Today’s narrator, Yoko, however, is not trying to speak out against her own experience. In her eyes, the person who was most oppressed by the patriarchal mindset was actually a male: her father.
-1-
obsession
I’m Ye Zi, a girl from Hunan who works in Beijing. “Yezi” is my nickname, my father likes to call me that, but I haven’t heard anyone else call me that for two years now.
I was born in Hunan in 1992. In addition to me, there was one younger sister in my family. This kind of family formation was quite rare in the era of family planning. In fact, my sister came because the family wanted a son.
My father, who was the second oldest of four siblings, had two aunts and one uncle. In my grandparents’ mindset, having a son was very important, and not having a son meant having no future.
Unfortunately, both my father and uncle gave birth to daughters. So for a long time, my grandparents had the very important job of trying to get my father and uncle to toss out a son.
-2-
a bird in a cage
His father’s family is in the countryside and lives in poverty. In order to subsidize the family, he went to work alone in the county after graduating from junior high school, and sent most of the money he earned back home. This was the only way for his aunts and uncles to go to college without any worries.
His father was very frugal and did not eat and wear the same things as other people, so he envied the children in the county who could wear leather shoes. One month, he finally bought a pair of shoes for himself, and he was so happy when he wore the new ones. The shoes were actually not expensive, but when my grandfather found out about it, he scolded my father and said he was selfish.
Later, my father got in touch with the feed industry. He went to the northeast because there were many fish feed ingredients in the northeast. There were only station tickets left, and he was traveling from Hunan station to Northeast. He was so tired that he curled up under someone’s seat and took a nap. When I mentioned this, my father said that he was determined to earn more money for his family and didn’t feel cold or bitter.
Later, father’s career took off, he opened his own company in Changsha, bought a big house, brought his grandparents to live with him, and continued to help his uncle and aunt with their careers. He really did a lot for the family.
Father loves us three mothers and daughters very much. When we were out socializing, he was always happy to bring us along, saying, “This is my three thousand gold pieces. When my sister was little, she would control my father’s drinking and the picture of her pointing at him at the dinner table and yelling, “Last drink, last drink”, still makes me think about it. A smile emerged.
However, even though his career was flourishing and his family was happy, his father was never recognized by his grandfather. Grandpa often said, “What’s the use of earning so much money? It’s someone else’s in the end, isn’t it? If you can, give me a grandson. If you can’t, you’re unfilial! “
The word “filial piety” was the heaviest yoke on my father’s and my uncle’s heads for a lifetime.
-3-
The brother who died.
I wasn’t actually the first child in the family. Two years before I was born, my mother had given birth to a boy. As the first grandchild in the family, it was a first-class event. But my brother did not grow up safely and died at the age of two.
This event was a great shock to the family and to my father. He had already completed the “birth of a son”. mission”, but now he was not only suffering from the loss of his son, but also the burden of having a child again.
My father told me that the atmosphere in the house during those two years was very depressing, and he was also depressed inside. It was then that my father had the worst fight of his life, and it was only through bloodshed that he was able to pour out his grief and anger.
-4-
three granddaughters
Two years later, I was born. My grandparents loved me a little more because they had rekindled the hope of the entire family. But their obsession with wanting a grandchild remained unchanged. In the era of strict family planning, my parents decided to take a gamble and gave birth to their second child – my sister.
When she was carried out of the delivery room, my father didn’t even want to hold her. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his child, it was just that the mother was no longer able to have children, and the child was a declaration that the father could never have a son again, as far as morality would allow.
It all seemed like destiny, and soon after the birth of the sister, the uncle’s child was born – also a girl. The grandparents also wanted another child for the aunt, and even offered one million yuan as a bargaining chip to persuade the aunt to quit her job and have a child. But the aunt refused. From then on, the grandparents did not like the aunt very much, and the relationship between the aunt and the uncle deteriorated, with the two living apart for many years.
-5-
When your eyes are cloudy, you’ll see things differently.
In 2007, everything started to change. Because of the reform of the feed industry, my father’s business began to seriously regress, and even once went to the edge of bankruptcy.
In order not to worry us, my father chose to carry everything in silence, but the tremendous pressure was slowly eating away at him.
I believe that he was very helpless and lonely at that time, so my father slowly developed a substance addiction problem.
