YE CAO

Since the start of the 90’s, a period during which the Chinese government criticised the Western media for biased reporting, Chinese orphanages have strictly controlled access by the media. Because of the difficulty of gaining entrance, it is extremely difficult to know what the situation has been like there for many years. Accompanied by a mother living close to the Qingdao centre, it was thus nevertheless possible for me to film this delicate subject in privileged conditions.
It was there that, in 1995, I discovered for the first time dozens of children abandoned by their parents. Over the following ten years, I came back to visit them every year, and I became their friend. As I listened to them relating their dreams of glory, I filmed their evolution over a decade. During this period, this place – Qingdao – has become a shop window for the attention given to social problems by the government. The orphanage today is of satisfactory size and is adequately equipped. Nevertheless, throughout these ten years of interviews, I have observed that the inferiority complex and the fear felt by the orphans in the face of society have not disappeared. (Yang Lina)