Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Another (remarkable) profile and a class picture


Last day of class yesterday. I gave the students pens as gifts and thanked them. They have been my eyes and ears to understanding China. I know so much more. And so little. Here's one last profile that I like a lot:

---’s story: living in the city is the most important.

It is 9 o’clock in the morning on Pingshi Street in Nanjing. --- has just finished her job as a Chinese style breakfast seller, standing in the street for nearly three hours.. It is in deep winter now, and her cotton quilted coat is too old to resist the cold weather. She can’t help shivering the moment she stops moving. Since breakfast time is over, --- begins to pack up the unsold food into her tricycle, which is both her vehicle and her shop. Her red and bloated fingers are still agile enough to do all the packing. After she packs up, she wraps a thick scarf closely about her head and climbs onto the big tricycle to ride home.
It is 13 years since --- left Anhui Province and came to Nanjing.
--- was born in a small village in the north of Anhui, which now is famous for its beautiful countryside. Her parents are farmers who grow tea leaves, like most of the farmers in the village. When --- was very young, she began to help her parents pick the leaves.
“People usually think it’s hard for a girl to do farm work when she is very young,” --- says. “However, I didn’t feel anything uncomfortable then since other children help their parents do this too.”
When she was 8 years old, her parents sent her to a local rural primary school. “My Chinese teacher was nice and offered me his own books to read. I enjoyed reading but my school work wasn’t good enough.” In a rural school, only few top students can further their study in a university. --- wasn’t one of them, and she left school after she graduated from a local middle school.
“I don’t feel sorry for it,” she says. “I knew clearly I wasn’t going to be one of the top students no matter how hard I worked.” She lived at home for about half a year as a jobless teenager and then decided to look for opportunities in the city. She and two other young girls came to Nanjing by train in the spring of 1995.
“The train station then wasn’t as big and beautiful as it is now. but it was as crowded as it is today,”--- says.
There are still tens of thousands of farmers pouring into cities every day. According to government statistics, there are nearly 200 million migrant laborers now working in the cities.
--- and her two friends, with help from an acquaintance, quickly found jobs in a privately owned factory producing drygoods in a suburb of Nanjing. She lived with three other girls in a dormitory owned by the factory and the factory provided them with lunch and supper. Her first month’s salary was 600 yuan.
“I went to downtown and bought new clothes for myself. It was alive, clean, and beautiful, totally different than my home” --- admits that she was deeply attracted by this strange place then. “I had never seen so many beautiful clothes before.”
However, --- didn’t get many chances to visit downtown because of her hard work. She worked about 10 hours a day, six days a week. “I felt tired and missed the beautiful clothes a lot which I know I can’t afford.” One of her roommates started to wear more and more beautiful clothes, which no doubt were beyond her purchasing power. “She makes the same salary as us but her ‘boyfriend’ was rich.” The “boyfriend” --- mentioned is a married man who has taken this girl as his mistress. That was common then and even now. Beautiful poor girls always make money much easily than average-looking girls.
--- was not bad-looking when she was 20, as her photo shows, but she had no luck. Her first boy friend was a temporary worker in her factory who is also from a rural place. When --- realized that she would still be a farmer and a farmer’s wife if she married him, she broke up with this young man without hesitation. “I make little money in the suburb of the city, but I would like to stay in the city rather than be back to my hometown, a quiet but boring village,” --- says. “City life is interesting and beautiful even though I can not enjoy it now.I hope my child will grow up in the city, knowing how big and wonderful this world is.”
Ten years ago, --- was introduced to an old woman who was looking for a proper wife for her 30-year-old son. The old woman and her son lived on Pingshi Street, an old street in the inner city. They lived in an apartment in a small single-story house, no bigger than 40 square meters with little furniture in it. The young man was a blue collar worker and his mother had no work. Few city girls would like to marry him and be a hostess in such a small apartment. --- met with the young man in his apartment for first time. “He was shy and didn’t talk too much, but I think he’s a nice guy.I know I will get a permanent urban residence certificate after I marry him and that’s important to me.”
They married in 1998.Her dowry was only 5000 yuan which she deposited over three years. Her parents came to the city on the wedding day and went back home by train that night since there was no room for them to stay in her small house. Her factory was too far from her new house so she quit her job and looked for some temporary work close by.
--- was working as waiter in a small restaurant when she found herself pregnant in 2002. It was not the first time she got pregnant since she married. “In my home village, it is natural for young couple to have their own baby when the wife gets pregnant. But you know, raising a child in the city is rather difficult. I love children but my husband and I were not ready for a baby, so we chose to abort the first baby. By 2002, we were still poor, but I think maybe it’s the time. I was 27 and my husband was 35 then, we are no longer young.”
Her baby was born in winter of 2002. It was a healthy boy. --- lost her job in the restaurant and stayed at home to look after her baby until 2005, when her boy was 3 years old. Her husband’s salary was too little for this four-person family. As a thirty-year-old woman with no professional skills, --- found it was too difficult to find a job near her house. She decided to start a small business--a very small business. She bought a second-hand tricycle with 200 yuan and modified it into a mobile shop. She sells some simple food for breakfast to working people who have no time to cook for themselves. --- has to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to prepare the food. This small business brings her family some income, about 2000 yuan a month, almost the same salary her husband earns at his factory.
“I know clearly that my life now is difficult, but it is in the city. Most people in the city have to try their best to survive, just as I did when I came to Nanjing in 1995. Now I’ve got my own family here: a healthy baby and a hard working husband. Maybe I’ll lead an easier life if I go back to my home village, but I will always miss the vitality and beauty of city. Now I’m living in the city and that’s the most important.

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