Volume One, Chapter One: Childhood Memories

I was born in a small mountain village in the Greater Khingan Range forest area. Surviving was truly a matter of luck.

That was a time when only one child per family was allowed; the entire village was sterilized. No one was permitted to have more than one child. If by chance a woman became pregnant and intended to keep the baby, the consequences were severe—houses would be dismantled, cattle taken away, and it was almost a life-for-life matter.

Women who had already given birth to one child were forbidden from having another.

The Women’s Federation director visited homes daily, nine to five, rain or shine, unless the menfolk took drastic measures to sever that desire. Even then, the director would glare and keep a close watch, fearing the young wives would slip away to chat and plot.

What if someone wanted to have another child?

They had to hide it. As long as it wasn’t discovered, they could pay a fine after the child was born.

In the early 1990s, a farmer’s annual income was barely a thousand yuan. A fine of eight or ten thousand was an astronomical sum—one that could ruin a family.

Probably for that reason, from my earliest memories, I was alone.

I suppose someone couldn’t afford the fine and abandoned me.

I lived at the land temple at the village entrance, which had no windows—freezing in winter, scorching in summer. Fortunately, the locals were Buddhists who regularly made offerings, so I managed to scrape by.

When I grew older and more aware, I sought out the village Party secretary, asking if he could find me a place to live, perhaps a welfare home. The Party secretary told me to see the Women’s Federation director. Dutifully, I went.

The director asked me a single question: “Are you a girl? Then go see the Party secretary.”

If only the national soccer team had that kind of efficiency, they’d be in the World Cup already.

Luckily, the villagers treated me kindly, often bringing me food—potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, steamed buns, biscuits, sticky bean pastries. I ate well enough.

What do ordinary people eat, after all?

I matured early. By seven or eight, I was collecting scrap iron to sell. When I was eleven or twelve, nearby villages were repairing power lines, and I would sneak over to steal bits of iron to sell. It was small-time, but no one seemed to care. Those were carefree days for me.

My early maturity was partly due to my environment and partly my own efforts.

In rural areas back then, sex was a taboo topic, though villagers loved gossiping about the women and men in each household during their leisure time.

But for children, sex was strictly forbidden to discuss.

There was one exception: balloons were everywhere.

Why did those things fill the sky?

Because resources were scarce. Children had few toys; some adults would blow up balloons to entertain their kids, and some even tied strings to them to fly like kites.

There was another factor: the local TV stations, lacking discretion, aired all sorts of disturbing advertisements.

Either they were miracle medicines to restore male virility, with exaggerated claims about how a certain “Old Wang” took a powerful pill and became invincible.

Or they advertised tight-fitting slimming garments that promised a perfect figure.

Later, when VCD players entered ordinary homes, kids in the village used their pocket money to rent discs.

Even living in the mountains couldn’t quell our yearning to know the outside world. We wanted to know if Tokyo was hot, how deep the Caribbean Sea was, and most of all, we wanted to find out what the “Ichido” really was.

By experience, the busier the farming season, the better business the video rental shops had.

So, my early maturity was partly due to my environment and partly my own efforts.

After drifting through a few years, I began to feel troubled again.

My village was small, and many stopped studying after primary school. Early marriage was common.

Why was I troubled?

Because I had no partner.

All the kids who watched educational videos with me had started practical lessons, but I was still stuck on theory.

Who wouldn’t feel troubled in that situation?

Of course, it wasn’t just about those things—it was about having a home, the yearning of an orphan for belonging.

I remember farming didn’t pay well back then. Many men left to work elsewhere. In those days, earning a thousand or eight hundred yuan a month was considered a high wage; a day laborer made only about twenty yuan a day.

With the men gone, only the older girls and young wives remained. But some tasks were beyond the young wives’ strength, like cleaning chimneys or patching roofs. Those chores inevitably fell to me.

Some might ask, why not find men who hadn’t left for work?

I’ll say this: there’s no wall in the countryside that keeps secrets; even if there’s no breeze, people will find some scandal to spread.

If you bring men home to work today, rumors will start tomorrow, down to what moves were made at night.

So, I became the preferred helper for the young wives: doing work, sharing a meal, and not having to listen to gossip—it was quite pleasant.

There were exceptions, though. In the village, there was a young widow whose husband had died in his twenties in a logging accident.

No exaggeration, whenever something needed doing at her house, seven or eight men would compete to do it, and those who arrived late would have to fight for the job.

The work at a single woman’s house never fell to me. For other families, I was the first choice.

There was a young wife in the village named Mei Yu, about twenty years old. Her husband had gone to work elsewhere. One time, her chimney clogged, so she asked me to help.

It was hot summer; I remember she wore a white, sheer sleeveless blouse—people in the village didn’t dress up much.

We worked together, but I was mesmerized.

Cleaning chimneys is dirty work. She let me use her bath to wash up afterward and even helped wash my clothes, saying the heat would dry them in half an hour. She cooked for me and asked me to tend the fire.

I still remember that scene vividly—sitting by the hearth, tending the fire while she leaned over the pot to stir. Perhaps she thought I was still a child.

Back then, I didn’t wear shorts, just a pair of secondhand thermal pants someone had given me.

Since I was skilled with my hands, I jokingly called the thermal pants “shorts.”

I was shy and hesitant, afraid to reveal any hint of feeling.

Then, as if by chance, one moment the sky was clear and the next, a downpour began, so heavy it caused the village transformer to smoke.

Mei Yu stood and glanced out the window, wiping sweat from her brow. “This rain is heavy, and it’s getting dark. You might as well stay here tonight.”

“That’s really good,” I said sincerely.

“It is good. It’s no problem for you to stay the night here. Your brother’s not home, so you have a place.”

To this day, that rainy night remains vivid in my mind. The rain fell silently with no wind. Mei Yu lay beside me, rhythmically fanning herself.

In that power-outage stormy night, I felt as if I had been electrified—a tingling sensation from my fingertips to the crown of my head.

Since then, whenever it rained or was cloudy, I liked to visit Mei Yu’s house. If there was work, I did it; if not, I found something to keep busy. Mei Yu never held back; her garden was full of beans and eggplants—I could eat to my heart’s content.