Humans of China│人在中国（四十八）

Humans of China   

人在中国

Exploring China one person at a time

一次探索一个中国人

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I live by 3 simple principles.

Eat well. Play as much as possible. Always buy and wear beautiful clothes.

I was born in 1931 so this year I am 88 years old. I am originally from Hebei but I now live in Beijing. I have lived here for around 4 years. I much preferred Beijing before as it was much more lively but not so much now. My hometown isn’t a huge city but its much more lively than Beijing these days. I have 5 children, 3 boys and 2 girls. I also have 9 grandchildren. My father arranged my marriage at the age of 21 which was much later than other ladies of that time. I didn’t know my husband but my dad picked him as he was the only child in his family and thought it would be easier. Fewer children in a family, fewer problems that family might have. I remember on my wedding day, I wore the most beautiful red dress embroidered with gold lace. When I was 4 years old my mum died. I had two older sisters who helped take care of me when I was growing up. My mum had bound feet and my sisters also had bound feet. Although my feet are not small they are still deformed from when my sisters and myself tried to make them smaller, Especially the bone by my big toe. I didn’t go to school which made my father very angry. I refused to go as I really enjoyed learning how to make clothes and shoes. My next door neighbor took the time and effort to teach me. My father owned a small grocery shop and, after my mum died, he married 3 other ladies. In total, he married 4 times. As a family, we have experienced a lot of sad times due to deaths within our family. Binding my feet was extremely painful and at the time it was illegal. Although my sisters and mothers feet were completely bound and very small, after a while we stopped binding my feet to make them small but instead used cloth to tightly wrap the toes together to try and make them smaller.  This created open wounds and they began to fester and turn bad so, eventually, we stopped. I can't remember for exactly how long we did this for. I’ve always thought this made feet ugly without shoes but bound feet with shoes look rather nice. We also stop binding my feet as it was growing very unpopular in China to have very small feet. Around the age of 22 in about 1951 I remember being really happy. I had just married and we were planning on having children and what we would do for the rest of our lives together.  I had a lot of freedom but things slowly changed for the worst. There was never enough food and there was no money. I lost around 80 kg and I was so skinny that you could see each bone and I was sick and really disrupted my period. Eventually, I ended up selling things like clothes and jewelry to buy basics but things soon ran out. We’d never have meat, eggs or sugar to eat but we survived on weeds from the pond and the husk from the corn we grew. We worked hard. We had no choice. We work for very little or no pay. The harder we worked the higher our score, if our score were high then they may have given us 1 or 2 fen for that day.  Any food we grow we passed onto the government. 

At night I would take a gas lamp in one hand and a bag of corn in the other. I’d take the corn and grind it up to make flour. I used to grind up the core and husk to make more food for us to eat. If we had any sweet potato I used to make a sweet substance to give to the kids, like a kind of candy and old clothes would be recycled to make shoes. Nothing was wasted and everything we could use we’d use. I really hate wasting food and other things. During these years my main job was looking after the children, attending to the land and watching bikes in a lot to ensure they weren’t stolen. My father at this time owned a shop selling products made of steel but he had to slowly hand everything over to the goverment like other people in a joint effort to improve China.

At 86 my husband passed away after 8 years of being bedridden. I looked after him day in and day out to ensure his last few years were as comfortable and happy as can be. These days I can’t really remember things that have happened recently but I remember things that happened before a long time ago. Before I retired I had a dream. I was wearing red clothes, an unlucky symbol in China. The next day I was using sheers to cut grass and I cut the top of my thumb off. That was painful. I have traveled a lot around China and last year my son and daughter in law took me to Japan for a holiday. Now I am older I need to try and keep myself healthy. I sleep less and play more. Each afternoon I play Mahjong and in the evening I play cards and use a couple of coins to bet. I really love to chat and I love to see people happy. If the people I am around are happy then I am happy too.   

