Preface
In May 2018, when I met with the director of Le Xing in Suzhou, he asked me if I would like to write about the stories of injured workers, hoping that more people would pay attention to and understand the injured workers group through words. in June, I was invited by him and had the opportunity to spend time with the injured workers up close, and it was at this time that I met Ah Heung. She was happily dancing on the stage with the dance of her hometown, and her missing right hand had no effect on her dance moves. Before leaving Foshan, with Ah Heung’s permission, I left her cell phone number and added her WeChat. Before, I thought Ah Heung had accepted the fact that she was missing her right hand without wearing a prosthesis, but after chatting with her, I realized how scared she was to see her hometown and former acquaintances. I was once worried that my “unprofessionalism” would cause her secondary harm, so before each chat, I would tell her that if she didn’t want to talk about some issues, she wouldn’t talk. Aroma trusts me and will tell me anything. She would tell me that her hair was falling out and she had freckles on her face, and that she had every woman’s little worries.
1
Ah Heung’s rubbed hot left hand kneaded the healed right amputation, she couldn’t remember when she started this habit, maybe it was the pain once the day changed, maybe it was the Chinese doctor downstairs who instructed her to move here often to improve blood circulation so her arm wouldn’t atrophy. She had already lost the palm and five fingers of her right hand, and didn’t want to lose her arm as well.
After the injury, Ah Heung felt that her crippled right hand, along with the whole side of her body, had problems, and her brain was out of order, and she didn’t know how many thoughts would pop up every day.
Sometimes she thought: “I’ll do it one day at a time, take the compensation and go back home. If she did go back home, without a job, the money would be spent very quickly. When she gets old, she will not be able to find a job, and her children will think she is a drag. It would be nice to work at Wal-Mart for 15 years and receive a pension, if possible.
Sometimes she thinks, “You can’t spend your compensation money, you have to save it, but the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are there, won’t it be worthless when you get old?
“Let’s live it up one day at a time.” She finally could only tell herself this, “now support yourself, do not think about anything.”
Some people reassured her, “You just lost a hand,” and others said, “Now you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation, you can’t earn it in years of working. But Ah Heung knew that the pain and suffering of losing a hand could not be replaced by any amount of money.
After her injury, Ah Heung would think more about herself, and she started to talk to her children less often on the phone, as if she had nothing to say to them. Sometimes when they called her for money, she would just say, “Mom doesn’t have money, call your father.” Then the call ends. She felt that this was unfair to her husband – he alone was responsible for all the expenses of the family side of life. But how fair is God to her?
The experience of losing her right hand was that it was harder to do things with her left hand than a three-year-old child learning to walk and talk: when tying her hair, she could not tie it properly with one left hand; when brushing her teeth, she could not hold a glass of water with her left hand and a toothbrush with her right hand as before, she could only rinse with her mouth to the tap and brush her teeth with her left hand; now, Ah Heung would not buy clothes with zippers because she could not zipper them with one hand, and clothes with buttons were relatively more convenient; shoes with shoelaces When she washes her shoes, she washes them without pulling out the laces; when she walks, if her laces fall apart, she has to spend more time squatting on the side of the road with her crippled right hand to hold down one side and wait for her left hand to tie the laces; when she eats, she subconsciously stretches out her right hand to take the chopsticks, and when her crippled hand appears in front of her, she realizes that she has made a mistake –can’t hold chopsticks with her right hand.
In 2018, Ah Heung has not yet returned to her hometown. Her grandmother told her on the phone that her granddaughter asked, “Is mommy not coming back this year? If mom comes home a lot and people know, what should we do?”
“If people know, they will know.” My mother-in-law said that’s what she answered.
In Ah Heung’s opinion, if her in-laws dislike her, it’s only human, who would want a disabled daughter-in-law? In this world, only your own parents will never leave you, no matter what you become. Thinking of her elderly parents, Ah Heung burst into tears again.
Ah Heung was most afraid to go back home for the New Year. The year she was injured, she did not want to go back to the Spring Festival, but her parents called to urge her, and she missed her children for a year, and finally went back with her husband.
2
On the way home, Ah Heung hid her crippled right hand in her sleeve for fear of scaring others.
Once they arrived home, the family gathered around Ah Heung, saying nothing but crying – because Ah Heung’s injuries were more than they could imagine.
Ah Heung held back her tears, didn’t cry, and said, “This is no big deal to me, there are things I can’t do, and there are things I can still do, just a little slower.”
