China's forced evictions: One migrant family's story

One morning in mid-March, Wang Tianle and his mother visited the site of his old school in northern Beijing. The school had been demolished last August, reduced to a pile of rubble that had yet to be hauled away.

Tianle ran toward the heap of crumbled bricks with the irrepressible excitement of an archaeologist who has just discovered an ancient city. The ruins of his former classroom might as well have been Petra, the cafeteria Pompeii, the principal’s office Persepolis. Whatever treasure he dug out was his for the taking. Two stray dogs were his only competition. 

“Be careful!” his mother yelled, but Tianle didn’t respond. By then he was already excavating, too immersed to notice when she began to cry.

Tianle’s mother, Peng Jie, hadn’t expected to become so emotional at the sight of the school. She thought she was over the government’s decision to tear it down. After all, she told herself, it had been seven months since its demolition. 

But as her memories flooded back, Ms. Peng was overcome with a deep sense of loss. She had been a teacher there for 13 years. It was her first job in Beijing, the reason she had moved to the city from the countryside of Henan province. 

“I taught in almost every one of these classrooms,” she said, as she surveyed the wreckage through tears. She turned around and pointed to another pile of rubble about 400 feet away. “Our house was right over there,” she said. “This place was our home.” 

A short time later, Tianle returned with three long-lost artifacts he had unearthed: a stuffed snake, a green hula hoop, and a wicker basket.

“What I miss most is seeing the children on the playground after class,” Peng said. The children were gone now, too. Many