Yun Jie (2018)

I tried to find more information about Yun Jie. While it is a scripted movie, the cast was almost entirely populated by people with the same family name as the director/writer/producer. The film was not a documentary but with the extremely natural performances showing the difficulty of children and the elderly left behind as parents moved to the larger cities to work, it looked much like one.

Yun Jie takes the news that her parents are leaving their small village to work far away in Guangzhou in stride, scarcely saying good-bye to them. She will remain in their village with her two younger sisters and grandmother. Along with going to school and doing her homework, she babysits, cooks the meals, cleans, helps an aunt garden, and aids her uncle when it’s time to harvest the rice crop. Jie is scolded for her grades dropping, but the tired child struggles to stay away during class and exams. Other grandparents and elders are having a difficult time raising their grandsons, the lack of fathers around causes the boys to act out and even put themselves in dangerous situations. Because teacher pay is extremely low, the turnover rate is high, with the kids receiving a subpar education. Yun Jie has much to do but little to look forward to in her life.

Most of the children in Jie’s village had no parents at home. Any child over 12 was weighing whether to quit school and go to work. The left behind children often felt left adrift. Jie may have spent time with others her age yet she never played and only once cracked a faint smile. Farming was not a sustainable model to feed a family yet still the villagers persisted. The time required to farm and the physical effort put a stress on the young girl already shouldering most of the household duties. Moving to the city didn’t guarantee success for those seeking a better life either. Factories were closing at an alarming rate, reducing job opportunities for the villagers. Lacking a solid education and other skills limited their employment opportunities. At one point, the family attempted to live together in the city. However, the sisters lacked the connections and proper thick red envelopes needed to go to school in Guangzhou. Yun Jie saw her life choices rapidly disappearing.

My heart broke for Yun Jie, the child forced to act like an adult. There were never any comforting cuddles or words and when it rained, she couldn’t even count on a dry bed. None of the grown-ups in her life were cruel, but neither were they a soft place to land when life got hard.

26 May 2025
Trigger warning: A dog being beaten to death, not graphically shown but implied

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