7 pm, Huangbei Ling Village, an alley entrance, two garbage cans near the wall, separated by a few stalls of sewage, a fat mouse lying on its side in the middle of the road, limbs stretching as if sound asleep. The man holding the child strides across, disgusted to deliberately remind him of my rare, “it is not dead, you are afraid of what”.
Two steps west along the alley is Shenye East Ridge, an upscale residential area just surrounded by Huangbei Ling Village. The young people inside will complain to their friends about the noisy and crowded neighborhood, about too few parking spaces, about looking down from the windows of the high-rise, all dense and gray peasant houses ……
The Life in the cramped dark alley is rarely wondered about in the high rise.
A bed curtain a Home
Yang Kaihua lived in this alley for 12 years, upstairs and downstairs, in front of and behind the building lived many Sichuan villagers, many of them, are a curtain to cover the bed, behind the bed curtain is a couple. Some children are placed in the old home, some children are born and raised here, and then go out on their own.
This two-room room is rented by Yang Kaihua, rent increases year after year, sometimes once a year, sometimes twice a year, from 1,200 yuan to the current 3,000 yuan.
When he first moved here, Yang Kaihua’s son was only 10 years old. After the children work, there are three couples left in this house, a 91-year-old man, and a “bed-sharing” old cousin from Jiangxi.
The 91-year-old man is the father of the Yang siblings, their siblings are seven in total, Yang Yunying is the third in line, Yang Kaihua is the fifth. Mother died in her 60s, the elder brother Family in Shanghai to make a living, the rest of the few mostly in Shenzhen, Huizhou life, the old father in the old home alone, 11 years ago south to join his children.
Three bunk beds are placed in the living room, directly opposite the door of the bed are piled with miscellaneous items. In the winter of 2020, after more than 20 days in the hospital, the old man rarely gets out of bed now, eating and drinking are handed over by Yang Yunying.
Before the hospitalization, the old man was quite strong and would go downstairs every day to collect some bottles for money. Now, from morning to night, he can only stay in bed, sit up, or lie down.
Yang Yunying and her husband’s bed is next to the end of her father’s bed, which makes it easy for her to get up at night to take care of the old man. Her husband is a big man, a little more than one meter bunk squeezed two people, Yang Yunying turned over at night, the spine will leak wind, she can not sleep a few times a year.
The other two bedrooms, each room has two bunk beds, Yang Kaihua couple live in one, the youngest son back on New Year’s Day, live in another bunk, Wang Da sister and his wife, and Jiangxi old cousin live in another room.
All the bunk beds, the top bunk, are now piled with miscellaneous items. They have also been lived in by the family’s children, elders, or short-lease old folks.
At dinner Time, Yang Yunying and her sister-in-law get busy, with her sister-in-law choosing vegetables at the living room table and her sister in the kitchen snapping chicken feet. The kitchen has no place to peel the lotus root skin, so they take advantage of the garbage can on the balcony to peel, the kitchen faucet one in use, the other to the bathroom to receive water pouring water.
Wang did not go to play hands, she sat against the wall, legs in eight on the ground, trying to sit under the buttocks of the place into a recliner. Both eyes are staring listlessly at the TV hit show, which is an old hand-tuned TV. Three refrigerators were placed around, and the four gas stoves in the kitchen belonged to different owners.
Sister Wang really does not have the strength to help in the kitchen. Her mother-in-law died the other day, and she took eight days off to go back home to Sichuan for the funeral. Near the Chinese New Year, her husband wanted to stay at home for more days, but Wang had no more leave to take, so she had to go back to Shenzhen to spend the New Year with the old folks in the shared room.
In order to be back on time, she played a plane ticket, cab fare also spent more than 100, the night before to the house has been more than 2:00 a.m., just packed and washed to bed not long after the alarm clock went off. And then open your eyes is almost 5 o’clock, she can not care to wash her face, rushed to the company, after a busy day, back home has been more than 6 p.m..
Over 100 years old, struggling to live
The day in this house starts at less than 4:00 am.
The earliest person to get up is Wang, a cousin of Yang Yunying’s husband in her early 60s, who works as a housekeeper in a building in the East Gate. The duty time is 6 o’clock, but usually she gets at 5 o’clock, otherwise the cleaning can’t be done before the office runs at 9 o’clock.
When she went out, the morning bus had not yet departed, three or four kilometers away, she had to pedal more than 20 minutes of bicycle over. Arriving at the office building, the day starts in a hurry and does not end until 6 p.m. Excluding a one-hour break at noon, she has to work 12 hours a day.
Among the three women in the house, Sister Wang is the oldest and works the longest hours every day, but of course the highest salary, getting more than 4,000 yuan a month.
Yang Yunying and her sister-in-law have to get up at 5 o’clock. Prepare breakfast, wait for the old father to take Medicine, prepare honey water for the elderly to drink, warm hot water bags, they both have to rush to their respective places of work before 7:00.
Yang Yunying has been in Shenzhen for 20 years, and in the early years she worked as a caregiver in a nearby hospital. She taught herself Cantonese, is enthusiastic and handy, and has a good relationship with medical and nursing staff and patients, so she always receives more work than others, and her income is relatively substantial.
After her cervical cancer surgery in 2017, Yang Yunying could no longer do heavy work, and in order to take care of her father, she found a cleaning job in a building not far from her home. With an hour and a half break at noon, she was able to rush home to make a lunch for her father. But the salary is not high, only more than 2,000 yuan.
My sister-in-law washes films at a hospital in Luohu. Her work is not heavy, but she needs to stand all day. Of course, she can’t work too hard now. 2019, accompanying Yang Kaihua to the hospital to check the sarcoma on her face, she incidentally also checked, but did not expect to find a tumor that had just started to become cancerous and was only half a green bean in size. Before and after treatment spent more than 70,000, more than half a year ago, chemotherapy side effects subsided, her hair only slowly grow out.
