AT 2.28 ON the afternoon of 12 May 2008, a terrible earthquake hit Wenchuan county in eastern China’s Sichuan province, leaving almost 80,000 people dead. During the arduous and painfully slow rescue process, people were left stunned by a scene that emerged from the rubble. A young mother was found holding up a lump of concrete weighing almost 1,000 pounds. She had used her body as a wedge for a day and a night to protect her baby, who was crying with hunger beneath her. When the mother and baby arrived in hospital, the doctors were moved to tears by what they found. The baby was unharmed, and after a drink of milk fell into a contented sleep, but the mother would never stand up straight again. Her back had been permanently crushed out of shape, leaving her frozen in the act of protecting her child. Her very flesh and bones had been reforged by her love for her child.
For a long time after hearing this story I felt a deep sense of unease. Had not all the mothers I encountered in my twenty years as a reporter also been reforged by love for their children? From countryside peasants to professional city women, the nurturing of those tiny bundles of cells would start a kind of de-thawing and remoulding process that gathered speed through the weeks and months of pregnancy. This process continued after birth, as they willingly wore themselves down out of love for their children, who consumed all their time, energy and emotions. Mothers of only children in particular, once girlish timid fauns, were transformed into parents who would face down wolves and fight to the death to protect their children. But as for the children who grew up in these emotional waters, could they ever understand their mothers’ transformation and sacrifice?
Many people believe that the Yao Jiaxin incident was just a ‘one-off’. In reality, Chinese society is under an almost constant barrage of tragedies played out by only children. On the evening of 31 March 2011 a boy just returned from studying in Japan stabbed his mother eight times simply because she had refused to give him any more money. The boy, called Wang Jiajing, told the police that he had met his mother at the airport, and asked for more money. The mother replied angrily, ‘I can’t give you any more money. You’ve been studying in Japan for five years, you’ve never had a job, your school fees and living expenses came to more than 300,000 yuan ($44,000) a year. All this came from savings that we parents have worked our fingers to the bone to scrape together. If you come after us for more money it really will be the end of us.’ As soon as Wang heard this he exploded with rage, took two knives from his bag, and rushed at his mother, stabbing repeatedly. Many Chinese people sighed with exasperation and sadness for this mother, who survived the ordeal. How could her love and care have been rewarded by such hatred and violence?
Traditional Chinese culture respects five types of human relations. The first and foremost is ‘father and sons are bound by blood’ (this also extends to mothers and children). As in ancient times, a child who harms their parents is deemed to have committed the worst possible crime. However, time and again today we see tragic and cruel incidents. Chinese society and families are in crisis. The current emphasis on grades and academic achievement overlooks the importance of basic morality, and has led many only children to see gratitude and kindness as something rotten and outdated.
Why do some Chinese only children turn against all natural laws and human nature, and act with such hostility to their parents, to whom they owe such a debt of gratitude? In New Zealand, I met a young Chinese girl who provided me with some answers.
I went to New Zealand for the first time in 2002 to launch my book, The Good Women of China. My husband Toby and I checked into our hotel in the afternoon, after a twenty-three-hour night flight and stopover. By this time my body clock had been thrown into total disarray, and I was not looking forward to a third night so close on the heels of the last two! We decided to take refuge in a couple of glasses of sake and a bite to eat in the hotel’s sushi restaurant to help us cope with our third night in the space of thirty hours. It was about six o’clock in the evening, an hour or two before local dinnertime, so the place was deserted and gloriously peaceful. We had just taken our seats when I noticed a woman who appeared to be the manager giving the waitress a severe dressing-down. Both women looked Asian, and the waitress was in floods of tears. I guessed from their appearances, and use of English instead of Japanese, Chinese or Korean, that the manager was probably Japanese, and the waitress Chinese. They did not notice us creep in and we did not disturb them, but sat quietly at a table near the entrance waiting for them to finish. The waitress was nodding her head, listening meekly, with tears cascading down her face. I looked at her for a while, thinking to myself, if only her mother could see this, how her heart would ache! After four or five minutes I had had enough. Even if you break the law and the police have to get involved, regardless how great the mistake, you cannot endlessly scold a young girl! I rapped on the table with my chopsticks, to show that there was a customer waiting.
When she heard the noise, the manager’s expression changed immediately, and with a typical Japanese lady’s stooped gait and little steps, came over to us and asked demurely, ‘What would sir and madam like?’
I asked in English, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you both, but what are your opening hours please? If you’re open, can we have a meal?’
‘We are part of the hotel, and open twenty-four hours a day,’ she replied deferentially, a totally different person from a moment ago. To my surprise, she then signalled the waitress to come and take our order.
‘Are you Chinese?’ I asked the waitress tentatively in Mandarin.
She looked at us with an embarrassed expression. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘When do you get off work?’
She did not understand why I was asking this, and replied dubiously, ‘The shifts change at ten o’clock.’
‘I’ve come from London, and only just arrived at the hotel today. I’m trying to get over my jet lag and have nothing to do this evening. If it’s OK with you, can we have a chat?’
The girl looked at me. She did not say yes or no, just walked away uncertainly.
From then on, until we settled the bill, we were only served by the ultra-respectful manager, and did not see the waitress again. At nine o’clock in the evening I took a long shower, my usual way to relieve tiredness. I said to Toby, who was reading in bed, that I couldn’t settle and wanted to go down and wait for the waitress. If I could persuade her to talk to me, perhaps I could help her. If she was unwilling, I would come back and read a book. I knew it was not easy for Chinese children to be away from home, especially this generation, many of whom are only children, and have no experience of living independently.
