Grandad’s Farming Proverbs
I. The Kitchen: A fire needs a hollow centre; a person needs a solid heart
The old country house was still relatively new at the time. It was a two-storey house the whole family had built for my father’s wedding. The second floor served as the bridal chamber, but it lay empty most of the year. Grandfather, Grandmother and I all lived on the ground floor. The kitchen stood separately within the courtyard, tucked into the south-east corner of the front yard. It was a tiny structure with a green-tiled roof and a wooden door, covering less than ten square metres.
Stepping through the kitchen door, you would first see a curved, half-metre-high wall running along the southern side. Open to the east and facing the stove, the space inside this low wall was kept specifically for storing fuel. Though referred to as firewood, actual wood was scarce; it was mostly crop stalks—rice straw, rapeseed stems, soybean stalks, cotton stalks, sesame stalks… All were patiently tied into bundles shaped like small, oval pillows and stacked neatly. In my part of the countryside, we once ate differently across the four seasons, and the fuel we burned varied accordingly. The ash from the stove would later be returned to the fields; the turning of the seasons itself seemed to cycle through that hearth. Only later, with the passage of time, did I come to understand how much of a farming family’s joy and sorrow, hardship and grievance, revolved around this small stove.
Grandpa’s day began with lighting the fire. A lean, slightly hunched little old man, he would squat on a low stool before the stove, strike a match—sometimes needing two—and first set alight a small handful of fluffy straw to catch the flame. Only then would he properly stuff the firebox with stalks. Roughly two bundles were enough to bring a large pot of water to a boil. Next came drawing water with a ladle, scoop after scoop, until the four water jugs were filled one by one. I loved to press my head and ears close to the stove’s edge, listening to the water sloshing into the jugs. The sound itself felt warmly comforting, shifting from a crisp ring to a deeper rumble, and it was most satisfying just as they neared full. Above the stove, a clear glass panel let in the light. The rising plumes of white steam drifting through it pulled back the curtain on the day’s three meals.
I tried to mimic Grandpa at stoking the fire. While he was off washing vegetables by the well, in my misguided attempt to help I packed the firebox completely full. Predictably, the flames died, and the kitchen filled with choking smoke. Grandpa laughed and chided me, saying I was smothering the stove—a serious offence in his book. He then cleared the ashes, relit the fire, and murmured, “Fire needs a hollow centre to burn well, and people need a solid heart to win favour.” He explained to me: only a fire with space within burns fiercely, and only a person with sincerity wins affection. I was still none the wiser, but I watched his technique closely, pondering over his words about the “hollow fire.”
From that day on, I spent even more time by the stove. I started by watching the flames, then moved on to feeding them, and eventually, I learned to light the fire myself. In those early days of learning to read, I’d often guess difficult characters by just looking at half of them. It was much the same with Grandpa’s proverb: I only ever truly learned half of it. I grew adept at managing the fire, but mastering the art of being a sincere person remained a far harder task.
It was only after I grew up that I heard my eldest aunt reminisce. In her youth, when times were hard and the children craved snacks, Grandpa would mix this “Fairy Water” to pacify them. Back then, they didn’t even have sesame oil; the recipe he gave me was already an upgraded version. Yet MSG was indispensable. Whether it was fairy water or an everyday dish, he would always pinch a few crystals in. His devotion to MSG chronicled the hunger for meat and umami that characterised his formative years. When I reached adulthood, I once tried to bin the family’s MSG jar. Grandpa was thoroughly miffed, muttering, “Even after I’m dead, I’ll still want my MSG!”
The kitchen was small, quiet and unadorned. Grandfather mostly worked there in silence, treating every ingredient and piece of crockery like a treasure, as though they were part of the family. Having endured prolonged hunger, he knew the true worth of three reliable meals a day. His affection for me was generous, though never shown through lavish meats. Instead, the moment the baby greens just pushed through the soil, he would gladly harvest them, quickly blanch them, and stir them into my noodles. Those tiny sprouts were no bigger than a fingernail, looking like little green hearts—so tender and endearing.
