Sun-Drying Winter

I. I. First Snow

It was already the eleventh lunar month, and the town had its first snow — a bitter cold snap not even the weather forecast had anticipated. We had only just ended the temporary controls a week prior; shops and deliveries were gradually reopening, yet whole-area nucleic acid (test) sweeps continued, and venue QR codes had now reached the villages and townships. I cooped myself indoors, buying up groceries and staples online only while the courier window remained open. After several rounds of lockdown, the sudden raids had become routine, and stockpiling food had taken on the feel of an arms race.

I was half possessed, my nerves in a delirium, nagging Mother without respite: the fridge and cupboards must never be empty — we had to plan past the New Year. The cardboard boxes from deliveries grew ever higher. The fridge and cupboards were stuffed full just as I had wished, yet my heart still raced — what if a parcel was held up in transit or subjected to disinfection? What then?

My mother, however, showed no sign of alarm. Instead she remarked that the local green and red chillies were in season and the price had dropped — just the time to make chilli sauce. She had always been like this, fond of saying, “Deal with each thing when its time comes,” which meant eating what the season called for. Now that winter had arrived, after the chilli sauce came fried meat balls, today cured meat, tomorrow cured fish. She followed the almanac of seasons as ever, only this year the quantities were heavier, as though to ease my nerves. I gradually grew calm and stopped fussing. I liked to squeeze into the kitchen and watch her lay out the ingredients — all the care in a person’s heart, all the worth in what the earth provides, gathered here in this small, humble hearth.

In winter one must fry meat balls — ready to eat, keeping well, and a token of reunion’s good fortune. The finished balls are rested in the pot’s used frying oil; in the cool indoors, the oil congeals into a goose-yellow paste. In the morning, over a bowl of congee, one digs out a ball and buries it in the bowl, letting the fat and meat fragrance slowly melt and bloom. Then there is pickled mustard greens with meat balls — another fixture, fit for the proper table. The Spring Festival before last, when staying put was the call of the day and I remained in Beijing, the family posted a batch of fried meat balls to me across the miles, a way of remembering reunion from afar.

This time Mother bought five jin of minced pork and, unawares, over-salted the filling. The next day she hauled back several great blocks of fresh tofu to balance it — tofu was cheap, she reasoned, and would lend a tender softness. Still too salty. I went downstairs and added three more jin of fresh meat. It was the old tale: too much water, add flour; too much flour, add water. In the end the filling grew and grew, the balls went faster and faster, big pots gave way to small pots. Stepping out to look — good heavens, we truly could eat these well past the New Year.

In the Anhui region north of the Yangtze, the method for curing pork is beautifully simple. A long slab of pork belly needs no washing. Ten jin of meat, five liang of salt (roughly five kilos to two hundred and fifty grams), rubbed evenly top and bottom. It is then set in a basin, turned every three days, washed clean after a week, and hung to dry in the cold wind on clear days. In about a fortnight it is ready to eat, sliced as needed. Once spring turns warm and the meat is prone to yellowing and spoilage, it moves to the freezer for storage. Duck legs, chicken gizzard, silver carp, pig’s trotters — all are cured in the same way.

The wisdom of the seasons truly does quiet the tremors of the present.

II. Warm Winter

Another week passed before Mother finally threaded cords through the cured pork and hung it up. I decanted several jars of the chilli sauce we had made at home, meaning to post them to relatives and friends far away. But a call came from the courier, apologising: they could no longer collect from door to door. A resident who had tested positive on the nucleic acid (test) had once stopped to eat at a roadside stall. Seized by alarm, the town fell silent once more, and everything ground to a halt.

On 6 December, metal sheeting began going up around the perimeter of our compound. On 7 December, the New Ten Measures were issued, and nationwide lockdown restrictions were lifted. On 8 December, the sheeting came back down.

All those new norms were so swiftly consigned to the dusty archives of history. The impermanence of worldly affairs was, it turned out, the very constancy concealed within “common sense” and ‘the new normal.’ Slogans, barriers, and nucleic acid (test) booths, still gleaming brand-new wherever one looked in public spaces, had already become relics. And we, ringed about by relics, were swept up into a new tsunami and carried over the crest.