At about ten past ten, the girl emerged from the restaurant. Out of uniform, her beautiful hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she was dressed in a fashionable Barbour jacket. Only her large backpack identified her as a student. When she noticed me sitting waiting for her on the sofa in the foyer she seemed surprised. She approached shyly, and said in a quiet voice, ‘You’re really waiting for me?’
‘Of course, that’s what we agreed.’ I shifted along in my seat, and motioned for her to sit down beside me.
She sat down, saying rather apologetically, ‘When we met earlier I thought you were just feeling sorry for me, and saying whatever came into your head.’
I helped her off with her backpack. ‘If I’m not far wrong, I’m about the same age as your mother, which makes you the same generation as my son. Although we come from different times, and probably have totally different ways of making friends, I think I can at least lend an ear to what you have to say, and maybe take the edge off the gloomy cloud you seem to be under.’ I knew my words might seem a bit odd and upfront to her, but I believed she could feel the sincerity in my voice.
She blinked a pair of huge, long-lashed, questioning eyes at me. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Tell me whatever you like. Your name, what happened today, how you ended up in New Zealand, where you come from in China . . .’ I gestured around the cavernous lobby, as if the space had been specially laid out for her to fill with her story.
When she heard me say this, her eyes turned pink with unshed tears, and her red, glistening lips came together briefly in a pout. ‘I’m Golden Swallow, at least my mother and father hoped that I would be a gold-coloured swallow. It’s so embarrassing that you saw me humiliated like that today.’ She pursed her lips again, as if something was trying to break free. ‘I feel very hard done by. I treat the manager like my mother, but she’s often as fierce with me as you saw today.’
I found this surprising. ‘You look upon her as your mother? Are you an orphan? Did you grow up with only your father?’
‘No, no. I have a real mother and father of my own, but I hate them, especially my mother!’ As Golden Swallow spoke, waves of bitter resentment came welling up in her eyes.
‘You hate your mother? Why?’ I found it very hard to match the charming, soft Golden Swallow in front of me with her harsh words.
‘If it’s not from the harm she did me then how come I find it so difficult to live life today?’ At this, the floodgates of Golden Swallow’s heart came crashing open. ‘I’ve already graduated from university, soon I’ll be twenty-four years old. But I left China having never done three of the most basic things. I’d never been in a kitchen, I’d never touched a knife and I’d never ordered a meal in a restaurant!’
How could this be? It was almost impossible for me believe. ‘You’re a graduate, but you’ve never done any of those three things? How on earth did you get through university?’
At the time, student life in China was still quite limited. Students with money would take their main meal of the day in a restaurant outside the university, while students with limited means would eat in the university cafeteria. Very poor students would hide an electric hob in their dormitory to cook instant noodles, made only slightly more palatable by a pack of pickled vegetables. However, no matter what their circumstances, they should all at the very least be able to order a meal from a menu, or boil up noodles in a kitchen!
Golden Swallow clearly noticed the disbelief on my face. ‘You have to believe me, I’m telling the truth. My father’s deputy mayor and my mother’s a Communist Party official in my home city where I went to university. Mummy and Daddy thought the university cafeteria was unhygienic and the food disgusting. So for three years I had breakfast at home. Every lunchtime Daddy’s chauffeur would pick me up and either take me home to eat or to a restaurant.’
‘OK, but then how did you get to the evening homework sessions at university? Or get together with your classmates?’ I was still having trouble imagining university life like this.
‘After supper the chauffeur would drive me to university for evening study then bring me back at half past ten. Getting together with classmates? My parents never allowed me to go out at night. They said only young people whose parents didn’t know how to bring them up properly went out at night.’ Golden Swallow said all this in a tone that suggested that this was just ‘the way things were’, mixed with surprise that it had never even occurred to me.
‘OK, but what about when you ate out with them, are you saying that you never ordered your own meal in a restaurant? And you never went into the kitchen at home?’ I still could not see what she actually meant by her words. It was not that I did not understand her language, but rather it seemed as if we came from such different times and ways of life.
‘Mummy says there’s fire in kitchens, and knives with sharp blades, both very dangerous. Every time I went out with family or friends for a meal, they would always be the ones who did the ordering. I did try ordering my own food once, but before I’d finished reading the menu, my mother said, “You don’t understand at all, you don’t know how to order properly.” After a few times I stopped arguing and ate whatever they ordered. Luckily everything they ordered was stuff I liked. It wasn’t until I came to Auckland that I realised I didn’t have a clue about how to order in a restaurant. It wasn’t just that I struggled to read the English, it was that I had never even heard of many of the foods and spices.’
‘If your parents wrapped you in cotton wool with their love, then how could they bear to let you study abroad, so far out of their reach?’
‘Chinese people like to keep up with the Joneses, they’re always comparing themselves to others. They compare houses, cars, watches, mobile phones, cameras, even their children. As soon as parents meet, they start comparing their kids’ schools and grades. In the last few years they’ve moved on to which parents send their children abroad to study, and which country is the best. For my mother, saving face is far more important than her husband or me. When she saw in our local paper that New Zealand has the longest-running hotel management course in the world, she had my dad look into it. His people at the mayor’s office did a bit of research on Chinese websites, and discovered that there was something to it. So six months ago my parents sent me over through an agency. It was only after I arrived in New Zealand that I realised that the best place for hotel management is on the other side of the world, in Switzerland. Actually, this little island doesn’t have any history to speak of, let alone world-class hotel management courses.’