In those days, he moved busily about the kitchen while I trailed behind, watching intently and taking in every detail. Without him teaching a single word, I quietly absorbed the rhythm and essentials of cooking. Years later, when I first took up the knife and ladle, what I pictured in my mind and mimicked with my hands was the image of Grandfather at work. A few simple home-style dishes, and their flavour turned out to be remarkably close to his. Now, whenever homesickness or longing for family strikes, I can turn to the kitchen for comfort.
II. The Main Hall: Rival neighbours in tending the fields, not in keeping the New Year
I have a visceral understanding of the “ascend” in “sitting at the main table”; the eight-immortals table was indeed so high and solid that a child literally had to climb up to it. The seating arrangements were strictly ordered by direction, gender, and age, with rigid observance of hierarchy and protocol. It was the adults’ table. Children were expected to keep their voices down, show proper respect, and watch out for errant chopsticks. Such respect was manifested in the boisterous banter of the male guests and the attentive ministrations of the women. I only remember sitting on the very edge of a long bench, swinging my legs with profound boredom. Fortunately, I sat right beside Grandfather. He would turn his chopsticks round to dip them in a little white liquor for me to sip. Whenever I scrunched up my face from the burn, he would find it endlessly amusing.
Grandfather remembered things differently. In his later years, both his faculties and his speech had grown unclear. He rarely had anything new to say when he saw me, yet he would often, as if suddenly remembering, start recounting how he used to take me to banquets. Those wedding and funeral feasts were usually hosted one per household. Men typically took their seats at the main tables, women worked alongside to help, and the children from each family were expected to take a bowl of rice and play off to the side. “You were never a proper girl from the start, with no sense of propriety or hierarchy,” he would say. “Such a tiny little thing, yet you’d squeeze and climb just to get up to the main table.” “Character shows early,” he’d add. As he spoke, his face would shift between mock exasperation and fond amusement. Finally, his trembling finger would point at me, and he’d sigh, “You and your ways…” before falling silent once more.
For my part, I never grew fond of the eight-immortals table. My allegiance was to our small square table and its matching “No. 2 bench”. The No. 2 bench was a miniature version of the long bench, yet slightly taller than a child’s stool. In any case, that was what our family called it. I found it wonderfully comfortable; my feet could touch the floor, and my elbows could rest easily on the table. Grandparents could easily carry the No. 2 benches to the well for washing vegetables and dishes, or even lug them round to the back door to sit and chat with the villagers. And when we each sat on a No. 2 bench gathered round the small dining table for a meal, we all seemed to be at the exact same height.The No. 2 bench was our family’s bench of equality.
When I was a boy, if a grain of rice slipped onto my shirt or the table while I ate, Grandfather would rarely reprimand me. Instead, he’d simply reach out, pinch it between his fingertips, and pop it into his own mouth. As I grew older and came to understand shame, I disliked the gesture. I learned to eat with care and thrift, and if I dropped rice, I’d hurry to pick it up myself. Years later, as an adult, I found myself in a similar situation: the bowl was only a third full, but I simply couldn’t eat another bite. Yet when a stray grain fell near the rim, habit took over—I pinched it up and put it in my mouth. Had anyone caught me at it, I would have turned crimson, my eyes stinging with shame. But in Grandfather’s telling, a single grain of rice from a farming household once carried the weight of Mount Sumeru.
Grandmother was born the daughter of a landowning family in a neighbouring town, with an older sister, two older brothers, and a younger brother of her own. When the war broke out and her family fled, she was left behind with a wet nurse. Overnight, she went from a pampered young miss to a child bride. Yet she was a fiercely determined woman. Upon reaching adulthood, she boldly broke off her engagement to her foster brother and set her sights on my Grandfather. To marry, they scraped together ten jin of rice, a bag of white sugar, and enough money for a single table of wedding banquet. They built their union from nothing. That first year, their scarce white rice was stretched only into thin porridge.
Grandfather pointed to the black-and-white portrait of my great-grandfather hanging high on the wall. The man in the photograph bore the refined features of a scholar and had once worked as a village accountant; I could see the strong family resemblance in Grandfather’s face. “Your wife used to say: compete with your neighbours in tending the fields, not in outspending them on the New Year.” He lived by this principle. He tended the soil with diligence and the crops with quiet respect, and in time, the world grew peaceful. Farmers were granted their own land; hard labour yielded harvests, and they slowly outlasted the lean years to enter an age of plenty where the festive seasons could finally be celebrated with surplus.