My father became often absent at night and was losing weight. He used to be pale skinned, a little chubby and had a very fine flat haircut. This image would have been that of a policeman or a gangster. Later, my father’s face became dark, his cheeks sunken, and the area around his eyes cloudy. He said to me, “You see, children’s eyes are black and white, because he sees black as black and white as white, and his world is right and wrong. But as you get older, your eyes get cloudy, and then you see many things in this society differently. “
How would that be different?
-6-
fig. overstep the bounds of justice
In those years, his parents were gradually drifting apart, and so was he and the family.
In 2011, I accidentally saw the figure of a strange woman in my father’s QQ space. It was a screenshot of a QQ video chat, and the woman was wearing headphones and looking into the camera.
That night, my father drove me to college. I saw a picture of that woman in your space. Why don’t you ever come home? Why can’t you live a good life? “
I was crying and slapping the car seat and door hysterically. My father was obviously scared and he rolled up the window on my side of the car at first.
I was expecting him to lose his temper, but he laughed in embarrassment. He coaxed me, “It’s not what you think, don’t get so excited, listen to me ……” he said. Rarely would he speak to me in such a gentle, smiling tone, and at that moment, my father was like a man who had accidentally upset a young girl.
-7-
lit. the Dragon’s Son holds a dream
In fact, the year before I found out about my father’s infidelity, he moved back home to run a factory.
In 2012, after my grandmother died, my grandfather moved back as well.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of pressure my aging grandfather would put on my father. Until the New Year’s Eve of 2017, grandfather’s words explained all the changes that had happened to father in the past few years.
On the night of New Year’s Eve 2017, our family gathered for a reunion dinner, all three of us mothers and daughters, aunt and sister were there. My grandfather was in good spirits that day, and halfway through the meal, he suddenly said in a loud voice, “I had a dream last night that a dragon was swimming towards me. The dream must have told me that I was going to have a grandson soon. ” he looked at his father and uncle, “either of you two, if you can, go and bring me back a grandson and help me fulfill this dream! “
No one answered when he spoke, and there was silence at the table.
My mother and aunt were unlikely to have any more children, and Grandpa’s message was clear. I was shocked and thought to myself, is grandpa old enough for this? To say such a thing at such a rare time of reunion is to break up the whole family!
Just then, my father suddenly sidled up and whispered something in Grandpa’s ear.
Grandpa laughed, and I deliberately asked him, “Grandpa, what are you laughing at?
I asked him on purpose, “Grandpa, what are you laughing at? “
He looked at me and didn’t answer, just smiled.
-8-
bastard birth
That same year, in June 2017, I returned from Beijing to Changsha because of some personal matters. In the afternoon of that day, my mother came to me and said, “Something has happened. It was just three simple words.
I immediately replied, “Are you pregnant? “
Mother said again, or two words, “It’s born. “
We never exchanged what went wrong, who was pregnant, who was born, but we all knew.
It was also very dramatic for my mother to know the origin of the incident.
Grandpa hired a nanny in the house as he was getting old. My mother went to my grandfather to borrow money for me to buy a house in Beijing. The nanny, who was detached at the time, was downstairs chatting with my driver.
As a result, Grandpa refused, and he even scolded my mother for not thinking about his money. Grandpa was a man who took money particularly seriously.
Mother didn’t look too good when she came down from upstairs. The nanny downstairs panicked and said, “Oh no, something’s happened, she must know! “
“Know what? ” the driver pursued.
“Knowing that he has a son outside! Just two months old. “
As if God had played a joke on our family, that’s how my mother found out about it.
I wasn’t surprised at all when I heard about the birth, probably because my mother and I had prepared ourselves for it. But neither my father nor my relatives there knew that we already knew about the illegitimate child.
After that, my mother used to tell me about the news she had heard from my father back home. My father was running around with the child in his hometown, saying to everyone, “I have a son, I finally have a son! “He would even put children on his lap when he was driving. The child had a full moon and a hundred days, many people gave gifts and it was very lively. I couldn’t help but imagine the look on my father’s face, he must have been very happy because he had finally accomplished the most important thing of all, his life could be complete.
-9-
Grandpa’s last words.
