Saturday and Sunday were two very educational days, spent in the countryside with my friend Qiufen and her hospitable family.
Household
The household includes father, mother, older brother, Qiufen and paternal grandmother. The family has a small plot of land where they grow rice and vegetables, but this is not the main source of income. The father has a stable construction job. The mother used to raise pigs, but now mostly does childcare. The older brother is doing a master's degree in badminton (what?) and Qiufen is a junior English major at our university.
Zhong Village
The family, surnamed Zhong, lives on the outskirts of Zhong village. Most of the people there are also surnamed Zhong, pointing to a common ancestor. The homes are built on the hillside overlooking rice paddies in the wet low grounds.
Amenities
The typical home is two stories, poured concrete, and quite spacious inside. Qiufen's house has four bedrooms, a squatty potty room, a shower room, kitchen, large hallway, and a central room for eating. Chickens live in the hallway. Each bedroom has a wood plank bed, wardrobe or dresser, and a desk. The central room has a short table and stools for eating. There is no living room or sofa. The floors and walls are concrete. Electric wiring is run outside the wall, from a switch up to a glass bulb dangling from the ceiling. I did not see any books or diversions besides the TV. (Oh, and older brother's laptop.)
There is no hot running water, no refrigerator, microwave, oven or gas stove. They get water from a pump, cook in a wok over a fire, and keep food in a wooden cabinet. In winter, the most food in the house at any time is this: rice, a jar of homemade preserved hot peppers, cabbage, fresh chicken eggs, onions, white carrots and some preserved meat. They prepared very special dishes for us. We ate duck, fish, chicken, beef, pork, carrots, cabbage, peppers, eggs, soup, dumplings and apples.
There is no heat or air conditioning. To stay warm they wear more clothes and the grandma carries around a basket of hot coal and sets it inside her long skirt. They boil water for drinking or bucket-baths.
Folk Religion
We took a mile walk to Qiufen's elementary school. At the schoolyard's center is a massive 400 year-old tree that is associated with superstitious folk religion. It is believed that large snakes and mysterious fire live inside the trunk. The school gate lady told us that she had just sacrificed a pig to the tree.
Walking back home, we happened across Daoist priests performing a funeral ritual, hoping that the ghost would not return to harass anyone with whom he had a grievance. Qiufen said that the family might pray for the deceased to be reincarnated at a higher social position. They were chanting, clanging cymbals and making a ruckus to scare away evil spirits.
Haircuts
On Sunday we walked to the village for haircuts. The local barber was ecstatic and refused payment -- instead, we should develop the pictures taken in her shop and return them to her.
Health Issues
During the weekend we got to know some neighbors as well. One skinny girl looked about 11 years old. When she walked her twiggy legs wobbled unnaturally. We found out that she was actually 21 years old, and the mother of a darling 3 year-old girl. In Chinese cities, it's actually not permissible to be married until after university, and not permissible to bear a child until age 26. But countryside folks have a different set of regulations. Anyway, Qiufen told me that the mother is probably suffering malnutrition.
Qiufen's mother Luo Jie also has physical problems. A countryside girl and the oldest of three siblings, as a child Luo Jie worked hard carrying heavy loads in the fields, resulting in chronic back pain. Qiufen massaged her mother's back each night. Luo Jie's younger siblings were able to receive an education and get jobs in the city. In fact, her younger brother picked us up from the train station in his SUV.
I kept the kids bundled as the temps were right around freezing.
We learned so much.
I'm going to take an intermission from blogging. Perhaps I'll be back in a month.
Happy Chinese New Year!
