Living In A 'One Child Nation' With Director Nanfu Wang

Growing up a Westerner, hearing about China's one-child policy was always odd, mainly because of how soft-soaped it was. I remember being taught in school that people regularly had more child and the worst that could happen was they paid a fine. But Chinese director Nanfu Wang, and her documentary One Child Nation, show that was never the case. Her film is a harsh, terrifying tale of control and propaganda, with women's reproductive rights front and center.

You detail how the one-child policy affected you but how did that awareness transition into making a documentary on the subject?

We started doing research and one of the challenges of making the film was the one-child policy was a massive policy put in place for over 35 years. Every Chinese citizen could have a story about the one-child policy and we needed[ed] to narrow it down. We wanted to have people who [were on] both sides of the policy, including the women and families who were victims of the policy but also the people who carried out the policy, the enforcers.

After that we reached out to different people and got them to talk to us, interviewed them, and at the same time [I] asked my family members to tell their stories because my uncle [and] my aunt, my mom and my grandma, they all had a story that almost felt like a microcosm of what happened to the entire country. 

What was it like to ask your family these tough questions?

When I was filming it was a month or two into my pregnancy and my son's first year of life. It definitely changed the dynamics between me and the subjects...because of [my] presence, either pregnant with a child or carrying a child, it created a lot of empathy between us because it became a conversation between a mother and another parent, talking about life with the children. It also made it more difficult emotionally because we were talking about the sterilizations and abortions and other brutalities of the one-child policy.

Would you call the one-child policy a war on women?

The one-child policy affected everyone in China, men and women, but China is a patriarchal society and women are often valued less than men. During the one-child policy a lot of the sterilization and forced abortions that happened were [on] women. But we also noticed that throughout the world a lot of governments have tried to control women's reproductive rights and it's not unique in China as [it] is in the U.S. where certain states limit certain access to abortion, try to control women's reproductive choices, and limit their access to reproductive healthcare.

You document many children who were forcibly removed from their parents and sent to the U.S. Several of them didn't want to reconnect with their Chinese families. Why do you think that is?

I think there are many reasons. One of the biggest reasons from what I observed was because the adoptee had lived in a country outside of China for their entire life. It's really difficult for most of them to feel connected to their birth country or birth family because they don't speak the language, they don't understand the culture. They didn't feel emotionally connected with the place where they were born and I completely understand and respect their choice of not wanting to be connected.

There were also many families, adoptees, who are eager to find their birth parents and be connected. In fact, the girl in our film, when we filmed her she wasn't able to meet her twin sister, but several months after - now that our film is completed - on The New York Times they published a video of the twin sisters meeting and reuniting. So sometimes it just takes time for them to feel ready, to be comfortable, to do that. We believed that as a lot of the adoptees reached their late-'20s, early-'30s, and especially when they become a parent themselves, they probably would be more willing and eager to know their birth parents. 

Now the policy is changing and China is urging people to have two children. What was it like seeing that change and the situating of children still as pawns?

When China ended the one-child policy the government wasn't admitting that the one-child policy had done a lot of harm on the society, on the people. The two-child policy, it's still a way to control; controlling women's reproductive rights and treating people as a tool to advance a national agenda, as a tool to develop the economy and share the burdens with the government to care for the elderly. So there wasn't really freedom for women to choose or to realize their individuality. 

What do you hope Western audiences will specifically take away from this?

I hope the U.S. audience will not only learn about China's one-child policy through the film, but also start to reflect on their own society and recognize the propaganda that exists in their own country. To reflect on when their government tries to control their women's reproductive rights. 

One Child Nation is out now.