‘Frost Boy’ in China Warms Up the Internet, and Stirs Poverty Debate<br />"From this little man, foreigners far away will see the great effort and strength of the Chinese nation."<br />But the photo of Fuman shined a light on the plight of the tens of millions of so-called left-behind children who grow up in impoverished rural areas largely on their own after their parents leave to work in big cities.<br />Kam Wing Chan said that There are so many similar incidents of hardship for left-behind children in China every day,<br />" one Weibo user wrote, "but we can praise poverty." Photos of Fuman’s hands, swollen<br />and blistered, also circulated on social media. that We can’t solve poverty,<br />Many left-behind children like Fuman live with their grandparents.<br />"I hope they both can make it to college and find a stable job." Fuman told the Chinese network CCTV<br />that he hoped to go to a university in Beijing and become a police officer or a scientist.<br />Fuman’s story drew many uplifting comments online, but it also provoked some cynicism about China’s efforts to eliminate poverty.<br />Scores of rural schools have been shut in recent years, forcing many children to travel long distances to attend classes.<br />13, 2018<br />BEIJING — On a bitterly cold morning this month, Wang Fuman, 8, set out for school as he usually did, walking 2.8 miles through mountains<br />and streams until he reached the warmth of his third-grade classroom.