Golden Swallow had put it very neatly. Chinese only-child families are preoccupied with just three things: making money, cosying up to government contacts for protection, and making outrageous comparisons between their children. I think about 80 per cent of Chinese only-child families aspire to sending their children to the best universities abroad for ‘re-education’. Favourites include Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College in the UK; and Harvard, Yale and Princeton in America. The gossip on internet chat rooms is that more cultured families send their children to Britain, whereas less cultured nouveau-riche families invariably pack their children off to America. A smaller number of families, with little international knowledge or funds, think that the important point is just being abroad, as it is all the same kind of place.
Golden Swallow’s tone was typical of Chinese young people today. ‘What’s the big deal? I know a lot more than just this place. It’s not as if you can’t find it all on Google!’ Having spent a bit of time in one foreign country, they think the rest of the world is exactly the same as the ‘Western culture’ and ‘foreigners’ they saw in that one place. It is not only their combination of ignorance and fearlessness that leaves people aghast, they also often bring back to their friends and families in China ‘knowledge of foreign customs’ which not even foreigners themselves know about! Ever since the 1990s, the almost limitless variety of the outside world has been described by countless young Chinese students as ‘a deep, narrow well of Western culture’.
However, there was something about Golden Swallow that was a bit different from her know-it-all contemporaries. ‘The scenery in New Zealand is really very beautiful, why would all those film-makers come here otherwise? So I don’t regret coming to New Zealand at all, there’re bound to be good hotel management courses here. The agency in China was all talk, full of fine promises and over-the-top enthusiasm, but went pretty quiet as soon as I got here! They set us up in a glorified dormitory, threw in a few bits and pieces to get us going then “put us out to pasture”! By the end of the first week, almost half of the students who came out with me had left. We then discovered that the hotel management college wasn’t really a college at all, but a language school. The enrolment documents they gave us, which were not easy to come by, turned out to be valid only for the language school. They would only let us start the Master’s course when they had earned enough money from us!
‘The other thing was that most of us had no idea how to live independently. Our dormitories were nothing like the agency had advertised to our parents, with staff to cook and clean for us. We had to do all our own cooking, washing and cleaning, but we didn’t know the first thing about how to look after ourselves. We didn’t even know how to buy things in an English-language supermarket. For the first few days we lived off fast food to keep hunger at bay. By the fourth day we couldn’t stomach any more of this curious but disgusting food, we all missed Chinese food so much. It wasn’t just our Chinese stomachs that couldn’t bear any more of those weird flavours, but the four or five hours’ time difference had thrown our body clocks out of kilter. In those early days, we took turns to have a good cry by day, and at night we all clung together and wept! How did I make it through? Simply because I was determined not to give in. I’d already left home, why would I want to go back? Could I really not live by myself? My mother also phoned me several times a day, and got me to send her photos of everyday life.’
‘You can take photos on your phone and send them to her?’ At that time I did not even know that mobile phones could take pictures.
‘We all have the newest camera phones. When we don’t know what to do, we phone home. We take pictures of things we don’t understand, and send them home for answers. Because I’d never gone shopping by myself back in China, I would often phone my mother from the supermarket. The first time I went into a supermarket in New Zealand, I didn’t recognise any of the English names, and had never seen any of the fruit and vegetables on the shelves. I remember that it took me three hours to cook my first meal, which was some spinach dish. Mummy directed me every step of the way, from what to buy in the next-door supermarket, to how to prepare and cook it, all the way to getting it into my mouth.’
‘You spent three hours on the phone to your mother just to cook a single dish?’ It sounded like something out of a Chinese xiangsheng comedy double-act.
‘Mummy asked me what I wanted to eat, and I said spinach soup, and a spinach and egg stir-fry. So she sent me a photo of some spinach, and I went looking for it in the big supermarket next to the dormitory. She told me I had to buy the best spinach. I asked her which that was and she said, “the most expensive kind”. So I bought the most expensive spinach I could find, and a box of eggs with a picture of a chicken on the front. When I got back to the dormitory kitchen, Mummy told me to wash the spinach then cut it into pieces, and to mind my fingers when chopping. I had a go and told her it was really hard. “Maybe it’s not the right knife for the job,” she said. “Try another.” But still I couldn’t make it chop. “How can it not be possible to cut spinach?” she said. I replied that perhaps New Zealand spinach was different from ours.
‘She told me to take another picture, and said that it looked the same as Chinese spinach. “How can it be so hard to cut?” She then had me take a picture of the knife. “Ah, you need to use the thin sharp side of the blade to cut, you can’t use the thick back of the knife.” It was only then I realised that I’d been using the wrong side. The cooker was different to my mother’s, and she didn’t know how to work it. I couldn’t understand the English instructions either. She ended up losing her temper, and cursing me for a fool over the phone. After three hours the food was finally done. I took a bite and it was dry and tasteless. Only then did she ask me if I’d added oil and salt. I replied crossly, “Nobody told me, how was I supposed to know?”’