In August 2018, my grandfather was in a car accident and was seriously injured. My father told me to go back for a trip, which was most likely the last time I would see my grandfather.
I rushed back to my hometown and saw my grandfather lying on the hospital bed, and for a moment, I had mixed feelings and didn’t know how to face him.
That afternoon, there were only four people in the hospital room: grandpa, my father, my aunt and me. My aunt was holding Grandpa, peeling an orange in her hand. My father and I sat opposite each other on the hospital bed. In a moment of coincidence, the conversation stopped and no one spoke.
In the silence, Grandpa suddenly spoke two words, “Son. “
He threw the word in the air. No one answered.
My heart thudded and I thought, “Grandpa probably wanted my father to tell me about this before he left. “
My mind began to race, thinking about how to answer the question. Should we tell them I already know?
Meanwhile, I was observing my father. He had his head down the whole time, was breaking his own hands, and didn’t say anything back.
Then, Grandpa said again, “Son. “
Still no one said anything.
After a few seconds, Grandpa looked at me and said playfully, “You’re your father’s son, and your father is my son. “
Everyone in the room breathed a sigh of relief when he said this. My grandfather was almost eighty years old, and I admired him for being so quick-witted, and he used a seemingly joking remark to vague the whole thing over.
That night, my father sent me back to Changsha. On the way, he said to me meaningfully, “No matter what happens, you just remember, live your own life. “
I was about to marry my boyfriend and I was about to have a family of my own.
-10-
The inaccessible fulfillment
Not long after this incident, my mother chose to have a confrontation with my father.
She had been so frustrated inside for so many years, she didn’t want to take it anymore. No matter what the outcome, she wanted to end it all.
My mother told me later that she was hysterical that day and finally yelled out all her grievances and pain to my father. She said, “I’ll grant you a divorce, and you can go live as a family of three, and we won’t bother each other. “
My father was crying then too, and he was very sad. He did not want a divorce and deep down he loved the family very much.
Finally, the father went out by himself to calm down and this communication was terminated.
He never agreed to the divorce.
-11-
His name.
In September 2018, Grandpa passed away.
At the funeral, inside the bulletin board hanging next to Grandpa’s crystal coffin were the names of everyone in the family written in felt-tip letters. My father’s name was followed by an unfamiliar name, in addition to my mother, sister and me.
It was the first time I’d ever, not heard of, but seen anything related to that child in reality. That name appeared openly among our family, as if to insult my mother, to insult us. All the anger I had pent up before exploded.
I asked my cousin to buy a marker and I was going to erase the name. My cousin was afraid that I would be impulsive and told my mother first. As a result, my mother stopped me at the first opportunity. She said that my father had been ushered around and drinking a lot these days, so I couldn’t irritate him any more.
With this disturbance, my uncle and aunt understood that we all knew and stopped covering it up. They refused to remove the child’s name from the bulletin board.
In the end, fearing my father, I gave in. But I said firmly, “The child’s name must never appear on my grandfather’s tombstone. Whenever I see that name when I visit his grave in the future, I will take an axe to it. “
Saying that, I saw another look in my uncle’s eyes for the first time. It was the look of looking at an adult.
The incident ended there, but it also set the stage for the conflict that followed.
-12-
Father’s gone.
During the eleventh holiday, I returned home to Hunan. Since my mother had not reached an understanding with my father about the divorce, she turned to urging me to negotiate with him to help her get justice.
But I was actually resistant inside. As a child, I was in an awkward position. My father had indeed betrayed my mother, but to me it didn’t seem like a betrayal. Since I was a child, my father has given me a good living condition, and before he was overwhelmed by life, he also gave me a lot of love. He didn’t owe me anything as a father, and I was in no position to question him to his face.
When the eleventh holiday was almost over, I told my mother that I just couldn’t do it. Then I went back to Beijing. Looking back now, I’m really glad I didn’t confront my father at that time. Because that was the last time I spent time with my father.
After the Eleventh Day holiday, I didn’t go home until New Year’s Day, and on January 10, I was working on a PowerPoint presentation from the morning I arrived at the office, when I received a call from my uncle. Suddenly, I got a call from my uncle, who said, “Your father drank too much last night, and he’s being rescued, so hurry back. I was worried about my work, and suddenly I received this phone call, and I felt absurd.
