Preface
I have lived in Beijing for 16 years since I came to college, and I have met all kinds of people, but what touches me most is the variety of women. Perhaps because I am a woman, I have more empathy and understanding, more sympathy for people of the same sex. When I see or hear their stories, I always feel their feelings, as if they are my mirrors, and I long to write them down. I can say that writing about them is also a process of self-discovery. In our time, women still have to face many traps, explicit or implicit, and the pains that come with gender. The city stirs up their ambition and changes their relationship with themselves. They pay the price with their desires, torn between reality and fantasy, and repeatedly suffer failure and embarrassment. Yet I believe that this life-affirming beauty is more worth recording than the traditional definition of a beautiful woman. None of these stories have outlandish plots that could happen to every woman around us. However, as my brush strokes open the folds of life and delve into the hearts of those fantastical, vain, ambitious, blind and eccentric women, I cannot help but feel that each of them is so wonderful and so different.
1
In 2015, I was stationed by my company to work in a country in Africa.
In order to solve the practical difficulties of the staff, the logistics department of the company set up a hairdresser post and recruited someone from China temporarily, and colleagues called her “Sister Jia”.
The manager in charge of the logistics department, Mr. Li, is more than 50 years old and is a slick old fox. I just went there and found that the office screen was dirty and broken, and mosquitoes swung through the hole, so I asked him to change the screen, but he promised to do it properly, but after 10 days and half a month, he did not see any action. I ran to ask him, he at first also perfunctory “I’m very busy na, look for you later”, and then directly harsh: “Yo, such a bird does not lay eggs in the country, where do I find a screen for you?”
Colleagues see me angry blowing beard and eyes, advised me more than one thing is better than less, take the transparent glue to the broken place to patch, make up for the winter will be good. I had no choice but to do so, and Manager Li saved another expense.
Since then, I have been respectful of the entire logistics department.
However, after a while, my hair was so messy that the grass grew long and I didn’t dare to run outside to cut it, so I had to call the logistics department’s phone number to make an appointment. The soft voice of Sister Jia came out on the other end of the phone: “I’m free, you can come now.”
Sister Jia is in her early 40s, with shoulder-length curly hair, dyed a slight chestnut red. She has a slender figure, and if you look at her back, she seems to be a young girl – but when she turns around, her waxy face and the wrinkles huddled at the corners of her eyes cannot hide the signs of age, and the bright lipstick on her lips tries to show a vivid style, but is a bit powerless. She put a white bib around me and smiled at me in the mirror, “That’s a nice round face for a little girl, let me give you a bob haircut.”
I soon sensed that Jia seemed particularly enthusiastic about cutting my hair. She was cutting my hair while urging me to try dyeing it, saying it would look more modern. I wondered if she was a newcomer like me and couldn’t figure out what was going on here – the logistics department paid her a fixed salary every month, and she got the same salary no matter how many heads she cut or what patterns she created. Wouldn’t she be asking for trouble if she was as enthusiastic as a domestic hairdresser?
But I did not dare to say this out loud.
After I had a haircut with Jia, she seemed to remember me and was always very enthusiastic when she saw me.
She usually cut hair in the morning and had to do some odd jobs for the logistics department in the afternoon, such as purchasing, inventorying the warehouse, wiping tables and moving chairs, all of which she did. Sometimes when I met her in the staircase and corridor, she said to me, “You haven’t come for a haircut for a long time.”
I felt grateful for her kindness, and sometimes when I went out to buy fruits and vegetables, I asked her to join me. She didn’t speak any foreign languages, so every time she watched me talking and haggling with the local vendors, she stared at me and smiled, as if it was a particularly funny thing to do.
I guess maybe Jia needed a sister to talk to, or she had a daughter who was a little younger than me, and she subconsciously thought of me as a distant child in a place far away from her homeland and without relatives.
The more I got to know Jia, the more I got to know her, and when I had plenty of time to cut my hair, she slowly talked to me about herself.