Golden Swallow paused for a moment and shot me a brief glance. She seemed to be making up her mind whether to continue. ‘Do you know, Xinran, after that three-hour phone call, my first reaction was that I hated my mother! It was the way she kept on blaming me for everything, saying I couldn’t do this and didn’t understand that. It wasn’t that she was resentful about me no longer being the precious little girl she once held in her arms, and I wasn’t angry at her for saying nasty things to me for the first time, it was because she had treated me as a pet for twenty-three years. Even after all this time, I still can’t live like a normal human being. She’s had me in a gilded cage for over twenty years! I’ve grown wings, but lack the ability to fly. What’s that if not a pet? I swore there and then that I would prove to her that I’m not the useless little girl she was cursing. I’m not a feeble-minded, incapable idiot making them lose face. True, most of the other girls have gone home, back to their comfy little nests, but the day will come when they will wake up. They’ll realise that they lost face and all their self-respect in New Zealand. When I was growing up, my parents constantly indoctrinated me with their notions of self-respect. But I intend to live a life of real self-respect. I’ll show them who I am!’
Her words were like a boulder crashing into the large empty foyer. My vision and hearing wavered for a moment with the shock waves, and my heart felt as if it were caving in. I fought to restrain myself as distress and anger washed over me. How could any mother bear to hear these words? Her mother had spent twenty-three years raising Golden Swallow as a pet, and now her beloved child felt she could not even live like a normal human being!
I was left speechless, not knowing what to think.
We sat there in silence, surrounded by the reverberations from her words as they came crashing down to earth. Everything around us stood still. At that moment all the guests in the hotel lobby seemed to disappear.
I do not remember how long we sat there. It was not until her manager went tripping past that I realised it must be very late. Golden Swallow should be getting home.
‘I’m sorry, have we been talking too long? You should go home. Do you have work or classes again tomorrow?’
‘It’s no problem, I only live in the staff quarters next door.’
‘Oh? You’re in staff quarters? You work for the hotel? In that case, why are you still working in the sushi restaurant?’
‘Just to stay alive!’ Golden Swallow shot me an unreadable look.
To tell the truth, at that moment I did not know how to continue our conversation, my only option was to follow her lead. ‘Just to stay alive? Because there is food and a bed here for you? You know that Westerners say there’s no such thing as a free lunch?’
‘I’m still studying English at the language school, and they have an internship arrangement with the hotel. I know that my English is way too bad to get into a proper university to study hotel management. At this rate I’ll be lucky even to get a training certificate from the hotel, but if I do then at least I’ll be on their system. It didn’t take long to switch to a course on basic hotel management. That solved my day-to-day living difficulties, as I could stay in staff quarters on full board and lodging. They’re teaching us all kinds of random stuff, but, to be blunt, both sides get something out of it; we’re their unpaid interns. I heard not long ago that when our training year is up we can apply for an entry-level management position, but you also need a certain amount of work experience.
‘I met a girl at a student party who was very good to me. She introduced me to the manager of the Japanese restaurant in the hotel. Now I work there two days a week, and it doesn’t affect my training in the hotel. I’m now in my fourth week. For the first week I really didn’t have the first clue about kitchens, since, as I told you, I’d never even been into my own at home. My colleagues tried to explain to me, “This is where we prepare the food, these are the cooking implements for main and side dishes, over there is where we select and clean the vegetables, that’s where we put the dry goods.” But the more I heard the worse my head went into a spin! In the end I found an illustrated dictionary, but although it had very detailed descriptions of all the items, I still didn’t understand what they were all for! At times like that I would curse my mother to the heavens. My manager told me, “Normal people take an hour or two to catch on, and understand how the kitchen works by the end of the first week. By the second week they understand how the whole restaurant runs.”
‘But even four weeks in, I still don’t get what she is trying to tell me. I’ve tried having a frank talk with her, but she said it’s nothing to do with my bad English, it’s that I can’t do anything at all! I told her that if the others do five hours, I’ll do eight, for no extra pay. She replied, “The thing is, it’s not about what you learn or not, or how much you do for free. The more you do, the more of a mess you make the restaurant!” Take yesterday for example, it was past three o’clock and already time for me to leave, but I wanted to stay behind and learn about place settings for dinner. My manager told me to practise in the restaurant, as there was nobody about. Late dinner is generally gold-rush time for the hotel. But it’s also different to the flow of customers in normal restaurants on the street, as mealtimes ebb and flow depending on check-in times and who is in the hotel. At the weekends it’s all holidaymakers, and in the week it’s business people. They order different kinds of food, so it’s also about preparation.
‘When the manager explained this to me a million questions came bubbling up in my mind. I interrupted her, and asked why we arranged place settings the way we did. Unluckily for me, just as I was asking the question, I managed somehow to break a china sake set. At this, the manager totally lost it and said, “Careless again! What’s going on in that head of yours? How many things have you already broken this month? And always questions, questions and more questions.” She then gave me a severe telling-off. I felt very hard done by, I had treated her like my mother, so why was she being so fierce with me? You were there, you couldn’t bear to watch either, could you?’
‘Did she dock your wages today?’ I asked in concern.
‘Why would she dock my wages?’ Golden Swallow asked in a puzzled voice.
‘Because you damaged hotel property.’ I didn’t think this warranted an explanation.
‘No, I never, did I? Oh. But she’s usually so good to me, much better than my mother is,’ Golden Swallow said very seriously.
‘Um . . . why do you regard her as your mother?’
‘Because she teaches me how to do things and how to be a person.’
‘Then . . . what’s the difference between a mother and a manager? Are they interchangeable? Will you look after your manager as you would your mother when she gets old?’
Golden Swallow’s pretty eyes grew huge as I asked her this; even her lips, which had been thinned by hurt and distress, puffed out at my question. ‘I see her as a mother because only a mother can really understand me in this world, care for me and forgive me, right? But why would I have to support my manager in her declining years? At the end of the day, she’s not . . .’ Golden Swallow’s argument ground to a halt at this gap in her logic.