Yet peace gave way to change with startling speed, and the times shifted once more—he had already witnessed so many different eras. The soil’s yield was finite, and one’s ambitions had to bend to the turning of the age. The fields had once been his entire world, but he was forced to leave them behind to seek his fortune elsewhere. He took a cotton-picking bow to Nanjing, then carried a miner’s pick to the steppes of Inner Mongolia. He and Grandmother had to eke out a living and carve out a future for their children. In time, his daughter married and his son set up his own home. It was those years of bending over crops, pulling cotton, and hauling ore that stooped his spine, yet it was also that labour that built this house, where I was born.
In his sixties, he returned to the land, remaining a farmer to the end. Years of relentless toil had taken their toll, leaving his digestion frail and prone to illness. He was fiercely frugal with medicine, stretching three meals into one, and breaking every pill in half to stretch the supply. The eras he had weathered were etched into his frame and his digestion alike.
Grandma was fastidious, and at times rather fussy. She’d even correct the angle of Grandad’s broom as he swept the floor. One time, Grandad grew thoroughly exasperated. Catching me tittering quietly beside him, he threw down his broom in a huff, pointing first at Grandma and then at me. “What a life of hardship I’ve had,” he’d sigh. “And in my old age, I’m still stuck serving you two, young and old.” But say what he might, he’d always peel dried longan and brew a pot of longan tea for Grandma before bed, never forgetting the hardships of their younger years.
Every evening, Grandfather would wash my feet in the main hall. I sat on the No. 2 stool, he on a smaller one. At times he would tell me stories, ranging from the Japanese troops marching up the hills to the Eighth Route Army crossing the river. During the ‘communist wind’, he handed over the clan genealogy and stashed away imported yarn. The day before yesterday, our ancestors were still farming; yesterday, they had become fishermen. On the table stood a large No. 35 mantel clock, ticking along one step at a time—tick, tock, tick, tock. Grandfather began to teach me how to read the time. Fifteen minutes made a quarter; half past chimed once, one o’clock chimed once, two o’clock chimed twice… From the moment Grandfather taught me to read a clock, I grasped ‘time’, and with it came the past and the future.
That was in the twelfth lunar month. I had just begun primary school, and only Grandfather and I remained in the household. One evening, he returned from the street with sweet wine, pouring it into a large white porcelain bowl for me. He went off to busy himself in the kitchen, while I rested my chin on the table and sipped the sweet wine in delicate mouthfuls. I had only just learned the idiom ‘goose-feather snow’. Suddenly, a cold gust swept through. I turned to see heavy snow drifting down across the courtyard—it truly was snow like goose feathers. I watched, almost spellbound. Learning the words brought the scene to life; witnessing the scene gave the words their meaning. I gazed quietly for a moment before bursting out, ‘It’s snowing, it’s snowing!’, and ran to the kitchen to call Grandfather.
It is often said that ‘a man’s troubles begin the moment he learns to read.’ Yet before I was ten, the main hall was my ‘boundless world’, the outdoors was all ‘picturesque hills and clear streams’, and life held nothing to trouble me.
III. The Village: If you slack off when the chinaberry blooms, you’ll stamp your feet in regret when the smartweed flowers
Visiting relatives truly meant walking; he measured out the villages and towns we lived in with his footsteps, taking me along. Whenever I grew tired, he would carry me on his back. His back was curved, forming a rounded little hill that I could rest on quite securely. I would often fall asleep in the gentle swaying of his gait, only to wake up already back home.
Grandpa told me: People do pass away. When you die, you simply vanish, and then you turn into a big rooster, standing watch by the window of a loved one you can’t let go of, out in the night. That night may have been my first-ever bout of insomnia; I actually heard the mantel clock chime ten. Grandpa slept at the head of the bed, I at the foot. I clung to his shins with my arms and legs, staring out the window, constantly half-expecting to see the silhouette of a big rooster. I had only just learned to tell time, and so quickly I had been introduced to death. Death was a big rooster. Heartbroken, I wiped my tears onto the top of his foot.