In front of her children, Ah Heung always wears gloves. One day while baking a fire, the youngest son said, “Mom, you’re still wearing gloves while baking, why don’t you take them off?”
“I’m afraid of being cold.” Ah Heung replied.
At night, Ah Heung slept in the middle and her twin sons slept beside her, one on each side. The next morning, Ah Heung wore gloves to help them get dressed. By the third morning, the two 8-year-old sons were staring at Ahyang. A-hsiang was stunned, looking at her right hand hooked in her clothes, before she realized she had lost her gloves somewhere in the middle of the night, and immediately hid her right hand behind her back.
“You guys aren’t afraid of mom, are you?” Aroma asked.
The two sons laughed and said, “No, I’m not afraid.”
“Aren’t you guys afraid when mommy becomes like this?” Ah Heung’s nose tingled.
“We’ve known for a long time that you don’t have hands.” The older son smiled.
“Then why don’t you guys ask mommy?” Ah Heung’s voice choked.
The sons bowed their heads and said, “I’m embarrassed to ask.”
“I’ll take my hand out, don’t be afraid.” Ah Heung adjusted her emotions.
“We are not afraid.”
In fact, Ah Heung didn’t want her sons to see her injured hand, but she wanted them to know – their mother was strong.
There was a bullfighting show in the village, and all the people were dressed up to attend. The family also asked Ahyang to go, but she refused.
“You go.” They said, dressed in the clothes Ahyang had made.
The clothes were made by Ah Heung before she was injured. As girls of the Dong ethnic group, their mothers taught them how to make their ethnic costumes when they knew better.
Ah Heung takes off her gloves and puts on the clothes she sewed with her own hands through the sleeves equipped with springs. After watching the bullfighting show for a while, Ah Heung felt a little hot. She was about to take off her clothes when her two sons came over and surrounded her.
“What are you doing?” Ah Heung was puzzled.
“Aren’t you afraid that people will see you? This way they can’t see.” The older son replied. The brothers used their bodies as a screen to block the eyes of others, reassuring their mother to take off her right sleeve.
The adults thought the children were young and ignorant, but in fact the children knew everything.
3
Being injured seemed destiny to Ahyang.
Early in the morning of May 2, 2016, Ah Heung, who was sleeping, was awakened by a phone call from a friend: “Ah Heung, are you working today? If you don’t work, let’s go to the mountains to play.”
Ah Heung said no, she had to go to work. Hanging up her friend’s phone, she took another nap.
“Don’t go to work, let’s go out and play together.” Her husband, who had come to visit Ahyang on vacation, also asked her to go out.
“You go and play, I want to finish pressing the goods.”
Ah Heung wanted to quit her job, but her boss gave her an order for 60,000 hangtags, saying that she would not have money to pay her until she finished this batch of goods. Before and after that May Day, she had already pressed 4 days of hangtags, 20,000 left to finish, she wanted to finish the batch of goods sooner, get the money and then she could go.
Usually, they start work at 8:00 a.m. and have lunch at 12:00 p.m. In order to save the time of machine warm-up, the machine is not turned off when they eat, and they rush to work after eating until they finish work at 8:00 p.m. The machine can input 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20 values, so that according to the size and thickness of the hangtags are different, choose a different mold. “20”, press full 10,000 hangtags have 25 yuan; “8”, “10”, “12”. For “8”, “10”, “12”, 10,000 hangtags is 45 yuan; for “6”, 10,000 hangtags is 75 yuan; for “4”, 10,000 hangtags is 120 yuan. Piecework wages, do more to get more, Ah Heung’s daily wages, about 120 yuan.
On May 2, Ah Heung was very sleepy. There were three people working in the workshop in the morning, and at lunchtime, a big brother’s hometown came to him for a drink, and the big brother did not come to work in the afternoon.
“We both stop work too, for the holidays, everyone stops work today, and the boss won’t say anything.” Another villager, seeing that only he and Ah Heung were left in the workshop, suggested.
Ah Heung ignored him, thinking: you want to stop work yourself, I’ll finish pressing the goods and leave.
Afterwards, Ah Heung thought, that day so many people told her to leave, but she insisted on choosing to start work – if she listened to one of them, wouldn’t she have lost her right hand?
Ah Heung turned on the No. 5 compression molding machine. The English characters on the hangtag had to be gold and needed to be padded with gold. She went to the packaging department on the second floor and asked the boss’s wife (the boss’s mother) to put the gold on hold.
