Fate
I don't know why my life is so unlucky. The heaven didn't let me be born in the 1980s, but in the 1970s; since I was born in the 1970s, why wasn't I born in Western Europe or North America in the 1970s, but in China in the 1970s; being born in China, I was born in Henan Province; being born in Henan, it would be fine if I were born in a city, but I was born in a rural area; in the countryside, it would be better if I were a boy, but I am a girl. My fate has not only been fixed at the bottom of society, but also at the very bottom of the bottom.
Since I am a girl from a rural area in Henan, China, I must do physical labor. But God didn't make me strong, instead giving me a slender figure like willow branches swaying in the wind. It looks good, but when it comes to doing work, I'm at a loss. If I were born in the city, this would be great, saving me the trouble of losing weight. But being born in the countryside makes it somewhat inappropriate. I remember once going on a blind date. I didn't like that family, but they didn't like me either. The reason was: with such a frail body, how could I possibly carry bundles of corn stalks or dig up sweet potatoes in the fields? To think of it, I have truly had terrible luck. I don't know what bad deeds I did in my previous life to be reborn into such an environment in this one. For this, I am extremely distressed, especially when I see those dirty and tiring farm works that only oxen and men can handle. I am terrified. So, quite early on, I made it my goal to change my identity, not wanting to wield a hoe at home. If I were to fix the earth for the rest of my life, my life would truly lose its meaning. I can't imagine, years later, being a peasant woman, disheveled and untidy, holding a bull by one hand and dragging a snotty child by the other, shouting loudly at the bull while scolding the crying child who cries because there's no money to buy pencils. If I were to become such a person, I would rather die.
Not only do I have high requirements for myself, but also my father, this intellectual of the countryside who barely finished primary school (higher-grade elementary school, not high school) and was once a member of the fourth category of people, had high expectations for me. From a young age, he instilled in me the idea that if I couldn't attend Qinghua University (Tsinghua University), then I should at least go to Dazhuan School (a vocational college). No matter what, as long as I could get into university, I could eat meat every day and have steamed buns for every meal. Back then, all I understood about Tsinghua and vocational colleges was that they referred to frogs in the river and bricks on the ground, without knowing their real meanings. However, the idea of eating meat every day was indeed tempting to me. For this reason, I studied very hard during my childhood and always ranked among the top students in primary school. Unfortunately, being a girl, I couldn't escape the common rut of most girls: excelling in primary school, falling behind in middle school, and completely failing in high school. I don't know why this happens. In middle school, I was still naive and didn't even know what dating was, yet my grades weren't as good as before. This might just be a rule, something most people can't avoid. Just like my later attempts to change my rural identity and live in the city, which I couldn't achieve. Perhaps pursuing a change in destiny has always been as difficult as climbing to the sky from Sichuan, or as Christian saying goes: Since God made you be born in this place, it is His arrangement and will, just as Jesus was born in a manger, and just as humans cannot leave the Earth due to gravity. If you go against God's will, aren't you opposing God? Therefore, you must endure hardship, work hard physically, starve, and feel empty, and even then, you won't necessarily know whether your fate can be changed.
I often think, if heaven allows gifts, in the next life I will definitely give God a generous gift, making sure He doesn't let me be born in such a place again. A seed planted in barren soil, no matter how good the seed is, can only grow well if it has good soil. Don't expect it to grow into a towering tree, nor expect it to be transplanted to fertile soil. The hardships and torments experienced in between are not something that can be summarized in a single sentence. Boys enduring some suffering is acceptable, but for a girl, if she refuses to accept her fate, she may very likely lose happiness while pursuing it. Listen to that overly clichéd phrase, and you might understand a bit of the bitterness within. That phrase is: Behind every successful woman stands a group of men. If you were asked to choose the phrase you dislike the most or find the most nauseating, I believe I would choose this one, because it is insulting and disrespectful to women, and discriminatory towards successful women. Why does a successful man have only one woman behind him, while a successful woman needs a whole group of men? What does that mean? I believe only a society that harbors prejudice against women would say such things. At the same time, such words indicate that if a woman is not successful, she can only submit to the arrangements of fate. Even if she becomes successful, she must face others' strange gazes. In short, whether you succeed or not, as long as you are a woman with aspirations, you will bear much sorrow and helplessness, especially if you are a woman at the bottom of society. Imagine, if a high-ranking official's child or a city girl says she wants to be an artist or scientist in the future, people might believe or not believe her. But if a rural girl standing in the paddy field, with mud on her hands while transplanting rice seedlings, says she wants to be an artist or entrepreneur in the future, you probably wouldn't believe it either.