2
In terms of household registration, Jia is a Beijinger, but the original words she told me were, “It’s kind of Beijing, right?”
Jia’s hometown is Hunan, and in 1991, at the age of 19, she followed her hometown to Beijing to make a living. She became an apprentice when her hometown opened a hair salon in a nook in the east side of Beijing, cutting hair and fixing faces.
The apprentice is just a cheap laborer who works. Although you don’t have to pay the master fee, you can also have a little pocket money every month, but usually work, the master only on the last few knives, boiling water, washing hair, washing towels, plastering and sweeping the floor, all Jia and another hometown month sister dry. The two of them only after doing miscellaneous work, can be in the master to the customer’s hair cut when slipping side to take a look, steal to learn some of the craft. The master does not seem to want them to learn too fast, every time they see a little skin, they told them to go to the water, drying towels.
Sister Jia had to wash people’s hair every day. A week without washing the woman’s hair, hair oily stiff, plucked is a smell of rotten sweet potatoes in winter; there are middle-aged men, just washing the hair is not enough, always let the girl press the shoulders; and bald old man, also to come to the barber store to wash the hair and repair the face, the naked head in the hands, like a huge potato.
When the young girl, good memory, it is always easy to know people, only half a year, Jia and the sister will be and the community to get acquainted with the people who come and go, a man named Chen Jin seems to have a little interest in Jia. Every time he came to the store, if Sister Jia was busy, the master asked the sister to wash his hair, Chen Jin will smile: “I’ll wait a while, there is no hurry.” After saying this, he glanced at Sister Jia.
The master smiled knowingly: “Chen Jin, you have to buy me a pack of cigarettes!”
Chen Jin is a native of Beijing, living in the district, only know that the family is a business transport, what is specific, Jia is not clear, anyway, on the basis of his Beijing people that look askance at the group, the world of the school, even if the family is not rich, but also should not be short of money – and he is the only son, the future of the family is not his? The more she thinks about it, the more she can’t help but smile on her face. This seems to be the right thing to do, Sister Jia is slender and has a good face, while Yue Mei is thicker, so only the young man next door who makes buns likes her, how fair the world is.
At night, Jia and Yue lie in the hairdressing room, each sleeping on a wire bed, Yue’s tone has a bit of envy: “If you marry Chen Jin in the future, that’s a Beijinger.”
Jia pretended as if nothing had happened: “Don’t talk nonsense, how can someone from Beijing see me?”
But she knew it was not nonsense, it was hopeful, and the moonlight shone outside the window, making her heart brighter.
Before the first year was over, Jia had fallen in love with Chen Jin. Chen Jin gave her a pair of gold earrings, worn on the ears wobbling, shiny. She asked Chen Jin when he would get married, Chen Jin playfully said “to close”, and then there was no further.
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. So another year passed, until early 1993, Jia found herself pregnant with Chen Jin’s child, she said desperately: “not married, go to abort the child it.”
Chen Jin finally brought Jia to his home, just opened his mouth to introduce her, Chen’s mother looked at her: “I know, the one who washes hair at the entrance of the neighborhood.”
Of course, Jia heard the coldness in the words, but she immediately realized that if she ran away from Chen Jin’s house now, she would lose too much – pregnant with someone else’s child, she was first short of people, short of breath. Besides, the master also knows that she and Chen Jin good, the old family also spread the rumor that she is going to marry a Beijinger, if now the chicken flies eggs, with no one can explain. The family is far away, do not go back is, but near the moon sister how to avoid? When I think of the envy and even a hint of jealousy in Yue Mei’s tone of voice when she spoke to herself – enjoying the admiration from another woman is almost a woman’s most self-satisfied moment – if she could not gain a foothold under this roof, Yue Mei would use a sympathetic The tone of her comfort, and that comfort, no matter how sincere, the meaning of which is also contempt and gloating.
There is no turning back, Jia decided this truth when she told herself: go out of your way.