Yet by the next day, all my worries were gone, and I went along to watch the funeral proceedings. The instrumental music, red firecrackers, yellow joss paper, white mourning clothes, the relatives’ wailing—which rose and fell almost like a song—were all, to a child’s eyes, merely a spectacle and a curiosity. And that red-brick house thereafter kept its wooden door locked; never again did I see anyone go in or out.
Later, my aunt would tease me, saying that Grandpa used to scare me, claiming that after he died he would turn into a ghost, crawl into my pencil case, follow me to school, hide inside my desk during lessons, and keep me company for the rest of my life. At the time, I cried and threw my pencil case, shouting that I didn’t want him.
Our house was at the village entrance. Just two or three hundred metres out of the village stood the primary school. By the fourth grade, students were consolidated into the central primary school in the town, which was only a three- or four-li bike ride. Grandpa urged me to study just as he urged the farming seasons. Whenever I procrastinated on my homework during winter and summer breaks, only to tearfully rush through it in the final days, Grandpa would laugh and scold: When the chinaberry blooms you shirk your work, when the smartweed blooms you stamp your feet in regret. Though I didn’t yet know what chinaberry or smartweed looked like, I caught the mockery in his words and stamped my feet all the angrier.
In the third and fourth grades, we began learning to write essays. The assigned topic was spring. It was indeed spring, with a fine drizzle falling, and I begged Grandpa to take me mountain climbing. He took a day off from the fields and planned the trip just for me. We walked so far and climbed so high that the Yangtze River lay right beneath us, and looking back, all I could see were rice paddies and scattered homes. Grandpa spoke of the great flood of ’98, how vast tracts of paddies were submerged into lakes, and how everyone—young, old, man and woman alike—carried sandbags day and night to reinforce the embankments. He pointed out our village to me, but I couldn’t spot it for the life of me; it looked so small and indistinct from up there, and I figured once I grew taller, I’d be able to see it.
I recited a poem by Li Bai to him. It was one every child in our part of the country knew by heart, for Li Bai had composed it right on this mountain. He laughed when he heard it, saying he was illiterate and wouldn’t understand a word of ancient poetry. There was a line in the poem: ‘The jade-green waters flow east and swirl back here.’ I loved that character ‘回’ (to return). I took his hand and said it was time to head home.
That summer when I was ten, I went to live with my parents in another province. Looking back, it felt as though I had fallen from the Peach Blossom Spring straight into the world of the Qin. Throughout my youth, I weathered many seasons of unsettled living and strained relations with others. Though I grew tall enough, the process of growing up itself felt exhausting. Back then I used to think: the Liuyang River flows into the Xiang, the Xiang into Dongting Lake, and Dongting Lake connects to the Yangtze. If I just followed the Yangtze, I could make my way back. When it came to choosing a university, I eventually settled on Nanjing. I was finally back on the banks of the Yangtze, closer to Grandpa and Grandma. They came to Nanjing in their youth seeking a livelihood; I came in my youth to study. From then on, weekends and long holidays meant I could regularly go home.
Even though high-speed rail has since connected the area, I mostly still cross the Yangtze from Nanjing, catch a coach from the north bank to the county town, transfer to a minibus back to the township, switch to a three-wheeled vehicle after getting off on the provincial road to reach the town centre, and then walk the rest of the way back to the village. The whole journey is a bumpy ride, crossing rivers and streams, passing through countless villages. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I properly committed those river and place names to memory, tracing back the routes they once walked. On these journeys home, I go over the history again and again: my own history, Grandpa’s history, our family’s history, the land’s history. Trip after trip, local administrative boundaries have shifted, and certain place and river names have quietly faded away.
The village primary school I attended in my childhood has been converted into a nursing home. Where it once took in school-aged children from the surrounding hamlets, it now cares for widowed and solitary elders. The care home became a new social hub; for the first few years it was quite lively, with mahjong tables set out every day. Grandfather often went there to play, gradually adopting more of an observational stance. He found the atmosphere brisk, the fees reasonable, and appreciated the communal dining hall. He said it was a pity he had sons, daughters, and company, and so lacked the qualifications to be admitted. For a while, it was as if he faced a crisis of old age, feeling that it would actually be better to have no children and no earthly ties. Whenever things went against his wishes, he would declare, “Then I shall move into the nursing home!” But later, the number of residents dwindled even there, and he stopped going. He would simply take his folding stool, sit by the back door, and occasionally spot someone passing by, exchange a greeting, and then return to silence.
