In early September, CCTV reported on a bitter Sina.com BBS post by a peasant girl working in Shanghai. On Saturday the state news channel tracked down and interviewed Little Yang, who wrote the post titled ‘Late 70s Peasant Girl’s hopeless survival, would rather be a mistress than marry a poor person’ (Chinese).
See the CCTV interview on Sina.com
ChinaSMACK blog has an English transcript of the interview, as well as translations of comments on Sina.com (Chinese):
What reasons made Peasant Girl post her article? What was her intention? Where is she now? Why did she write such an article? Are there hidden stories behind her story? This reporter contacted the Peasant Girl several times and asked to see her but was refused. After much correspondence, she agreed be interviewed.
Little Yang […] said that everything that happened was caused by an accident several days ago. That day, she went out to look for a job but wasn’t feeling well. She fainted on the street and was taken to the hospital. When she woke up, she was shocked by the 1300元 bill. The high medical expenses caused Little Yang to become penniless — she had just lost her job before all this had happened.
The interview pays special attention to reactions from netizens who read Yang’s post:
It was a moment of impulse, to let out her frustration and disappointment, but after the article was posted Little Yang was confronted with the impact of her words. She also felt the power of the internet.
[…]After the incident, Little Yang was feeling deserted, betrayed by her friends and relatives. A friend of Little Yang’s, an ordinary working girl, broke off any relations with Little Yang after Little Yang posted her article on the BBS.
She was very frustrated, but there were some things that made Little Yang feel comforted.
A young man called Little Bao, an enthusiastic netizen, was very sympathetic towards Little Yang and her plight. He decided to help Little Yang in any way he could. Faced with Little Bao’s good intentions, Little Yang did not initially accept his help. She felt that they were very similar, both of them had come to Shanghai to work and their income wasn’t very high, she could not bring herself to spend his money. However, because her eye problem was getting worse, and yesterday she finally agreed to accept Little Bao’s help. Little Yang stressed that money for her treatment will definitely be repaid to Little Bao in the future.
Read ChinaSMACK’s English translations of Yang’s post and netizens’ reactions to it here.
Read more about migrant workers here on CDT.