3
After she got married, Jia realized that it was not that simple to become an authentic Beijing daughter-in-law.
First of all, there was the issue of hukou. Her household registration had to be moved from her hometown in Hunan to Beijing, which is called “surrendering to Beijing” – Jia said that this “surrendering” made her feel as if she had surrendered to a crime –According to the policy, she has to be married to Chen Jin for 10 years, and 45 years old before she is eligible to join. During this period if Chen Jin divorced her, it is also a basket of water is empty.
In addition, Chen Jin’s parents have long been prepared to be on guard against such a shrewd foreign woman as Jia. Chen Jin’s house, the house book is written in his parents’ names. Jia asked him to change, he always said with a smile: “Most of the money to buy a house is from Mom and Dad, besides, as long as we are good, are a family, write whose name that is not the same?”
Jia was so frustrated that she didn’t even ask the Chen family for the bride price when she got married for the sake of being a Beijinger, but she didn’t think she would have to put up with it for 20 years if she wanted to become a Beijinger.
During that time, Jia was always sullen, and I don’t know if that was the reason why the baby was not kept. When the abortion took place, the baby had already taken shape and was a girl. She was lying in bed, thinking about the child that was destined to be lost, and tears were falling down in streams. The child is gone, her foundation in the Chen family will be gone, the future will have to look at the in-laws every day, what should I do? –But, fortunately, it was a girl, thinking of this, Jia’s heart faintly flashed a trace of imperceptible relief.
After the baby’s birth, Jia decided to open her own hairdressing store – Chen Jin ran transport, three days to fish and two days to sunbathe, she did not go to earn money, will only be subject to the in-laws’ anger every day. She talked, borrowed 20,000 yuan from her in-laws, and wrote an IOU.
Soon after Jia’s barber store opened, Yue Mei and the young man selling buns came to say goodbye to her, saying that they had saved a little money in Beijing over the past few years and decided to go back home to open a supermarket. Before leaving, Yue Mei looked at Jia and said enviously, “You’re lucky to be married to a Beijinger and now you’re your own boss.”
Yue Mei’s envy was no longer jealous, but resigned to her fate.
Sister Jia is beautiful, can speak well, and bought a lot of Japanese fashion magazines, study every day, the first few years, the barber store business is particularly good, earn a lot of money. After paying off her in-laws’ loan of 20,000 yuan, she insisted on going to the China Grand Hotel with Chen to eat buffet.
Chen Jin said, “Hey, you earn a little money on blind foolishness, go to eat casually to eat.”
“What are you stingy, and not you pay!” Jia sister speaks with a bottom.
This obsession came from a grandfather who cut hair in Jia’s store, and the grandfather said, “If you’ve never been to the China World Hotel, have you been to Beijing?” Sister Jia somehow remembered these words to death.
Jia put her hair into a fashionable big wave and dragged Chen into the China Hotel. At that time, the China Hotel was only built a few years ago, the restaurant is gorgeous, the waiter with a smile, slightly bowed. Chen Jin usually big-hearted, but here seems to be afraid of. But Jia was not shy at all, more like a Beijinger than Chen Jin – probably this is a person’s aura, she was secretly pleased, in a good mood, and ordered a bottle of expensive foreign wine at dinner.
Since then, Jia from time to time to go to some high-end restaurants to eat and drink, go to the big shopping malls to spend, in the money basically into how much out of how much. She went to the mall to buy thousands of coats, came back first to the barber store to cut the logo, and then said to Chen Jin, “bought at the zoo, more than a hundred”. Every time she paid the check, she felt a beam of light hitting her body, and occasionally felt panic, but then thought: the money ran out, tomorrow to earn it, today there is wine today, this life is not expected to Chen Jin to be more considerate, only to be kind to themselves.
Jia said that in those years she was dizzy, the only thing that is still a little sober, is to secretly send money to the old home. “I guess Chen Jin also knows, but the money is my own earnings, he turned a blind eye.”