The concept of male superiority and female inferiority may merely exist ideologically in cities, but in the rural areas of the 1970s and 80s, it wasn't so simple. Its actual effect was that a girl's life was worth less than a blade of grass. People born after the 1980s may not fully understand these things now, and urban people understand them even less. However, the situation in the countryside was very different. Even today, abandoned infants are mostly girls. Have you noticed that looking through books, all the words with negative meanings have "female" as their radical, like "jian", "pin", "yao", "nu", "xian", etc., none of them have "male" as their radical. In the rural areas where historical legacy is still heavy, how lowly are the lives of girls? Let me explain using my cousin and neighbor Aunt Yan.
My cousin was the third child, and since there were already two girls before her, when she was born, her parents, who had been hoping for a boy, felt disappointed. Moreover, she cried and fussed a lot. Actually, children cry and fuss, right? Her father - my uncle - was so annoyed that he wanted to abandon her. My aunt didn't want to, but couldn't resist my uncle, so she was eventually taken out and abandoned. After being abandoned, my aunt was heartbroken and cried at home. Just then, my cousin's grandmother came over and asked why my aunt was crying. Upon hearing that the child had been abandoned, the grandmother wanted to retrieve her. My aunt said it had been half a day and, given the cold weather outside, the baby might not survive. The grandmother said, "Let's check anyway. If she's alive, we'll take her back. If not, it's fine." The grandmother found the baby in a small roadside pit of grass. She was so cold that she couldn't cry anymore, only her eyes were half-open and half-closed. The grandmother took her back, fed her some rice water, and saved her life. Last year, at my cousin's wedding, when the host asked her to thank her parents, she only bowed to my aunt and refused to bow to her father. To this day, she isn't fond of her father.
There's also my neighbor Aunt Yan, who was also the third child when she was born. At that time, her mother fell on the way back to her maiden home and gave birth prematurely at seven months. If it had been a boy, they would have tried desperately to save him. However, seeing it was a girl, they lost hope, thinking premature babies wouldn't survive. They wrapped her in old cloth and left her in a corner of the wall, waiting for her to die before disposing of her. But after a day and night, when they checked the next day, she was still breathing. Thinking that this child had a strong fate, they decided to try feeding her. They boiled some rice water and fed it to her, and surprisingly, she survived. Recently, Aunt Yan gave birth to a girl. On the day of the full moon celebration, while she was holding her baby outside in the sun, she said, "Even if I have to beg in the future, I won't let my daughter suffer. I will never be as heartless as my parents were." Her mother was sitting nearby and didn't seem to react upon hearing this.
Compared to them, I was the eldest child and very favored by my father, so I didn't encounter such misfortunes. However, fate didn't favor me much either. As a rural girl, avoiding physical labor was impossible, especially for someone like me, without older brothers or sisters, weak and thin, looking like a willow branch.
Although my father always regarded me as his beloved daughter and had high hopes for me, my academic performance was unsatisfactory. During the college entrance exam, the school, in pursuit of a high admission rate, only allowed a few students to participate, and I didn't even have the chance to take the exam, so I couldn't even fail. After returning home, I felt heavy-hearted and confused, not knowing what to do next.
Let's rewind to the time I first left school, allowing everyone to see how the fate of this person who defies destiny unfolds. As an insignificant character like an ant or a blade of grass, how did I struggle against the tide in the midst of China's drastic social changes and ultimately sink? My story lacks the legendary quality of famous biographies, but it is true, representing and reflecting the voices of thousands of blades of grass and countless rural girls. At the time, I didn't realize that Chinese society was undergoing tremendous changes, nor did I realize that the path I chose would be the one that most rural girls who didn't pass the exams would take several years later. Of course, there were exceptions. The following diary entries document my mental journey after leaving school and returning home.
