preface
In my short experience of supporting education, I got to know the Yi children in the mountain villages in southwest China. In the span of two years, they one to the south, one to the north, have realized their initial small dream, but was bound into a more complex and helpless reality. Their fate trajectory, is not rare in the Liangshan mountainous area, where early marriage, dropout to work many young boys and girls, living outside the mainstream, silent. Once in a while, a story gets posted online, and people are surprised, angry, and then drawn to new events. But I still decided to record, they lived the most real life, all the joy or fall, all dissipated between the mountains and the wild.
1
On July 30, 2016, I finished the 20-day summer volunteer teaching program.
Gaoshitou Village is located in the xiaoliangshan district on the southwest border, more than 1000 meters above sea level. Seen from the bottom of the mountain, the winding mountain road turns down along the river, like a pale silk hanging in the thick green mountains.
Mountain people lived in scattered houses built near the road in twos and threes. The chickens and ducks raised by villagers in captivity were not afraid to meet strangers and straggly crossed the mountain road.
In midsummer, cicadas in the mountains resound, and wild lilies bloom sporadically. At night, the fog, from the school playground to look around, there are people’s lights flickering faintly, in the splash-like sky, as if with a pious ancient meaning. Sometimes catch rain, dark clouds rolling over the sky, thunderstorms hidden in the depths of the clouds, the day after the rain is like washed the general blue, the highway potholes have large water, the children from the puddles out of the water was washed out of the head of the small crab, surprise raised over the head, crab shell shining in the sun golden color.
Return that day, the children grabbed my hand suitcase, trotted down the mountain to send me, milk voice milk gas said: “Small white teacher must come again next year!” I froze, turned to look at the direction of the school on the mountain, the hand of the empty water bottle pinched again and again, do not know how to respond.
After 20 days of teaching, home visits, cooking from the same pot and sleeping on the concrete floor, we saw liangshan beyond the books. In Liangshan, sunshine and poverty are indistinguishable. On one side is the simple human nature that comes down through the cracks of thick history; on the other side is the boundless poverty and desolation.
In the end, we’re all “on the run.”
2
Children in the mountains go to school at varying ages, and some have never even gone to school. We divided the children into four classes according to their age and their current grade. Class one consisted of very young children, most of whom had not yet entered school and were still in the age of playing in the mud, who were sent by their parents to be nursed by a volunteer teacher. Classes 2 to 4 are for older teenagers, who can choose classes according to their level and wishes.
Xi er is a girl student in Class three. The first time I saw her in class, she was wearing a dull yellow T-shirt, which had already been ground out of the ball. There was a sign on her right chest, under which was written the red “Donated by Sichuan Electric Power Company”. She kept her head down and her thin arms propped up on the table during the lecture. When I introduced the university and the city, she looked up and gave me a furtive glance.
Day cloth is the existence in the class and xi er are polar opposite. He was always interrupting the teacher, asking out loud questions that had nothing to do with the content of the lesson, and soliciting support from other students, trying to be the “big brother” in the class. If left alone, the dark-skinned boy with a wide nose and thick lips would show a look of disappointment, pucker his lips and go on telling his “heroic story” to his deskmate.
Volunteer teaching place — Author’s map of Gaoshitou Village volunteer teaching place — author’s map of Gaoshitou Village
A week later, according to our plan of supporting education, we needed to make home visits to the local left-behind children. After consulting the opinions of the students in the class, Xisha volunteered to apply.
Xier actually has not read much books, Chinese does not speak well, can not tell his specific age. According to classmates, she was 15 years old, had a “famous” alcoholic father and a mother who never left home, and a girl with a ponytail secretly told me, “Their family is the poorest in our village.”
Xier’s home is in a corner of the hillside, with its back to an asphalt road winding down from the southwest. From the side of the road to the house, to turn over a few large and small, irregular distribution of stones, then turn to step over nearly 10 meters of dirt road covered with chicken manure. A hole in a corner of the window was sealed with a cardboard box, and the room was dark.
I could count the things in the room at a glance, and Xier brought me an old chair, which made the room seem even emptier.
“What do you eat every day? I asked.
“Rice.”
“Except for rice?”
“Rice porridge.”
Xier did not look at anyone when she answered, but her eyes were floating towards the light outside the door. I followed her gaze. It was a wood-planked chicken shed with three chickens. In the distance were thick green cornstalks and nameless trees, and I could not find her gaze focused. It was Xier’s brother who stared at me as he took her hand.