“I’m sleepy today, when can I press enough, is there enough quantity?” Ah Heung sat on her butt on the packing bag.
“There are no counts yet. Time is too tight and we can’t do it.” The other side said helplessly.
Ah Heung went back to the workshop and continued to press the hangtags, not knowing how much, and around 3 p.m. she was injured – no one ever told her how to pay attention to safety, and she didn’t know if it was the machine or her own carelessness. She would love to see a video of the moment she was injured, but the boss said the monitor was broken.
The memory of the moment she was injured seemed to be erased as well. All she could think of at the time was: this hand was gone, this hand was disabled, and she could not feel any pain. She recalled that the moment should have been very painful and she should have let out a loud scream.
The old folks from the same workshop, the people from the packaging department on the second floor, and the boss’s parents gathered around Ah Heung’s side. The master who changed the mold turned off the machine, and Ah Heung’s hand was stuck in the machine, and no one dared to come forward to help.
“Call a doctor to come and get ……” someone seemed to say.
Ah Heung calmed down and took out her hand from the machine – a flattened piece of hand, white in color, she couldn’t remember if it was bleeding or not, all she could remember was that the boss’s wife took a roll of paper towels and wrapped it around her injured hand.
I don’t know how long it took, but the ambulance, the doctor, didn’t come. The boss’s cousin and her cousin’s husband helped Ah Heung and said they drove her to the hospital. Ah Heung called her husband to tell him that she was injured and was on her way to Foshan Chinese Hospital.
In the car, Ah Heung had only one prayer: God, please, take my hand back.
4
When the doctor opened the tissue, Ah Heung, who had already changed into a hospital gown, noticed that her arm was swollen as thick as her thigh and she could not see her hand.
The severity of Ah Heung’s injury was beyond her husband’s imagination, and he said, “It’s okay, we can still get it back” – not only to comfort his wife, but also his hope. When he said this, he did not know that Ah Heung’s pre-operative diagnosis was: severe crush damage to the right hand, multiple metacarpal fractures and bone defects in the right hand, multiple neurovascular tendon rupture injuries in the right hand, and severe contusions of the right skin and soft tissue.
Covered under the surgical cloth, Ah Heung could not see anything, local anesthesia she heard the attending doctor say: “can not be connected.”
“I want to catch it, I want to catch it ……,” Ahyang repeated. Then, she heard the doctor’s footsteps walking out. The doctor pronounced to Ah Heung’s husband and his boss, who had rushed over on the phone, that there was no catch, only amputation. All they could do was sign the consent form for the surgery.
Ah Heung did not want to give up, but even the doctor said there was no way, so what could she do.
“I’ll have to be crippled like this.” She said in despair, she was only thirty years old at that time.
“This is nothing for you, you just lost your right hand, when you get out of the operating room, you can see many people who are more disabled than you.” It was a woman’s voice, I think it was a nurse.
Ah Heung didn’t know that disability was comparable, all she could think about was how to live on in the future. In order to give people hope to live, people don’t compare disabilities with the able-bodied, they can only make the less fortunate the reference of the less fortunate.
“There are many lawyers in the hospital who can’t get work and may come over to coax you when the time comes, you must not trust them. If you go through a lawyer, the compensation fee will be in the hands of the lawyer and you will not get any money. Don’t worry, we will pay for your wife’s injury.” The boss admonished Ah Heung’s husband in the hospital corridor, “Don’t believe the lawyer’s words.”
“Does it still hurt?” The boss asked Ah Heung, who had already been pushed to the hospital room.
Perhaps because the anesthetic had not yet worn off, or perhaps because of her right hand, which had just been amputated in the operating room, Ah Heung did not even bother to raise her eyelids; she did not want to say anything, but shook her head.
“I have something to do tomorrow, I may not be able to come.” The boss said, taking out three RMB 100 yuan from his wallet and handing them to Ah Heung’s husband, telling him to take them to the hospital canteen to buy a meal card. Before leaving, the boss told Ah Heung to get well and not to worry about money, saying he would cover all medical expenses.
In my dream, my hand grew out
Ah Heung’s husband took leave from the factory to take care of his wife in the hospital, and fell asleep at night on the left edge of Ah Heung’s bed. When it was time to eat, her husband told Ahyang to eat, but she didn’t want to eat anything, she just wanted to sleep.
