[An author posted three very long stories about life in the Chinese rural village today. I don’t usually like to take up all the word count with one person’s post, but I feel like this is a topic that’s rarely talked about, so let’s do a Rural Women Edition today! All three stories come from 晏凌羊—Yan Lingyang.]
“Speaking of tribes, I’d like to share a story from my hometown. I had a classmate in primary school whose mother had a very unfortunate life. Thankfully, she doesn’t have any of the qualities of a traditional rural woman. Among rural women, she was definitely one with a lot of individuality.
Back in the day, she married her first husband, and had a son and a daughter in a little mountain village. But her husband kept beating her, so she ended up divorcing him. She took her daughter (my classmate) with her in the divorce, and married into our village from her mountain village. She married the uncle next door to me, and became my next door auntie.
Back in those days, very, very few rural women dared to get a divorce. Some women would rather get beaten to death than get a divorce, because there would be too many humiliating rumours flying around about you if you got divorced.
After she married to our village, her son with her ex-husband really missed her, and hiked for a very long time to come see his mom. But when my neighbour saw this little boy, he was very upset. She only let her son spend the night there before chasing him out again the next day.
Afterwards, the whole village said that she was heartless. Not a single person said her husband or ex-husband were heartless.
After she married my neighbour, they had a son together. My neighbour was a very ambitious sort of man. He had always wanted to go out of the village, start a business, make tons of money. He never liked to do farm work. So, she worked the hectare of land they owned almost entirely by herself.
My family had four people in it and we only had half a hectare of land. The reason my neighbour had so much land was because he was the last son in his family to get married, so he has to take care of his parents in old age. After his parents passed away, their plot of land passed down to him.
That was our tradition—once the older son got married, the parents would split out his portion of inheritance, and give him whatever house or land he needed to be independent. And the younger son, who marries later, would take care of the parents, and the rest of their inheritance would go to him.
My neighbour would never put up with the hard work of tending a field though, so he left to “do business”. And by “do business”, I mean hang out with a bunch of chavs who don’t know how to do anything except brag about themselves, and drink and eat. They’ll talk business, they’ll talk plans, they’ll talk futures, but they never take any action.
Then, one year, he went to the neighbouring town to drink at some guy’s house, and slept over there at night. The next morning, he was found dead in their bed, stabbed a dozen times. That family immediately called the police, but after 30 years, the case still isn’t solved yet.
It was evening time when his body was dragged back to our village. I was in primary school then. After I finished eating dinner, I was doing my homework, when I heard a catastrophic wail from next door. It came from our next door auntie. My mom went over to find out what’s wrong, but she didn’t let me come. Not that I really wanted to go see a dead body either. So I just kept my ear open.
The auntie was wailing her heart out. She cried and screamed, “What are we supposed to do without you!?” She was making my hair stand on end.
Now that I think about it, she wasn’t crying because she’d lost a husband who never contributed to the household anyways, but because she didn’t know what she was “supposed to do”.
My neighbour was quickly buried, but before a week was up, his extended family was already creating drama.
I lived super close to the auntie, so I got to see the whole thing go down.
My neighbour’s older brothers told Auntie, “We are the only ones who have the rights to the land and houses our parents left you guys. Our brother’s portion of the inheritance can only go to your son. Before he comes of age, we can take care of it for him. As for you and your daughter, go back wherever you came from.”
They had brought the entire extended family tribe over to support their case.
They formed a huge crowd around the auntie, forcing her to hand over her hand, hand over her lands, go back where she came from. The auntie’s daughter and son were both super young at this point. They were scared out of their minds, and could only cling to her leg and scream.
The auntie cried at first too. But when she saw her husband’s older brothers and SILs had begun to take her rice, she run into the kitchen and grabbed a meat cleaver and screamed at the whole family, “Do you want to die!? Who dares come in here!? I’ll stab you! I don’t care if I live or not, I’ll take all of you with me!”
Some people didn’t believe her, and laughed it off and came up to her anyways, and she straight up swung her cleaver at them. They dodged in time and weren’t hurt. And that was how the auntie fought off an entire extended family on her own.
