Peng Rei and her brother
PengZhen live in the countryside in YongShun in Hunan Province in China.
They live there together with their grandma and their mum. They belong to an
ethic minority group in China called the TuJia people. They have their own
traditions and culture which are a bit different from most Chinese people.
Because they belong to an ethnic minority group, their parents got permission
to have more than one child.
Rei (the girl) is in third grade and Zhen
(the boy) is in fourth grade. Reis` favourite food is cabbage and rice, but
Zhens’ favourite is definitely meat. Zhen likes Mathematics, but his sister Rei
likes all the subjects at school.
They both are happy to have a sibling,
because they can play together when they have finished their homework. They
both enjoy school. However, life has not always been so easy.
When Rei
was newborn, their father went to the city to seasonal work. It is very common
in China for farmers go to the big cities to find work for 8-11 months a year
leaving their kids with grandparents (or their mother) on the farm to take care
of any animals and farming. This way, the parents are able to earn enough money
for the family to live on. However, since their father went to the city nine years
ago, they have not heard from him. They suspect that there may have been an
accident and they presume him to have died, but they are not sure. Their
mother, Peng ShuiYing (36), has therefore been taking care of the children and
her mother-in-law, Chen YinNan (80). It has not been easy to make ends meet.
Certain periods of the year, they have not had enough food for their family and
YongShun is very cold, also inside, so the winters are tough if you clothes are
not warm enough.
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