An American journalist, Melissa Ludtke, adopted a young Chinese girl 18 years ago. She is using her daughter’s story to tell about abandoned children from China.
Maya Xia Ludtke, 19, was a baby when her birth parents left her in a small town in Jiangsu Province. Melissa Ludtke brought Maya to her Massachusetts home in 1997.
Over the past two years, Ms. Ludtke has helped her daughter and another Chinese-born girl record their return to their rural home. Jennie Lytel-Sternberg, 19, was at the same orphanage(孤儿院) as Maya and was adopted by another woman living in the same part of the US.
“This is a very different exploration,” Ms. Ludtke said. The two teenage girls returned to the town where they were born to understand how their lives might have been different. Along the way the girls took photos and recorded videos of their meetings with the people from the area around Changzhou.
This project takes the photos and videos collected by the girls to tell their stories, and the stories of other girls like them. It is an electronic book written in six parts with many tools that give extra information.
Throughout her career, Ms. Ludtke covered issues about women and girls around the world. The one-child policy was an attempt by the Chinese government to limit overpopulation. For the past several decades, the government has punished parents who produce more than one child. This has caused many parents to abandon children, especially girls. In Chinese society, male children are more likely to be able to get jobs that can support their families.
In the video when they first arrive in the town where they were abandoned, Xiaxi, Maya and Jennie seem surprised at how different their lives almost were.
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