just purely unpleasant. My cousin, my aunt's son, he was against all this. One time he was drunk and he called me. It was a few weeks ago. He said, you have to forgive my uncle. You have to be on good terms with him. You have to blah, blah, blah.

I was like, can you please shut up? You never experienced life under the same roof with your uncle. You didn't know anything, anything about him. Can you please not say anything?

I said, sometimes you also vent about your mom. You are also not on good terms with your mom, so you have no right to tell me. And he was like, well, I treat my mom well. I said, yes, you don't have a choice. I have choice. I can choose which one is my father, which one is my mother. I have two. I can choose. He was dumbfounded.

BLAIR HODGES: Wow, sorry. That gets at the heart of what this One Child Policy did in terms of what your family life could be.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: When you fought with your father on this last trip, do you remember what was it about?

SHEN YANG: He was just purely annoying. He has no control of his own mouth. He could flip out for the most small things in our daily life. And the reason I argued with him was because—

It was quite complicated because our relative was hosting my aunt and I. But he called his friend to come visit for dinner. And that friend was very annoying. He invited him without consulting anyone. And he was not even treating. He was not the one who pays for the dinner. So everybody was not happy. And then when they went back home, my mom just said one thing, “why did you ask him to come?” He immediately flipped out. He was like, “It's none of your business, you f*ck off! Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!” And I was like, that's not the right way to talk to my mom. That's not the right way to treat your family members. Why you are talking like this? And then he started to get angry with me and we started to argue and everything.

BLAIR HODGES: What did your aunt think? Does she still feel she could go back and visit or was your aunt just like, oh, maybe that's not a good situation.

SHEN YANG: My aunt was on good terms with brother. She was even defending him. But in the end she told him to shut up.

BLAIR HODGES: Maybe she could do that because of her relationship with him.

SHEN YANG: Yeah.

BLAIR HODGES: Okay.

SHEN YANG: Anyway, like I said, I could choose which one is my mom, which one is my dad. I choose to treat my aunt and my uncle like my parents instead of my biologic parents.

 

Reconciliation – 49:27

 

BLAIR HODGES: So you'd gone back to live with your parents when you were 16 and then when you were 18 you decided to go back and visit your aunt and uncle. You'd had so many difficult experiences there that I was surprised that you went back. And so were they! [laughter]

SHEN YANG: Yeah. I guess time healed everything. And also I haven't seen them. Stubbornly, I refused to go back until, you know, three years later. And then they realized I changed or they realized that they shouldn't have treated me like that. So we started to open up to each other and I started to know more about their own history when they were young, what happened to them.

As I knew more, I felt like, okay, they had no choice. They never had love. They never learned from anyone how to communicate with others nicely.

BLAIR HODGES: Right. It wasn't this fairy tale romance where they were young and they met each other and fell in love and got married and wanted to have a family. You learned that their life was very different.

SHEN YANG: You have to delete the idea “Fell in love.” Nobody fell in love with anyone! [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, that wasn't what it was?

SHEN YANG: They got married because one couldn't find a wife, one couldn't find a husband because of their so-called bad political family background. Because they both came from big landlord family. They were looked down upon by the farmers and they couldn't get jobs. My uncle couldn't even go to university. He was the top student, but he couldn't even go to university because of this.

BLAIR HODGES: Did he become proud of you because you ended up falling in love with literature? You're very educated. I guess maybe he could feel jealous or something. I don't know. How did he feel about that? Because you got to do a lot of the things he didn't.

SHEN YANG: He was quite proud and very happy for me when I showed him More Than One Child, he was. I could see he was genuinely happy for me. To be honest, I have his manuscript. He also wrote something about his past.

BLAIR HODGES: Really?

SHEN YANG: Yeah. It was quite interesting. And I was just discussing this with my husband the other day, that I might not admit it, but subconsciously or gradually, when I was young, I took this literature part from my uncle because he was always the one who was reading.

Later on he self-studied and he graduated from Henan University, graduating in ancient literature. Something like that. So I have to admit I'm very happy I lived with my uncle because my father is a man who never reads, and they don't have this family environment or atmosphere that you can see adults reading all the time. But my uncle, he was constantly reading. I guess that subconsciously affected me.