The company is also aware that Chen Jin is hooking up with other women outside, and is just turning a blind eye.
4
The second child is a son, Jia’s heart finally settled down a bit – this is good, no matter whether the house is hers, no matter whether Chen Jin will go outside to find women, she finally in the hands of a heavy shell.
Sister Jia is still busy in the barber store from morning to night, with one eye on making money, often standing for several hours, returning home tired and aching back. The son was given to his grandparents since he was a child, speaking a mouthful of authentic Beijing dialect, unlike Sister Jia, after so many years still speaks L, N indistinguishable, Chen Jin always laughs at her: “Listen to your voice, as if you had a bad cold.” The son is next to follow heartlessly laughing.
When my son graduated from elementary school, Jia promised to buy Lego for him, so she brought him back to Hunan and let his grandma and grandpa back home meet. Originally with the son said to stay for a week, but the results of less than three days, the son spilled and rolled, and insisted on returning to Beijing.
When he came back, he complained to his grandparents: “The countryside is so dirty! The ground is full of chicken shit! When I went to the toilet, a big goose stared at me, I thought it was going to peck my butt, I was so scared that I ran away before I finished pooping. When I left, grandma just gave me 200 yuan pocket money!”
Grandma and Grandpa exclaimed, “Oh, really? So scary! Hey my grandson really suffered, never go again.” Said also intentionally or unintentionally glanced at Jia, like in a tug-of-war victory.
For the first time, Sister Jia felt that the son she had worked so hard to give birth to was really a white-eyed wolf. She inexplicably thought of her first child – if that daughter had survived, would she have been a little cotton wool, a little more intimate with her mother?
One day, Jia returned home after closing the store, just lying down on the sofa, she found that the earring in her left ear was missing. She jumped up and rushed back to the store to look for it. It was already past 10 o’clock at night, she swept in the corner of the broken hair bit by bit, picking up, carefully filtered, looking for eyes are blurred, but still did not find.
She opened the door of her house in frustration, and Chen Jin and his son were still watching the soccer game. Chen Jin looked at her and yawned: “Don’t look for it, go buy another one.”
Sister Jia hung her head in despair: “Or you bought it when you were in love.”
Chen Jin but did not answer. The room was silent, Jia kept waiting for Chen Jin to say “I’ll buy you another one”, Chen Jin also seemed to know that his wife was waiting for him to say this, but he still didn’t say anything, only the TV commentator was excitedly shouting “Goal! Goal!” The exuberant voice seemed a bit comical. Chen Jin and his son saw the team he supported concede a goal, cursing and swearing, Jia had a bad chill in her heart and went back to bed.
When my son was in his first year, his English was not good, so Jia went to find an English tutor for him. The tutor was a freshman from Beijing Foreign Studies University, who had just come to Beijing from Sichuan, and was white and polite.
One Sunday, Jia came home temporarily to get some things. The tutor was giving her son a lesson in the room, and she heard him complaining through the door: “I’m so annoyed with my mom, she’s talking about how my dad owes her everything. Really!”
The tutor laughed and said seriously, “Don’t talk about your mother like that, not to mention that she works very hard to earn money. Besides, I’m a foreigner, too.”
Sister Jia stood in the living room, a time of mixed feelings – after raising such a big son, but not as understanding as a tutor.
The more she thought about it, the more disheartened she felt that everything is false: these years Chen Jin wandering around outside, she never dared to mention divorce, such a big city, she is not as glamorous as when she was young, a foreign woman has begun to grow gray hair on the temples, and where can go? The phone call from home is 80% to ask for money, the son is like someone else’s family, even the perm curl hair emits the smell of plastic, let her feel that all this is fake through, “no meaning, really no meaning”.
5
The company’s business slowly faded as more and more barber stores opened nearby.
When there is no work, she sits on the chair in the store, thinking about when she was young and earned her first money, wearing high heels to the China Hotel. When she thought about it, she looked back and saw the yellow-faced woman in the big mirror, staring at herself lost in thought.