After hanging up the phone, I and the colleague next to say this matter, colleague anxiously asked me what I was going to do, I said very numbly “I do not have to finish the PPT” colleague! Immediately called me by my first name and said are you out of your mind? You’d better get back! It was at that moment that I grabbed my computer, got up from my desk and ran off to take my leave.
As I went home to get my ID card, my uncle called again and asked me to bring my boyfriend with me. When I heard his second call, I realized that the situation should be pretty serious.
All the way to Changsha, I tried to contact my mother and sister, but I couldn’t reach them. My heart was filled with anxiety. When I got off the plane, my driver came to pick me up and I asked him about my father, but he said he was still in the emergency room. It takes more than an hour to drive back home from Changsha, and all this way, I was sending my father a WeChat, and I said, “Dad, wait for me, I’m on my way back, you must wait for me. “
When the car was less than 50 meters away from my father’s factory, the uncle who was driving suddenly burst into tears. He said, “Be strong, your father has been dead since this morning. “
After he said this, I saw the hearth – a large shed with my father’s picture hanging in the middle.
I lost my voice as I saw my father lying in the crystal coffin. It was all so absurd. He was gone so suddenly, and I wasn’t prepared for it at all.
I cried with my mother and sister in my arms. I remember my mother saying, “It’s just the three of us. “It’s just the three of us.”
It’s just the three of us.
She repeated the phrase.
-13-
January in Hunan is particularly cold.
For the next few days, I was dealing with my father’s funeral and sorting out my emotions.
At the same time, I realized that the relatives were divided into two factions. One faction was the relatives on my father’s side, including my uncle, my aunt, and my grandfather’s two younger brothers, who were encouraging that woman to bring the child to the hearse to pay their respects; the other faction was the relatives on my mother’s side, mainly my uncle, who were strongly opposed to what they were doing.
In fact, on those days, whenever we were not at the chapel, the woman would bring the child to the chapel, and the relatives on the father’s side treated them like family; but as soon as we came, they hurried away, like in shifts, which was ridiculous.
The conflict finally broke out on the night of the memorial service.
January in Hunan is particularly cold, and I tightened my coat. In the pocket of my coat was a fruit knife I had bought for my courage. I always had a strong premonition in my heart that something would happen at night.
That same day, my uncle approached me, as if giving an ultimatum, and said that the boy must come over tonight, even though we were present.
After some maneuvering, we came to a certain understanding that the child could be led by his grandfather, come quietly to the chapel to kowtow to my father, and then leave.
In the evening, the memorial service ended, and as the time for the child’s arrival drew nearer and nearer, my mother, unwilling to endure all this, left first. Suddenly, my uncle was nowhere to be found. My sister and I were the only ones burning paper money outside the memorial hall.
Suddenly, I saw a car driving in slowly from a distance. In the night, an old man holding a small child in his arms slowly got out of the car, followed by a middle-aged man, who should be the woman’s brother.
I was very calm, because it was just a child and an old man, so what ill will could I have towards such a combination? However, I blocked the woman’s brother “only two people can enter. “
My tone of voice was cut off and unafraid.
As I watched an old man and a young man step into the casket, I returned to my spot and knelt down to continue burning paper.
It finally happened, and it happened so peacefully. I thought it would end just as peacefully. However, the moment they entered the cemetery, almost all of their relatives crowded around them, surrounded them like stars around a moon, and escorted them to their father’s memorial altar.
At that moment, it seemed that this child was the purest child in the family, and it was only important that he came to kowtow to it, my sister and I were completely unimportant.
Anger surged up in my heart, I stood up at once, strode into the spiritual hall, and yelled at him! “What are you guys doing? Is it so welcome? Is it a glorious thing to do? “I looked over at the pair and said word for word, “You two, get out of here. “You two, get out.”
The whole hearth echoed with my voice.
All my relatives gathered around to stop me. My grandfather’s brother grabbed my hands and held them down, shouting at me. I tried with all my might to restrain my body from trembling, stared at him and said, “We’ve given in enough, don’t bully us too much! Get the fuck out of here! “
Then my sister followed and another part of her went to control her. My boyfriend also rushed over and he too was trapped. The whole situation was rattled and full of conflict.