The younger brother is 7 years old, his nose is always drooping. When he is about to drop, he sucks it back and repeats it, just like the monotonous life of the two siblings: collecting wood, cooking, waiting for his father to carry a dark green bottle home to eat, wash dishes, do laundry, and occasionally take a walk along the mountain road. Xier’s younger brother was as thin as she was, dark, but with darker eyes. He rolled around in his eyes and looked at people like a little beast.
Have the world after class, have a teacher shout oneself of “baby” bubble noodles disappeared, be exasperated to turn over a table top, have a classmate to report to him: xi son younger brother stole took. The teacher went to find it. It really was.
When I heard the news and arrived, Xi ‘er and his brother were standing at the door receiving “education” : “This must be wrong, Xi ‘er you as a sister, should have a good reason with him. Xier said nothing. She looked down at her brother and put her hand around his shoulder. The younger brother was rude and gave her a kick in the shin.
“He hasn’t had two meals.” After a while, Xier whispered.
Once, surrounded by several lively girls, they took turns to say what they wanted in life: some wanted to travel to Chengdu, some wanted to meet TFBOYS, and some wanted a nice car. When it was her turn, She said her biggest dream was to get married, just like her two sisters who had gone to another mountain.
Soon, this “dream” became a reality. Only that was the beginning of another nightmare.
3
In November 2016, before the New Year of the Yi people, Xile got married.
It was already very cold in the mountains in the early winter. On the day of her wedding, Xi ‘er put on her traditional ethnic dress and head scarf and was sent all the way from Gaoshitou Village to climb over the two mountains in the south to start a new life.
The wedding day, the cloth also went to join the lively, surrounded in a circle to send married crowd outside, to some melon seeds and sugar to eat. day cloth think the wedding is boring, and to xi er can leave the small village envy – day cloth has been wanting to go to the big city to see the world.
The author of xile’s marriage provided the picture
As the class in the most publicity of the boy, the cloth with the mountains between the wet pretty gas, see who is not pleasing to the eye must not hide, not less fight with people. The boys in the school were Wilder and stronger than he was, but he was shrewd and did not provoke anyone, rolling his eyes from afar and saying, “That man looks like a pig butcher.”
Sun Bu’s father works outside all the year round, only he and mother live in the mountains. Once followed the adult to the field to pick beans, the day cloth down from the mountain not careful sprain foot, leg also fell. When I went to see him with some teachers, he was sitting astride an old black motorbike.
It is his usual up and down the mountain publicity in front of the “baby”, every time riding past, have to whistle to people, pull the wind very much. I can’t ride it now, so I have to sit on it and pretend.
“Teacher, I didn’t come to the class is not very quiet ah? He had a wicked smile on his face.
“Yes, very good.” I pretended not to understand him.
“Good? I don’t think you can speak very well.”
“Ha ha ha, without you is not fun, hurt to come back to class quickly.”
He stared, turned his head and smiled shyly. Another teacher happened to see him, and he immediately put on a cool look again.
Day cloth don’t like campus life, feel rules bound people, not happy. After graduating from junior high school, he gave up books and exams for good.
Most of the children in the mountains hope to leave the village where they have lived for more than ten years, even if they just marry to another mountain, they will probably have a very good and handsome future.
Ribo thought so, and So did Xier.
4
Xier’s husband is in his 30s and lives in a house with his parents. When Xi ‘er got married, her husband did not allow her to go out of the country, where to report to him. Her mother-in-law told her that her husband had married three women before and that Xi ‘er was the fourth. “His mother also said that after I had the baby she would come and watch me and let me do the work for the family.”
Xier says her husband’s house is made of bamboo. When the wind whistled in the winter in the mountains and it was so cold at night that she could not sleep, Xi ‘er sat with her knees folded in the corner of the bedding spread on the board and stared at the cracks in the wall.
She recalls how her mother left Xier when she was a Suckling baby because she couldn’t stand her alcoholic father and the daily grind of poverty. In the years that followed, only the grandmother who received a grant or a donation informed her mother that she would come back and leave when the money was almost gone.
When Xi ‘er’s husband came to seal the marriage, he promised a gift of 70,000 yuan and gave it to xi ‘er’s family in installments, leaving 40,000 yuan in cash for the first time.
