Daughter of Good Fortune: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Memoir

by Chen Huiqin

  GRANDSON

  The apartment building Shebao and Xiao Xie lived in was newly built and not yet connected to the natural gas pipeline. At the time, the pipeline was being extended to more and more residential areas in urban Jiading, but it had not yet reached that particular area. Some residents used compressed natural gas in tanks, but such tanked gas was a rarity. Each gas tank had a registered number. When the gas in the tank was used up, the owner had to bring the tank to the gas station to have it refilled. My husband managed to get a registered gas tank for Shebao and Xiao Xie so they did not have to maintain a coal stove for cooking.

  In 1988, a new policy determined that my husband was entitled to an apartment with two bedrooms. We decided that Shebao and Xiao Xie should move to the new, larger apartment and we would move to the one-bedroom apartment. The new apartment was in a residential compound named Liyuan, Li Compound. New buildings in those days came with bare cement floors and roughly finished walls. Shebao and Xiao Xie put down hardwood floors and panels in the bedrooms and linoleum flooring in the kitchen, bathroom, and entryway. The entryway was made into a small eating area. They worked hard and used evenings and weekends to do all of those things themselves.

  After Shebao moved to the new apartment inside Li Compound in April 1988, we left the one-room house in South Gate and moved to the one-bedroom apartment in downtown Jiading. By that time, our downtown apartment had been connected to the piped natural gas, but the one in Li Compound had not. So Shebao and Xiao Xie took the gas tank with them. They continued to come and eat with us on weekends. Sometimes, they also came after work and we would have supper together.

  Li Compound was about a fifteen-minute bike ride from our downtown apartment, which was inside an old compound with a deep well that produced clean and sweet water. The tap water in urban Jiading at the time had a strong taste of chlorine and some other bad odors. So every time Shebao and Xiao Xie came to visit us, they brought with them two sturdy plastic bottles. Each could hold a gallon of water, so we referred to them as “gallon buckets.” After their visit, they would return to their home with the gallon buckets filled with water from the well.

  One weekend, Shebao and Xiao Xie arrived while I was in the kitchen-dining room preparing lunch. They put a slip of paper on the kitchen table and went to the bedroom. I took a look at the slip. Since I could not read much, I was not able to tell what the slip said, but I could tell that it was a lab test slip. I took the slip to the bedroom and asked, “You have been to the hospital. Is everything alright?” Xiao Xie said, “Mom, I am pregnant.”

  Xiao Xie checked into Jiading Maternity Hospital in the morning on June 5, 1989. Shebao rode his bike to my place and told me. I went to the hospital right after I finished the day’s work in early afternoon. The baby, a boy, was born around six o’clock in the evening. After the baby was born, the doctor said that we would be allowed to see the baby in two hours. Shebao and I decided to go back and eat our supper at my place. He rode his bike while I sat on the back seat. After supper, we went back to the hospital.

  On the way to the hospital we passed through the center of urban Jiading. This was June 5, the day after the Tiananmen Square incident. There were thousands of demonstrators in the streets. The streets were so full that it was impossible to ride the bike through. We walked, with Shebao now pushing the bike. We finally got to the hospital and saw the baby for the first time. The baby was asleep. I noticed a cute and distinctive feature in the new baby, which was that his lower lip was so sucked in that I could only see his upper lip.

  In those days, new babies were under the care of the hospital staff. Every day, there were fixed times that the staff would take the babies to their mothers for breast-feeding. The day after our grandson was born, my husband went to the hospital to see Xiao Xie and the baby. When all the new babies were pushed out in their little beds, I told my husband to look for the one whose upper lip entirely covered the lower lip. While other families asked the staff to identify their babies, we found ours easily (fig. 11.3).

  The year our grandson was born, my husband was sixty years old. We Chinese consider sixty years as one complete sexagenary cycle (jiazi) and a full lifespan. My husband jokingly said that he would now start a new cycle of life and so he and his grandson were the same age.