After that, the family would show up regularly to make trouble for her. They even demanded the Villager’s Committee put pressure on her. Her life must’ve been really hard in those days. She’d come over once in a while and complain to my mom about how that family was bullying widows and orphans.
Of course, the rest of the village just saw this as their daily drama channel. Nobody wanted to get involved and draw trouble to themselves. Slowly, eventually, the whole thing calmed down.
The auntie still lived in my neighbour’s ancestral house, still worked the land that her in-laws had left her ex-husband. She had a lot of land, and she was an excellent farmer. Like that, she managed to put together some savings of her own and build a new house.
As a widow in a rural village, she had to work in the land and in the house. She really didn’t have time for her two kids, and both of them had bad grades. Using my classmate as an example—she hated studying, and she had a really strong sense of vanity. Her brother wasn’t much better either. He’d even steal sometimes.
Now that I think about it, she had it really hard too. She spent all day in the fields, and had to use nighttime to feed pigs and chickens and ducks. A lot of the bad habits of her kids were formed back when her husband was alive. I don’t think there was much she could’ve done about it.
When the auntie built a new house, she met a man from Sichuan, who did oddjobs—helping her build a wall here, lay some tile there. Got paid per day.
As they got to know each other, they started dating, and eventually started living together. The whole village was gossiping about them—how the auntie was a slut, and the man just wanted to live off of her money. My neighbour’s extended family was absolutely furious that a strange man was living with the auntie now.
They felt like their younger brother had been betrayed. That the auntie’s behaviour brought shame to their ancestors. They all jumped out to accuse the auntie of being shameless, of being a whore, of being a bad example, of bringing shame to her household. Some even threatened the Sichuan man, “If you don’t leave, we’ll make you.”
Thinking back on it now, I think they had their own schemes. If the auntie never remarried, then when she died, they might still get some of that land and housing. But if the auntie remarried, then the auntie, and all of her land and property, would belong to the new man.
When the family made such a big deal, the auntie was mad too. But she still gritted her teeth and didn’t buckle under pressure. I think that she was being spiteful: didn’t you say I was a slut? That I would open my legs for anyone? I’m gonna stick by this one man until the end.
At first, the rumours bothered her, and she never went out together with the Sichuan man. But then, the village often saw the auntie go to the fields with a man, both wearing baskets on their backs filled with corn or broad beans.
For a time, the whole town knew about auntie, that she couldn’t take the loneliness, that she’d found herself a boytoy.
But in the end, the auntie didn’t marry the Sichuan man. They didn’t end up staying together. But it wasn’t out of pressure from the family, but because he had ED.
My mom told me about this later. My mom and auntie both married from a mountain village to a riverside village. They’ve both faced discrimination in this riverside village, been called “hillbillies” and all. They had a very close relationship and would sometimes talk about intimate stuff.
The auntie wanted sex life, but the Sichuan man couldn’t get hard. So she felt like aside from helping out with chores, he wasn’t very useful at all, so she kicked him out.
Time moved forward. I got in high school, and then university. I came to live in Guangzhou, and can no longer observe people’s life in my hometown. I only hear about gossip when I visit home now.
The auntie’s daughter married a young man from the same village and had two daughters. Her older daughter is in university now. I even helped her with her college applications last year.
The auntie’s son is married too, and opened a convenience store in another town. The auntie is helping him take care of his kid.
The auntie is old now. Nothing exciting is going to happen in her life at this point. Last time I saw her, she just looked at my mom with envy and said, “We both married in from the mountains, but you’re so much luckier than me.”
The auntie never contacted the son she had with her first husband again, like she’d never even had that child. She’s cut off all contact with the extended family that tried to make her and her daughter leave too.
I often think of her fighting the family off with a meat clever, and thought to myself, “If she’d only had a daughter with my neighbour, or if her temper was even a little bit softer, would she have been able to continue staying in my village?””
The second post is about the same couple:
“The neighbour and auntie I mentioned in the previous post were both pretty heartless towards their own children. They’ve both had previous marriage.
