Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [5]
Despite our poverty, our parents always taught us to have dignity, honesty, and pride. Our good family name was sacred and should be protected with all our might.
One day when I was about five, I went to play at a friend’s house. Sien Yu was the same age as me. His uncle, who lived in the city, had brought him a little toy car, and Sien Yu let me play with it for a while. I loved it so much. When he went inside to get a drink, I took it and ran home.
“Where did you get that?” my niang asked suspiciously.
“I … I found it on the street.”
She knew I was not telling the truth. No one in our area could afford to spend money on a toy. She took my hands firmly and pulled me back to Sien Yu’s house. She said to his mother, “Is this your son’s toy car?”
Sien Yu’s mother nodded.
“I’m sorry, I think my son has stolen it,” my niang said.
“Don’t get upset,” Sien Yu’s mother replied. “Your son is too young to understand.”
“I’m ashamed of what my son did!” said my niang, and apologized profusely. She tried to make me do the same, but I felt too embarrassed. I tried to escape from my niang’s firm grip. I wanted to run away. I hated my niang for embarrassing me like this. She shouted. She wanted the entire world to know I had stolen my friend’s toy car. I screamed and kicked as she dragged me home.
As soon as we went inside our house, she pulled me to her chest, hugged me tightly in her arms, and sobbed. It was as though she had suffered as much humiliation as I had. “I’m so sorry to do this to you,” she whispered tenderly. “I’m so sorry we are too poor to buy you a toy car.” After a brief moment she continued: “I’m too stupid to have all of you in this cruel world! You don’t deserve this suffering!” I felt her tears streaming onto my hair.
I hated to see her so sad. “I’ll have enough food for you one day! I swear it!” I vowed to myself.
That evening, at dinner, my dia started lecturing us. “Although we have no money, no food, and can’t buy clothes, and although we live in a poor house, one thing we do have is pride. Pride is the most precious thing in our lives. Throughout our forefather’s struggles, the Li family always had a good reputation. I want every one of you to remember this: never lose your pride and dignity no matter how hard life is.”
TWO
My Niang and Dia
Memories of my niang and my dia are always related to how hard they worked. Our dia was often up before five-thirty in the morning, and my niang had to be up even earlier to cook him breakfast. With all the cooking, washing, and sewing she had to do, she hardly had time or energy to pay each of us much attention. We fought over her love and affection. Besides cooking every meal, she made all our clothes and our quilts and blankets too. She carried the laundry either to the stream about twenty minutes south of our house or to a dam up on the Northern Hill. Our patched clothes were always clean. She took immense pride in making her seven sons look well cared for.
Every aspect of life was hard for my parents. There was a great shortage of black coal throughout China. The small amount allocated to us barely lasted through the winter, making the inside of our house colder than the frigid outdoors. We also had to sleep in the same bed. Jing Tring and I slept with them until I was eleven. All four of us, head-to-toe. I hated my brother’s smelly feet right by my face and he must have hated mine more since I was taller than he was. Yet I loved sleeping with my parents. It felt so safe.
Because of this hard life, I rarely saw a smile from my niang, but when I did, my heart would blossom like a lotus flower.
My niang was recognized as one of the best seamstresses in the village. My parents simply had no money to buy ready-made clothes, and my niang didn’t have a sewing machine.