‘Then, do you think I am kind?’ I was trying to make a path for her through her confusion.
‘Of course!’
‘Why?’
‘You felt sorry for me and listened, and tried to cheer me up.’
I gazed through her eyes into a world of uncertainty and said, ‘You know, your manager is ten times kinder than me, a hundred times! If I were the boss of that restaurant, I would never have taken you on in the first place. The people working for me would need to be able to bring in money. Managers need their employees to work hard and bring in customers, using their knowledge and professionalism. Someone with no experience who wants to enter a company to learn is treating the place as a school, and they should pay tuition fees for that, right? Your ignorance has made a mess of her business and damaged her property, but she is still paying you the regular rate. Not only is she not asking you to pay her back, she’s even helping you out with advice and patience, isn’t that right? She’s turned her own restaurant into a school for you. That’s true kindness. Golden Swallow, remember, you only have one mother in this world, no matter whether she’s rich or poor, intelligent or incompetent, nobody can replace her gift of life or care for you. We should also always treat other people as equals. We have no right to take up their time or demand that they mollycoddle us. We should thank people for whatever they give us. If you’re looking for a mother, you should try having a proper talk with your own. If you don’t feel that she’s taught you anything useful, you can’t use other people to replace her. Family isn’t something that can be exchanged. A mother isn’t someone you can accept or reject at will.’
Golden Swallow seemed completely bowled over by my outburst. ‘Xinran, are you really meaner than my manager?’
I nodded, saying nothing. What the little girl in front of me needed right now was not an indulgent auntie to wipe away her tears and loudly curse the world on her behalf, but a kick up the backside to snap her out of her childishness. She needed to stand on her own two feet in the world, and understand the concept of gratitude to friends and family. I hoped this kick of mine would penetrate to the bone, and spur her on to follow her heart.
After a moment’s silence, Golden Swallow looked at me earnestly, and speaking her thoughts aloud said, ‘If that’s the way things are then my manager isn’t really that bad at all. Even though she’s told me off countless times, I’ve broken so many things, and she’s never docked my pay. I suppose she could sack me, couldn’t she? Then . . . why is she going to all this trouble to teach me? Why?’
On hearing these words, I felt a glimmer of light shine into the darkness of all we had been unable to express. I opened that door a little more to let in more illumination. ‘Because she’s kind, she feels sorry for you, and she’s exasperated that you aren’t being all that you can be!’
Golden Swallow’s face, long and drawn with hurt and self-pity, suddenly came back to life, a girlish happiness sparkling in her eyes. ‘That’s amazing! If you look at it in that way, I’m actually pretty lucky to have a manager like this.’
The fog surrounding my heart suddenly dispersed under the beam of her realisation, and our conversation took a brighter turn. ‘In the trinity of modern Chinese values: family, school and society, there’s a lesson you only children have missed, which is how to value the people, events and objects around you. It isn’t a mathematical formula like 1 + 1 = 2, or a chemical equation, or vectors in physics, but rather an understanding of the respect between people at home and in society. If you never learned this at home, then you have no idea how hard it may have been for your mother, or what your father sacrificed, or what other people lost or gained as a result of your existence. You can’t learn everything from books, society isn’t just what fits into your father’s palm, and you can’t let your life be dictated by your mother. To be honest, I also don’t think it’s fair for you to push all the responsibility onto your parents.’
Golden Swallow seemed a bit upset at my lecture. ‘Then . . . my mother not teaching me to cook, and not letting me order food, was that the right thing to do?’
I understood why she was playing dumb to justify herself like this. It was human instinct, that self-protection mechanism we all pick up on the road of life: It’s not my fault!
‘Let’s think it through together. Why would they spoil you like this? How many children did your grandmother have?’
‘My granny had lots of children.’
‘Can your mother do housework?’
‘Yes, she’s very good at it.’
‘Can your uncles and your aunts do housework?’
‘Yes, they’re all very capable, in and out of the house.’
‘You should ask your granny some time why your mother, aunts and uncles are all so capable. The majority of the older generation gave their own beloved children all the good things they longed for most themselves. But sometimes, along with the things they thought were best, they also did things that weren’t in their children’s best interests, and this is particularly marked in only-child families. However, I think that using family members’ faults to explain away one’s own lack of ability is selfish escapism, like a shot in the arm. People who lack willpower or ability sometimes use drugs to find spiritual release, but it often results in terrible pain to their friends and family. Using family members’ past mistakes to excuse one’s own weakness and laziness, or not being ashamed to sponge off other people’s hard work, isn’t this really the same thing?
‘I have a lot of respect for your willpower, Golden Swallow. You have the courage to challenge your ignorance and lack of ability, and the will to live by your own efforts. But this alone isn’t enough to make you free and happy, as you’ll never be able to totally escape your mother and father. Only when you let your parents see that their darling little girl has stood up, and has created a new world for the new millennium all by herself, only then will your happiness be complete, from inside to out. Only then will you live your future in true freedom, because your family is an an inseparable part of your life.’
At that moment, the pouting, doe-eyed little girl of a few hours earlier suddenly matured. ‘Do you know, Xinran, I haven’t phoned my mother for several weeks now. I changed my SIM card, swore that I wouldn’t call her for three months, and not go home for three years. I did all this so that she would understand how much I hate her. I also wanted to use this pain as a warning to myself. I am not my parents’ pet, I am an independent person, and I am going to learn to live like a real human being.’