My neighbour had had a wife before and had a son and daughter with her. But because he was such a lazy bum, and his parents didn’t treat her well either, she couldn’t bear living with him anymore and divorced him. She took her daughter and married a widower teacher from far, far away, and left her son with his dad.
Like I said before, the auntie had a previous marriage too where she was beaten by her ex-husband. So she divorced him and took her daughter and married my neighbour. And the son she had with her ex-husband was left with his dad.
After my neighbour and the auntie got married, the son he had with his ex-wife lived with his parents. After his parents passed away, my neighbour’s ex-wife saw that no one was around to take care of her son anymore, so she talked her teacher husband to take her son in, and have him live with them.
My neighbour’s ex-wife is the only person in this story with a bit of warmth to her.
My neighbour, the auntie, and the auntie’s ex-husband really only thought of themselves.
Let’s call the son the auntie had with her ex-husband Dong.
Because of his parents, Dong had a terrible childhood! He was only three when his parents divorced, and his mother remarried with his sister. And his dad quickly went and married a rich girl, and completely didn’t care about him anymore.
He lived with his grandparents. But even his grandparents didn’t like him. They kept telling him to go live with his mom and get out of their hair.
When he was only five or six, he hiked a very, very long time by himself, barefoot (because he couldn’t afford shoes!) to come to our village to find his mom.
It was at least a 7-8 hour walk for a grown man from his grandparents’ village to ours, and it was raining that day. All the roads had turned to mud. He was absolutely drenched. His pants were covered in mud.
But the auntie was worried that he’d bring trouble to her current family, so she only made him a meal and let him sleep over for one night. The next morning, before the sun had even rose, she kicked him back out to go back to his grandparents.
Why would she kick a child out before the sun rose? Because she was worried the rest of the village would see. She was afraid they’d gossip about her.
But Dong’s grandparents really didn’t like him. They ended up giving him away to someone.
Well, they call it “giving away”, but really, they sold him.
The buyer gave the grandparents a couple hundred bucks, and took Dong away.
At that point, Dong was about ten years old. He remembered his family, but he still had to go with the human trafficker.
The human trafficker took him to Henan, and sold him to a widow. The widow became Dong’s stepmom.
His stepmom was super, super poor. She couldn’t provide him with anything. She didn’t even register a hukou for him at all (after all, he had been trafficked to her), so he’s never even went to school. He started working oddjobs for people at ten years old.
In a couple of years, his step-mom passed away, and Dong didn’t have a single family member left in Henan. He ended up getting in touch with his birth father (the one who married into a rich girl’s family), and said that he wanted to go back to Yunnan.
Dong didn’t leave his hometown until he was ten. His habits, his dialect were all set in stone by that point. He really sincerely wanted to come back.
But when his birth father heard he was in Henan, he thought Dong was successful (Yunnan was really poor back in the day, so in the mind of a lot of people, anywhere other than Yunnan was “rich”), so he happily took Dong in.
Dong sold the only inheritance his stepmom had left him—a shabby house. It sold for 3000 RMB. He rode the train for a very long time, and rode in a car for even longer, before he came back to our town and found his birth father.
His dad saw he was completely uneducated, and poor, and only had all of 2000 RMB to his name, and had no wife at almost 30-years-old. He got absolutely furious and said that he couldn’t let Dong stay with him, and told Dong to go find his mom instead.
So Dong had to come to our village again and find the auntie again.
As soon as he saw his mom, he immediately took out all of his money, and told her that 2000 RMB was all he had. The auntie didn’t take his money, but she didn’t accept him either.
For one thing, she still had PTSD from her battle with the extended family. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d had a son with her ex-husband, she wouldn’t have a place to stay in this village at all…she would never get away with keeping her older son with her.
For another, her son with her ex-husband was older now. All her land and housing has to go to her younger son. If she accepted her older son, her younger son might not take care of her anymore in old age.
The villagers tried to persuade her, “You don’t have to give him any land or housing. Just give him a place to sleep, some food to eat, just for a couple of years. You can find a good family and have him marry in there.”
The auntie said, “I haven’t seen him for two decades. I’ve always acted like I don’t even have this son. I don’t even know him. How could I have someone I don’t know live in my house?”