A month before she got married, mom came home. In isolated mountain villages, bride price is an important “revenue” for a family. Xi Er, who is young and handsome, buys a lot of wine for his father and keeps his mother’s company reluctantly for his younger brothers and sisters.
Xier thought to get married would be the turning point of his fate, from this later can escape little tender childhood, youth, safe and secure life, but did not think of but jumped into another cage from a cage.
Her husband went out to play cards during the day and came home late, dragging her to sleep under a dirty quilt. Xi er is unwilling, but can’t help it, “already married”. Her mother-in-law is impatient with her, once after lunch xier wash the dishes slowly, was scolded for a long time. “The mother-in-law is very cruel to me, often scold me”. Xier could not bear it. She tried to escape home several times, but was found back.
Xier’s husband’s family
Faced with suffering inflicted by strangers, teenagers have no choice but to cry.
In early 2017, the husband’s family finally succumbed to Xi’s cries and sent her home. Xier begged his parents, want to divorce to study, or to work, to earn a lot of money. She thought she could do it all over again.
5
Xi er returned to the village, the day has left.
In early 2017, Ribu followed acquaintances in his village all the way north from Chengdu, taking a hard-seat train for more than 22 hours to Reach Shijiazhuang. This is the first time for Ribo to the north, and the piercing cold has uprooted him from the innocence of youth, beating in the complex and dreary real world.
Ribu’s job is to be a welder. He has nothing to do with the soaring skyscrapers in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. All he has to do is sit on iron shelves between concrete and steel floors and do electric welding.
He took photos of his work that day. Looking down from where he welded the iron racks, the vertical distance was more than 20 meters. In the field of vision, the cement floor was cut by layers of rust-red iron racks.
Because go out to work, day cloth missed the wedding of an elder sister in Sichuan mountain. He apologised in his blog: “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your wedding. I know it’s my fault, but please forgive me. They won’t let me come back.”
At 10 p.m., the outskirts of Shijiazhuang are unusually quiet, the construction sites dark and occasionally driven by cars. the end of a day of busy, crowded on the ground dark green beer bottles sen toward the collective dormitory, tired to fall on the bed, but can not sleep: next to the workmates are set out to play cards, smoke choking, noisy voice entangled in the ears of the cloth.
“I can’t sleep most of the night. I have to go to work tomorrow morning.” He wrote in his weblog.
After the Qingming Festival, day cloth finally can not stand the pain of work, went home. He’s dating a couple of friends, drinking and talking. But with all but a migrant worker in his village in school, he soon found himself isolated.
6
After returning to the village, Xier was also pulled back to reality by her parents.
“They said the gift money had already cost a lot of money, and that I would have to pay a lot of money for the divorce, as well as for the sugar and cigarettes I used to get married.” Xier did not apply for a marriage certificate, and her husband has not yet finished giving her 70,000 yuan gift money. Her parents asked her to stay at home until her husband brought the money back. If Xier wanted a divorce, she would have to marry the next man, take the money and return it to her current husband, who has little cash left — 40,000 yuan.
“It’s all my parents’ money. They spent it. They just bought me this phone and my wedding dress and a pair of shoes.” Before getting married, my parents took xi er and his younger siblings to the county shopping, my father used the gift money to buy an electric car, my mother bought new clothes, my younger brother and sister also have gifts.
Xier had her eye on a red dress with beautiful flowers, which cost more than 100 yuan. Mother thought too expensive, did not agree, chose a cheaper ethnic dress for her. When she got married, Xier wanted to make up and go to live with her husband. But by the father split head lambasted to say, put on makeup have no male want her.
“But I melted it anyway. I think it looks better that way.” Xir says she asked Ying to apply eyeliner, mascara and a dab of lipstick to her lips.
Xiao Ying is Xier’s only friend in Gaoshitou village. The other children in the village hated her for being dirty and often bullied her. On one occasion, Xi ‘er went up the mountain to go home and was shouted by two children, “No mother’s child, with his younger brother and sister are all picking up garbage”.
Can small English won’t, she grows up to play together with xi er as a child, disposition is lively, hear Xi er suffers bully, meeting zhang Fang Brandished claw to look for a person to beg a statement. However, after graduating from primary school, Xiao Ying went to ma Bian county for junior high school and moved her family there. Every time Xier find her to play, have to walk for a long time mountain road, will also be scolded by his father. But eventually or arrived but the point lively temptation, Xi er often go out to drink in his father’s time, go to the county town to find xiaoying.
