Ruth Silbermayr, the author of the blog China Elevator Stories, was separated from her children in 2019. In 2020, all contact to her children was cut off by her ex-husband, as detailed on her blog. She wrote a guest post earlier my blog and is now back with another heartbreaking update.
Before leaving China in 2019, I had read a little about Feng Shui. There are different ways to analyze your flat, and the first thing you need to determine is the direction being used for assessment. Different rooms in your flat carry different meanings, and one school of Feng Shui simplifies this by looking at the entire flat from the entrance. Others use the actual cardinal directions—North, East, South, and West—but it is easier if you simply use the layout of the flat and apply the Feng Shui direction map, where each direction corresponds to a particular life aspect.
These aspects include wealth, family, children, friends, career, and health. Each direction is linked to a specific topic, and when you overlay a Feng Shui map onto your flat’s floor plan, you can see which rooms correspond to which area of life.
I didn’t think too much about it at first, but when I moved into my current flat in Vienna, I noticed it had an L-shape. According to Feng Shui, this means that a part of the flat is missing. When I mentally placed the Feng Shui map over my flat, I realized that the missing section corresponded to “children.” A few years later, the only contact I had with my children was through court-ordered video calls in Austria.
These calls take place twice a week for an hour each. Even though the court granted me these calls, I was given nothing else—not even the right for my children to visit me during summer holidays.
Austria has regressed toward a more patriarchal society, and many women have reported being treated horrifically by the courts. I, too, experienced this firsthand.
I sued for sole custody because, without my ex-husband’s cooperation, I have no way to co-parent my children unless I am granted sole custody. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Austria and China have separate legal systems with no shared legal framework. I initially filed the lawsuit in Austria because I could apply for a pro bono lawyer, something I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had sued in China. Additionally, I didn’t (and still don’t) know my ex-husband’s exact address, which made it impossible to file a lawsuit in China, as his address would be required.
If judged through the lens of Feng Shui, the layout of my flat predicted that my children would not be in my life.
Back in Siping, I used to observe where clutter accumulated in our home, as it is believed that clutter in a particular area can indicate a blockage in that aspect of life.
Feng Shui is sometimes used by architects, but it is not just about aesthetics or comfort, though it is often interpreted that way in the West. Instead, it is also about arranging spaces to manifest desired outcomes or removing elements believed to bring misfortune.
For example, Feng Shui suggests that having a mirror facing your bed can indicate infidelity in a relationship. The mirror reflects the two people sharing a bed, symbolically doubling the number to four.
Normally, I focus on making my home comfortable so I feel at peace in it. I didn’t initially think the L-shape of my flat would have any significance, but I found it striking that the missing section corresponded exactly to “children”—a reality that tragically mirrored my own life.
I pursued my case through three levels of Austrian courts, but they never even summoned my ex-husband and me for a hearing—technically a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial. I then took my case to the European Court of Human Rights, which I now jokingly call the “European Court of Women Have No More Rights.” The judges concluded that “no rights violations were detected”—a blatant falsehood. There were numerous violations, none of which had anything to do with protecting my rights as a mother or my children’s rights to be safe, cared for, and raised by both parents. In theory, both parents have equal rights to their children—not just one.
I have had a few video calls with my children by now, but arranging them has been difficult. There were even periods of several months when all video contact was cut off by my ex-husband’s family in China. My children are now somewhat more familiar with the video calls, but it is common for my ex-husband and his parents to ignore the court order and actively work to alienate my children from me.
For years, they have worked to separate me from my children and turn them against me. This has been heartbreaking, not only because I am being kept from them but also because I know they are suffering abuse while being denied the safety and care of their protective parent.
Have you ever experienced being alienated from your children?
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