Jia’s father was diagnosed with rectal cancer, and her mother asked her if she could send some more money: “If you have it on hand, send some, if not, forget it.”
Jia told Chen Jin, who was bored for half a day and said in a jarring voice: “I don’t have any anyway. Besides, the disease is a bottomless pit, how much money is thrown in, you can not hear a sound.”
But Jia closed her eyes at night and remembered that when she was a child, it was a cloudy and cold winter morning in Hunan Province.
She thought with tears all over her face, Chen Jin snoring next to her.
Jia began to regret that she was too careless with her money when she was young. At this time, she remembered an acquaintance said that a company recruiting foreign labor, earn more abroad, if the barber store out, another sum of money. She had a cross-eyed heart, it was set.
Before boarding the flight abroad, the 43-year-old Jia sent a circle of friends: a new journey, a new life, the dream will surely come true. The accompanying picture was a selfie of her at the airport with scissors hands, and the beauty camera had sharpened her skin to Snow White. The sisters who patronized the business, the male customers who had ambiguous relationships, and the three bosses before and after the bun store next door, all came to like the message. And people from her hometown said, “I envy you, you broke into Beijing, and now you’ve broken into a foreign country.”
Originally was forced to go in order to make money, but now it has become a scenery to stay abroad. As long as people live, the drama must continue to play.
“You say I was really stupid at that time, the money I earned was either spent generously, or secretly subsidized my mother’s family, and did not think to save some money to buy a house in Beijing, or else I would have been a millionaire if I sold it now! Sister Jia cut my hair while lamenting.
“You are also a millionaire now, your house is in the third ring, worth a lot of money.” I said.
“That’s their parents’, not mine.” Sister Jia stared at me in the mirror and sighed, “It’s good that you’ve studied in college like this, find a formal job, unlike me, no education, can only do temporary work. The company gives out a rice, noodles and fruits for the holidays, and I don’t even get a share.”
6
At lunchtime, Xiaoli from the logistics department sat at our table. Like Jia, she is a temporary employee, but she is just 20 years old and is mainly responsible for the reception.
Xiaoli’s eyes slithering, see Li manager with a dinner plate sitting straight to the opposite table next to Jia, “puff” a smile. That smile is meaningful, deliberately let the next person see, so that she can find a reason to say what you want to say.
As a matter of fact, the boy next to her seriously joked: “Just eat, what are you laughing at?” While saying that, he waited for her to gossip.
Xiaoli also did not shy away from: “Alas, I said, people wipe a table, sweep a floor have to put on lipstick, it turns out that there are people watching ah.”
“It’s as if it’s true.” The next person glanced at her.
Xiaoli said: “I did not make it up, she lives next door to me, I saw it last night.”
I don’t know whether Xiaoli is telling the truth or not. Jia and I complained, Xiaoli relying on their own young and beautiful, she should do the work she is always lazy, a little dirty point tired to dump to others, Jia and her a department, the two people do not see each other, over time, there are always some conflicts. But Li manager so stingy people, but recently gave the hairdressing room with a new sofa, visible Xiaoli said, is not all empty wind.
During the New Year, the company gave each regular worker buns and dumplings made in the cafeteria, as well as a runny marinated elbow. These things are not rare in China, but in Africa, they are treasures that cannot be bought even with money. I was alone, and the food didn’t taste good after sitting in the fridge for a long time. Remembering the way Jia looked last time when she said she never got a share of the welfare goods, I cut half of the elbow and took a few dumplings and sent them to her.
When Sister Jia saw me coming with something, her eyes were a little red: “Alas, it’s hard for you to still think of me. It’s New Year’s Eve, why don’t you take a trip back home?”
I said, “My husband plans to visit me, he has not been here, as a tourist.”
Sister Jia’s eyes curled up in a smile: “Young couples are in love!”
