Building Dreams, Bearing Scars (Chapters 5-6)

May 25th, 2025:

Uncle He (second from the left) and I (third from the left), at Futian Disability Center's reception area

Family Trust, Sibling Doubt

Uncle He sensed a bittersweet relief upon securing his disability certificate and the modest compensation that followed. He paid his medical bills, fitted a prosthetic leg, and pooling his mother’s lifelong savings with his own, he bought a modest home in his ancestral village under his mother’s name. “My savings were still not enough for building our own house from scratch. But now that my leg’s gone, I can’t earn to increase my savings, only spend to decrease it,” Uncle He said. Still, years of toil and pain had yielded a tangible, concrete reward of over a hundred square meters.

This temporary relief, however, soon gave way to the question of ownership. Uncle He’s aging mother intended to transfer the apartment to him, yet the property deed was held physically by his elder brother, also a migrant worker at Shenzhen. At another crossroads, Uncle He turned again to Shenzhen’s Service Center for the Disabled. His six calls to the Center’s Legal Consultation Office yielded the same answer: no certificate, no ownership. The Office advised legal formality in the form of a notarized transfer or will.

When Uncle He finally visited the Legal Consultation Room in person after making six consecutive calls in two weeks, the lawyer volunteered to speak with his brother directly through Uncle He’s phone. His brother’s reply was curt and final: “He’s disabled. He can’t even manage his own, most basic daily affairs. How could he keep the documents safe? How could he manage the apartment, right? You’re a lawyer, you should know what happens if his caregiver ever tries to take advantage. If she somehow tricks him into a marriage, or persuades him to add her name on the property ownership certificate, then at least half of that apartment becomes hers, right?”

Uncle He’s family impasse exposed more than personal animus. Though China started its transition to a market economy in the 1980s, its trust and inheritance systems remained underutilized and underdeveloped. While many states in the US see trillions move seamless through revocable living trusts, China’s nascent trust law proved limited. The 2001 Trust Law principally established a framework that, even two decades later, was rarely brought to use. Private trusts were rare outside a small fraction of financial elites and estate planners in a few major cities, whereas none of China’s numerous state-owned companies offered trust instruments. Awareness and access to trust services are minimal among ordinary families, especially migrant households spread across multiple provinces. The alternative, namely rural notarization offices that handle wills and power-of-attorney, were remote, confusing concepts for villagers.

Uncle He, however, had grown unexpectedly familiar with these legal concepts, having heard the Legal Consultation Office describe notarization for the seventh time. Yet he faced another obstacle. “My mother, she’s past seventy,” Uncle He explained. “Her health is in bad shape since I lost my leg, barely enough to take care of herself on her own. My injury was a blow for her. Her memory is getting worse, and her mind is slowing too. Having her travel to and attend the township notarization office is simply way too much fuss. She’d have to bring her documents, request forms, fill out the declaration, all that stuff. She’s illiterate, so who knows what could happen with the paperwork? So the only option is for some other trustworthy person to accompany her. My sister’s living at another place with her husband now, and needless to say, my brother wouldn’t volunteer to have my mother hand me the apartment that he really wants to have. It’s unrealistic for me, in my wheelchair, to travel over a thousand kilometers back just for notarization. And even if I did, a disabled person accompanying an old person wouldn’t be of much help…” The required forms, stamps, and in-person visits presented insurmountable challenges for a man whose own mobility necessitated a prosthetic. In He’s case, the absence of a robust, publicly recognized trust system meant there was no third-party institution to safeguard his mother’s intention and his rights without requiring direct handover of the deed.

As the evening sun dipped behind Futian’s mounds and glass towers, Uncle He pushed his wheelchair out of the Center, his metal foot and crutch crunching against its parking lot’s concrete path. A first-generation migrant worker, he built a life in Shenzhen, contributed to the city’s growth, survived its unending factories and construction sites, and yet found himself caught between his brother’s disapproval and the legal system’s gaps. He walked forward, the horizon glowing orange, a beacon for unfinished journeys.