Family History

I once saw my maternal grandmother reading an old almanac, and I was astonished at the time. I had assumed that older women were all illiterate like my paternal grandmother. Later it became so routine that I took literacy for granted as her natural ability — I never even thought to ask why.

During the 2018 Spring Festival, our family gathered at my grandmother’s house for the reunion dinner. My grandfather mentioned that the old brass hot pot had been tricked out of the family by a villager for 200 yuan, who now used it as an antique display piece. This year, a newly purchased copper-plated hot pot would serve the guests. After all, the original one had been handcrafted by my great-grandfather. Everyone sighed with regret. It was then that I heard the elders share scattered fragments of our family’s past. I remembered a childhood incident of eating at my great-grandfather’s house with an extraordinarily heavy pair of silver chopsticks — it clearly had a story behind it. So I pieced together the family narrative, combining it with the historical context. Let me start with my grandmother’s side — her stories are richer.

My grandmother’s maiden name is Xu. During the Republican era (1930s), the Xu family ran a timber business in Chongqing. Chongqing was situated on a crucial waterway, and from the 1920s and 30s, the city expanded rapidly, once earning the nickname “Little Shanghai.” Urban construction required massive amounts of lumber, and the tide of the times carried the Xu family to prosperity. My grandmother’s mother (my great-grandmother) was the pampered daughter of a wealthy Chongqing family, raised in luxury. After marrying into the Xu family, she maintained her ladylike ways — she never lifted a finger. The family business was thriving, and in his moment of triumph, my great-grandfather also took a second wife, maintaining a respectable household.

My grandmother was born in Chongqing in 1938. She already had an older brother by then, but her birth didn’t bring much joy to the family. That year, the defeat of government forces allowed the flames of war to finally reach the provisional capital. Japanese bombers circled over Chongqing every few days, and the constant shelling filled the family with panic.

The war didn’t end as they had hoped. Years passed, and the smoke of battle showed no sign of clearing. Business was like walking on a knife’s edge — staying alive was more important. The Xu family planned to retreat to their hometown for safety, while some members stayed in Chongqing to watch over the business. My great-grandmother’s parents tried to dissuade their daughter from following the Xu family to the countryside, but she went anyway for the sake of her young children.

The great-grandfather’s journey home became a remarkable spectacle, one that my grandmother still remembers vividly today. In the 1940s, the fiat currency was rapidly depreciating. For refugees like the Xu family, it was practically worthless. Although they had converted as much wealth as possible into boxes of gold and silver bullion, they still had a huge pile of paper money to carry. The masters and mistresses rode in sedan chairs, family members carried boxes of silver coins and treasures, and servants hauled several baskets of paper money on their backs as they returned to their hometown. This remains the proudest moment of my grandmother’s life.

Just as young grandmother and her family returned home in glory, my grandfather, three years older, was walking along muddy field paths, following his father to the town of Jianxing, thirty li away. Jianxing in the Republican era, like today, was a transportation hub and the largest market town for dozens of li around. My grandfather’s father (my great-grandfather on that side) rented a storefront there and opened an ironworks, smelting iron and copper to make brass hot pots, iron woks, hoes, plows, and other tools. My grandfather didn’t understand how important this trip was — after going twice, he just went back home to tend cattle. Meanwhile, his younger brother (my second great-uncle) was kept by his father to learn the craft.

After the Xu family returned to their hometown, they bought vast tracts of farmland and became prominent local gentry overnight. My great-grandmother continued her carefree life, and even my grandmother grew up unable to do farm work or even distinguish the five grains. This idyll didn’t last long. In late 1949, Nanchong was liberated, and the Xu family’s good days came to an end. When the campaign to “strike landlords and distribute land” arrived, the family fell into decline. The Xu family members who had stayed in Chongqing lost all contact with their rural relatives.

Times changed. My great-grandfather closed the storefront in town and moved the ironworks to a smaller town six li from home. Though business declined, being closer to family brought its own warmth. My grandfather’s youngest brother (my youngest great-uncle) later also became a blacksmith, eventually surpassing the second great-uncle in skill and becoming the family’s main pillar. Around 1956, during the public-private partnership campaign, the great-grandfather’s ironworks became state property, and both the second and youngest great-uncles became formal employees of the state-run iron mold factory.

The Xu family’s decline created the opportunity for a cattle-herding boy to marry a lady of refinement. My grandmother’s dowry was a beautifully carved eight-immortals table with intricate openwork design — it sits in the old house to this day. In return, my great-grandfather gifted them a brass hot pot he had hammered by hand. After marrying my grandfather, my grandmother slowly learned to do household work. My grandfather took on all the heavy farm labor for the family — a lifetime of toil that continues even now.

In the late 1950s, during the Great Leap Forward famine, my great-grandmother on the Xu side couldn’t bring herself to eat tree roots and bark, and she starved to death.

The second great-uncle didn’t live to see retirement — his son took over his position at the iron mold factory. He later suffered mental illness due to alcoholism and passed away in 2016. His son, possessing mold-making skills, found a factory job in Guangdong after being laid off in the 1990s, and currently earns about 15,000 yuan per month. The youngest great-uncle worked until the iron mold factory went bankrupt. After that, he built a multi-story building on the factory’s former land and now enjoys his retirement pension in his golden years.

Among the Xu family’s descendants, I only know one — he currently works as a barber in Chengdu. My younger brother is a regular customer and gets charged only 5 yuan, while other customers pay 20. I’ve told my brother to tip more, or at least go less often.