After the bitter cold came a warm spell: the snow melted, the haze cleared, and our town north of the Yangtze was blessed with days of unbroken clear skies. At last I packed away the autumn quilts and throws, and from the very bottom of the wardrobe drew out the thick winter quilts meant to carry us through to spring. While this open, sunlit weather held, I hauled a quilt out to the balcony to air in the sun. Then, for the first time in an age, I walked downstairs, out of the building, and out of the compound.

The light was golden, and — would you believe it — every household had come out to dry its quilts. Before the door, beneath the windows, beside the roadside trees, in garden courtyards — quilts in every pattern and hue, solid and serene in the daylight. With days of unbroken sun, it became a daily rite: everyone drying, household after household, as though to air out all the fear and darkness of those past weeks.

Besides quilts and laundry, there were pickled vegetables and cured provisions: soy-cured fish, salt-cured pork, sausages, dried radish, pickled mustard greens, duck legs, chicken gizzard, pig’s skin… They set the scene alongside the quilts and freshly laundered clothes, caring nothing for whether it was a public park or a private courtyard — filling the streets and every available surface, no boundary between yours and mine, no barriers left standing. The most essential things of human life — clothes and food, warmth and fullness — spread themselves out, grand and weightless, beneath the open sun. So the bustle and abundance of worldly life could be, after all, simply this homely, ordinary good.

Each day on my walk I took in these small winter scenes, feeling the strange grace of having survived the ordeal — joyful and aching by turns. Here in this place that is half village, half town, farming families once toiled the land; now the working folk are away in distant cities. Ordinary households, seeking only warmth and a full belly. Not this present alone; since the dawn of ages, it has been thus.

I went out to the balcony to gather in our quilt and buried my face in it. So soft, so vast — it could hold my tears and all my hurts, and grant me, for a while, the grace of mere survival.

III. The Twelfth Moon

In the blink of an eye the twelfth moon was upon us. Mother and I fell ill one after the other, both positive on the antigen test. Fortunately, we could now recuperate at home, our food and medicine well stocked, my heart steady and at ease. Truly, a few nights of fevered sweat had burned away years of deep-lying cold. When Mother’s symptoms first eased and her appetite returned a little, she immediately could not suppress her craving — she crept out to the balcony, cut a small piece of cured pork, sliced it into thin pieces, and steamed them alongside the rice. The timing was just right: the first mouthful of salted freshness of this winter.

By the time we went out again, the world had shifted beyond recognition. Grandmother contracted a severe infection; I was admitted to the hospital to watch over her. Then Grandfather reached his final hours, and Mother went down to the village to be by his side.

I remember in late spring, when Mother and I went down to the village to cut wild water celery. It had been just after another round of controls had ended. She crouched by the reed bed, her sickle reaching ever further out, crop after crop — almost greedy in her gathering. Only, spring had passed, and the celery had already bolted, the stalks thick and fibrous, tough as sinew. She seemed to bear it lightly, tipping the whole armful of wild celery back into the ditch with a sigh: “All things must grow old.” I laughed that she saw things so clearly — and yet, month after month, she dyed her white hair black.

In the end Grandfather let out one long sigh, and yellow paper was laid over his face. Mother’s black hair had let slip its white roots beneath; before the sound of her tears had even subsided, she was already busy with the funeral. The banquet ran hot and heavy; drums and wind instruments blared. The human heart was both clamorous and still. I finally made my way home. In the kitchen basin, dirty dishes sat in piles, not yet washed. I opened the pantry cupboard — a small bowl of cured pork, its fat congealed into a thick white layer, cold to the touch.

The year was drawing to its close, the very last stretch. In the fields, wheat shoots were just turning green; the streets bustled with New Year goods. Fireworks and firecrackers sounded day after day — there were weddings, and there were funerals. This year in the countryside, funerals were especially numerous; yellow paper fetched a steep price.

The country folk have a saying: “The year is hard to bear, the heart is hard to bear, yet bear it you must. The four seasons turn in their round; what comes against you, accept it in stride.” I do not understand, and I have not the strength to accept it in stride. How does one scrape through a winter like this?

But the sun is still this good; the pickled vegetables and drying meat keep their busy round. I tell myself, I tell myself: nourish the body, stockpile conscience and courage. When the cold is spent and spring returns — I shall see you all again.

All images in this article are provided by the author.

Editor: Wang Hao