‘Forget hate, learn how to love and you’ll be free and happy,’ I gently murmured in Golden Swallow’s ear as we shared a parting embrace.
The next day I left a card for Golden Swallow at the front desk with three questions: Why did your mother spoil you like this? Would your manager treat her children like this? How will you raise your own children in the future?
I came back to New Zealand the following year, and was fortunate enough to stay at the same hotel. I could barely believe my eyes when I saw Golden Swallow at the front desk! When I approached to check in, she did not recognise me. A young man greeted me cordially, but I said, ‘I’m sorry, can I ask that young lady to book me in please?’
‘Of course,’ he said. I suppose he thought I wanted to register in Chinese.
Out of respect for him, I explained, ‘It’s because she left a very deep impression on me the first time I was here.’
The young man tried to correct me. ‘I’m not sure that’s possible, this Chinese girl has only just started working on the front desk.’
I said very proudly, ‘Last year when I saw her, she was only doing work experience here. I’m surprised that she’s on the front desk already.’
‘Oh, yes, Chinese girls are good at what they do.’ I could hear that he was being serious.
At that moment, Golden Swallow recognised me, and shouted loudly, ‘Wow . . . Teacher Xinran, it’s you, you’ve come back this year!’
‘Golden Swallow, this is such a surprise! You’re already at the front desk?’ We put our arms around each other and embraced over the counter.
Golden Swallow was in high spirits. ‘I’ve only just started. I’ll check you in, OK?’
‘Young lady, it can’t have been easy for you to get to the front desk in a year!’
Golden Swallow, dressed in hotel uniform, took the passport from my hands, saying, ‘I haven’t officially started yet, it’s just a trial period. I’ve got another three months before I’m made permanent, and then it’s only running errands. I have to finish university before I can become a manager.’
As I watched her go professionally through my paperwork, I was unable to avert my gaze. My mind was leafing over the pages and chapters of her experiences last year, stuck together with the tears and tribulations of life. My heart was full of admiration for this young lady who could make her words reality. Golden Swallow really had come through it all, and made good on her promise to herself. But what about her mother? I was hoping very much that she would fill me in on the events of the last year, and while I checked in we agreed to meet for a long chat once her shift finished.
That evening our drinks party ended very late, and added to my jet lag, so by the time I got back to the hotel I was completely exhausted. However, as I walked through the grand lobby, a girl dressed like a student was sitting on the same sofa on which I had spoken to Golden Swallow a year earlier – she was waiting for me. I knew I had to hear this girl’s story!
In outward appearance, the Golden Swallow sitting beside me had been completely transformed, the startled rabbit of a year before being replaced by a relaxed and confident, professional woman. However, I never thought that our reunion would be such a continuation of last year’s story.
Golden Swallow told me that since the last time we met, she had neither been home nor called her mother. These words were a heavy blow to my heart. What it must feel like for a mother who was afraid her little girl would cut her fingers if she cooked to be so harshly rejected like this! Golden Swallow had warned all her friends that she would never speak to them again if they told her mother where she was. However, her mother apparently knew that Golden Swallow was working in the hotel, and had persuaded one of the other employees to contact her on her behalf. Golden Swallow had told the go-between that the day her mother found her would be the day she lost her daughter for ever. She was determined not to see her parents again until she had set herself up in a career. Her mother was too scared of losing her to attempt any further contact, and had since kept her distance. Golden Swallow wanted her parents to see that she had grown up all by herself, that their daughter was not a pet.
As I listened to her talk, spasmodic sobs threatened to burst from my throat. I felt as if I were experiencing her mother’s unspeakable pain.
Golden Swallow continued: ‘Teacher Xinran, after you left, I started to learn how to get on with my Japanese manager. After a while, she really did stop shouting at me. I did double the work of the others, and learned to apologise for everything, no matter who was to blame. Later on, not only did my English improve, but I even made some suggestions on how to improve the cooking and customer service. My manager began to look upon me in a new light, and recommended me to the hotel. The hotel management said that as I had no official qualifications, I could not become an employee. However, they let me take part on some occasions, like receptions for foreigners. I worked harder than anyone else, arrived early and left late. Gradually, people started to think well of me, and after a while they made an exception and let me intern with their deliveries logging system. Very quickly, I discovered problems in their record-keeping, so I offered to help them improve it. They seemed to realise that I had a talent for management, so let me take part in a market research project on customer flow and pricing levels in the hotel. I learned so much on that project and made quite a few friends. Not long ago, I got my level 1 hospitality qualification, and the hotel immediately moved me up to the front desk for a trial period. My plan is to combine work and study, and try for the hotel’s fast-track management programme. I want to plan my own life, do the things I want to do, and not just go along with my parents’ plans. Are there any boys who fancy me? I don’t know, I don’t want a boyfriend right now, I need to find myself first. New Zealand is a country of immigrants, I can live here easily.’
‘Perhaps you could write to your parents about these plans of yours?’ I still wanted to try to put her in touch with her feelings as a daughter.
‘Aiyo!’ Golden Swallow let out a shout. ‘Who writes letters in this day and age? It’s so old-fashioned! Teacher Xinran, nowadays we all use mobile phones and email, stuff like that. I understand that you still want to talk me round, you want me to get in touch with my family. I’ll tell you the truth: I’m not going to get in touch with them until I’m a line manager. They gave me life, and I should give them a result in return, I am still their daughter. I want to let them know that I’ve stood on my own two feet in my adult life, that I’m a success, and that it’s all my own hard work. I want to prove them wrong, that I haven’t become a cripple, despite all they’ve done to me!’
