A century of poverty

Chapter 56 It's Hard to Leave My Homeland

Once the arrow is released, there's no turning back. No matter how earnestly you try to persuade or pity me, I have to move on.

On April 12, 1975, Dad saw Mom, my eldest brother, my third sister, and my second brother off at the train station. Zhang Tong's brother-in-law, Wang Fa, and his wife also arrived and greeted each other.

Dad called Mom aside, handed her the money, and instructed her, "When you get there, take a look. If you don't want to stay, come back. This is for your round-trip train tickets."

The mother took the money for the ticket with a surprised look, thinking, "Why did you hand me the money this time? Isn't there Shuangxing?"

At her age, she had never managed money before, and she carefully tucked it into her bosom. "Go back now, there are four of us, don't you trust us?" Watching her father leave, her mother took out the money for tickets and handed it to her eldest brother: "Go buy your tickets." The eldest brother took the money and went to the ticket window.

After Mom and my older brother left, Dad didn't do anything at home, and we waited quietly.

A month later, Dad started registering the household.

The eldest and second eldest sisters went back and forth every day to sort out what should be taken away and what should be temporarily stored. The house was turned upside down even more than the house cleaning during the Lunar New Year. Jars and pots were placed inside and outside the house, and cloth bags were placed all over the kang (a heated brick bed).

The cabinet was placed in the yard, and my second sister was cleaning the bottom of it.

We selected the cabinet that Grandma would take with her. We each have two cabinets to store our clothes. The remaining cabinets will be used to store household items that we won't be taking with us.

Dad watched from the side. My second sister took out a stack of colorful bills, and I wondered what they were. I found it amusing too. They were printed with denominations like 10,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan. My sister grabbed a handful, then another, and my younger brother came over and took a handful. We looked happily at the different colors and denominations of the bills. I asked Dad, "Is this money? With so much money, won't we be rich?"

Father's face darkened: "Don't talk nonsense, bring it all here."

My second sister pleaded, "Let them play for a while."

Dad didn't say anything. We put these bills in the yard, in a small, palm-sized willow basket that my second brother had learned to weave, and carried it on our slings. We happily put one bill in the basket for "buying a basket of eggs," then another on a pair of old shoes for "buying a pair of new shoes," and so on, until we bought "a jar of meat" and "a bag of new clothes."

Dad said sternly, "Stop playing and give it all here." My younger brother and I picked up the "money" that had been "scattered" and handed it to my second sister, who then put it under the cabinet at home.

Dad bought a piece of student blue twill fabric to make new pants for me, my fourth sister, and my younger brother; a piece of large yellow plaid fabric to make overcoats for me and my fourth sister; and a piece of white silk with light blue plaid to make shirts. My second sister cut and sewed all the clothes herself, finishing them in a day and a half, while my fourth sister and I learned how to sew on buttons.

The date was set: we would set off for Jinhai on June 1st.

I was the first to object. June 1st is Children's Day! All the elementary schools in the commune will be coming to Zhuangtuo University for a performance. There will be many wonderful and exciting programs. It's a day we've been looking forward to. How can we leave on this day? If we leave, we won't be able to see the performances. My fourth sister and younger brother also want to leave after watching the performances.

On May 31st, I said, "Can't we just wait one more day and leave on June 2nd?"

Dad: "No way!" I was very disappointed.

That evening, the sky was overcast, but my mood improved. I thought to myself, "If it rains tonight, then we won't be able to leave tomorrow, and we can still go to school and celebrate Children's Day."

The next morning, the sky was still overcast. I went out to check; the rain last night hadn't been heavy. Dad said, "We're not leaving today." I was overjoyed, eagerly anticipating going to school. After breakfast, I went to the street to see if any classmates were going to school. After waiting for a while, I didn't see any students from the village passing by, but then news came from the school: there would be no performance today; the weather was bad, and we'd have a day off. The performance would be on June 2nd. My newly risen joy was instantly dashed, like a bucket of cold water being poured over my head. Regret, pity, and sighs were insufficient to describe my feelings at that moment; it seemed there was no going back.

The opportunity to celebrate Children's Day with classmates and teachers before leaving is gone, which will be a great regret.

The weather was overcast and drizzled intermittently throughout the day. We were setting off tomorrow, and everything was ready. Grandma was restless, sighing constantly. I went out for a walk every now and then, hoping for good news from school. Around noon, Dad instructed my fourth sister to make porridge with the leftover rice for lunch and cut half a piece of pickled vegetable. The whole family spent their last day here, born and raised in a state of anxiety and unease.

On June 2nd, the weather was sunny when we woke up, and we ate breakfast early. The two oxcarts from the team also arrived early. The drivers and neighbors who came to help loaded the cabinets onto the back of the carts and the luggage onto the front. Grandma sat in the middle, my younger brother and father sat on the front of the carts, and my fourth sister and I sat on either side of Grandma, each of us holding a large peanut oil bottle.

Students celebrating Children's Day have already arrived.

A wonderful event has been cut short for me, and will never happen again; my heart is heavy with sorrow.

"Giddy up!" Dong started the oxcart.

To ensure a smooth ride, the car didn't go down the steep slope but instead headed east, then west on the country road at the east end of the village, and then south again at the intersection with the North Avenue, before finally reaching the bottom of the steep slope. We gazed at our front door and the garden facing the street.

We passed the moat and headed south through the entire village. We left…

I don't know when or if I'll ever be able to return. When we arrived at Xidang Street, the people who came to see me off gradually stopped.

Having passed Nandang Street, the old woman burst into tears: "Second Aunt, how long has it been since we last met?" The grandmother didn't speak, but kept lifting her blouse to wipe her eyes.