I think Jia has something to say, and sure enough, she lowered her voice again, as if delivering a secret to me, “Chen Jin asked me to go back, saying that his parents are not well, I’m afraid to go back, he will not let me come back, here, but also to earn more money, their own money, so as not to ask others to ask.”
I think the atmosphere is a bit dull, suddenly saw her wearing a pair of vivid red earrings, rubies in her ears gently swaying, to the whole face cast a glitter, and praised her earrings look good.
“I just like earrings, I used to buy them casually on Taobao, those malls in China, they are too expensive, here they are much cheaper than in China.” She smiled down, and after a pause, said indignantly, “For so many years, my husband has not bought me anything decent, he always thinks that I married him, how great the light. In fact, if you think about it, all these years, he did not earn as much as I do! This woman which, men do not treat you well, you can only be good to yourself.”
Jia only worked in Africa for a year before returning home.
She originally wanted to postpone, and then work for two years, but the family has something, urgent to let her go back.
“Chen Jin’s mother is dying.” When she cut my hair for the last time, Jia told me secretly. When she said this, she tried to keep a serious expression, but I saw in the mirror the corners of her eyes rose for a moment, the light of uncontrollable joy flickering gently.
It’s great, I thought silently, that Jia’s name is finally going to be written on the property deed, and she will soon be 45 years old.
7
One weekend, I went out shopping for jewelry stores, aimlessly slipped into an unfamiliar face, I did not expect the store’s style are good. I was a little hesitant, colleagues usually love to store on those few stores, the boss and we are familiar with the real goods, if I buy a fake, I will lose a lot of money.
The boss seemed to have read my mind and said, “You? Chinese company? Don’t worry, some of you have bought from me before!”
He opened an old notebook and proudly told me that whenever a foreign customer came to buy from him, he would ask them to sign a message. He flipped through the pages, and a few Chinese characters appeared sporadically, some of which I didn’t recognize at all, and some of which I had heard of but had never met, colleagues who had worked here years ago. On the last page, I saw the familiar character “Li”, written in a very sloppy way, but I recognized it as the handwriting of Manager Li.
I pointed to “Li” and said, “What did he buy, do you still remember?”
The boss proudly showed a row of white teeth: “I remember, a pair of ruby earrings, he said they were for his wife.”
I remembered the day Xiaoli said sourly at the dinner table that after Jia returned to China, she had become a regular worker in the logistics department at the company’s headquarters in Beijing, “People have contacts and methods, they have met a valuable person, and now they can also enjoy the treatment of regular workers.”
After saying that, he gave a contemptuous glance to the next table. Manager Li was lying on that table, eating while joking with the middle-aged men next to him.
In 2017, I returned to Beijing from my overseas assignment. One day, I went to the finance office of the logistics department for reimbursement, and when the elevator opened, I suddenly saw a familiar face face face to face.
“Sister Jia!” I greeted.
Sister Jia was wearing a knee-length pencil skirt and a beige knitted sweater, much more sophisticated than when she was in Africa. She was followed by four older women in dark blue cleaning uniforms carrying mops and plastic buckets. Seeing that it was me, Jia said to them, “You guys go ahead, I’ve met a friend and will come later.”
“You’re a supervisor now?” I joked, “I’m a leader.”
“Hey, what leader, just cleaning around every day.” Sister Jia’s smile had a happy look in it. Knowing my intention, she enthusiastically dragged me to the finance office, “Come on, I’ll take you there, I know someone there.”
On the way I asked her how her family was doing, she winked at me: “Fine, the household registration fell, I also have a unit, the old man used to live in the house rented out, I told Lao Chen, my son is going to college, you’ll be at home to cook, manage to collect rent on the line.”
Jia greeted the people in the finance office with a cheerful laugh, and the finance office grandparents, who are usually indifferent to people, smiled at me.
When I was in Africa, I had never seen such a relaxed, expansive smile on Jia’s face, so I guess Jia is a winner in life.
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