Bai Juhua- - the Mother behind Ma Yan

I’ve never heard of Ma Yan before filming this story. Excerpts of her diary published in the French newspaper, Liberation, got the French public talking. A little village girl in China who had no money to go to school—exotic location, mysterious Chinese village, touching story about a girl’s struggle to go to school—I can see why this was a story. However, as we got to know Ma Yan and her mother Bai Juhua, we discovered that the story was more about a mother’s struggle and sacrifice rather than just a girl who wrote a diary.

Bai Juhua, like many other villagers in the area, had to search for work in the neighbouring province of Inner Mongolia and nearby area of Jiayuguan. Many of the villagers survive on the odd labour of picking ‘facai’ or black moss. ‘Facai’ grows in the wild and finding any of this highly-prized delicacy depends very much on luck. Most of the ‘facai’ can be found in Inner Mongolia. It is also the widespread harvesting of these mosses that caused soil erosion and desertification in that area.

Bai Juhua and her fellow villagers had to climb onto moving trains to get to Inner Mongolia because they did not have enough money to buy a ticket. “We hid on the train for days and by the time we arrive, our faces were all black,” Bai laughed. Once, when she was gathering ‘facai’ deep in the mountains, she became so ill that she needed others to get her home. She had not eaten for 8 days and had severe gastric pains. “I was sick and I didn’t earn a dime,” she recounted. And Ma Yan couldn’t go to school because they did not have money.

“Initially, my reason for sending Ma Yan to school was because I didn’t want her to be like me. I only went to primary 1. I didn’t get to study anymore after that. So I told myself, no matter what happens, I am going to send my daughter to school,” Bai told me. Many girls in the village at that time were considered lucky to be able to go to school. Most would be married by the age of 15 or 16.

When Bai Juhua asked if I was married, I couldn’t help but let out a surprised laugh. I was 26 but I never thought I could be way over the hill compared to the village girls who got married at 16. When chatting with one of the village mothers with 3 kids, I discovered that she was only 25.

Many of the women in the villages did not get a chance to go to school. Right now, Bai Juhua devotes most of her time helping Enfants Du Ningxia, a French NGO set up by the journalist who discovered Ma Yan, providing scholarships and better education opportunities for poor children in rural areas. A portion of the royalties from Ma Yan’s publications goes into a trust for helping these children. Bai Juhua is also currently trying to set up a program to empower the rural women of Ningxia through a cooperative embroidery project.