译者 kennethcarey
On a sweltering night in July 2011, 17-year-old Zhang Juanzi arrives at her farmhouse in the remote village of Silong in Hunan province. Despite the cramped 12-hour van journey from Shenzhen, the young girl bounds past the wooden doors to wake up her 5-year-old brother, Zhang Yi, whose face scrunches in the flickering light. He is thrilled by her arrival, but when he sees his mother, Huang Dongyan, he recoils into his sister's arms. He will not look at Huang, who is squealing at him, begging him to say "Mommy."
2011年七月的一个闷热的夜晚，17岁的张娟芝（音译）回到了位于湖南省石龙的偏远村庄的农舍。顾不上12小时的长途旅行的疲倦，这个年轻的女孩推开木门，把她5岁大的弟弟张毅叫醒。因张毅因为姐姐的突然归来而兴奋不已，但是当他看到他妈妈黄东媛（音译）时却躲进了姐姐的怀抱里。他不愿意看黄，而黄却不断的叫他，求他叫自己妈妈。
After many minutes of this game, Huang, exasperated, pulls out a plush animal. "Say 'Mommy,'" she lilts. "Mama," he says, snatching his new toy. Huang had hoped for a better start to her visit. She will soon deliver some life-altering news to her son: After this visit, she will move him to Shenzhen, the city where she, along with about 12 million other migrants, maintain their fragile economic circumstances by producing shoes, iPads, and other exports sold all over the world.
在这一情景持续了几分钟后，黄有些愤怒了，她拿出一个毛绒绒的玩具。“叫妈妈，”她叫喊着，把那个玩具撕烂。黄本来期望着一个更好的开端。她很快会告诉她的儿子一个改变命运的消息：她这次回来是要把她接去深圳的，在这个大城市里黄和其他大概1200万的移民通过生产鞋子、IPAD以及其他出口到全球各地的商品来维持他们脆弱的经济条件！
Huang and her son have a strained relationship, one damaged by Huang's absence. It has been months since they last saw each other. Her son seems to view Huang as a stranger who visits once or twice a year and demands his affection. Huang blames the country's housing registration policy, or hukou system, for their broken bond. The hukou system denies social benefits to China's some 150 million rural migrant laborers who move to urban areas for work. Because of this policy, migrant workers like Huang are forced to leave their children behind in the village to receive schooling, health care, and other necessary services.
黄和她的儿子的关系很紧张，这是因为黄的消失而引起的。他们上次见到彼此已经是好几个月前的事情了。她的儿子似乎把黄当作了一个陌生人，一个一年出现一两次而且要求要亲近的陌生人。黄将这一切归罪于中国的户籍政策。中国的户口制度剥夺了1.5亿在城市工作的农民工享受社会福利的权利。因为这一政策，像黄一样的农民工被迫将他们的孩子留在村里，以便接受教育、医疗等其他社会服务。
Roughly 58 million children like Yi are left in China's countryside without their parents. This might be economically necessary, but it is emotionally disastrous: Chinese University of Hong Kong researchers found that adolescents left behind in their villages were more likely to engage in risky behavior such as binge drinking, and have increased thoughts of suicide. The children separated from their migrant parents are also more likely to have learning disabilities and psychological problems, says Zhang Ping, a researcher at the Psychological Science Institute of Guangdong Province. In school, they lack focus; at home they lack guidance.
大概5800万想毅一样的孩子被留在农村，得不到父母的照料。这可能是经济需求，但是这在情感上是一个灾难：香港中文大学研究员发现，留守青少年更容易陷入酗酒等危险行为，也更有自杀的倾向。和父母分开的孩子们也更容易产生学习障碍和心理问题，广东心理科学研究院的研究员张平这样说道。在学校他们没有焦点，在家里他们得不到指引。
Before Huang brings her son with her to Shenzhen, she wants to bridge the emotional distance. But on this morning in July, she can't seem to attract his attention. "Let mommy feed you," she says, but Yi has already left the table, breakfast of chicken feet in hand, and is prancing toward his sister.