Honestly, the villager’s persuasion was pretty selfish too. The auntie still felt like Dong was a hot potato, and kicked him out once again.
This all happened a couple of years ago. After that, we’ve never heard from Dong again, or seen him either. I don’t know where he’s went.
I just heard one detail. After he was kicked out, he went to the convenience store at the entrance of the village to buy a bottle of water. There was a little kid in there listening to a tape recorder. The tape recorder was playing a children’s story of “Little Tadpoles Looking for Their Mother”. Dong stood in the doorway and listened to the whole thing, quietly wiped his tears away, and walked quickly away.”
I just went and searched this primary school story, and found its last section reads like this—
The little tadpoles swam over and cried out, “Mommy! Mommy!”
The frog mommy looked down and smiled, “My babies, you’ve all become frogs now. Come on, hop on.”
They kicked with their hind legs and hopped forward and landed on the lotus leaf.
At some point, the little frogs’ tales had disappeared.
They’re going to follow in their mother’s footsteps, and go eat harmful bugs every day.”
The third post is about a folk song that I am going to do my best to translate, but it’s…not gonna be the same. But I found a youtube link to the song! So you can hear it here:
“I just heard the folksong, “If My Husband Dies, I Can Head Outside” and can’t stop laughing! I thought it was black humour at first. It’s fucking hilarious.
But after I read the lyrics, it stopped being so funny:
Other people’s husbands are so well-behaved
My husband is so empty-headed
When he stands, he is like a tree stump
When he sits, he is like a rock.
As the sun goes down and the darkness settles
It’s hard to feel safe in this house
I hope that thunder will strike my roof
I hope a tiger will eat my man
When pigeons cry, the sun will shine
When crows cry, people will die
If someone must die, let it be my husband
If my husband dies, I can head outside.”
“When he stands, he is like a tree stump. When he sits, he is like a rock.” Does that describe perfectly the kind of asshole husband who never does anything around the house except make messes?
The last generation of rural women have only one source of happiness in their lives if they married the wrong husband—becoming a widow.
This is true.
I’ve told you guys the story of a woman who lost her husband and got bullied by his extended family before. Today, my mom filled me in on another detail.
When her MIL passed away back in the day, she couldn’t find her husband anywhere to take care of things. She had to organise her MIL’s funeral by herself. She didn’t even have time to plant sprouts or water her fields.
By the time the funeral proceedings were all done, the watering season was over. Her fields were so dry, they were cracking apart. She couldn’t plant anything in them at all. If it continued, she could end up with no harvest at all that year. Thank goodness, after the dry season that year, we had flooding in our village, and that saved her life.
I imagined, if her husband hadn’t died at the exact right time, maybe she would end up having to serve him, and pay back his debts, and take care of him in old age.
The only use for husbands is as a mascot, to give this family a justified standing in the extended family, and protect her and her daughter from being exiled by his extended family. Once he died, that protection disappeared. Thank goodness she still had a son, who can stake his claim.
Before, I’ve shared my uncle’s story too. Sometimes, I feel like if my uncle could’ve conveniently died after marrying and having a daughter, then my aunt might not have remarried. Honestly, her second marriage is pretty awful too.
In a rural village, it’s hard for an unmarried girl to find a good man, much less a divorced woman with a child. (I’m not trying to be discriminatory. It’s just reality).
Overall, my aunt isn’t a very traditional person. If my uncle hadn’t beaten her too hard, she wouldn’t have the heart to abandon her son and run away.
My grandparents are all good people too. They might have small conflicts with my aunt, but they wouldn’t really harm each other. They could’ve formed a cooperative family together.
If that was the case, my uncle’s sister wouldn’t have had to marry the husband she did, and get beaten to death by him. And my grandparents wouldn’t have been tortured to death by their son. And my cousin wouldn’t have grown up into a bastard. He could’ve had a normal future.
All of this was caused by my uncle dying too late.”
Oh man, these stories are so sad to read. :( I don’t even want to extrapolate stories like this to the whole of humanity. Thanks for sharing them.
"Thankfully, she doesn’t have any of the qualities of a traditional rural woman."
What does this mean?