May 2, 1989
Last night, I didn't sleep at all, worrying about my future after coming back from school. This morning, I just closed my eyes when my mother called me to get up. I was so sleepy I couldn't lift my head, but I got up anyway. Now that I'm not going to school, there's no excuse to stay in bed lazily.
When going to the field, my mother actually told me to take the sheep along. I was so embarrassed, a young girl driving a herd of sheep, becoming the village's female shepherdess. How could I ever face my classmates again? Doesn't she consider that not being able to study doesn't mean I'm worthless and have to resort to herding sheep? My dear mother, you're too considerate! After being scolded a couple of times, I went to the field alone, grumbling inwardly that even if beaten, I wouldn't herd sheep.
Strictly speaking, today was the first time I did farming work. If I were still in school, my father wouldn't expect me to work. Thinking about my father's hope that I attend university, and realizing that not only can I not attend university, but also due to the school's focus on high admission rates, I couldn't even take the college entrance exam, I feel ashamed.
Now, thinking about the gray inch-long wheat bugs wriggling on the ridges between the wheat rows, I'm still scared and disgusted. But then I think about my father's sweat-soaked shirt, tightly sticking to his back, and I can't bear to stand idly by.
We don't even have a fan at home. Writing this diary while sweating, the red marks on my arms from the wheat awns sting when soaked in sweat. Alas, life at home is truly unbearable.
May 3, 1992
Yesterday morning, I worked in the field for half a day, and by afternoon, I was exhausted. By dusk, there was no comfortable spot on my body—my legs hurt, my arms ached, my waist was stiff like a wooden board. The blisters on my hands from the hoe handle had broken and bled, and each time I dug another hole, the pain made me wince. But I had to persevere.
Last night, lying in bed, I couldn't find a comfortable position for my arms and legs, tossing and turning uncomfortably for half the night before finally falling asleep. Hence, I didn't write yesterday's diary.
This morning, my mother woke me up early to cut wheat in the west field. Opening my eyes groggily, I felt this was worse than being hanged.
While working in the field, Aunt Juan from the neighboring self-plot heard that I had stopped studying and said that since I looked good, I could still lead a good life even without education. I retorted that looking good was useless; no matter how pretty one is, without education, one still has to bend over and work the land. We peasants, if we don't work the land, where else can we earn our living? When farming isn't good, there are still many people farming. Wait until I find you a good husband, and you'll still be able to live a good life, Aunt Juan said. Hearing that she wanted to arrange a marriage for me, I quickly declined, but my mother became unhappy, saying that since I wasn't studying anymore, I should find a husband soon, otherwise, all the good ones would be taken by others. Her words made me feel like I was surplus goods that needed to be sold quickly. Truly ignorant and ridiculous! How old am I? Even if I were to start a business or a career, it's still too early, let alone getting married. According to her thoughts, if I don't marry, I have no way out, and maybe next year I'll have a child.
May 4, 1992
Yesterday, I thought pulling corn was the most uncomfortable work in the world. Today, after cutting wheat, I truly understood what labor means and why people say labor is glorious. Facing the yellow earth with your back to the sky used to be just a phrase to me, but now I deeply experience the essence and feelings of it. Among all kinds of labor, agricultural work is the heaviest. It not only tortures the body but also the spirit and perseverance.