In the midst of the chaos, the old man shakily picked up his child and was escorted out to his car and left. My grandfather’s brother let go of my hand and the whole hearth fell silent, the scene was very quiet.
My father was lying there, and I slowly walked over to his reliquary and looked at all the people in the house very carefully, as if I wanted to engrave each of their expressions in my mind.
I looked at these people I had called my aunt and uncle since I was a child, and suddenly, it was as if I didn’t know them. The respect and trust I had always held for them all collapsed in that instant.
It was a ten-minute long silence, and not a single person spoke. I didn’t know what was going through their minds. I felt like they were being driven by unspoken obsessions and doing extremely ridiculous things.
-14-
Father’s hair.
In fact, during the days of worrying about my father’s funeral, both my relatives and my father’s friends would come over and lobby me to recognize the child, even though I had never spoken to them before.
They completely forgot that I had just lost my father and I was a child.
After the memorial service, I decided to spread everything out and I told my aunt that it was okay for me to recognize him, but I had to get a paternity test first.
The next day was the day my father was cremated. The crystal coffin would be unveiled for a few minutes before my father was moved to the funeral home’s car. My aunt arranged for someone to wipe my father’s hair and also plucked a few and wrapped them in paper and handed them to her.
-15-
swan goose
After this, I watched as my father was put into the car and pushed into the crematorium. I was at peace, not devastated, because at that moment, I felt that my father was finally free.
All his shackles were gone, no one judged his success or failure by whether he had a son or not; no one asked him to help his brothers and sisters; and no one could take away from him. The body presses more. All gone, he was truly free.
My father loved the prairies before he died, and one of his favorite prairie songs was called “Honky Tonk”. I think my father changed his magic and went to the prairie to live the free life he always wanted. In that vast world, he lived only for himself.
-16-
quicksand in the palm of one’s hand (idiom); quicksand in the palm of one’s hand
The day after my father was buried, my aunt and I sent the sample to the Forensic Identification Center, and the results were not available until a week later, so I went back to Beijing first.
On the day of the test results, my sister and aunt went to collect them together. I had a meeting at my company in Beijing, but was distracted the entire time, constantly texting my sister, double-checking their location, waiting for them to leave, cross the Xiangjiang River, and arrive at the hospital. When my sister entered the hospital, I started to feel extremely nervous and my hands were shaking uncontrollably.
After less than 10 minutes, I received a reply from my sister, a voice message.
It was a very short voice, only four or five seconds, with two sentences, one of which was my sister saying, “It is not my fault. The first sentence was “No! “Auntie said, ‘No?'” “Same content but opposite tone.
My heart was beating so fast, my hands were shaking so fast I could barely hold the phone, but suddenly I came to my senses – my father was so pathetic.
Later, the uncle asked his sister to take a paternity test, and the results showed that the father and sister were related to each other.
After that, they never mentioned the child to us again. To hear my mother tell it, my uncle later took the child to Shenzhen for a paternity test and brought along a lawyer. But the results would not change.
Up to this point, it seemed like it was all over.
-17-
My father’s belongings.
Later, while sorting through my father’s belongings, I saw many selfies in his phone album of him holding that child. My father rarely took pictures, much less selfies. But in those few photos, my father was smiling so happily that I hadn’t seen him smile that much in years.
At that moment, I was thankful that this little kid existed, I was even thankful for the woman’s lies, they had made my father truly happy.
Later, I heard from my mother that the woman was still constantly harassing my uncle, asking them to cover the child’s living expenses. But my uncle refused them all.
Frankly, when I became a mother myself, I was quite eager to meet this little child. Maybe seeing him again, I could imagine his father’s smile as he held him in his arms, very unskillfully taking selfies with his phone.
I also feel bad for this child, because I want all little children to be expected as gifts.
-18-
The curse of a lifetime.
By now, my uncle is in his 50s and he’s still trying to have a baby. On the one hand, he is asking for a surrogate, and on the other hand, he wants to do IVF with his 40-year-old girlfriend.
His grandparents have passed away, his father is gone, no one is pushing him anymore, no one is accusing him of being “unfilial,” but these things have been internalized by him. But these things had been internalized by him into his own beliefs – a belief that he needed to fight for his whole life and couldn’t give up until the last minute.
It had really become a curse.
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