Xiao Qiu and Fourth Sister have names that differ by only one character. Xiao Qiu is very close to Fourth Sister. She walked forward with the car in tears, and Fourth Sister was also crying.

"Crunch, creak!" Dong was moving the brakes, going downhill—crossing the river. The two of them stopped and waved, and we waved back.

To the left is an earthen cliff, the soil dampened by raindrops, and two ruts left by cart wheels stretching backward...

This is my memory of leaving Zhangzhuangtuo, a place I grew up in.

We walked west from Lizhuangtuojia, to Nuanquan, then through Nanshankou and Shimen, and arrived at Zhugezhuang Station.

We helped Grandma sit in the waiting room while Dad went to arrange for the shipment. When Dad returned, we lined up to board the train. The ticket inspector told us to stand at the front, with my younger brother first, Grandma, my fourth sister, and I helping him, and Dad behind, carrying his bag and watching over this group of old and young.

The train was spacious and sparsely populated; there were only a few people in each carriage. When we boarded, there was no one around us; the wooden seats were all empty. It was my first time riding a train, and I had never ridden in a car before, so it felt very novel. I sat down here and lay down there. Standing in the aisle and looking out, the trees and fields receded into the distance, which was quite interesting.

The younger brother sat next to his father; he had ridden a train before and found it uninteresting.

The fourth sister sat beside her grandmother, both of them still immersed in the sorrow of being away from home, motionless.

After a while, I sat down next to my father, feeling bored.

The train passed Shanhaiguan, and lunch was served in the dining car. Dad walked up to Grandma: "It's noon, let's go to the dining car for lunch."

Grandma shook her head: "No, I'm not hungry."

Father asked again, "Which of you will go?" He asked several times, and the fourth sister and the youngest brother all said they wouldn't go.

I didn't know what a dining car looked like, so I got up and curiously followed my dad to it. We sat down in an empty seat, and my dad brought over two bowls of rice; mine was a small bowl. I picked up my chopsticks and tried to put the rice in my mouth, but I couldn't swallow. Seeing a small glass bottle on the table, I thought it was water, so I poured it into my bowl, picked up the bowl, and started shoveling rice into my mouth. I choked and spat it all out; it was sour and spicy. I coughed for a while, then put the bowl down and didn't smell my mouth again.

Returning from the dining car, I stood blankly by the window, gazing out.

As the sun began to set, the houses in the villages outside the car window gradually disappeared, replaced by mounds of earthen-colored rubble, smaller and shorter than the houses. I asked my father, "What are those mounds?"

Dad said, "That's a house. That's the kind of house we stay in where we go."

I blurted out, "That's what you call a house? It's not even as good as our pigsty!" Then I realized I'd misspoke.

I felt even more disappointed and regretted not agreeing to go to the Northeast, but it was too late to say anything now. My feelings were similar to those of my grandmother and fourth sister.

As dusk fell, we transferred to a bus at Goubangzi. In the drizzling rain, we passed through the ticket gate and boarded the bus bound for Jinhai. Although the conductor and other passengers had been very courteous to our group of elderly and young, by this point, I was already quite annoyed. It turned out that traveling by bus wasn't always a pleasant experience.

In the darkness, we got off the bus at Jinhai Bus Station. Completely disoriented, we helped Grandma slowly through the gate and into the ticket office. The others who had gotten off with us were nowhere to be seen. Dad put the bundle aside, let Grandma sit down, and we stood beside her. Just then, a staff member came over and announced, "No overnight stays allowed in the ticket room. We're clearing the area!"

"We don't plan to stay here overnight. Please let us, the old and the young, wait here for a while. I'll go out and find a hotel and come back to pick them up when I find one," the father said to the person.

"Then hurry up."

"I will do it as soon as possible."

About half an hour later, Dad came back and said that he had asked around the neighborhood but couldn't find any hotels. He had only found a "traveling inn" and had inquired about it. They said it could accommodate us.

The drizzle was still falling, but thankfully it wasn't far. When we arrived at the shop, only our shoes were wet; we weren't soaked. No one from the shopkeeper gave us directions; it was Dad who took care of the paperwork and led us to a small, dimly lit room to settle in. Dad told us his room wasn't far, just two doors away.

Before we arrived, a woman was already sitting on the kang (a heated brick bed) in the room. Seeing that my younger brother hadn't left, she said, "That boy can't stay in this room." She urged him to go to our father's room. Our father came over and explained: it was clearly stated when we checked in that the inn arranged it this way. He said that since he was so young, we could let him stay in the other room for now. Changing rooms required the inn's approval. No matter how we explained, the woman insisted, "He's still a boy, so he can't stay in this room."

Father went to the registration office to inquire, and with their permission, he took his younger brother away.

After shooing her underlings away, the dark-skinned and ugly woman lit a cigarette and started talking: "Where are you from? Where are you going?"

We didn't like her. It's not easy to travel, and the shop arranged for us to stay in the same room. You just kicked her out. How heartless of you! And now you're smoking one cigarette after another. Why ask so many questions?

We've only ever seen female spies smoking and asking all sorts of questions in movies. Could she be a female spy?

We were unwilling to answer her, and only said that it was thirty li away from here.

"Why would I need to stay at an inn when I'm only thirty miles from home? If it were me, I'd walk thirty miles to get home." As she spoke, the woman started to cry, saying that she should have been home and didn't need to stay at an inn, but a small accident happened. She still had a baby at home who was breastfeeding, and she was still sixty miles from home. Unfortunately, it was raining.

We spent the night in a state of abstinence, and when we woke up the next day, we looked over there, but the woman who had been smoking was gone.