BLAIR HODGES: And then like you said, you had this teacher who was inspirational. And then I think you're probably sort of naturally inclined then to the life of the mind. You love words, you love reading, and you've been able to make a life with this.

 

EXCERPT: Lucky By Comparison – 52:56

 

BLAIR HODGES: I mean, this reminds me of a passage that I asked you to read before we started. This is on page 223 where you talk about feeling “lucky by comparison.”

SHEN YANG: I had always known that I was lucky compared to other excess birth children, those who were abandoned or died at birth. I had the love of Nana and granddad for the first five years of my life, and with them I lived happy and carefree thanks to their love.

I had a sunny personality as a little girl. I was incredibly fortunate to be able to live with them. If it had not been for those early years with them, if I had gone straight to my uncle and aunt, I would have been a very different person. It was only much later that I learned that my uncle had lost his mother at the age of three and had had a lovely childhood too.

He was forced to drop out of school because of his family's bad political background. He was a depressed and frustrated man when he married my aunt, a near illiterate woman with a vile temper. There was a time when I hated them so much. Hated them for taking me in and making me suffer. Hated them for ruining my happy childhood. I used to long to go home and leave this loveless family. As I grew up, I began to understand how they had suffered and I came to terms with the past. The government's family planning policy left an indelible mark on the lives of that generation. Although the one-child-per-family era has ended, the wounds it inflicted over the three decades have not healed.

 

Telling the Stories of Excess Children – 54:39

 

BLAIR HODGES: So as we said, the policies have changed, but it doesn't change all the experiences and all the hardships so many people like yourself faced. Are you in touch with groups and communities of excess children at this point?

SHEN YANG: Yeah. Ever since the book was published, I received lots of emails and messages from people around the whole world. Not only excess born children, but also children who were abused or had childhood trauma. Even foreigners, not just Chinese. They shared their experiences with me and I felt so close to them.

And also later on, girls who were adopted abroad because of this policy, they also reached out and I met lots of Chinese girls who were adopted abroad and we talked, we added each other on WeChat, we became friends. You felt not alone, you felt like, wow, I'm not the only victim. We are like a whole army of excess birth children.

And I was really happy. I get a chance to voice my experience and then rouse other people's memory of their own childhood.

And like I said, so far, not even one excess child wrote anything related to their own experience. And if no one said anything in the future, we will be erased. No one would know that because everybody talks about only children in China. They all say, well, they are the victims of the One Child Policy. They suffered a lot, and no one's even mentioning anything about us. Yeah. So I felt like we have to stand up and say something about this.

BLAIR HODGES: I'm so glad you wrote the book because I've been looking for books on the One Child Policy and I found some academic books, but I really wanted to find a book by someone who had been through it. And yours is the only book I found. And that was kind of scary because I thought if this isn't like a good book, then what am I going to do? [laughs]

But I read the book and it's an absolutely outstanding book. You did such a great job. And. And people might wonder why there aren't more books because there's got to be so many really powerful stories that could be told. So you know, where are all the books?

SHEN YANG: Not every excess child like me or any other girls who could have the power to heal by themselves, who could recover from the trauma—not everyone wants to go back to those times and disclose the scars and feel the pain again. It was really hard for me not to mention others. So who has the guts to say something about what happened to them? It really takes a lot of courage.

So I wrote something. I wrote a book. There were other people who use art to this way. There was a girl who had an art exhibition about it. It was very powerful. There was one sentence in her art that said "I was born illegal and I was sentenced to live."

And there's another boy who's also an excess child who is doing a documentary. And there are other girls who are doing podcasts. So you see, even though there are no other books coming out that I know of, at least there are other forms of creation.

 

Political Considerations – 59:18

 

BLAIR HODGES: You don't live in China anymore. Is that a factor? Could there be political difficulties if people told their stories?

SHEN YANG: Before, it might have been more due to political reasons. But as I discovered, it all depends on how you describe it and how you write it and to what extent you tell the story. So I'm thinking to write a book of fiction now. And I'm working on lots of materials, gathering lots of information, and hopefully one day it can come out in mainland China.

