3. Grandpa's Dreams
≪ 2. My Family Tree's Roots | Table of Contents | 4. Remembering my Older Brother ≫My great-grandfather, whose name was Liu Huasong Chinese: 刘华松 and courtesy name was Hengmao Chinese: 恒茂 , was an ordinary farmer. My great-grandmother bore five children, all of whom were sons. The eldest son passed away young, though the younger four all grew up one after the other. My grandfather was the youngest son, and his name was Liu Mandie Chinese: 刘满爹 .
My grandfather raised cattle for a living ever since he was a child, and he never had much to say about his hopes and dreams. The most common dream of that generation was moving up the social ladder Chinese: 升官, pinyin: shēng guān, lit. “promotion”. This likely refers to entering a position of local political power. and gaining affluence. But grandpa interracted with very few people, and he read very little, so he only really dreamt of affluence. A humble cattle farmer probably didn’t dream of grand wealth, either. When he was young, my grandfather’s primary aspiration was probably a modest yet comfortable life.
After my grandparents got married, they made tofu for a living. They worked from dawn to dusk, and only then did their lives begin improving. Once they accrued some small savings, they moved to the city with his third older brother Chinese: 三哥, pinyin: sān gē. In Chinese, family members are often enumerated as first brother, second brother, etc. according to age. (I’d call him “third granduncle”) and started brewing alcohol for a living. They both earned small fortunes. They then opened two wine houses Chinese: 酒店, pinyin: jǐu diàn. This is translated as “hotel” nowadays, though over 100 years ago, these functioned as hotels, bars, and restaurants, all at once. You’ll often find restaurents, hotels, and bars that call themselves 酒店 today. called Fu Long Wine House Chinese: 福隆酒店 and Heng Long Wine House Chinese: 衡隆酒店 . They later moved back to the Hengyang Banqiao Chinese: 板桥, a town in 衡阳 countryside, where they bought several plots of land and became two households living modest yet comfortable lives. Just like that, they changed from poor peasants into landowners.
The precise amount of land that my grandfather and third granduncle owned has been lost to time. Based on my hazy memories, I think they owned about 300 mu Chinese: 亩, a unit of area equaling about 667 square metres. total. However, our home would change drastically: my grandfather decided to split the property for inheritance while he was still in good health. As I’ve written on page 34 of 《雪地征鸿》, in a piece titled “A House in Banqiao in the Spotlight Chinese: 光昭板桥一族房, pinyin: guāng zhāo bǎn qiáo yī zǔ fáng. ”, my grandparents had a single child later in life, and they also adopted two children before that. The adopted children came from poor family circumstances, and moreover, they never went back to their biological families. Thus, they evenly split the estate among the three children, leaving around 100 mu for each.
100 mu was more than enough land to be considered a landowner during the land reforms. At the same time, they were far from the landowning elite, but taking everything into consideration, they were far from the landowning elite. Prior to the siezure Chinese: 解放, pinyin: jīe fàng, lit. “emancipation”. I find the choice of language particularly interesting — many of us in capitalist societies would consider this a deep moral wrong, yet the word choice carries the connotation of moral righteousness. of land, the grain yield was no more than 300-400 jin Chinese: 斤, a unit of weight equalling 500 grams. It’s sometimes translated as “catty” or “kati”. , whereas a typical landowner would collect 150-200 jin per mu. 100 mu of land should therefore yield a total of 15-20 thousand jin of grain. When I looked for more data online, I found that prior to the siezure of land, each unit of grain (about 120 jin) was worth 6 to 7 dollars in rent More appropriately, this would be a sort of annual tax or fee collected by the landlord based on the grain production. ; 100 mu of land would thus earn 900-1200 dollars in rent alone. This sort of annual income seems big yet isn’t that big; during that era, Lu Xun Chinese: 鲁迅, a famous writer and political figure. had a monthly salary of 300 dollars, totalling 3600 dollars a year. My grandfather’s income seems modest in comparison, yet it wasn’t a small income either; a typical labourer’s monthly income was only 10 dollars or so, and primary school teachers earned only 35-50 dollars a month.
