stories from the countryside

one of my loves here is heading to the countryside. it’s eye-opening, challenging, heart-warming, difficult, and perspective-changing.

so last week my chinese friend calls me and tells me a friend from her village is really sick. she really wants to see him but her husband didn’t feel comfortable having her go alone as she is pregnant, and she would be taking her 2-year old daughter. so i suggested i could go with her. her husband was ok with that, so we left early wed morning and begin our long journey. her brother, F, ended up joining us. we first took a 3-hour bus to a small town. then we hopped on another bus for an hour or so to get to an even smaller town. then hopped into a van for about half an hour to get to another small town. we couldn’t find a cheap mode of transportation to get to the village so we decided to hike there. it was amazing, beautiful, and breath-taking.

rice fields

my friend, A, is my new hero. She’s 7 months pregnant, hiked for 2.5 hours wearing flip flops, at times carrying her 2-year old child on her back. amazing…

after hiking for 2 hours, we see their mommy! yay, that means the end is near.

the mommy comes out to meet us

we began our journey at 9am and finally got there around 6pm. the daddy cooked us dinner and served us chicken and why of course, fatty pork. =) they were afraid i wouldn’t like the food so i kept assuring them that i actually really like fatty pork (i really do=) ). so we ended up having fatty pork for nearly every meal. i think i am ok with not having fatty pork for a long whiles…

we visited the sick friend, Z, that evening, and it was so heart-breaking. Z is only 17 years old. it started out as stomach problems a few months ago and progressively got worse. after awhile the parents finally took him to a nearby hospital but the doctors said his condition was beyond what they can do, and that they should take him to a hospital in the city. the parents decided not to, fearing he wouldn’t survive the long journey, and took him home instead. his condition continues to worsen. Z can no longer eat, vomits blood, etc… he really wants to go the city to see if he could be treated. he even thought he could come back with us but his parents really didn’t want him to…hoping maybe he could get a little better, just strong enough to survive the journey.

we all felt so helpless. A tried to talk the mother into letting Z go, but she wouldn’t listen. i wish i had a doctor friend here who would be willing to go to the village to tell the parents that Z could be treated, that there is hope, and accompany Z to a hospital in the city. but i don’t….

but we have hope…

on a lighter note, here’s A’s daughter:

A's incredibly adorable daughter

we ended up spending 2 nights in the village. A’s parents were incredibly sweet. they made sure i was comfortable and kept apologizing for the poor conditions. they’re a very poor family. A’s parents just returned from working in another province. it’s very common for folks in the countryside to head to larger cities/ provinces to make money, oftentimes doing hard, manual labor. the father told me if they stayed in the village, they would only make 1000-2000 RMB/ year (~$150-$300 USD), but between the two of them, they could make 2000 RMB/ month out in the city. A was sharing with me how heart breaking it was for her to see her parents, who are in their 50s, leave home and go out to another province to work.

sometimes i wonder how it became so unsustainable to live in the countryside. it’s impossible for a family to survive on just selling rice and vegetables. but it worked x number of years ago. what happened? now families have to be torn apart because the young men and women have to leave home to go work. oftentimes when the younger ones have babies, they take the baby back home for the grandparents to look after, and the parents leave to go work again.

as i was roaming around the village (it gets kinda boring) one afternoon, a cute old lady invited me to her home. we tried to chat a little, but she didn’t speak a lot of mandarin. she showed me pictures of her children, and it seemed like they were all out, either married off or out working. she wanted to cook me dinner, but i gently refused. she apologized for the poor condition of her home. after we sit in silence for awhile, i decided to head back. i told A about meeting her, and A shared a little about her life. the old lady’s husband died 6-7 years ago, but the husband did not treat her well. he drank a lot, had a lot of women, sometimes beat her and didn’t do much work. her daughters are all married now. she has one son but he was out working in another province for 4-5 years. they suspect he was working for what they call a ‘black factory.’ i didn’t quite understand what it was…but the son unknowingly started working for it and could not could contact his mother for 3-4 years. one of her daughters had a baby girl, and the daughter’s in-laws really didn’t like the baby, so the daughter sent the baby to her mother to care for. the only source of income this mother had was from the one field the family owns. but tending a field was too difficult for a woman in her 60s…so she and her granddaughter were barely surviving. she eventually rented out her field to another family, receiving a small portion of the harvest as rent. her son returned a few months ago from the ‘black factory,’ but left while i was there to go work in the city.