Injured, the couple agreed – concealing family and friends, saying they were still at work. When they came across a few lawyers handing out business cards, they remembered what their boss had told them to do, not to trust them and just ignore them.
Four days later, Ah Heung’s neck was finally freed from the need for fluids in the neck, and at the same time, a second surgery began. The attending surgeon asked Ah Heung if she wanted to have a “flap” (a block of tissue made up of skin and subcutaneous tissue that can be transferred from one part of the body to another), which would involve transplanting a portion of skin from her belly to wrap the exposed bone and regrow the flesh. The surgery carries some risks and may lead to scar growth.
“It is possible to do it without a skin graft, and the wound can be treated and sutured.” The attending doctor said.
Ah Heung was silent, not knowing what to do.
“Whatever you want, but your belly was fine, turn back belly also fell scar, not good.” The boss gave his opinion.
“Yes, your belly is fine, and you have to open a knife on your belly again ……” Aroma’s husband also said so.
When they said so, Ah Heung got scared: “Then we don’t have to do it.”
Ah Heung regretted her decision at that time. If she had chosen the skin flap transplant, would her hand have been better than now? Why didn’t she know anything at that time?
5
“My hand is gone, how can I live afterwards?” How can I tell my family?”, “How can I tell my family?” These were the questions that Ah Heung thought about every day when she was in the hospital. To stop thinking about these questions, she chose to sleep. She wished that when she woke up, a medical miracle would happen to her – her hand would grow back like a cut leek.
As she slept, Ah Heung kept her injured hand on the side of her body, not daring to move it. In her dream, her palm was not all amputated, but only a few fingers. She saw her injured right hand shaking, as if it was about to leave her body.
The shaking of her arm woke up Aroma. Her arm went from a lying position to an upright one.
“Look-” Aroma woke up her husband, “it’s really going away, it’s going to find the other half.”
“You’re thinking too much.” Hubby replied.
On the seventh day of hospitalization, the family called. I only heard my husband say, “We don’t have any money now, Ahyang is injured and hospitalized.” Hubby gave the phone to Ah Heung, and the mother-in-law on the other end of the line asked, “Ah Heung, is the injury serious?”
“Seriously.” Ah Heung held back her tears.
“One finger is gone or two?” My father-in-law’s voice.
“The whole one hand is gone ……” Ah Heung’s tears were not held back and fell down, “the right hand ……”
They cried at the other end of the phone, and Ah Heung cried at the other end of the phone.
Several times on the phone with the family, each time everyone was crying and hung up. Ah Heung did not want to talk to them on the phone anymore, as if there were no more words to say to them, except about the injury.
When Ahyang’s 11-year-old daughter saw her grandmother wiping her tears, she asked, “Can’t my mom do anything anymore?” When her granddaughter asked this question, the grandmother cried even more. Grandma thought her grandchildren were still young and did not tell them about her mother’s injury.
On the eighth day of hospitalization, an old villager called and asked Ah Heung and her husband to have dinner. Ah Heung heard her husband repeat what he had told the family yesterday, “It’s serious, the whole palm is gone, the right hand.”
“The part of the hand that was left on me seems to be going to the part of the palm that was cut off. It’s like little snakes cut in two on the side of the road, swimming around each other, trying to form a whole.” Ah Heung said to the attending doctor who came in to check the room.
Clinically, Ah Heung’s symptoms are called “phantom limb pain,” which means that the patient feels that the severed limb is still there and that pain occurs in that area. In the early stages after amputation, the patient has difficulty accepting the truth psychologically and cannot get rid of the psychological trauma caused by the injured limb, and loses his complete self, which is different from the normal person.
“No.” The doctor said.
“Why does my hand move to wake me up?” Aroma wondered.
“That’s the nerves moving.” The doctor explained.
The doctor’s words made Ahyang worry that she might get a nervous breakdown later.
“I’m talking about the vascular nerve,” the doctor corrected, “it won’t move when the wound heals and recovers well.”
Ah Heung lay on the bed and turned her head to look at the other two patients who had broken their legs in a traffic accident. They were able to return to normal after a period of treatment and recuperation, but what about her?
She had lost her right hand forever.
6
“Big sister, are you injured at work?” The two girls entered the ward at some point.
“No, it was my own carelessness.” Ah Heung looked at them, took the work injury information handed over by the girls, threw it on the table, and ignored them.
