Qingqing’s beauty is universally acknowledged.
She was attending a high school in the county town. In her class were so many city girls who were dressed in trendy clothes every day. Qingqing was from the countryside and didn’t have the kind of money to spend on clothes. Yet all the teachers and male students agreed that Qingqing was the “school flower.” Her beauty was natural and pure: her face, her slender figure, the long and rich braids cascading behind her back, and above all, her quiet and simple personality—nobody could top that.
At 19, Qingqing graduated from high school and returned to her home village. Right away match-makers came knocking. The most noticeable of the suitors was Zhishou, son of the local town commissioner. Zhishou asked the match-maker to deliver a passionate letter, saying he had been fond of her for a long time and had been waiting for her to graduate from high school. If Qingqing liked, Zhishou promised, he would arrange through his powerful father for her to work in the town’s “Family Planning Office.” Zhishou had been two grades above Qingqing and had been working at the town’s Department of Land ever since high school graduation. Now he is officially a government civil service employee. His matchmaker added: So many girls in town fight to be the town commissioner’s daughter-in-law, but Zhishou has his eyes on you only!
Qingqing’s mother said: “You’re 19 now. Old enough to start thinking about this.”
Then a classmate of Qingqing came to see her. She was going to Guangzhou to look for work and asked if Qingqing would want to go with her. Qingqing wasn’t sure. The classmate said: “You want to be stuck in the countryside for the rest of your life, with all that learning and knowledge bursting inside you? Let’s go and see the world so we won’t have any regrets. He who doesn’t travel will never make a name for himself. Remember?” Qingqing bought the argument.
So she went to Guangzhou and found a job at a toy company. She worked a three-shift rotation and by the end of the month was paid 600 yuan. She was so thrilled when holding the money she made for the first time.
During the second month the boss, rich and smartly dressed, called Qingqing to his office and said to her: “Now I know for the first time what ‘Lotus Flower Blossoming From Water’ means.” The look in his eyes as he said this made Qingqing afraid. Then the boss said: “I’ll pay you 5,000 yuan a month.”
Qingqing gathered enough courage to say: Not all girls would throw away anything just for money.
So Qinging left the toy company.
She was disappointed and felt keenly the lyrics she knew so well: “The outside world is so colorful and so helpless.”
Qingqing used that month’s wage to buy a train ticket home.
When she got off the train in the local town she ran into Zhishou. He looked so handsome. Qingqing felt something warm inside her and blushed.
Zhishou nodded to her slightly and went on his way.
Two months had passed since Qingqing came home, but not many match-makers came knocking on the door.
Qingqing thought about Zhishou all the time, and the promised job at the town’s “Family Planning Office,” yet she didn’t know how to bring it up with her mother.
Her mother was quite worried, too. She even sought out the match-maker sent by Zhishou. The match-maker said: “Zhishou has a girlfriend already. They were engaged two days ago. The girl now works in the ‘Family Planning Office.’” She went on to say: “Boys nowadays don’t want to marry girls who have been outside the village. The outside world is so messy and girls who have been there, well. . . . “
Soon, through the busy work of matchmakers, even the homely girls in the village are engaged to be married. No one, however, has expressed serious interest in Qingqing yet.
(2005)