5. Remembering Three of my Cousins
≪ 4.4. Yunze's Reflection | Table of Contents | 6. My Cousin Xiao Qiai ≫During the 1960s, there was a pretty popular song called “Sunflowers Chinese: 《社员都是向阳花》, pinyin: shè yuán dōu shì xiàng yáng huā. A more literal translation would be, “Our Comrades are all Sunflowers”, but that has a weird ring to it. ”. A lot of my childhood friends and family stayed in the countryside. My Aunt Xiao Chinese: 萧. and my Aunt Man Chinese: 满. had rather poor families, and I had many, many cousins, all of whom were so-called “sunflowers”. Their experiences line up with the experiences of farmers all across the country, for they’ve experienced both great fortune and great hardships: the land reforms, organisation into communes, chopping wood and smelting steel, eating in public dining halls, three years of “feral famine Chinese: 野有饿殍, pinyin: yé yóu è piǎo. This refers to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961. ”, the household responsibility system, the Cultural Revolution, and many more. They’ve tasted every flavour of life.
I’ve already described my Aunt Xiao’s farming family in 《雪地征鸿》, so I’ll describe my Aunt Man’s family in the following.
My Yang Chinese: 杨, family name. grandparents raised four daughters and two sons; their second daughter Yang Hankui Chinese: 杨翰葵 is my birth mother, their third daughter Yang Hanshen Chinese: 杨翰莘 raised me, their eldest daughter married a businessman and moved to the city, and their youngest daughter Yang Hanyin Chinese: 杨翰银 was known as Aunt Man. Her partner Wang Zhaoyao Chinese: 王昭耀 was always a farmer in the countryside, and they were quite similar to my Aunt Xiao’s family in that they had troubling economic circumstances.
On the left is a photograph of my Aunt Hanyin when she was young. During that time period, taking photos was very difficult, so my eldest aunt, my birth mother, and my adopted mother all didn’t leave any photos behind. This image thus serves as the sole photograph represnting those four sisters.
The Yang family did own some land, but by village customs, the land was passed down to my grandparents’ sons and left nothing for the daughters. Thus, my uncle Wang Zhaoyao was classified as a “poor peasant” during the land reforms. Nevertheless, the land reforms ultimately passed the Yang family home onto the Wang family. This is primarily because in 1944, my grandparents and the two uncles living there all fled Hengyang, and they never returned after we won the war with Japan or after the national liberation. The house was left to the Wang family to take care of. The home was not only spacious, but there was a pond in the front and a vegetable garden to the side; such a house was considered quite difficult to come by.
Both my Aunt Wang and Uncle Wang passed away rather early, and they left three male cousins: Jialong Chinese: 家龙 , Jiadong Chinese: 家栋 , and Jiachun Chinese: 家春 . Jialong was the same age as me and older by a month, and the other two cousins were younger than me.
In 1988, my brother and I had an opportunity to take a business trip to Hunan, where we met Yang Chenen Chinese: 杨臣恩 from Loudi Chinese: 娄底, a city in Hunan. and the three cousins from the Wang family down in the countryside.
In 1944, after the war in Hengyang ended, all of our families were scattered in every direction. When we met our six cousins in 1988, it was the first time in over 40 years. We were simultaneously grateful, elated, and sorrowful.
What pained us the most was, “we left during the springtime of our youth”, but our reunion was “as changed men Chinese: 物是人非, pinyin: wù shì rén fēi. Its literal meaning is, “things have not changed, but people have”. ”. We could all very clearly remember how our Chinese New Year celebration in 1944 was an especially lively celebration. Day sixteen of month one of the lunar calendar was my Grandpa Yang’s sixtieth birthday, and his celebration was also incredibly lively. We even took some multi-generational family photos in front of our main hall.
I could never have imagined that just a few months later, we would enter a period of great disasters. The Japanese invasion reached Hengyang in June, and my grandparents and uncle fled towards Guilin Chinese: 桂林, a city in Guangxi province. . This was my final goodbye with my grandfather, and my grandmother was never able to come back to Hengyang (see page 16 of 《雪地征鸿》 in the chapter “A Bitter Life Chinese: 苦难人生, pinyin: kǔ nán rén shēng. ”). We only printed a few copies of those precious family photos, and they were all destroyed by the flames of war.
After bittersweet goodbyes In Chinese, this is 寒喧 (pinyin: hàn xuān), which literally means “cold sunlight”, but seems to be used for farewells. It captures the same emotions that “bittersweet” does, but I think it’s interesting how it uses a completely different metaphor. , we found out that our three cousins from the Wang family were all farmers. Later, Jiadong was promoted to be a local government official, and his life and status improved a bit. That same year, Jialong and Jiachun had not yet reached a point where they didn’t worry about basic needs; moreover, Jiachun’s health was declining, and Jialong’s partner was bedridden due to a cerebral infarction. Their circumstances were still bitter and difficult.
At the time, medical insurance had not yet been established in the countryside, and there was no treatment for frailty. The varying levels of strength and energy had significant impacts on their income and lifestyle, and with a seriously sick family member, this placed a massive financial burden on their backs. At the start of that year, Jialong was still making frequent visits to Hengyang to resell junk This is a practise where people collect objects that people have discarded before finding a way to resell them for money. In America, perhaps an analogue would be a homeless person collecting bottles to sell to recycling facilities or to collect CRVs. and bolster the family income. What pained us the most was how we later learned that Jialong’s wife did not want to let her illness be a burden to her family; she had committed suicide by ingesting pesticides.
Back row, left to right: Xiehe, Zhonghe, Jiachun, Yang Chenen.
Front row, left to right: Jialong, two of our cousins’ wives, Jiadong.
Taken 1988.
When we took the above photo, Jialong’s wife was unable to attend due to her illness.
Even though their lives were full of hardship, our cousins treated us and Chenen with an amazing level of hospitality and warmth. Just before meeting us, they had caught three chickens and prepared a bunch of eggs to gift to us. We were very grateful, though we couldn’t accept the gift due to travel restrictions. Their simple gestures of kindness left a deep impression on us.
Regardless of if we lived in the city or in the countryside, after our generation had suffered decades of hardship and turmoil, the thought of a peaceful life in old age left us with very few other dreams and desires. Regrettably, our three Wang cousins all passed away within the past several years, and they never saw their family achieve the modest yet comfortable lifestyle we all dreamt of.