Tami Xiang became "the child left behind" when the huge fine for violating the one-child policy left her family exhausted.

Tami Xiang, a 38-year-old photographer who lives in Perth, Australia, was born in the 1980s when China was implementing the one-child policy. Tami is the fourth child in the family, which means her parents face huge fines for violating the policy.

The fine brought the family into debt and Tami's father had to leave his wife and children in his hometown to work as masons throughout construction works to earn money. "I rarely met my father when I was young, but I'm lucky to always have my mother by my side," Tami said.

Many children in rural China also have similar circumstances Tami family. They are called "children who are left behind" when they grow up without a parent or grandparents.

According to Chinese government estimates, in 2018, nearly 7 million children were left in the countryside when their parents went to the city to make a living. The rich-poor gap between urban and rural areas and rigid household registration policies have increased this phenomenon.

Over the past 10 years, Tami has photographed more than 300 children living away from their parents and families in rural China for the Peasantography project, a documentary film about the "abandoned" generation in the country.

Jie Fei, 22, is an "abandoned child" that appeared in Tami's project. He said it is rare to contact his parents. "We have not talked for many years. Every time we try to talk to each other, me and my parents argue. So if there is nothing important, we will not talk." ", Jie shared. "I know there are many people like me who are living away from my parents and raised by grandparents."

Wu Han, Jie's mother, is a worker at a steel factory in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province and is about to retire. "The factory where I work does not take long holidays because I cannot stop production. I am too busy and tired," Wu explained, explaining why she didn't come home during the holiday season.

"He doesn't like to go to Guangdong. We asked him to come and play at Tet but he said he was busy," Wu added.

The Lunar New Year is a major holiday in China and is considered an important opportunity for family reunion. Many parents have to leave their children in the countryside to go to the city to earn a living to go home to celebrate with their families. It is estimated that more than 3 million people go back to their homeland to Tet from January 10 to February 28 of this year.

Wei Jiayu, director of the New Citizenship Project, a non-governmental organization that helps improve the living environment for children who move from their hometown to the city to live with their parents, said the main reason many children are left behind is: They cannot go to public schools in the city due to household registration regulations. Private schools, meanwhile, are too expensive to afford the financial means of many families.

"After growing up, this group of children often have a greater need for close relationships and feelings of insecurity that make them less trust in others," Wei said.

Tami Xiang moved to Australia in 2011, when she was an interpreter for a mining company in Perth and started studying photography shortly afterwards. She used to think that being a "child abandoned" was nothing special until she became a family portrait photographer in Perth. By then, she knew what her family was like in Australia.

Tami believes that "children who are left behind" suffer from many educational, mental health, safety and other social issues. She wishes to raise people's awareness of this situation through her work.

"They are raised by their grandparents but their grandparents often receive less education. Not only that, they also have difficulty in quickly integrating into the rapidly developing modern society as they grow up. ", Tami said.