The two girls saw her eyes tightly closed, said “If you need to contact us” and left resentfully.
“Dinner is ready.” It was my husband’s voice. The two of them are not used to eating the hospital canteen food, every time the husband went out to eat and then packed a copy back. Soon, the money for the meal ran out, so the husband went to the canteen and returned the meal card, using the money left in the card as food expenses.
Ah Heung could get out of bed and go for a walk. Through the glass window, she could see the blue sky and sunshine at noon. In the hallway, a girl was chatting with a patient, and when Ah Heung came closer, she heard the word “work injury” and stood next to her for a while.
“You know all about injuries like ours, don’t you?” Ah Heung asked the girl.
“Yes, we are all professionals.” The girl said she didn’t have the information on hand, another colleague had it there and would bring it to her later.
Ah Heung added the girl’s WeChat. Holding the information given by the girl, Ah Heung felt familiar. Back in the ward, she looked around and found the information left by the two girls in the drawer, which turned out to be a copy.
Soon, the medical expenses were finished and the IV that Ah Heung was hooked up to stopped. She had to call her boss and say, “There are no more medical expenses and no more food expenses.”
The boss called 2,300 yuan to Ah Heung’s bank card, and after this money was used up, the boss called them twice for another 2,000 yuan. They believed that they had met a good boss, and they believed that the boss would “pay for what he said”, as he had said before. The money did not take long to run out again, and this time Ah Heung was too embarrassed to ask the boss for money again, so he had to take out the money he was going to take home for the New Year to pay the medical bills.
“Bed 25 family, you can go get a bed to sleep ah.” The nurse reminded Ah Heung’s husband who was lying on his side of the bed. The two of them realized that they had to get a bed, and a bed costs 10 yuan a night. Poor Ah Heung’s husband, who had stayed up for 18 nights, only got 7 nights of sleep.
“Are you ready to be discharged now?” The boss called to offer his condolences, “Ask the doctor when you can be discharged.”
The attending doctor told Ah Heung that she could be discharged after the stitches were removed.
On the 23rd day of hospitalization, Ah Heung had her stitches removed.
“Now, I can be discharged, right?” Ahyang asked the doctor, upset by her hospitalization. She didn’t like wearing her hospital gown every day and missed the dresses in her closet. The blue striped hospital gowns with casts, gauze wrapped around her head, and all kinds of injured patients were dangling in front of her eyes, and the voice of “you’re crippled” kept repeating in her head. She wanted to get out of the ward, out of the hospital building. If she didn’t get out, she would go crazy!
“You’re in such a hurry to get out of the hospital, aren’t you? You can leave the hospital if you want to.” The doctor said.
With the doctor’s permission, Ah Heung happily called her boss to tell him.
The boss said he would drive to take her out the day after tomorrow.
“Big sister, have you been discharged? Tell us when you’re discharged.” It was a voice from a girl, and Ah Heung didn’t answer her.
7
After being discharged, Ah Heung felt it was better to stay in the hospital. In the past, even if you were dressed nicely, in the eyes of others, you were just an ordinary stranger. Now, no matter where she goes, people will stare at her, and their eyes tell Ah Heung that they see a disabled person. No one in the hospital would stare at her. Later, she didn’t dare to go out either, and stayed only in the factory.
Looking at the otherwise good Ah Heung who lost her right hand, the workers showed their sympathy.
“It’s so sad, what are you going to do afterwards.” They said.
Occasionally, she went to the workshop and talked to the workers. When they saw how badly she was hurt, they wondered why there was no blood on the machine the day she was injured. A fragrant how to know it, she did not even notice this. Some workers guessed that the machine was too hot, “the meat is cooked, where will bleed.
“You are the third person injured in the factory.” The master who has done nine years in the factory to change the mold said, “Every three years there will be a person injured, you are the most serious.”
The master said that many machines are too broken to be repaired well, but the boss still let him continue to repair them, and there was nothing he could do. The No. 5 compression molding machine that ate Ah Heung’s right hand may have been one of those machines running with the disease.
The swollen right arm made Ah Heung worried and she asked the boss if she wanted to go to the hospital for a checkup. The boss said to take some anti-inflammatory medicine to reduce the swelling and take her time.
“Boss, I want to go home.” Ah Heung said.
“Then go back, I’ll put the money on your card when I have money.” The boss replied.
The family advised Ah Heung not to come back for the time being, it would be bad if the factory did not recognize the money. Ah Heung thought about it, she should stay in the factory dormitory.
