“Just as a formality Mrs. Lin, we will need something on record that can prove your family history. Is there anything we can use?” asked the British woman sat behind the desk at the Visa Application Centre in Shanghai.
“What about testimonies from family or friends?” Mrs. Lin’s husband inquired. He is British. She is Chinese. They are recently married and wish to return to the small rainy island in the hopes of starting a family.
“Anything that can prove the validity of the information you have given, and I recommend you provide as much as you can to make the process as smooth as possible,” she advised. “It’s ok, I have a box of diaries I have kept over the years; the information they contain in addition to the testimonies should be enough”, said Mrs. Lin, her thoughts suddenly out of the office and away in her past.
Back in Lianyungang Jiangsu province, Xiao Lin (29) found the box. Keen to hear her stories about her elusive past, her husband listens intently as she opens the pages…
Diary 1. 1987 – 1997
Lianyungang, Jiangsu
“My family already had two daughters before giving birth to my twin sister and me; they expected to have a boy, another failure. So my grandmother suggested giving my twin sister and me away to another family. I heard that my twin sister and me spent sometime with this new family, but for some reason my family took us back.
“My earliest memory would be in my grand parents’ kitchen seeing my youngest sister in the cradle. She was the last try for my parents to have a boy before my dad was forced to get a vasectomy.
“My family had some dogs and cats but not as a pet. More like guard dogs. But they would usually be poisoned after they grew a little bigger.
“My sisters and I always helped my parents to do the rice harvest. So we helped to cut the rice down, carry it to the tractor and separate the wheatears from the plant. All of this process was done by hand.
“[As a child my favourite game to play] was Chinese rubber band skipping. This was a very popular game among all girls at that time. We [had] never heard of computer games. Electricity only started to become popular when I was around six. After a few years TV started to come into some family’s homes. Throughout the whole village only one family had a TV, so all the neighbours would go to this family to watch TV shows.
“My family always called me ‘Da Shuang’, which means the first twin and my twin sister as the second twin was ‘Er Shuang’. When my twin sister and I were nine years old, my mum sent us to kindergarten. Both of us didn’t have a proper name and the teacher asked my mum what our names were; my mum said she didn’t know. Then the teacher asked if we had any nicknames and my mum said ‘Da Shuang’, ‘Er Shuang’, so the teacher added our family name into them. We went around for a few weeks using these awkward names before our mum gave us proper names.”
Diary 2. The Village
“In my village women didn’t usually have a proper job; they just spent their time farming, so when its winter women usually spent time at home visiting their neighbours; a group of women sitting together and chatting [is how they would spend their time]. My mum would usually have us with her. Most of these women never went to school, so their only source of information was from talking to one another. One of their topics they loved talking about always scared me; ghosts.
“This woman was grabbed by a hand under the bed, that woman saw a ghost in a field. People were very scared of ghosts, even men. If a child was born lacking an arm, this child will be thought of as a ghost and he will be hung up on a willow tree, which supposedly can kill the ghost within.
“One of our neighbour’s daughters went swimming one day and accidently drowned. Her body was put on top of the house roof to dry in case she became a water ghost.
“[There was this] guy from the one child policy office, he was a very fat guy and very violent. The whole village was scared of him. In the early 90s the party took the one child policy very seriously, so in order to make people listen to them they would usually choose some very violent thugs who could handle people’s protests to go in and deal with the people.
“[At the time] this guy was the leader of the office. If the government found a family had given birth to another baby, this family was fined a certain amount of money and this fat guy with his group would come over to said family’s home; if the family didn’t give any money they would use violence and then take all of the valuable stuff from that family. I remember my family used to hide all of our family’s valuables somewhere like wooden beds, bags of rice etc… and usually when these guys came to the village, our neighbour would shout out to let us know they were coming.”
Diary 3. Grandpa
“A soldier killed my great grandfather because he refused to join the army during the war. My father’s side never mentioned this to us because it’s a [terrible] shame for the whole family. All this I heard from my neighbours.
“So, because of my great grandfather’s early death and his refusal to join the party; when my grandfather was near the age to find a girl to marry it was very difficult for him. So because of his very bad family background, as a result my grandfather ended up marrying his cousin who is my grandmother now.
“My mum [was the most influential person to me as a child], my family lives in a small village and the whole village comes from one family. So our neighbours are actually our relatives as well. All of the women in each family are very proud to give a boy to continue [the] family name. But my mum was the only woman who failed to give a boy. Especially because my dad was granddad’s eldest son, so the whole village looked down on my parents.
“Whenever my mum argued with my neighbour, the neighbour would say some very cruel words to my mum, like you are not a woman, you cannot even give birth to a boy. Even one of my uncle’s wives teased my mum because she was the woman [who wasn’t able] to give my grandpa a grandson. My mum cried a lot about that. She felt very sorry.