The house was being renovated once more, the courtyard walls refreshed. Refurbishment, after all, is also about reinforcing what was already there. Amid this steady reinforcement, Grandfather grows older, while Father steps into the foreground. The house, and those who dwell within it, are beginning to bear Father’s name. A new kitchen and toilet were erected over the small vegetable patch in the courtyard, and the old kitchen slowly fell into disuse. The farmland has been leased out, leaving just two fen of land to grow a few vegetables. I wander idly through the village. Many gates remain firmly shut; the once-vibrant presence of the traditional family halls is nowhere to be seen.
I walked over to the old house belonging to the neighbour to the south, where a corner of the brick-red wall had already crumbled. Only then did I recognise the large tree at her doorstep: it was indeed a chinaberry tree. And those smartweed flowers were once a common sight by ponds and along field bunds. When the chinaberry blooms, the signs of spring are gone; when the smartweed flowers by the water’s edge, the autumn wind begins to blow. Thus comes the old adage of spring’s leisure and autumn’s urgency, and why the tardy farmer ends up stamping his feet.
I used to think he understood nothing. All the sorrows, loves, and resentments I weathered later on were things I had no way of sharing with him. Then, one day, he truly could no longer hear. The loss of hearing is both the noisy clamour of the decline and the heavy silence of its aftermath. Only then did I grasp what “stamping your feet in regret when the knotweed blooms” truly means. It is not merely about farming or schooling; in every moment of our lives, there are seasons that pass us by, and consequences we must eventually swallow.
IV. Graveyard: Wheat Ears at Qingming, Rice Ears at the Summer Solstice
Grandpa used to say: “You see wheat spikes at Qingming, and rice spikes at the Summer Solstice.” But back in my rural days, winters were mostly given over to planting rapeseed. The town had its own oil press, so families would send seeds ahead to be crushed for household oil. What you actually see at Qingming, therefore, is rapeseed. From afar, it stretches in a sweeping sea of yellow, occasionally touched by streaks of green. The village cemetery is ringed by these rapeseed plots. The tiled roofs of the tomb chapels half-emerge, a quiet stillness lingering even within the seasonal bustle. Now and again, from inside the yellow blossoms, the wailing chants of elderly women rise, so achingly beautiful it is hard to bear. Folk songs were never common in my countryside; only during the Qingming season, among the golden flowers and grave mounds, do you still catch echoes of the ancient folk airs.
Grandfather never objected to bringing me, his young granddaughter, to the graves during the festivals. In truth, visiting the dead was simply another form of calling on relatives, only the kin in question were the departed. As he fed the flames with paper money, he called out the names of his parents, his wife’s parents, his grandparents, a host of aunts and uncles, his elder brothers, and his two sisters. He was the fourth child in his family, with three elder brothers. There had been two elder sisters too, but the household was so poor that the girls were given away to other families as soon as they were born. He had a long list in his mind, names he recited slowly. I stood beside him, poking the fire with a stick and bearing in mind the old adage that ‘a fire needs a hollow centre’ to burn well. Grandfather would always remind me not to scatter the paper too much, or the departed below would not receive it all. Finally, he took a small handful of paper, set it alight, and scattered it across the plain, saying, ‘Let the wandering souls and lost spirits come and take their share too.’ He had lived through war and famine, and had seen all too many lives reduced to wandering shades and restless ghosts.
Grandmother used to warn me: never after midday should I take the shortcut along the path to the Hall of Rest. Then she would shake her head, wave her hands dismissively, and fall silent, reluctant to say more. I, however, was fearless. Not only did I take the path, but I would also stop to make out the names and dates carved on the headstones. It was only when I came of age that I learned some of those lost spirits were contemporaries of my own; they were the ones who never drew breath, never received a name. I stood bewildered for a moment. Amidst that vast sorrow, an uneasy sense of relief welled up within me. In that instant, I finally heeded my grandmother’s warning and stopped cutting across the path.
