Life Is Like a Journey

I must have been about five years old then. My hazy memories start from that time.

My father hadn’t yet traveled far for work, but my mother had already gone to Guangdong. Those were the peak years of the migrant labor wave — massive numbers of workers from central and western provinces were flowing to the southeastern coastal regions. When I was two, someone from my grandmother’s village returned from Guangzhou and said it was easy to earn money out there. So she joined the same factory as her fellow villagers. To prevent my father from spending recklessly, her wages were sent to my grandmother for safekeeping. Back then, train travel wasn’t nearly as convenient as it is now. The journey from our hometown to Guangdong started from Chongqing — you could either endure two days in a stuffy cargo train, or take a ship through the un-dammed Three Gorges of the Yangtze to Hubei, then transfer to a train. The journey was arduous, so migrant workers rarely came home. I hadn’t seen my mother in three years, and seeing her again would take another two. Of course, at that age, I didn’t know how long the wait would be — just that waiting was what I had to do.

My desire for my mother’s return was simple. It wasn’t because I compared myself with other kids and felt the absence of maternal love. My playmates and I were all free-range kids in the village — it seemed none of us had parents, so nobody cared about who had a mom or dad. Instead, it was my grandmother (I called her “popo”) who, whenever I misbehaved, would sternly warn me that my mother wouldn’t bring me toys when she came back. What a terrifying and irrefutable threat! So during those years — and for a long time after — I was basically a well-behaved kid. Aside from playing in the mud, I never committed any mischievous deeds like stealing chickens or ducking ducks. I earned an excellent reputation among the village elders. Every time they watched the other kids raiding the village entrance like a guerrilla force, they’d always nod sagely and deliver their measured verdict on me: “This damn kid isn’t destructive at all!” A masterful compliment, really. I couldn’t exactly retort, “You old man talk pretty smooth!” — that would’ve earned me another scolding. So I bit my tongue and endured it. And as the strategic observer for my buddies’ village guerrilla campaigns, I never had the habit of snitching on them — a true industry conscience among my peers.

My father is a carpenter — his main work is building houses and making furniture. Whether carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, or stonemasons, they were all collectively known as “craftsmen.” Throughout Chinese history, having a trade has always meant holding a bowl that won’t shatter — not made of iron, perhaps, but enough to keep you from starving. Doing craftwork during the agricultural off-season beat sitting at home watching the seedlings grow. Aside from the occasional academic who got into high school or vocational school, most young men in the village apprenticed under a master. And those who made it to high school shouldn’t get too excited about escaping farm work — the university acceptance rate in the 1980s was no better than the imperial examination system back in the day. After high school, you’d likely end up as a craftsman of some kind — in this case, a “teaching craftsman.” In the 1960s and 70s, teachers were ranked even lower than stonemasons in the social hierarchy — second to last, just above professional beggars. Chairman Mao himself affectionately called them “Stinking Old Ninth.” In the 80s, becoming a teacher was something to be grateful for. Because the brutally strict university acceptance rate left high school graduates in an awkward position, some forward-thinking young people made the smart choice of enrolling in vocational schools to learn technical skills. My father was one of them — except he failed the entrance exam two years running and ended up apprenticing under a master anyway. In traditional China, apprentices didn’t pay tuition, and masters didn’t pay wages — the apprenticeship ended when the apprentice was ready to go independent. During those years, my father traveled around his hometown and beyond doing carpentry work, venturing as far as Pengxi. In the blink of an eye, he turned 23 — marriage age. A matchmaker in the village introduced him to my mother. My grandfather said my father was a craftsman and my mother knew tailoring, so their life together wouldn’t be too bad. And so, she married him.