  Friends suggested that Shebao choose a name for the baby that was related to the Tiananmen incident. Shebao did not; instead, he named the baby boy Chen Li, Chen being our surname and li meaning “standing up.” The character li is a very simple character. Beibei, who had learned some Chinese characters by that time, said, “Uncle is not fair. He named my little brother with a very simple Chinese character, but gave me the name xi, which is a very complicated Chinese character.”1

  At the time Chen Li was born, Shezhu and her family had moved to urban Jiading, where she worked for a housing development company. The family rented a room right above the company offices. The company had a big kitchen, where lunches were cooked for its workers. We used the company’s kitchen to boil hundreds of eggs. After the eggs were boiled, we dyed them red. Beibei, who was eight years old at the time, enthusiastically participated in the dying of the eggs. Shebao bought cupcakes from his university’s dining room. We delivered the red eggs and cupcakes to our relatives, friends, and neighbors, as appreciation for the maternity gifts they presented to Xiao Xie as well as an announcement of the birth of the new baby.

  Within two months, Chen Li had his first haircut. I contacted an old barber who was a man from Yangzhou of Jiangsu. Barbers from Yangzhou were considered the best in their profession in our area. I arranged for him to come to our apartment to give Chen Li his first haircut. He told me to make a lot of tea ahead of his arrival. He would use tea water to wash Chen Li’s head. He said that tea water would help keep the baby’s hair clean and clear and prevent problems such as a crusty scalp or head blisters. After the hair was cut, the barber rolled the baby hair into a ball. Shebao and Xiao Xie took the baby-hair ball.

  After Chen Li was born, I continued to work in the factory dining room. I told Xiao Xie that I would rather help to pay for a nanny than quit the job in order to help her with the baby. That was because I did not think that it was right to ask the factory to keep the job for me. Neither was I ready for retirement.

  My husband’s sister was working as a maid at the time, so she helped us to find a nanny, a middle-aged woman from a village in Zhuqiao Town. The nanny helped Xiao Xie take care of the new baby, but not for very long. Xiao Xie discovered that the nanny was a sound sleeper. When Xiao Xie needed help at night, the nanny was usually fast asleep. Therefore, she was not very helpful, so we decided to save the money we paid to the nanny. That was how we stopped using a nanny.

  Xiao Xie returned to work after fifty-six days of paid maternity leave. She and Shebao put Chen Li in the nursery of the university for the day while they were at work. This family of three went to work on one bicycle. Xiao Xie held Chen Li in her arms and sat on the back seat of Shebao’s bike. They ate lunch in the university canteen. Xiao Xie told me that one of them bought and fetched the lunch while the other held Chen Li. Chen Li was a good-natured baby. He did not cling to his parents. When colleagues offered to hold Chen Li and play with him during their lunch break, he responded happily.

  The distance between the university and their home was about a ten-minute bike ride. On the way, they had to pass a stretch of rough, busy road near a farmer’s market. In the morning when they went to work, this road was always crowded with people shopping for the day’s vegetables and meat. On cold winter mornings after a rain, that part of the road would be slippery with frozen puddles, making the bike ride challenging. At that time, a new street, Bole Road (Bole Lu), which was to provide a more direct route to the university, was under construction. Shebao said several times that he was eagerly looking forward to the completion of Bole Road, for it would make his commute easier.

  The bike was a very useful transportation tool. Shezhu and Ah Ming did the same th
ing when Beibei was little. Ah Ming rode the bike and Shezhu held Beibei and sat on the back seat. Shebao and Ah Ming both pedaled the bikes this way until the children were older. Then each adult would ride a bike and the child would sit in a little chair that was attached to the front bar of the bike, supported by the two arms of the adult riding the bike. As the child grew, she or he would then sit on the back seat of the bike.

  We held the first-birthday party for Chen Li on the second day of the Chinese New Year in 1990 in our village house. My husband said that was the last major event he would sponsor in his lifetime,2 so we invited all of our friends and relatives, just as we had when we held the wedding banquet for Shebao. Master Yang and Master Yuan were again the chefs for the banquet.

