August 3, 2001. Some kids at the Nanchang Orphanage learning to count. The teacher at the board is showing them the numbers 1 through 4 in both Chinese characters and English-style characters. There are a few boys in this class, but we were told they are from the neighborhoods surrounding the orphanage. The reasons behind the imbalance in the number of abandoned girls versus boys are complex, but largely come down to two factors-- the government's "one child policy" and the cultural desire for boys in the rural farming areas. In order to curb the huge population size and growth rate in China, the government instituted the one child policy, which allows each couple to only have one child. Additional children are apparently very costly for the couple because the state will not help support any child beyond the first...and this support is critical under a communist government. In the rural farming areas, most of the work is done by hand, not by tractor or other mechanistic means. As a result, the number of hands in a household directly impacts the food production and prosperity of a family. The tradition in rural China is that when a couple is married, the wife moves in with her husband and his parents. This means that the wife's parents lost their farming help (and much of their old-age support), and the husband's parents gained. This makes female children a liability relative to males. This whole situation leads some desperate parents to abandon their baby girls.