Because I'm sure there will be lots of people who are interested in this topic. Because this book was at Shanghai Garden Books. Garden Books only sells Western books. And I had like thirty copies there last year and it was sold out within one month. Lots of Chinese people who understand English, they were very interested in this.

And some even contacted me and we had chat, became friends. It was quite interesting. And one friend told me, I don't think you put anything against the government. I think it can be published in China. I said, okay, as fiction? No, nonfiction, they said. But I don't want my aunt or my father to read anything in this.

BLAIR HODGES: Yeah, you talk about the government side of it just at the very beginning. You're pretty straightforward about what the policies were and you talk about that. But this book is mostly about your family. So do you think it could have been harder if you were like, “okay, the current party shares responsibility in this suffering”? You know, calling for a revolution or something?

SHEN YANG: Well, people all have this stereotype that China is a country that doesn’t allow you to say anything. But no, it's not like this. You have some certain amount of freedom to say the truth, but in a subtle way and it all depends on how you say it. Like Mo Yan’s book, Frog. Mo Yan is quite famous. He won the Nobel Prize for literature. He wrote one related to the family planning policy called Frog. And it was quite brutal, I have to say some parts. But he managed to publish. There's no problem in publishing these kinds of books.

But maybe for me, like I said, people say, “oh, it's related to One Child Policy. No, we don't want to publish this.”

I think another reason was because I was a nobody. [laughs] I was not Mo Yan. Whatever you say they don't want to publish it.

BLAIR HODGES: They're like, "You're not famous enough for us." [laughter]

SHEN YANG: Who wants to hear a mediocre little black child story? We don't want to hear your story!

 

Translating the Book – 01:02:07

 

BLAIR HODGES: Oh, I wish they would have read it because it's so good. Was it hard working with the translator? Nicky Harman is the translator. Sometimes there must be ideas that are really difficult to put into other languages. Even if you can find equivalent words, it doesn't necessarily mean that the feeling is good carried across.

SHEN YANG: Nicky Harman was amazing, is amazing. And she is the best English Chinese translator so far. And her translation was very vivid. I might not an expert on English, but whenever she did her drafts about the translation, one chapter after another chapter, I did proofreading for her and I consulted with her. We had a lot of discussions.

So I have to say this book was quite accurate to the original text. And yeah, she was amazing. She was the best translator I've ever known.

BLAIR HODGES: Good.

SHEN YANG: What do you think of the translation?

BLAIR HODGES: Well, it's funny, it seemed British to me. Is she British?

SHEN YANG: Yes!

BLAIR HODGES: Okay. So yeah, I could kind of pick up on that. But I agree it was very vivid and well written. And you're the one who decided on the narrative arc and when you were going to take us to different times, what scenes you would focus on and how the story would move along the pacing of the story. It is a really well-told story. It's very, very compelling. It was a page-turner. I would get to the end of a chapter and look at and be like, oh, I don't have time to go to the next chapter, but I want to so bad!

SHEN YANG: Thank you. Thank you so much for spending so much time reading and doing this program. Thank you so much. Thank you.

 

It's Healing to Be Seen – 01:03:47

 

BLAIR HODGES: My pleasure. How's your family now? You're married, you mentioned, do you want to have kids? Where are you at in terms of what you want family to be like for you now?

SHEN YANG: I used to have very hard times with my sisters and my biological parents and my aunt and my uncle and my cousins. I used to hate everyone. I used to argue and fight with everyone. When I was young. But now I'm almost 40 years old, more Zen, you know, more calm or more focused.

When I realized that, I was like, why I was so stupid? Why argue with those idiots? [laughter] But my sister, who was very positive, she told me, “Thank you, Yang Yang, thank you. It was because of you. You argue, you defend yourself, you fight for your rights, so we realized we did something wrong to you. We didn't put ourselves in your shoes. And then now that we all have children”—they all have their own children—"now we understand you even more because I could not imagine just giving my child away to someone. And I couldn't help thinking about my child. If I give my child away so we could relate to you more. And we are really sorry for what happened to you.”