After two months of living, the boss came to her and said it was difficult to do business because she was staying in the factory.
“Originally, I recruited someone yesterday, and when I saw that you were injured, I didn’t see anyone today.” The boss sighed, “How about this, I’ll rent you a house outside, and come to the factory for meals and food.”
“I’m injured, I can’t move.” Ah Heung mumbled.
“It’s okay, I’ll help you move.” The boss said.
And so, Ah Heung moved outside.
8
A-hsiang, who lived outside, was unsure of herself and wondered if the boss was denying her debt and would not give her any compensation.
The more she thought about it, the more she felt that something was wrong. She called the girl she met in the hospital.
The girl asked her if she had signed an employment contract, and Ah Heung said no; asked her if she had a pay slip, and Ah Heung said no, “it’s all cash”; asked her if she had a work badge or a work uniform with the company name on it, and Ah Heung didn’t have one either.
“The girl had to teach her to prepare the application for work injury, “or the testimony of other colleagues.”
Ah Heung went to the factory to look for the boss, but she was not there several times, and no one answered the phone. Once, the boss’s cousin said to her, “We asked the lawyer, according to the national standard to compensate you 150,000, you want to take, do not have a penny, do not want to leave! He will not agree to give you a stamp! If you want to apply for a work injury, he will ignore you!”
Before this, Ah Heung had never thought of turning against her boss, after all, he treated her well. But now, he didn’t answer her phone calls, didn’t come out to say anything, in their eyes, her hand is so worthless, it’s really chilling, “If you want to fall out, you can fall out”.
Ah Heung said, “I want to move back to the factory.” Of course they wouldn’t let her move back.
Ah Heung really knew she had been cheated by the boss when the landlord asked her to pay the second month’s rent; she saw the boss’s cruelty when she went to the factory to fight for food and the cooking aunt said, “There is no share for you.
Amidst the landlord’s urging to move, Ah Heung rented a single room near her husband’s factory so that he could come and take care of her. The boss’s phone was still unanswered and he was nowhere to be found. The owner’s parents said helplessly that there was nothing they could do.
Ah Heung held up her right arm and showed them the amputation: “These two bones have grown bigger than the bones at the wrist, and it still hurts when I touch them, so I thought the swelling hadn’t gone down.”
“We don’t know why.” The two old men said.
Ah Heung had to pay for her own review at the hospital. When the attending doctor saw her, he said, “You were told to come for a review a week after you were discharged from the hospital.
Ah Heung said no one told her at all.
“It’s written clearly on the discharge summary, don’t you even read it?” The doctor shook his head and gave her a bottle of massage oil and told her to massage it regularly, “The newly grown bones are soft, so rubbing will make it go down.”
Ah Heung didn’t know what the “discharge summary” was, because the discharge procedure was done by her boss, and he took all the medical records – it turned out that her boss had already been cruel – if she had gone to the hospital for a review and rehabilitation after a week’s discharge, her hand would not have shrunk as much as it did now, and she was often afraid of cold and pain.
Ah Heung went to the Labor Bureau to apply for a work injury, and the staff said, “You don’t have any information, how can you apply?” She had to call the girl again for help. The girl saw that she could not communicate clearly over the phone and asked her to come for consultation in person.
Ah Heung called her husband and asked him to go with her. Her husband asked her, “Do you really want to go?”
“Go. If it’s really a scammer, let them cheat, we only have this life left for people to cheat.” Ah Heung really had no other choice.
When she arrived at the girl’s office, Ah Heung saw a lot of injured people like her consulting. The girl came over to greet Ahyang, who was hiding behind her husband, and her timid eyes were heartbreaking.
After more than two months of running around, on January 13, 2017, Ah Heung’s work injury identification came down. According to the National Standard for Labor Ability Identification of Disability Levels of Work-related Injuries and Occupational Diseases of Employees, Ah Heung’s labor dysfunction was identified as Grade V.
Next, another round of court proceedings awaited Ah Heung.
9
When she saw people wearing prosthetic limbs at the girl’s place, Ah Heung would be afraid. She was not afraid of people, she was afraid of the prosthetic limbs, which were cool to the touch and had no body heat, like the hands of a dead person.