Yang Kaihua in the decoration company as a carpenter, work a day to count a day of money, last year because of the Epidemic, at home for most of the year off. The only thing that makes him happy is that in the summer of 2020, his daughter and son both graduated, so he was a bit more relaxed. In previous years, in August, each child more than 20,000 tuition fees, living expenses, can put the couple out of breath.
Yang Yunying’s husband was responsible for making traditional Chinese medicine in the hospital’s herbal medicine room in the early years, but after recovering from lymphoma in 2004, he could not go back to work in the hospital, so he relied on some decoration work or odd jobs to earn money.
In addition to chemotherapy, he also experienced gastric ulcer surgery, varicose vein surgery, and more than 40 stitches in his legs, and now you can still see the scars.
The treatment cost more than 200,000, in order to earn money, in the hospital Yang Yunying large and small jobs are willing to take, help patients wash hair, wipe the body, buy things. A few bites of lunch, was called away, and then back to pick up a few bites, and then there is work to find her, back and forth a meal, to be divided into four times to finish eating. She often choked when she took a sip of water during her busy schedule.
Day by day, she survived, “I don’t think about anything, I think about how to get through the present”.
A divided home, a patchwork home
After surviving her husband’s illness and her sons’ adulthood, Yang Yunying felt that the days were gradually getting better.
Both sons are now working in a communications company in Pingshan. A few years ago, when the eldest son got married, Yang Yunying and her husband managed to scrape together a down payment for a house at the junction of Shenzhen and Huizhou for their children. The daughter-in-law has a very good Education and job, and she is as good as mother and daughter, which makes Yang Yunying especially pleased.
The two sons, who love their mother, always persuade Yang Yunying to stop working and they pay for her living expenses.
But Yang Yunying could not stay idle, her mother-in-law also lives in Huangbei Ling Village, living with her brother-in-law’s family. When her father was hospitalized last year, her mother-in-law was still living with Yang Yunying and her husband, and she was so busy taking care of the two old people that her body soon became unbearable, coughing and losing strength, and the hospital could not detect any problems.
Yang’s elder brother had discussed with his father that he wanted to take him back to his hometown in Sichuan to live. The old man was used to following Yang Yunying and was unwilling to go back.
Besides, the youngest son’s lifelong matter has not yet been resolved, Yang Yunying couple can not breathe a sigh of relief.
The two sons were raised in the old home, Yang Yunying left the old home when the youngest son was 5 years old, grandparents with sleep, eating, washing clothes, shopping aunt care, so all the way to grow up.
Yang Kaihua’s daughter is also the same, followed by grandfather, great-mother, sister-in-law, aunt have lived, grew up to be able to board at school, she even relatives do not live in the house. In earlier years, the couple wanted their daughter to come to Shenzhen to study, but she has been reluctant, “she does not like here, would rather stay alone in the old home.
This year, Yang Kaihua’s two children have finished school, the daughter in Chengdu subway company work, the son in Pingshan work, “so many years, the four of us, has been several homes, now is the daughter in Chengdu a home, son in Pingshan a home, we are in Huangbei Ling a home, so The four of us have been several families.
After the children work, Yang Kaihua couple’s pressure, mainly the three elderly. In addition to his father, Yang Kaihua father-in-law and mother-in-law also eighty-six or seven, the two Parents-in-law do not need to take care of, but the costs have to pay. His greatest fear is that the elderly are sick, “when I go to work, once I see the phone at home, I’m scared, lest the elderly have an accident”.
In this decoration company, Yang Kaihua dry 10 years, the rent, prices are rising every year, but the wages do not rise. He mentioned several times with the boss to increase wages, the boss did not let go. He did not dare to quit his job, his own odd jobs hungry meal is not guaranteed, at least in the company can do more than 20 days a month, the income is still stable.
“Earned money from year to year to eat, drink and scrape a use, the hand simply can not keep a few”.
Nevertheless, we still feel that Shenzhen is more bitter than the old home, “the family can not earn a little money”. The Yang siblings’ hometown is located in the mountains of Sichuan, the field in the mountains, cattle can not climb up, planting crops to “up a slope down a slope” to carry on the shoulder, the old house for more than 20 years did not live in people The old house has not been inhabited for more than 20 years, and has long since collapsed into a state of disrepair.
“It is certainly not convenient to live like this, but we come out to work, the money is so hard to pick out one point by one point”.
They are like all co-tenants, inevitably daily worries, someone wants to buy a washing machine, someone feels unnecessary; this person wants to install air conditioning, that person does not feel too hot ……
Putting all this aside, the siblings have lived with the Wang family for more than a decade in mutual respect. Jiangxi old table in the eyes of everyone, is also good to get along with the real people, “we take the elderly, people have never said anything”.
Although the kitchen is placed in four gas stoves, but in this room, always see the time of gathering.
This evening, in addition to Yang Kaihua, who is still off work, and his old father, who can’t get off the ground, other people in the house sat around the glass round table and ate a hot pot in a lively manner. Because of the epidemic, everyone decided to stay in Shenzhen for New Year’s Eve. Sister Wang chatted with Yang Yunying about her mother-in-law’s funeral, and Yang’s husband clinked glasses with his old cousin from Jiangxi and made an appointment for a piece of fishing ……
Several pots of greenery are kept at home, on the refrigerator, on the shelves …… they are inserted between bottles and jars at sight. This is a plant that is extremely vigorous, can live in the soil, can live in the water, can live with sunlight, can also live without sunlight ……
Note: At the request of the interviewee, Yang Yunying is a pseudonym.
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