  We put up a portrait of the Longevity Star in our guest hall and set up a table with traditional foods that conveyed all the good wishes. Shebao and Xiao Xie arrived from their urban Jiading home with Chen Li around lunchtime. Firecrackers and a bonfire welcomed Chen Li. Shebao helped Chen Li kowtow to the Longevity Star while all the guests watched. The table remained there for the rest of the day, while incense and candles continued to be lit. That afternoon, we delivered bowls of cooked noodles with glutinous rice balls and a big piece of meat in each bowl to every household in South Hamlet as “helping-child noodles.”

  When Chen Li was five years old, he went to the kindergarten run by the university, where his parents worked. We had heard stories of children being taken away from kindergartens by strangers, so we cautioned Chen Li not to go with anybody he did not know. Furthermore, staff members in nurseries and kindergartens did not allow anybody to take children unless they knew the person was a family member.

  Usually, Shebao and Xiao Xie went to get Chen Li after they left work. Sometimes, when they had something special to attend to after work, they would let me know, and I would pick up Chen Li when I finished work. One day, when I got to the kindergarten, Chen Li was playing with other kids under the guidance of a staff member. When Chen Li saw me, he immediately got up from his little stool, took the stool and put it against a wall, came and took my hand, and then went to the staff member and said in a very serious manner, “This is my grandma. She has come to take me home.”

  From a very young age, Chen Li loved cars and learned the brand names of cars. One day, he came with his parents to our apartment on the fifth floor. While still huffing and puffing from having run up the stairs, he took my hand and asked me to go downstairs with him to the parking lot. He wanted to show me a car he had seen when he arrived with his parents. He pulled me by the hand to a car whose logo was four circles. He announced that was an Audi and a very good car.

  When Chen Li came with his parents to have dinner at our apartment, he often insisted that I carry him down the stairs to see him off. Shebao and Xiao Xie would tell me not to pay attention to Chen Li’s demand. They said that he was being too playful, but I admit that I loved doing what he asked.

  Once, however, when I carried Chen Li downstairs, I sprained one of my ankles. Shebao and Xiao Xie asked if I had hurt myself. I replied, “No.” Then, I went back up the stairs, washed, and went to bed. The next morning, my ankle was swollen tight.

  URBANIZATION FOR BETTER EDUCATION

  Shezhu and Ah Ming were determined that their only child, Beibei, would get the best opportunities possible for education. While Shezhen and Shebao had received college educations, Shezhu and Ah Ming had not had that opportunity. They were determined to do everything necessary to turn Beibei into a college student.

  In September of 1988, Beibei came to live with me and my husband because she was enrolled at Putong Elementary School, which was in the vicinity of our downtown apartment. One morning, after breakfast, Beibei went to school and I went to work. As I did most mornings, I went with another person to get coal for the kitchen. While shoveling coal into the basket, I suddenly saw a little girl walking on the road toward the factory kitchen. I said, “That is my Beibei.” I put down the shovel and ran to the road to meet her. Beibei said, “Grandma, I forgot to wear the red scarf and the school gatekeeper would not allow me to enter.”

  I told my coworkers what had happened and then left with Beibei to get the scarf from home. After we got the scarf, I accompanied her to the classroom. The teacher said, “Yang Xi is too shy.” The teacher added, “If Yang Xi had explained, the gatekeeper would have excused her and allowed her to enter.” The teacher apologized to me for the inconvenience.

  That Beibei was attending school in urban Jiading prompted Shezhu and Ah Ming to think about resigning their current jobs and seeking work in Jiading Town. This was not an easy decision. At the time, Pengsha Factory, where they both worked, was doing very profitable business and workers’ incomes were among the highest in the area. But their priority, which was to guarantee Beibei a good educational environment, was very clear. Ah Ming gave up his job at Pengsha Factory and was employed as a lathe worker in a village-run factory located right next to urban Jiading.

  In the latter part of 1988, Jianbang Town established a division that was specifically devoted to the development of residential houses. This division became a company soon after its establishment, so we always refer to it as a company. There were already residential houses built around the borders of Jiading Town. Li Compound was one such residential community. The newly established company needed an accountant and a cashier. The company was building apartments on the outskirts of Jiading Town and therefore its company office was right next to where Ah Ming was working. My husband, who had returned to Chengdong Commune—now called Jianbang Town—after he finished the work at the Office to Rectify the Communist Party, was working as an advisor to the town leadership. He recommended Shezhu to the new company, which interviewed her and hired her as the cashier.