In the fall, Ah Heung also wore a prosthetic limb. She did not like wearing it, wearing a prosthetic limb feels like wearing a bucket of shoes barefoot on a rainy day, so heavy that you can not breathe. It’s also like having something tied to her hand, so it’s not convenient to do anything. When she went to bed at night, Ah Heung put the prosthetic leg next to her bed – if she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a hand, it would scare her to death – so she put it in a cardboard box and tucked it under the bed.
When her husband came to see Ah Heung, Ah Heung put the prosthetic arm aside and asked him if he was scared. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t know if he was scared.
Ah Heung wanted to find a job, no matter how much money she could get, if only someone would take her. Once she saw a factory on the side of the road, she got up the courage and timidly asked, “Do you want more people? The look in the man’s eyes told her that no place would want someone like her.
Later, Ah Heung went to the Disabled Persons’ Federation with a group of injured workers she had met. One said she was not educated enough and her third grade education was not enough for a clerical job; another said they only wanted men, not women.
Just when Ah Heung was ready to give up, things took a turn for the better: in June 2017, she found a job as a greeter at Walmart through the Disabled Persons’ Federation, with a salary of 1,600 to 1,700 yuan per month.
At Walmart, Ah Heung doesn’t like to chat with “normal” colleagues, except for Brother Tang. Brother Tang, who lost half of his arm, is a person like Ah Heung, so she likes to chat with him and would like to be friends with him.
Three months after Aroma worked at Wal-Mart, Brother Tang quit his job because his injured arm could not stand the cold air in the supermarket. People who have been injured can’t stand the cold air. When others think the temperature is just right, they feel cold as hell. Brother Tang said he had worked in the supermarket for nine months and lost 20 pounds.
Not long ago, Ah Heung heard that Brother Tang had a disease that could not walk, only crutches. Ah Heung thought: How can God be so unfair, he lost his arm early, and now he can’t walk, so he won’t give people a way to live?
On December 5, 2017, Ah Heung got the final judgment, which ruled that the factory should compensate Ah Heung within 10 days for $538,000. Ah Heung thought she could finally breathe a sigh of relief, but the boss refused to pay for lack of money, so she had to start a new round of waiting.
The long process of applying for workers’ compensation made Ah Heung scared and helpless. She was afraid of not getting the compensation, not knowing what to do with her future life and how long she could work at Wal-Mart. She cursed herself for being gullible and trusting her boss, saying, “If I really can’t get the compensation, I will use my life to pay for my boss’ life. But on second thought, what is the use of taking the boss’s life, he can’t experience the feeling of being crippled.
Sometimes, Ah Heung would think even more desperately: even if I get the compensation, what can I do, “my hand will not grow back, I am still a disabled person.
10
On March 27, 2018, Ah Heung signed the Execution Settlement Agreement and agreed to the factory’s compensation of 460,000 yuan (the court ruled that the factory would pay 200,000 yuan on the same day and the remaining amount would be paid 15,000 yuan per month until it was paid in full). She didn’t want to hold on for more than 70,000 worse than the court’s decision, she couldn’t hold on anymore, she was about to lose her mind, she was so tired, she just wanted to end it all early.
Even if she gets the compensation, her life can’t be the same as before.
Before she was injured, Ah Heung would go out with her friends after work to have fun. After the injury, her friend approached her to chat, and without saying a word, Aroma didn’t care about others. She doesn’t like people asking about the injury and doesn’t want them to know too much for fear that her friends will dislike her and look down on her. She never posted anything about the injury in her circle of friends, she would choose to post on Weibo, because there is not a hometown on Weibo.
She spent 300 yuan to buy an electric sewing machine online, and every day after work, she would return to the rental house would spend two or three hours making clothes. After the injury, the clothes did not look as good as before, she thought, can wear it.
Now Ah Heung is no longer afraid of prosthetics, but she still feels uncomfortable when she touches them. She seldom wears her prosthetic leg, except when she goes to her husband’s factory – because there are too many old folks there.
Now Ah Heung is very good at eating with chopsticks with her left hand, but if suddenly a villager comes to eat with her, she always drops her chopsticks when she picks up the food. Even when her husband’s sister eats with them, her left hand becomes clumsy in holding chopsticks. When it comes to next year’s Spring Festival, Ah Heung still doesn’t want to go back home.
Only occasionally is she happy to dream at night – to dream of going back to her hometown, her friends approaching her, she nervously hides her right hand behind her back and takes it out again, and her right hand – it grows out! She was so happy, her right hand grew out! It was as if her right hand had always been there.
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