One day after returning to the village, Xi ‘er went to the horse side to look for xiao Ying and met an elder sister in the village. “She said she would take me, so I went with her. She took me to a hotel, and when she did, she said she wanted me to sleep with someone else.” .
Xier was frightened and ran out quickly. At 8 o ‘clock in the evening, the small town in the southwest has been wrapped in the dark night, Xi er is not familiar with the road, can’t go back to the mountain. She could only run by instinct, and finally hid behind a big tree, looking at the sister and a middle-aged man did not find her turned back, this only dared to come out, looking for a place to stay.
The town went to sleep with the shrilly sound of cars drifting away in the direction of street lights.
“I didn’t know the name of the place I ran to that night. I slept under a bridge with no one nearby. I was so scared that I cried and cried all the time. .
“How can I have such a hard life, teacher? Is that what people do when they live?” Xier asked on the phone.
I was speechless and didn’t know how to respond to her. She kept talking on the other end of the phone.
“I want to cry now when I think about it. I kind of hate my mum and dad and my sister. I really don’t want to marry again, but they say if I don’t marry I won’t be able to pay back the money. I said I was too young, but they forced me to marry, and they stopped talking.”
“I want to go far away, I don’t know where to go, let me read to read, I want to be free to play alone, also want a friend.”
7
Finally to the summer, day cloth by friends introduced to a restaurant in the county, responsible for cashier, part-time delivery. Two days later he was fired by his boss for “dirty hands”.
day cloth home things are initially hidden from his father, also do not know who told, his father called a phone, scolded him, let him then go out to work for a living. In July, he followed a group of people to Guizhou to participate in the excavation and construction of No. 2 Tunnel in Dalangzhai, Luodian County, Duyun City.
The new job is watering cement, and the working hours are more irregular. Sunbu often makes jokes on the social platform at 4 or 5 o ‘clock at night. Once he was in a good mood, basking in a meal with fellow workers “four dishes and a soup” : the largest dish of boiled vegetables with a large aluminum basin, placed in the middle of the table, next to a plate of cauliflower, a plate of sausage, a plate of eggplant, and a small bowl of chopped green pepper.
Sun Bu works most of the time is silent, working with him are in their 30s and 40s are middle-aged men, the cement back in the air, after dinner in addition to playing cards and drinking, fell asleep, there is no other story to tell.
But sun Bu has. He talked with a girl friend at home, who was not willing to be good with him, which became his worry. There was no one to talk about, so he had to vent on the Internet. He retweeted videos of rural teenagers and city girls, with the caption, “Look down on rural people.” In fact, his “sweetheart” is also a country girl, but the others are still studying, dislike his cigarette and alcohol.
“I really want to go back in time. Where did the time go?”
“The construction site only I a young man, so boring ah, who to accompany me, I want to go home.” He added an exclamation mark after the word “bored to death”, drew a crying face and four smiling faces, and filled the crying face with black.
At one o ‘clock in the morning on September 21, he posted the words he had copied while taking a break at the construction site. It was the lyrics of one of his favorite songs: “As free as a dream, will you still care for me, my dearest friend? When I decide to let go, when I go to freedom, will you still be with me?”
What awaits him in the daytime is the hard logic of concrete and steel, cold and heartless. The hazy artistic atmosphere of the little boy’s adolescence can only be conveyed to the strange men and women through the network at night. In his dream, he goes back to his hometown, and the sun cloth dives from the high stone again. The sound of water is clear, and the time slowly paces by.
Xier also failed to get a divorce, and her husband took her back again after making up the rest of the gift money. In October 2017, she became pregnant. Her husband went out to work for a living, and she moved back and forth between her mother’s and her husband’s home. It was not like she was going home.
Xi ‘er once thought that one day she could walk out of Mabian county and go to a wider world to see what the “sea”, “amusement park” and “city” in Xiao Ying’s mouth really looked like. Unfortunately, she is pregnant and will probably spend her life wandering from village to village in the mountains. Wait for their children to be born, and then wait for them to grow old enough to get married or go out to work.
Firewood rice hearth gap, Xi er turned his head to look out of the house, layers of alternating mountains, continuous.
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