Beijing

我生活就三个简单的原则。

吃点儿，玩点儿，穿点儿。

我是1931年出生的，今年88岁。我是河北人，但是现在住在北京，我在这大概住了4年左右。我更喜欢以前的北京，以前更热闹，现在北京不热闹了。我家乡不是一个很大的城市，但是比现在的北京更热闹。我有5个孩子，3个儿子2个女儿，孙子和外孙总共有9个。我21岁的时候，我爸爸给我安排了婚事，和我同辈的女孩儿比我结婚就算迟的了。我不认识我丈夫，但是我爸爸替我选择他是因为他是家里的独生子，觉得我嫁过去后日子会简单点，因为家里孩子越少，家里出现的难题就越少。我记得我婚礼当天，我穿着最漂亮的红色裙子，上面还有金丝绣。在我四岁时候我妈妈去世了，我有两个姐姐，她们两个照顾我长大。我妈妈和我姐姐们都裹脚了。我的脚在绑脚的人中不算小，但自从我姐姐和我开始绑我的脚时起，它还是变形了的。我没上过学，我爸爸因为这件事对我很生气。我不想上学是因为我很喜欢做衣服做鞋子，我隔壁邻居花了很多时间和精力教会我怎么做衣服和鞋。我爸爸有个杂货店，我妈妈过世后，他又娶了三个老婆。所以，他总共结婚4次。我们整个家族很多亲人离去过，我经历过很多悲伤的时刻。我裹脚的过程特别痛苦，当时裹脚也是违法行为。我姐姐们和我妈妈完全裹脚了，她们的脚很小，给我裹脚的时候，我们选择用布主要裹前脚掌凸出来的骨头并且把脚指头缠在一起来让脚变小变尖。缠了一段时间后，脚上出现了开放性伤口，然后开始感染，最后整个脚感染的很厉害。我记不清我们到底缠了多久的脚指头。后来裹脚不再流行了我就不再裹脚了。我一直觉得如果不穿鞋我的脚很难看，但是裹脚穿上鞋子后很好看。

1951年的时候，我21岁，我记得我当时特别快乐。我刚结婚，打算要孩子，以为下半辈子一家人都会一起生活，我也生活的很自由。但是，事情渐渐朝着最坏的方向发展。食物永远不够吃，也没有钱。我大概瘦到了80公斤，我当时骨瘦如柴，你可以看到我身上的骨头，当时还生病，以至于我的月经都不来了。最后，我不得不卖衣服和首饰换钱，买基本生活用品，但是维持没多久我们又陷入物资匮乏。我们从来没吃过肉、鸡蛋或者糖，靠吃池塘里的野草，自己种的玉米和剩下的玉米中间的棒子来维持生计。我们干活很努力。因为没有别的选择。干活的报酬很少，有时候压根没有报酬。我们干活越努力，挣得公分就越高，有时候如果一天挣很多公分的话，那天会有1到2分钱的收入。我们种的所有食物都要上交给政府。夜里，我会一手拿着煤油灯一手拿着一包玉米，然后磨玉米粉。我以前也会把玉米芯和玉米壳都磨了，这样磨出来的食物就多点。我们以前还磨红薯用来代替糖做一些甜的东西给孩子吃。旧衣服会重新用来做鞋子。为了不浪费一点东西，我们把一些能用上的都用上了。我特别讨厌浪费食物和其他东西。那些年我的主要工作就是照顾小孩子，照看土地，看守自行车停车场，防止偷窃。我爸爸当时有个杂货铺，卖一些铁制品，但是由于公司合营的政策，我爸的店里的所有东西都要上交给政府。我的丈夫在床上瘫了8年后，在他86岁时去世了。在他生病时候，我每天都照顾他，确保他人生最后几年尽可能的舒服、快乐。现在，我记不清最近发生的事情，但是对很久以前的事情记得特别清楚。在我退休前，我做了一个梦。梦里面，我穿着红色衣服，在梦里梦到红色衣服是厄运的象征。第二天，我用割草剪割草的时候，不小心把我大拇指前面割掉了。非常很疼，但是我安慰自己说我还没有死所以我还是幸运的。我去过中国的很多地方，去年我儿子儿媳妇还带我去日本度假了。现在我年纪更大了，要努力保持健康。我现在睡觉的时间变少了，所以玩的时间更多。每天下午我都打麻将，晚上打牌，还会赌上几毛钱。我特别爱聊天，喜欢看到人们开心的样子。如果我周围的人开心，我就会替他们衷心地感到开心

北京

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