  But Shezhu and Ah Ming did not have a place to live in the urban area, so they had to spend more than two hours riding bikes back and forth between their work and our Wangjialong house every day. Luckily, Shezhu’s company offered her temporary housing. The company utilized a building on a former pig farm. The building had two stories: on the ground floor were the company’s offices and a kitchen for its employees; on the second floor there were several empty rooms. Shezhu rented one of the rooms and took Beibei back to live with them. They had to make many sacrifices. They bought lunch from the company kitchen downstairs. They used an electrical stove and a kerosene stove to cook breakfast and supper. There were no flush toilets on the floor where they lived, so they had to use a chamber pot.

  Because the building was part of an old pig farm, there were clouds of mosquitoes after it got dark in summer time. There were no screens on the windows of their room. They used a mosquito net over their bed. Shezhu said that when they slept at night, so many mosquitoes perched on the net that they turned the white net to black. They put Beibei in the middle when they slept and had to be very careful to stay away from the net. Whenever they accidentally pressed their arms or legs against it while asleep, they woke up with arms or legs swollen with mosquito bites.

  After working as a lathe worker for some time, Ah Ming quit and started a repair shop. He repaired electrical appliances such as radios, TVs, fridges, and washing machines. He relied on the skills and knowledge he had gained when he maintained and fixed compressors in Pengsha Factory. He bought various technical books and studied them to gain more knowledge about electrical appliances.

  On Sundays, still the only day off in a worker’s week, Ah Ming and Shebao rode their bikes to the countryside and peddled their repair service to rural people. This was the time many people with special skills tried to earn extra income by offering services in their spare time. For example, teachers used weekends to tutor high school students for college entrance exams and received payment from the families using the service. Ah Ming and Shebao, whose college training equipped him with the skills to fix electrical appliances, were just riding the wave.

  Xiao Xie and Shezhu, with Chen Li and Beibei, would come to our apartment f
or the day. By evening, they would be looking out from our fifth-floor apartment window for Ah Ming and Shebao. When the two peddlers rode their bikes into the compound and appeared below our window, Xiao Xie or Shezhu would eagerly ask if they had made any money. The two men would make some finger gesture to indicate how much they had made as they dismounted from and parked their bikes. They made between twenty and fifty yuan a day. Ah Ming and Shebao split the money. We referred to this as their sideline production income.

  When the large refrigerator in the kitchen where I worked was out of order, I told the main cook that my son-in-law repaired electrical appliances. They contacted Ah Ming. Although it took several days for him to find and fix the problem, he succeeded. That was one of the first major business repairs for Ah Ming.

  Shezhu and Ah Ming bought their first commercial apartment in urban Jiading in the latter part of 1989. The apartment cost 33,000 yuan and they paid about two-thirds of the total. They used all the savings they had accumulated from their years of hard work and frugal living. Before they paid it, I remember we helped Shezhu sort out all of the bank deposit certificates to add them up. The certificates of deposits ranged from fifty yuan to several hundred yuan.

  Like Shebao’s apartment in Liyuan, the apartment Shezhu bought had two bedrooms, a small dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. It was on the fifth floor of a building that had six floors. The new apartment had bare floors and walls. Shezhu and Ah Ming used their spare time to put up wallpaper and to lay down hardwood floors. The new apartment was not yet connected to the piped natural gas. Fortunately, Shebao’s apartment in Li Compound was now connected, so Shezhu took over the gas tank that Shebao had used.

  The gas tank had to be refilled about every three months. Since the gas tank had its own registered number, it could be refilled only at the particular station where it was registered. The filling station for our gas tank was located west of Little Aunt’s village. When Shebao used the tank, every time he carried it on his bike to be refilled, he stopped and visited his grand aunt. When Shezhu took over the gas tank, Ah Ming took it to be refilled. He also made a stop at Little Aunt’s home and visited her.