在黄将她儿子带到深圳以前，她想先拉近情感上的距离。但是七月的这一天早上，她似乎无法吸引儿子的注意力。“让妈妈喂你好吗”她说道，但是毅已经离开了桌子了，手上拿着做早餐的鸡爪，欢快的跑向他的姐姐。
Yi's only contact with his mother has been by phone, a few times a month. Parenting by phone is the norm for this generation of migrants, says researcher Zhang. Many migrant parents, including Huang, ask about school and the family but little else. This limited scope of interest makes it difficult to establish a real bond, which is formed when parents help their kids through problems. And the aging, ailing grandparents, typically charged with rearing a brood of grandchildren, struggle with the physical demands of farming the land, maintaining the house, and raising a new generation. "The changing speed of China is unprecedented," Zhang says. "For grandparents living in an isolated village, their knowledge of the world outside is too far behind what is really happening in Chinese society."
毅和他妈妈唯一的联系是电话，一个月几次。张研究员说，通过电话来行使父母的职责已经成为这一代农民工的标准配置。许多农民工家长，包括黄，只过问学校和家庭的事，其他几乎没有。这么有限领域的沟通很难建立真正的情感联系，而情感联系应该是在父母帮助孩子解决问题的过程中逐渐建立的。而衰老，体弱多病的祖父母们不但要照顾孙子，还要在繁重的农活中挣扎。“中国的改变速度是空前的，”张说：“对于住在闭塞的农村的祖父母们，他们对外面世界的了解已经远远赶不上中国社会的变化。”
Later, when Yi asks his sister to clip his nails, Huang insists on doing the task. "You listen to your sister, but not your mother?" Huang teases, with pain in her voice, as her son ignores her.
过了一会儿，当毅要他姐姐帮他剪指甲的时候，黄坚决要求要做。“你听姐姐的话，却不听妈妈的话？”黄的声音中带着痛苦，因为她的儿子忽略她。
Wang Yanlin, a shy, rosy-cheeked 17-year-old, says she often felt depressed and abandoned, even though she understood why her parents took jobs hundreds of miles away from their home in rural Hunan province. Her father, a construction worker, and her mother, a factory cleaner, left her as an infant to work in the industrial city of Dongguan, which borders Shenzhen. While her parents called home several times a month, it wasn't enough to forge real closeness.
王艳林是一个害羞的腮帮红红的17岁女孩，她说她经常感觉沮丧和被抛弃，就算她能够理解为什么她父母历来湖南农村去到离家几百里远的地方工作。她父亲是一个建筑工，母亲是一个工厂清洁工，他们在她还是婴儿的时候就离开她了，去到深圳旁边的东莞打工。虽然她父母每个月都打几次电话回家，但是还是不足以取代真正的亲近。
Wang's depression grew worse when her peers, also children of migrant workers, started physically attacking her. "Every kid who had parents could say, 'I will tell my parents, and they will teach you a lesson,' but for me, when I was bullied, I couldn't say that," she says. Once, on a desolate country road, a group of kids hurled rocks at her. One heavy stone fractured her leg and knocked her to the ground. She lay there until she found the strength to hobble home. "When I told my grandmother, she told me that it was my fault, that I shouldn't hang out with those people," Wang says. "That was one of my saddest memories."
王的抑郁在她的同辈欺负她的时候变得更加严重，这些同辈也同样是农民工的孩子。“每一个有父母的孩子都会说‘我要告诉我爸妈，他们会教训你的，’但是我被欺负时却没办法这样说，”她说，有一次，在一条荒凉的乡间小路上，一群孩子朝她扔石头。一块石头砸到她的脚，她摔倒了，她在那躺了很久，直到有力气重新一瘸一拐的走回家。“当我告诉我奶奶时，她却说那是我的错，我不应该和那些人混在一起，”王说。“那是我最伤心的回忆。”
