“Before knowing Cheng Zhu and the others, I felt very alone. If I stayed at homefor more than five minutes, my wife and I would fight about whose fault it was that our3-year-old son was taken.”
On Feb 28, the league was even credited with helping to reunite a girl with herparents. Eight-year-old Cui Yiting was recovered in Fujian province on Feb 28 after beingmissing for a year.
Her abductor, Pang Youcheng, 25, who returned the girl to her family and thensurrendered to police, said he was moved by her parents’ pleas for help.
Cui Dongsheng, who teamed up with Cheng Zhu’s van when he arrived in SoutheastChina, believes the league’s efforts helped greatly in the return of his daughter. “I will stillpay close attention to the coalition and hope they will find more children in the next tour,”
he said.
For the other parents in the league, the news was bittersweet.
“We are happy to know one child got back to her parents,” said Li Yuhui, 40, whois the wife of Feng Shehong. “As I’m a parent, I understand how torturous the process oflooking for a lost child is … but I can’t help wondering why I cannot find my son.”
Feng and Li’s son was 14 when he disappeared along with two other boys in Yan’an,Shaanxi province, in 2007. They fear he has been sold to an illegal factory as a childlaborer.
“When my son disappeared, someone tried to persuade me to just have another child.
No one can take his place in my heart,” said Feng, who is now receiving treatment for lungdisease. “I can’t imagine him alone wandering in society. I can’t let him go.”
Cheng Zhu said Cui Yiting’s return only steeled him further in his search for his lostdaughter. “Every time my younger daughter is naughty, it reminds me of my lost daughterwho was good and nice. I just need more help to find her,” he said.
Solving the problem
Police cracked 4,420 cases related to the trafficking of women and children in 2009as part of a special operation to crack down on the problem, according to the Ministry ofPublic Security. The mission resulted in almost 1,000 gangs being rounded up and 6,200arrests.
With the help of a DNA database, which through a large investment has beendeveloped into a nationwide network of laboratories, the police were able to correctlyidentify 298 of the 2,169 rescued children, according to figures released by the ministry.
But despite extensive efforts to clamp down on child trafficking, it remains a realproblem in China.
Youngsters are often kidnapped and made to perform hard labor in illegal businesses,or sold into the sex trade. Traffickers also sell children to couples who are either unableto have children or who want male heirs, which is still the tradition in large parts of thecountry.
“It seems that the trafficking continues even though the police are working on it,” saidZhang, whose Baby Home organization works with the Ministry of Public Security to helpreunite rescued children with their families. “The action will take time to solve the problemcompletely.”
Seven or eight children were registered missing with the Baby Home website everyday before the police crackdown began. That dropped to one every three days following theoperation but the number has steadily been rising again.
“This project needs huge financial and human resources, and needs time to make animpact and legislation to regulate,” said Zhang. “We need a good model to powerfullydemonstrate to local police departments what kind of work they need to be doing.”
Members of the Parents of Lost Children League also complained that they are barredfrom entering the majority of orphanages (experts believe this is where many traffickedchildren end up) during the month-long trip.
“In the name of privacy, orphanages keep parents out,” said Zhang. “They usuallyonly advertise the fact they have a new child in an obscure newspaper, which many parentswill not see. Months later, through various channels, they all allow the child to be adopted,which separates them from their natural parents forever.”
For now, Cheng Zhu is back on the building site to make money to support hisfamily, while his youngest daughter is also rapidly approaching school age. Yet he is alreadyplanning his next journey.
“I will try my best to find my lost daughter. My next trip will start in October ifeverything goes well. I will never stop.”
April 28, 2010
Foreign faces there for rent
Firms find expats can help make the deal.
Cui Jia reports in Beijing.
“You need to be a Caucasian male, look professional and mature but not toohandsome, otherwise people might think you’re an actor,” said the male voice onthe end of the line.
Daniel Hutton, an American marketing manager in Beijing, had called the numberafter being told by friends about an agency that pays foreigners to “rent their white faces”
to Chinese companies.
In fact, it is one of many now exploiting a thriving trend known as bairen chongmenmian, or “white guy window dressing”.
These job agencies offer white- and dark-skinned clients from Europe, North America,Australia and Africa to Chinese business owners, who hire them to pose as employees orpartners at important meetings with dignitaries or potential investors.
The only qualification they need is to be a laowai, the Mandarin word for foreigner.
Firms have been using the ethically-questionable technique for some time to boostcredibility or present an image of being internationally connected, according to experts inthe world of business, yet it has only hit the headlines in China in recent months.
After hearing about the trend, Hutton, who has worked for an international publicrelations company in the capital for 18 months, said he was intrigued and decided to findout who actually benefits from a practice that many people argue is little more than fraud.
Posing as a student of Chinese, he got an interview with a modeling agency inBeijing’s central business district and invited a China Daily reporter to come along.
