The Chinese Dream on Earth

The Freedom of Village Childhood

Due to the prevalent gender bias in my family, my parents did not pay much attention to me. Coupled with the absence of telephones and other communication tools in the rural area at that time, I was able to grow up relatively freely in the village without anyone worrying about my disappearance or getting lost. From the age of two or three, I had already been freely roaming around the village, a stark contrast to the overprotection of children in modern cities. Nowadays, even in major cities, due to the increasing incidents of missing people, every child is considered a treasure by their parents, and they are extremely sensitive about their safety.

Being an unwelcome child in my family, I faced fewer worries. Occasionally, when I fell ill or had a fever, I didn't even need medication and would recover naturally. I remember once in high school, I went to see the village barefoot doctor for a sore throat and mouth ulcers, and he was surprised that I could get sick because I had never actually sought medical help from him before. I thought it was due to internal heat, and the doctor agreed, jokingly asking if I even knew what that meant, which made me reflect on how he viewed me.

In an era without modern communication tools, I became the "messenger" between my parents and my grandmother's house, often being sent to convey messages or fetch and carry items. This gave me a lot of free space, and after completing my tasks, I could always find other fun activities. In the village stores, several young female clerks became my regular contacts. Particularly in two stores, I developed deep friendships with a few young clerks. They would tell me stories, make bets, solve riddles, and play games with me. I remember one time, one of the clerks named Ping (her father owned the store) offered me a bunch of banknotes if I could finish a peach pastry within 100 seconds. Although I did not complete the challenge within the time limit, such experiences were a luxury part of my childhood.

Another store close to my home, run by a collective supply and sales cooperative, had two clerks who also became my good friends. They often came to my house for meals and even stayed overnight, becoming good friends with my mother. I seemed to have an ability to read adults' minds, which made it easy for me to befriend adults, but sometimes this made them uncomfortable. For instance, during a New Year's celebration, when I unintentionally voiced my mother's thoughts while helping her roll out dumpling wrappers, it embarrassed her. Another time, I inadvertently spoke out the unspoken words of my mother and a neighbor during their conversation, causing both embarrassment and anger from the neighbor.

In interactions with the outside world, I also learned how to handle various situations. For instance, when certain goods were in short supply and only available at a less scrupulous shop, I developed my own ways to check the quality of the products, such as shaking matchboxes to check for faulty matches, or insisting that the clerks fill my soy sauce bottle completely.

I also befriended some engineers who came to explore for gold mines near my grandmother's house. They enjoyed chatting with me and often gave me pencils, erasers, and notebooks. One of the handsome college student engineers even asked me to consider him as a godfather, and after that, he frequently helped with farm work at my grandmother's home, like harvesting crops and spraying pesticides, eventually becoming friends with my parents. Having a godfather at such a young age was quite an unusual experience at the time.