Through Golden Swallow’s heated language, a vision of her mother’s face floated up in front of me. The little girl who arrived through great pain after nine months of pregnancy, the precious baby she clasped to her bosom and nurtured day by day, had suddenly gone missing. The disbelief of the first day, the worries of the second, the madness of the third, and the fourth . . .? I did not dare think any further.
On my third visit to New Zealand, I stayed at the same hotel, but Golden Swallow was not there. The staff told me she was now at university, and gave me her phone number. I dialled and got through. On the end of the line was obviously the Golden Swallow that I knew, but her tone had become strange to me. Her former enthusiasm had cooled with maturity. ‘Teacher Xinran, it’s great that you’re here again. Unfortunately I’m really busy, in a mad rush with an essay, so I won’t be able to come and visit you this time.’
‘I see. Is there someone you’re sharing your life with now, someone to share your happiness?’
‘Er . . . I have a boyfriend, he’s a New Zealander.’
‘Have you told your parents this news?’
‘Not yet, no, I’m going to wait until we decide to get married before I tell them.’
‘Have your feelings towards your parents changed in any way?’
‘Not yet. I don’t know why, but these days I find myself wanting to see them less and less. Let’s talk about something else. I might go to Europe. My boyfriend spent several years there. He says that New Zealand is too small; just like a drop of water, it could evap-orate at any moment! My future’s not going to be squeezed into this little island.’
We did not spend long on the phone that day. Golden Swallow was on the way to becoming a woman and walking towards her own future. However, behind her she was still dragging a long, black shadow. How could her mother and father live in this shade?
From that time on, I started asking media friends to help me locate Golden Swallow’s mother and father. I wanted to explore their own feelings about the disappearance and hostility of their only child in case I could help Golden Swallow further. In China, where everything is changing, finding people and making enquiries is no easy task. However, it turned out not to be too difficult to locate her parents; the hard part was persuading them to let me talk to them over the phone.
In 2007 I finally managed this though, by this time, they had divorced.
Golden Swallow’s mother told me on the phone that since her daughter had severed contact she had fallen into a deep depression and started having delusions. She did not want to see anyone or do anything. She felt that she had bled her heart dry over her whole life, yet could not even keep hold of her only daughter. Her father was a bit more open. He believed that his wife had over-indulged his daughter before she left China, so she had no space to grow by herself. After she went abroad, he felt that his daughter had been ‘corrupted by the West’.
I separately asked both of them the same questions. ‘Do you still worry about your daughter? What are your thoughts on her future now? If one day Golden Swallow returns, what would you do for her? And what do you hope she would do for you?’ Their replies sent chills down my spine.
The mother, who was now bedridden, said, ‘How could anyone be so brutal? Even a lapdog feels grateful to its owner. I might have been bad in many ways, and done a multitude of things that I shouldn’t, but does it justify her treating us like this? I’ve lost hope of ever seeing my daughter again, it’s as if I never gave birth to or raised her.’
Her father, the deputy mayor, said, ‘I never expected that much of her in the first place, how could a girl amount to much anyway? She’s gone off to university, will pick up some foreign gilding then come back and get married. That’s her whole life, isn’t it? If she doesn’t want to acknowledge us, it’s all the same to me, that’s daughters for you, just like water down the drain.’
Golden Swallow did not contact me again after 2007. Perhaps she no longer wished to re-live the history that we had shared? Perhaps she thought that she had left the dark shadow of her family behind her? Or had she just drawn a line under the struggles of growing up? But I still wanted to know whether she had gone home to see her mother. Every time I went back to New Zealand, I would wish her well. I hoped that some day I might bump into her in a crowd, or see her in a hotel. I even hoped to see her become a mother, because that journey would help her understand her own mother.
I used to think that mothers and daughters were as closely linked as the earth and sky. When the sky darkened the earth would grow dim. When there was a sandstorm on earth, the sky would become gloomy. That children and families were like a river and its banks; if the river ran dry the banks would become ugly, with no scenery or purpose. I thought back to Golden Swallow: ‘I hated my mother. She treated me as a pet for twenty-three years. Even after all this time, I still can’t live like a normal human being.’ Her words seemed proof that my belief was like the moon reflected in a lake, or like flowers in a mirror.
I do not know how Golden Swallow would have replied to my question, but this was her mother’s answer which she sent me in a letter.
Xinran, on the phone you asked me my views on the Yao Jiaxin incident. Is it possible to understand the man himself? I have thought a great deal about this, because my daughter, Golden Swallow, has perhaps been even more cruel than Yao Jiaxin; she drove eight knives into her mother’s heart! That migrant mother knows no pain now, maybe the son she left behind will suffer when he grows up, or perhaps he’ll grow up in an age that doesn’t know pain. But I am still alive, and every day I’m stabbed by my daughter’s eight knives, over and over again. It’s Yao Jiaxin’s mother I think about the most in this whole business, she is a woman living in purgatory.
On the internet I saw the last letter written by Yao Jiaxin to his parents; real or fake, it’s heartbreaking. I’m sending you a copy, you can take it as my reply.
Dear Mother, and Father too I suppose, always trying to be cool but actually a phenomenal pain in the arse, how are you these days?
Not as fragrant as a flower, not as tall as a tree, I’m a convict that even Martians have heard of.