I'm very grateful that they said all these things to me because it healed me somehow. I felt like, wow. Thank you for your understanding. I don't crave for mother love, father love anymore. I have all the love I was craving for when I was young.

And now that I am almost 40 years old, I have my own family. Of course I want to have my own child. But we've been trying for two or three years. It didn't come. So, yeah, if it comes, it comes. We will start a happy family like yours. But if it doesn't come, I would just focus on myself and treat my nieces and nephews well.

And yeah, and my books, My books are all my children. So—[laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: It sounds like just being seen by your relatives was healing. You felt understood. You're like, okay, they get it.

SHEN YANG: Yeah. Oh, and another important thing my cousin mentioned. He said, "There's only one thing in your heart." I said, what? Tell me. I don't know. "There's only one thing. You always felt abandoned. You held a grudge against your parents." I said, dude, I didn't hold a grudge against anyone anymore. I don't care if they abandoned me. I just want them to say sorry. Sincerely. That's it. Enough. I don't want anything from them. I don't even want them to kiss me, give me money, give me a hug. I just want them to sincerely admit their mistakes.

BLAIR HODGES: Well, it sounds like your father probably won't get there. I'm sorry to hear about how difficult that was. How about your mom?

SHEN YANG: My mom was okay. And the funny thing was that all my sisters, now, they were all criticizing my mom and she realized how crap she was. [laughter] I'm really happy my sisters are all defending me now.

 

Regrets, Challenges, & Surprises – 01:07:10

 

BLAIR HODGES: Well, we always like to conclude with regrets, challenges, and surprises. This is a moment for you to think about the book itself. If there's anything you would change about it now that it's out. Or what the hardest part about writing it was, or if something surprised you while you were writing it, something new you discovered or learned about yourself.

And you can speak to any of those. You don't have to speak to all three. Regrets, challenges, or surprises.

SHEN YANG: Challenging. I was definitely challenged. During the process of writing this book, I cried like hell in the room all by myself because it was like traveling back to the trauma I had when I was young. It was really, really hard. Can you imagine someone crying like an idiot in the house by herself? [laughs]

BLAIR HODGES: That's so sad. Did you talk to a therapist about it at all?

SHEN YANG: No, because it's not common in China to talk to a therapist. And also we don't have money for a therapist. But what I did was talk with friends, talk with relatives like my sisters. I don't want to change anything.

At a certain point, I regretted writing so many bad things about my father. I felt like, oh, maybe he was not so crap. And then the next day, he pissed me off. I was like, oh, I did well, serves him right! [laughter]

BLAIR HODGES: You're like, I could have done more!

SHEN YANG: Yeah. So I really don’t regret anything. And I'm grateful and I'm happy that I wrote everything down. It was like a closure. One friend told me, “You basically let your grandparents, your uncle, and your aunt live forever, because the whole world knows them now. They were nobody. But you made their story stay.

BLAIR HODGES: I hope more people read your story. It's called More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter by Shen Yang.

Yang Yang. I loved reading your book. I'm excited to see what else you publish and what other work you do. Good luck with all of that.

SHEN YANG: Thank you so much.

BLAIR HODGES: And thank you!

 

Outro – 01:09:30

 

BLAIR HODGES: Thanks for listening to another episode of Relationscapes. And if you enjoyed this one, there's a few “Fellow Traveler” episodes you can check out. Stories of unbelievable childhoods. Try Guinevere Turner's episode, “Coming of Age in a Cult and Beyond,” or Jessi Hempel's episode, “One Big Closeted Family.”

If you're enjoying the podcast, would you take a second to rate and review it? It's easy to do. Just go to Apple Podcasts, look up the show, scroll down, hit ratings and reviews. Let me know your thoughts. It helps me let guests know what the show's all about, and it also helps us find new listeners. And I just like reading what you have to say about the show, too. You can also rate the show on Spotify, by the way.

Mates of State provides our theme song. I'm your host, journalist Blair Hodges in Salt Lake City, and I'll see you next time.