Under the blazing sun, bending over, the entire back is exposed to the sunlight, burning and roasting. Not only does the posture become bent, but the spirit also becomes humble and servile, as if one wants to shrink their head into their stomach and their limbs into their body, wishing to find a crack in the ground to hide in. At such moments, thinking about those who don't need to toil like this for their livelihood evokes a sense of admiration. Especially when thinking about the classmates in school, the emotions are indescribable. While I was cutting wheat this afternoon, I saw Li Xiaofeng from the same village riding a bicycle to the city. Suddenly, I envied him—not because of anything else, but because his father was the director of the county commerce bureau, and it was rumored that his family would soon move to the county town. Because he had a good father, despite being the same age and not continuing schooling, he didn't have to endure this kind of suffering. Although he graduated from junior high school, although deep down I somewhat looked down on people who rely on their fathers for food, at this moment, as long as I don't have to labor under the sun, as long as I don't have to face the earth and endure the heat, I'd be satisfied. In the past, during school days when I didn't have to labor, I didn't feel happy, but now I realize those days were truly happy times.
May 10, 1992
These days, whenever I reach the edge of the field and see the endless golden wheat shimmering under the sun, I feel fear, dread, and resentment. I think the composer of the lyrics about the shimmering waves of wheat was absurd, and all talk about the joy of harvest and the glory of labor are big lies. This season of harvest is the season of drawing out one's tendons and peeling off one's skin, a season that can kill people. At this time, everyone is like a machine, tirelessly operating and rushing around without rest, exhausted like wood, devoid of any feeling, and numb minds cannot possibly feel any joy. I believe the person who wrote this song has never experienced the terror of these waves of wheat, has never gotten up at dawn and worked until dusk cutting wheat; otherwise, they would never turn these shimmering waves of wheat into a song. These days, while cutting wheat in the vast fields of rolling wheat, I keep thinking of the term 'Jingwei filling the sea.' I always feel that my place in society is like Jingwei's place in the sea, so small and insignificant, so powerless that I can't even control my own home. If I could control my home, I would never plant crops here, I would rather starve than cut this wheat.
Everyone is so busy and tired, yet my mother still remembers Aunt Juan talking about arranging a marriage for me, saying that Aunt Juan had already spoken to her. The other party is her younger brother on her mother's side, saying that they chose me because they liked me, otherwise, with their newly built two-story house and being an only child, there would be countless matchmakers. Ha ha, it seems my value equals that two-story house. This Aunt Juan, I've already told her I'm not considering this matter now, why bring it up again? Isn't she creating conflict? My mother keeps reminding me that after the wheat harvest, she'll make me meet the potential spouse. This isn't creating unnecessary conflicts? I told my mother today: Forget about the two-story house, even if it were ten stories, I wouldn't go. This angered my mother, who grabbed the rolling pin to hit me, scaring me enough to run out of the kitchen. Fortunately, my father returned at that moment, asking what happened. I told him, and he sighed, advising my mother not to force me too much. Little did he know, this only stirred up more trouble, causing my mother to yell and curse, saying I was disobedient, and my father was also being unreasonable. Since I had no hope for schooling, marrying was the only path left. Why wouldn't I take it? Do I want to ascend to heaven?
May 12, 1992
Last night, while threshing wheat, watching the thresher roaring and spinning, swallowing bundle after bundle of wheat, I was scared, especially remembering how Big Guang's hand was crushed by the thresher a few days ago. I really lacked the courage to step forward. Seeing my hesitant appearance, my mother became impatient, saying that if I had quit school earlier, I wouldn't be so cowardly and incompetent, making me feel extremely uncomfortable, unable to express it.
While enduring the discomfort, I had to work like a陀螺, picking up the pitchfork, then the shovel, then the basket, wishing I could grow four arms. Still, I couldn't keep up with the rhythm, almost fainting from exhaustion when suddenly the power went out. The previously noisy threshing floor immediately fell into darkness and silence. Seeing that others still had electricity, my mother became angry, but I liked the power outage, as it gave me a chance to catch my breath. My father took a flashlight to check the circuit, while my mother fumbled in the dark to clear the unfinished wheat seeds, starting to complain about my father again.
Previously drenched in sweat, I didn't feel the cold. Now, after this brief pause, my rain-soaked clothes suddenly turned icy cold, making me shiver uncontrollably. The night was so dark that we couldn't see each other's faces, and the flashlight, with weak batteries, emitted almost no light, requiring occasional tapping to brighten it. My father checked for a long time without finding the cause, growing increasingly frustrated, leading to a loud