Thus, by the time my grandfather split his estate for his descendants, he had already attained his dream of a modest yet comfortable life.
Grandpa’s second dream was of old age and retirement.
Grandpa was a practical and content person. After passing on his property, he never managed another wine house, and he never had to work hard for money again. My gradparents naturally lived with my parents. Besides the land’s passive income, they were able to live off of my grandparents’ savings and my father’s earnings. My father taught engineering in Changsha City Chinese: 长沙市, the capital of Hunan province. . His monthly salary should have been higher than a primary school teacher’s at around 50-60 dollars, and it was more than enough to support a modest lifestyle of that era.
Grandpa was a Buddhist and believed in karma, so he was willing to perform charitable acts. He donated money towards bridge and road repairs, and he was always ready to spend time, money, and effort on public responsibilities (including updating our genealogy records).
Grandpa believed in feng shui, and after consulting with a feng shui master, he purchased two burial sites. One was at a camphor tree forest near Nanyue Chinese: 南岳, a famous montain in China also known as Hengshan (衡山). , where my great-grandfather was eventually laid to rest. The other was on a sparsely vegetated mountain near Banqiao, where my great-grandmother was eventually laid to rest. They were separately buried since it would give them two separate chances of reaching the divine light imbued in each location’s feng shui. Following my grandfather’s wishes, my mother was laid to rest with my great-grandfather in the camphor forest (left), and my father was laid to rest with my great-grandmother on the mountain clearing (right).
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My grandparents only partially attained their dream of old age. In 1937, the war with Japan suddenly began, and in 1938 the Japanese initiated an air raid on Hengyang. To avoid the bombings, all ten households in the city moved to the old family property in the countryside. It was cramped, especially since four generations of people had to live in one spot. My grandfather later regretted this choice. He said that he once surveyed a plot of land near Sanpo Pond Chinese: 三坡塘. 三坡 is a rural town in Hebei province. that faced northern Hunan, was at the foot of some mountains, and was close to water. He was ready to build a residence there,but he had already bought a spacious ten-family home (2 stories and 12 bedrooms) in the city. He never could have imagined the Japs Chinese: 日本鬼子, pinyin: rì běn guǐ zi. Anti-Japanese sentiment is still ingrained in many Chinese people today, in no small part because of the war-fraught history between them. invading Hengyang, and so he never saw the necessity of building more homes in the countryside.
In 1940, both my grandfather and grandmother passed away. My grandfather was 72 and my grandmother was 69, and this was considered quite old for their generation. But their bodies were in rather good health. They did not pass because of a critical illness, but rather because of the shortage of medical resources during the war. Thus, it was the Japanese invasion that put an abrupt end to my grandparents’ dreams of old age.
Grandpa’s third dream was a rather distant dream. One day, he brought me to the mountain to survey the burial site’s feng shui (my brother attended boarding school at the time, so only I went). He told me that after a lifetime of hardship, he was content and had no desires of his own to pursue. His primary hope lay in his descendants, and that though the land he left behind was not a lot, it was enough to cover our basic necessities. Even better, the good feng shui in the two burial sites would provide us with a lifetime of good luck.
His third dream as also only partially realised. In the months following my great-grandparents’ passing, my father quickly passed as well, and my aunt-in-law's More specifically, it was his brother’s wife’s mother. condition was worsening too. It wasn’t until my brother and I had grown up that our family went from a “family with great loss Chinese: 一无所有, pinyin: yī wú suǒ yǒu, lit. “having nothing”. ” to a “modest middle-class family Chinese: 小康之家, pinyin: xiǎo kāng zhī jiā, lit. “family of small health”, meaning a family that’s well-off, but not too well-off. ”; we had gone from elementary school children to college professors, and I suppose this is close to grandpa’s last dream.
Recently (December 2013), the China Central Television's Law channel Chinese: 中央电视台法治频道, pinyin: zhōng yāng diàn shì tái fā zhì pín dào. broadcast a program commemorating the achievements of ten great lawmakers, and my brother Liu Xiehe was among them. His name was known across the country. If my grandparents (and my father and mother) knew about this through the heavenly spirit, they would be so proud.
(Written 2014)