“I never understood why, but now I know. There was [a lot of] pressure for a woman to give birth to a boy. The boy can carry the family name on, and a girl is like the Chinese phrase; a daughter is like the water poured out from the pot, meaning girls are useless.”
Diary 4. School
“In middle school my best friend was a little bit chubby but very kindhearted. He came from a wealthier family. I remember sometimes he would buy me some snacks because he knew that I didn’t have any money to buy them.
“One of my teachers in high school once said, all of you girls should take care of your body now, because when all of you become a wife you will give birth and giving birth is very painful. Then he started to talk a little about how to take care of yourself as a woman.
“What he said impressed me a lot. Up until this point in my life I never knew men could care about women. Because throughout my childhood, every family only wanted a boy, they never cared about girls. Nobody liked girls. My dad never really showed his love to us, I always think we are his shame.
“In school I was a very hardworking student. I never caused any trouble to my teachers, in my classmate’s words; I was quite nerdy. My parents never put high hopes on me but I knew they wanted me to get into university and become the family’s honour.
“My dad used to be a carpenter. So he can draw and paint. Sometimes he would work at home. I would watch him draw. I began to like drawing as well; even now I paint Chinese traditional art.
“I attended a university in Nanjing. My twin sister and I used to be in the same grade but then in high school I left school for one year due to depression, I really hated high school.
“Pressure from my parents [drove me to attend university]. My family was looked upon my attending university as a great accomplishment.”
Diary 5. Family
“I wish I had been raised differently. I think my mum wasn’t a successful mum. She never taught her children to be confident. Instead she made us think that as a girl, we are her shame. She had a very bad temper when we were young, so this affected my twin sister and I a lot later on, especially my twin sister who ended up becoming bipolar. And my dad never really spent too much time with us. He was always quiet.
“As a parent I will teach my child to be confident and be sociable.
“The word family means my husband and I love each other and we love the children no matter if it’s a boy or a girl. I don’t mind how much money we have, happiness is what’s important.
“The greatest hardship my family has had to bear has been a constant lack of money. My dad tried a lot of ways to earn more money. In the early days he went to Nanjing to sell some plastic bowls, he grew mushrooms, worked in a furniture shop. But it wasn’t until he started to work in a big factory in a city that he started to earn more money. That’s when my family started to live a better life.
“Modesty is the best gift my parents have given me. Both my mum and my dad have very mild personalities. They have never been rude to anyone. I saw all of our neighbours be arrogant and act superior to others, but my parents always showed their respect to everyone.
“As time goes on all of my sisters have got married so my parents have less of a family burden, so they are happy now.
“I have five sisters but one was given away to my auntie. She was the second last one; because my parents still wanted to try for a boy my nan suggested they give her to the bigger daughter. When she was around 10 years old her family sent her back because my auntie didn’t want her registered under their family name; she technically is still ours. She struggledto get along with us, my sisters didn’t like her that much and we argued quite a lot, so she went back to my aunties again.
“We were very poor. When all of the children went to school, this became a very big problem as my parents had to pay the tuition fees for each of the kids every year. That was a lot of money for them. My twin sister and me started school really late compared to the other kids.
“Each year, we only got to eat some meat and fish during spring festival, we never had new clothes, relatives would give their old clothes to our family and younger ones would always wear the elder ones hand me downs.
“My father is the one I admire the most. Without having a son, I think my dad was sadder than my mum, especially when he was forced to have a vasectomy. He never spoke of his sadness, but when I grew up I was able to imagine how he felt at the time. I really saw him smiling at us when we were young, he spent all his time earning money for this family.”
Diary 6. 1987 – 2017
Politics & Change
“I fought for many years for my family’s home. The government tore it down and for five years the local government had promised to give us a new apartment, but they never did. So I persistently called the Nanjing central government and fought on their behalf for five years until the local government gave us a new apartment just three years ago.
“The most significant changes in China during my lifetime have been people’s wealth and thoughts.
“From no electricity to computers and smartphones, from mud houses to apartment blocks; I have seen all of these big changes and more through my lifetime.
“From believing in ghosts to knowing the outside world, I see my own mind is changing. Sometimes I want to fight it, sometimes I don’t.
“During the rice harvest time, all of us children would pile up the haystacks to make our own house. I loved it; it was like my own little castle. I would stay inside. I felt very safe; I had no worries. That was my happiest time.
“My greatest fear is the passing away of my parents. I’m very scared of the time when my parents leave. I think they deserve the best that life can give them before they pass.
“One day I would like to be an interpreter.
“If all of the family can stay together without worrying about anything such as money or illness, this is what happiness means to me.”
This article was first published in The Nanjinger Magazine, February 2017 issue. If you would like to read the whole magazine, please follow this link.