The last time I went to the graveyard with Grandfather, it was to visit the plot he had set aside for himself. It was after Qingming. By then, the countryside was already dominated by wheat fields, dotted with rapeseed. There were genuinely fewer farmers these days; growing wheat required less labour, thanks to machine sowing and mechanical harvesting. The neighbouring village had long been demolished in its entirety. Its name survived only in navigation systems and conversation, while its homes and vegetable plots had been swallowed up, forming one broad, unbroken expanse of wheat. The wind no longer threaded through gates and lanes; instead, it swept across the rippling wheat, turning to a tide that stretched all the way to the river. My village seemed to float adrift in that sea of grain. Above, the homes of the living had scattered; below, the resting places of the dead lay silent.
Grandfather walked slowly ahead, leaning on his cane. In old age, one’s steps grow shallow; the soles of his shoes dragged lightly against the ground, making a soft scrape with every step—shuffle, scrape—shuffle, scrape—while the cane struck the earth with a short, crisp tap. We moved silently forward in that rhythm of two long beats and one short.
Late spring sees the weeds and undergrowth running riot, and the path into the graveyard was once again swallowed whole. He cleared a way with his cane, turning back now and then to warn us to watch our step. Bedstraw vines snagged our ankles, wheat heads brushed our knees, and rapeseed pods burst with a soft pop beside our ears. The mounds rose and fell like gentle hills, marking the boundary between the living world and the one that had passed.
Now past fifty, my father had gradually taken over the family affairs in the countryside from Grandfather—restoring the old house, and washing the bones to relocate the graves. He did it all with quiet conviction, believing that both the realm of the living and the realm of the dead ought to be orderly and whole.
The graves of Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother originally lay in the fields down by the lower village, but had now been moved to the communal burial ground and marked with new headstones. The family names were carved in clear rows. I found my own name among them, yet it felt strange to me, as though it no longer belonged to the person I had become.
Beside it lay a smaller square of concrete, holding two dark, square pits side by side, like a pair of eyes gazing into the void. This was where Grandfather and Grandmother would one day rest, the earth lying silent and waiting.
Grandfather had me pay respects to our ancestors. He called himself a man waiting for his time to come, a wandering soul in the dead of night. He told me plainly: the next time we met, it would be here, at his grave.
It was nearly the last time we spoke while he remained lucid, a solitary walk shared in quiet companionship. Over the following years, his and Grandma’s ability to manage their daily lives grew increasingly feeble, until they finally went to live with their children in distant towns. He left behind the familiar soil and village, shuttling between his son’s and daughter’s homes. In the city, the rhythm by which he had once measured his days through walking had lost its purpose. Compounded by failing hearing and cognitive decline, he slipped out alone a few times, crossing provinces and rivers, simply trying to walk his way back.
By day he walked with his body; by night he wandered in spirit. All he ever wanted was to return home.
When Grandfather’s stroke came on, I was at his side. His hearing had failed him, his speech gone. In a brief moment of lucidity, he struggled to open his eyes, merely gazing at me, helpless and pleading. I stroked his hand, then his face, and found myself speechless too, my heart swelling with endless remorse and silent vows. Suddenly, he let out a long, sorrowful groan; his breath reversed and blood surged up, pouring out every trial and endurance he had known in his life. My hands cupped his clotted blood. It was early spring in 2022. An older friend had once counselled me: endurance is a virtue. Right then, I felt the physical substance of that virtue: hot with the metallic tang of blood, heavy and thick. It filled my palms to overflowing. It could bear no more.
Finally, an ambulance took him from Father’s home to a hospital in the city, then transferred him to the county town, and at last brought him back to the village. At the end of his days, he returned home in a coma. The house was in the midst of another bout of renovation and redecoration; the interior was a complete shambles, and the scaffolding still clung to the outside walls. Villagers pitched in overnight to clear out a clean room for him—the very same room I had shared with him as a child, where I had first known insomnia, lying awake imagining the big rooster beyond the window. Here it became clear to me that death is in the progressive tense: unfolding from the moment of his birth, from the moment I lay awake imagining that rooster, from the moment he returned to this room in his coma.
