I AM NOBODY'S CHILD PART II

I thought that after finishing kindergarten, my suffering would finally end—but it didn’t. Things only got worse in elementary school, which lasted six long years. Every day, I spent five hours at school.

Break time was the moment I hated the most, because that’s when my classmates would take their chance to be cruel to me. My father couldn’t afford to send me to a special Chinese school. In fact, he couldn’t even afford to buy me shoes.

So every day, I wore torn shoes, and my classmates would shout, “Poor China!” at me. I couldn’t afford textbooks either, so I wasn’t very good in class. Everything I owned—my school uniform, shoes, bag, and books—were hand-me-downs or gifts from others, all of them already torn or used. I always dreamed of wearing new uniforms, shoes, and carrying a nice bag like my friends. Each year, they would get new things, while I continued wearing second-hand ones.

I never knew what breakfast was, because my mother never made breakfast for her children. When I woke up in the morning, there was no food. When I came home from school, there was no lunch. What I remember most is that my mother was very lazy—she never cooked, cleaned, or did any housework at all.

I was a skinny little girl who always dreamed of eating properly. To me, ice cream, milk, and chocolate were luxury foods. I ate irregularly—it depended on whether my mother decided to cook rice or not. On most days, I only ate rice with salt.

My classmates always brought water, cakes, snacks, and home-cooked meals prepared by their mothers. I never did. I often just sat quietly and watched them eat, their food looking so delicious that it made my mouth water.

So when teachers asked, “Which parent do you love the most?” I always answered, “My father,” while all my friends said, “My mother.” That made me stand out—and sometimes they mocked me for being different.

What I went through in kindergarten continued in elementary school—being grabbed, beaten, and kicked. It happened almost every day for six years. In my life, I never knew what a good person was like, because everyone around me seemed to treat me with cruelty.

PART I PART II PART III PART IV PART V PART VI PART VII PART VIII PART IX PART X PART XI PART XII PART XIII PART XIV PART XV

PART XVI - Coming Soon