Huang Meifeng was born on August 2nd 1975 in rural countryside china. Three brothers and a sister had preceeded her, so on the seniority list she was rock bottom. Her family was poor..like dirt poor, they were farmers like many around them in central Guangdong province. They lived off the land and squeezed out a meager existence. Two other siblings had died prior to Meifeng coming into the world, the result of Chairman Mao's 'modernization of China' , a modernization that killed 70 million people.
Her harsh life started early, when she was a month old she became very sick, frail from illness with no medicine her parents thought she too would die(when I asked meifeng how the two siblings died she said her mother simply told her '..no food'). One night her father put her outside in a tree(yes 'in' a tree) to die, her mother stirred all night and at 4am went to get little Meifeng, still fighting for life. Her neighbours would say to Meifengs parents "oh, your baby is still alive?" her early childhood played out on a balance beam of life and death with sickness. She survived and grew, she received the clothes passed down from 3 brothers and her elder sister Li Zhen, by then rags really. Her hair was shaved off so as to keep cool on the hot summer days.. plus it was just way easier, no hair to wash, no cute elastics to buy, no waste of time with braids or ponytails, all the villagers called her 表叔仔(it's like 'little boy'). Food consumption was basic at best, rice and maybe some vegetables if she was lucky, porridge for breakfast, nothing for lunch and rice for dinner, all the good portions went to her brothers. Meat never found it's way into Meifengs bowl. She told me for many years they had meat only once a year, on Chinese New Year and it was pork, but not the meat of the pork, just the fat. Her sister Li Zhen was shipped off to a distant relative when she was eight simply because they could not feed her. At seven Meifeng's father tried to have her adopted by a family in Hong Kong but she said she cried and begged her mother for a week saying she would work the farm day and night, her father relented, but only because he needed her to work the farm. Fom ages 6-10 life was very tough for Meifeng, I asked her what was most difficult? she just looked at me and cried......."hungry". Her family had very little money(..and you need to understand that when I say 'very little money' that means..pennies!) they could barely afford to put her in school(which you had to pay for) they could not afford school books, she said she would beg the other children to share their books with her, but many were in the same boat as her. " I wanted to go to school, study hard, but very difficult". Work never stopped for Meifeng, the mountainous walk to school was 1hour..it was accompanied with back breaking load of wood she would carry to sell to the village men who would make buttons out of it. I asked "how long did you carry the wood to school", she replied.."every year". After school she would walk the hour dirt path home, down her bowl of rice and hurry out to the mountain hillside to cut wood. I asked "why hurry?" and she told me it got very dark out in the hillside and she would get very scared as she was by herself, she would cut three or four trees and tie them to her back and drag them home before it got pitch black, when she got home she would then cut it into the proper size to carry to school in the morning, then alas was homework and bed. Weekends were much the same she said, "sunrise to sunset..work.. but we sneak away to play with the cows or swim in the river" . For Meifeng there was never any candy, treats, birthday presents, shopping at the mall, nothing. In the summer she went barefoot, in the winter she was allowed to wear shoes and her parents made her very aware she was lucky to have these, they were 3 lace rubber and canvase moccasins that cost 1RMB(RMB=Renminbi or the Chinese Yuan, 1rmb=15 cents Canadian...so...you do the math!)
at 16 years of age she saw TV for the first time..this was 1991! She was also told that she wouldn't be going to school anymore, instead she would work the farm and sell vegetables to help support the family. It was tough work, labourous and long hours..everyday. Six months later she did what 200 million other peasants did, she migrated to the big city in search of better money. She found a job in a factory where they told her she would only work 8 hours a day and have 2 days off a month. Instead she worked 14-16 hours a day with no days off, her pay..29rmb or about $175 a month. They took money off for food and uniform and she slept in the factory dormitory with hundreds of other girls. She told me she did this for almost 4 years, making an assortment of things from mens underwear to running shoes, by the 4th year she was making almost 400rmb a month..something her father did not even make in a year.
To say Meifengs childhood was 'tough' is a grotesque understatement. It is a miracle that she is even alive today. She was deprived of all things we take for advantage here in the West. She went without food, she went without shelter(in May of 1982 they had typhoon flash floods that destroyed their home and crops, they lived in an outside shelter with five other families and existed of only potatoes everyday for many months), she lost her education, she was dressed in rags. But to her, when I talk to her, she feels lucky because many girls like her never went to school at all, never had parents, never lived. In the rural countryside typical Chinese parents never show affection to their children, there are never any hugs or kisses, or "have a good day at school". Meifengs parents never told her they loved her, but she knows she was 'loved', had they not she would not be my lǎopó.
No comments:
Post a Comment