He was such a fine man: virtuous, kind-hearted, and woven into the fabric of his community. The neighbourhood heard the news; everyone came to have a look and call out his name. They shook their heads in sorrow, counting on their fingers, remarking that yet another old soul was leaving us, but how could it be someone so remarkably good. Lay Buddhist devotees, older women from our village and the next, arrived unsummoned, forming a makeshift palliative care brigade. They brought their own bedding, rice, flour and greens, allowing themselves no rest night or day, clustering round the bedside to chant “Amitabha Buddha”.
The family was already utterly at a loss. The chanting of “Amitabha” became a directive, a takeover, a wall. The Buddhist devotees kept relatives at a distance, forbade tears at the bedside, fearing any lingering attachment in his final hours. As they sang, they gently urged him on: “Sons, daughters and grandchildren are all emptiness, old Buddha, let us be, go to the Western Paradise.” In his last few days, Grandfather could take neither food nor water, only gasping into his pillow. He had spent a lifetime enduring hunger, only to find himself at the end, having to make the journey to the “Western Paradise” on an empty stomach. Father went to collect the rent from his fields and slipped the cash under Grandfather’s pillow. My two aunts spent the night in devout solemnity, holding back their grief, chanting prayers and blessings. I found it unbearable; I paced outside the house, wandered out into the fields, and simply let my tears water the crops.
My eldest aunt’s voice was thick with grief: “The old man was gentle and dutiful throughout his life, his heart always with his children.” But I remembered that just last month, Grandfather had been looking at a photo on his phone—a digital copy of an old picture of Great-Grandfather—when he suddenly broke into childlike sobs, weeping that his own mother had passed away when he was young, leaving not a single photograph behind, “how could she be so utterly cruel.” He lived his whole life without a mother’s love, yet held boundless tenderness and compassion for every one of his younger generations. We all crowded round his second stool; he had a way of making every child feel they were his particular favourite. Grandfather, who was “dutiful and gentle all his days,” raised a granddaughter who was “nothing like that from childhood,” yet he made me feel entirely favoured.
At 3:52 a.m., Grandfather passed away. Tears were permitted, but before the wailing could settle, arrangements were immediately set in motion for the mourning shrine, the funeral feast, cancelling his household registration and cremation. There were hardly any elderly folk left in the village to oversee the funeral rites. The ceremony was cobbled together, adding bits here and patching it up there , so bewildered it seemed solemn, so bustling it seemed frantic. It was the first time in my memory that our main hall and courtyard were crowded with eight-person trestle tables. Everyone was rushing about; overt grief was out of place, everything drowned out by the continuous banquets, the clatter of mahjong tiles and the pop of firecrackers. I was an adult but unmarried daughter in this place, neither host nor guest, assigned neither to the dining table nor the kitchen. I was constantly scrutinised, my every move met with advice and correction. Gazing across at Grandfather’s black-and-white portrait in the mourning hall, I finally accepted he was truly gone.
When the funeral procession had wound down, custom dictated that filial sons and grandchildren must not retrace their steps, but must instead circle the village and fields scattering rice and wheat seeds. One of the village elders remarked: “The granddaughter need not come along.” My brother heard this and looked at me, a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. I swallowed my response, finding I had neither the resolve nor the strength to argue. He turned and left, falling into step with Father, walking round the village and inheriting the mantle of the “filial son and virtuous grandchild.” Between us lay the farmland and the village, divided by a newly rendered concrete courtyard wall.
Elders used to chide me for being so fond of drilling into ox horns, telling me that nothing in the world is ever perfectly fair. I always felt that the ox horn itself was a flawed construct; I didn’t just want to bore into it, I wanted to pierce right through it. I was once so brimming with defiance and ambition.
And now I stand amidst the headstones, downcast and dazed, little better than a wandering spirit. The hometown has become a foreign land; a daughter has no hometown to call her own. Yet I felt only a hollow numbness, devoid of that breathless shock or sleepless turmoil. And within that numbness, flakes of cotton suddenly took shape, drifting through my chest and lungs, soft and lingering. I crouched on the ground, hoping to pick up a pencil case I had once thrown away.
More villages have vanished. Small plots have been merged into larger fields, and countless streams cut in half and filled in to make way for roads. The circulation of land lies in merging; the circulation of people lies in scattering. It was along this very road that I departed, carrying a sack of lost cotton and a quilt still waiting to be fluffed.
All illustrations in this article were photographed by the author.
Editor: Wang Hao