Given that they’re strangers,
I can’t pin down their age, but I can give a range. This old couple, with their
dim black and gray hair, bundled in as many layers as an onion, are in their
70s or 80s. They’re frightfully short. They come up to about my elbow.
When they were young, Mao
took his Great Leap Forward. Tens of millions died. The countryside starved.
My mother-in-law and
aunts were little back then. There were four of them. When the madness ended,
there were only three; the youngest had died. The three sisters that survived also
come up to about my elbow.
Their father, a landlord,
had been well-off. He had two wives, but neither gave him a son. So he adopted
one, which is quite expensive. The villagers envied him. During the Cultural
Revolution, they made his daughters suffer.
Today, the son has
nothing to do with his adopted family. Doesn't visit. Doesn't call. He gives
his birth family his undivided attention. I wonder if they hate him for it.
After all, they went half-starved and their sister died so he might live.
Whatever the case, it’s
not his fault. He’s had a hard life, too; his wife has been in a coma for twenty
some years.
The train stops. A pair
of construction workers come on. Their burnt red skin is hidden under a layer
of dust, giving them a faded look. They seem happy, dignified even.
One of them wears a red
hardhat with China Construction printed on the side. They must be lucky. China
Construction has a habit of not paying their workers. They can go months without
pay, receiving nothing but food, a cot, and a shipping container for a dorm.
Chinese New Year has only just ended. Maybe that explains their contended looks.
I think it must be the
work itself. Unlike factory workers, construction workers get to think on their
feet, tackling different problems, working in different environments. They get exercise
both body and mind. They’re not like factory workers or the pale wraithlike mind-workers
that surround them.
Around eight years ago, I
lived in the Pearl River Delta. The school was surrounded by factories, mostly
garment factories. It was a very gloomy place, where the young workers looked exhausted
and depressed.
The train stops. The
compartment doors slide open. A wave a people push on. A lot of them with luggage.
Chinese New Year is over. Back from their holiday’s or trips home, they embrace
the hurly-burly of city life by pulling out their cellphones and quickly zoning
out.
I wonder if they’re happy.
Is their infatuation with images and illusions freely chosen or fostered by the
state? In Animal Farm, the pigs distract the sheep with slogans and campaigns.
In 1984, the Party distracts the proles with pop culture, sport, and smut. 1984,
that’s the world I’m living in.
But look on the bright
side, at least no one’s starving.
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