STORIES, Peasant Girl: My Life Is Miserable Because I Am Poor

I was born in a remote hamlet in the north of China. I have heard from someone, who never been to the genuine villages, that the countryside is very nice. But in fact, no public road was built and the nearest bus stop is 20 kilometres away, so we always had to walk on foot or ride a bicycle to get out of the village. The street in the village was made of soil and was not flat. On a sunny day, wind with sound and soil blew you. On a rainy day, rain with the mud poured you. The mud on the road was added with shit from animals raised by villagers, because animals always shit on the road but not in their own country yard to keep it tidy and clean. No fresh vegetables were supplied to the villagers in the whole year because only radishes and cabbage were planted there. It also had sweet potato, if that is a vegetable. So, as dishes, what they could have were only salted radishes and cabbage. Some may ask, why did we not fry? The truth was that there was not much cooking oil for frying because of poverty, so fried dishes were always rare for them except in the case of Spring Festival or when some relatives come for dinner. I remember I had my first “you tiao” [a fried bread stick] in the dining hall at my university. And health care was not ensured either. Take my grandpa for example, he couldn’t help but wait for death once he fell sick. After he was sent to the hospital ran by the State, they refused to diagnose my grandpa even though we knelt down begging them to cure him. The reason was simply because we did not have 2 yuan for medicine. We could do nothing but see my grandpa die in the hospital. Some may say that the countryside is developing these days. But the truth is that there has been almost no change for my village since I was born. I really cannot say whether change will happen or not in my life.

I was born at the end of the 1970s. We had 5 children, including me, 3 sisters and 1 brother. Some people may wonder why my mother had so many children if my family was so poor? These people may not understand China clearly. These days, only really poor people or rich people can have more than one child, and we belonged to the poor group. In the countryside, in my opinion, there are 2 reasons for having more children. First, no entertainment in the countryside. So after working in the daylight, sometimes having sex on the “kang” (bed made by soil and brick) at night may be the only amusing thing for them. Although they did not want more children, no one told them effective means of contraception. I saw with my own eyes that my mother wanted to abort using tied rope or eating tobacco ash for contraception. The second reason was the traditional concept and environment of the countryside. There must be a man in every home because working in the countryside is so hard that only men can deal with them, so people in the countryside always held the concept that birthing a boy in every generation is necessary for the continuance of the family. If you could not give birth to a boy, you would be looked down upon. Before my brother was born, my mother was always looked down upon by my family members, I was always hit by other children and had the nickname of ‘jue-hu-guo,” meaning “no boy no generation continuance.”