In jail, my limp and feeble body is like mud and dross, ready to be shattered with one stroke of a knife, filthily scattered on a damp wooden plank bed. There’s no more bright ceilings, or soft, thick sprung mattresses, or that tender, white, lush girl that I used to enjoy. With eight savage blows of a knife, in a single night I transformed all those things into an embarrassingly frail soap bubble. This fragile bubble is loaded down with sorrow and pity. There’s no more tasty steamed bread for me, fancy or plain. I am a condemned criminal who can’t even get himself half a twist of deep-fried doughnut to eat. In front of the iron window, the ice-cold bars waver before my dazzled eyes. Beyond them a bewitching night sky, forever emitting cold light and sprinkled with stars. Restrained by a pair of handcuffs and an iron door, it all takes on an exceptional cold beauty, fading in and out of existence.
When I was eight years old you made me learn the piano. When I was eighteen you forced me into a famous university. When I was twenty you pulled strings and worked your connections to plan the rest of my life. Even on trivial matters like falling in love, getting married and having kids, you still had to shove your oar in. You wouldn’t let me associate with a peony, you would only let me marry a water-lily . . . the reason was that water-lilies were water flowers and peonies were for the land.
They say that in the north is Flying Car Li, wicked son of the official Li Gang.1 To the west there is an army officer’s son, Eight Stabs Yao. In this age of correctness, your methods weren’t illegal as such, but you sure weren’t thinking straight when you used your wrong ideas to create a wrong ’un like me. Who was all this for? Was it so that in the future the pair of you wouldn’t have to worry about food and clothes? Or in order to show off to the world that you have the same reproductive abilities as everyone else? Or for continuity, to have someone to ‘keep the incense burning’ for you? For all those years, you flagrantly ‘pulled out a knife’ in an attempt to inoculate me. Today, I, in full public view, pulled out a knife and with it struck eight blows. Not only did I kill off your whole life’s glory and political achievements, I also snuffed out the ‘incense fires’ that burned so brightly in your hearts. That guy Li Gang was in the north facing east, and his sun was in the ascendant. When he blinked his left eye, the Governor of Hebei Province came out to cover up for him, when he blinked his right eye, the central government came out to protect him. When Li Gang blinked both eyes together, the former Japanese premier Junichiro Koizumi prostrated himself in worship of China in the wake of the tsunami. What am I compared to Li Gang? I’m not worth a single teardrop from the eye of his son, Flying Car Li. And compared with Li Gang, what is your own powerful military background worth, Father? All you know is earning and counting money all day long. Everything you do by day and all your dreams at night just ape those corrupt officials. Picking up girls and dancing and all that, how can you have lost even the most basic self-knowledge? You couldn’t even recognise your own reflection in a pool of your own piss.
All I wanted to do was chat to girls, fall in love maybe, but you made me play the piano or take vitamins to keep my calcium levels up. Many times I really wanted to interrupt you to say, ‘You’re the ones who should be keeping your brain oxygen levels up.’ Actually, I know you’re not short of oxygen, you’re just the same as all the corrupt officials and unethical businessmen. What you’re missing is virtue and morality. I remember one time I was just doing the fashionable thing, fooling about a bit with what they call ‘naked chatting on the net’. As soon as my dad, the former official, found out, he immediately went on a thunderous rampage. His eyes bulged and stuck out like a toad just out of the water, blustering that he was going to pack me off to web addict rehab. He was cruel and inhuman to me. I only had one reply for him: ‘Naked chatting is hardly sex, it’s just an escape for the heart and soul.’ Seeing that Dad didn’t react, I explained again: ‘It’s like eating, I was just leafing through a menu, but you and Mum eat a slap-up supper every night and that’s how you got yourselves an unfilial son like me.’
Mum, Dad, other people’s kids are all outstanding young people, gentle and refined, educated and reasonable, steeped in books and culture. They understand how to respect the old, cherish the young and love life. They know how to spare a thought for others and give selflessly to society, and they know how to move with the times. But from when I was young you filled my head with famous universities and passing the civil service exams. For the rest, you neither asked nor cared. Those other parents’ loving care was like a caress, those moments where parents kneel down and sit with their children. All those little gestures of how to be human, I never got any of this. Quite the reverse: you were as cold as a freezer with me, educating and controlling me with your extreme strictness, with your so-called super-strict education. All of it was built on military methods that are unscientific and inhumane.
There’s a story I remember that goes like this. A mother turned a blind eye to the fact that her son had been pilfering little bits and pieces from a young age. He progressed from sneaking and thieving to murder and arson. Before his execution the son’s last request was to drink a last mouthful of his mother’s milk . . . Suddenly red blood flowed, the mother let out a scream of agony, and the son went away with his mouth full on the road to the next world. Perhaps you’ll say I have no one but myself to blame. Maybe you’ll say this is a failure of education, the school’s responsibility. But what I’m asking is, if you can’t sweep clean a room, how can you clean up the world? Any excuse is pushing away responsibility, a sign of shamelessness. Mum, Dad, we have a ‘flying car’ in the north and ‘eight stabs’ in the west, isn’t this sounding alarm bells for Chinese family values? I think you understand.
A man can only die once, it’s been that way since ancient times. And don’t be too heartbroken, living on this patch of dirt with no fairness, no justice, no humanity, where filth and corruption run riot, that is Yao Eight Knives’ eternal tragedy. Lightly I go, leaving behind a pile of bones. I will never again hurt another human being. Contain your grief and carry on with life as best you can. See you in hell, Mum and Dad!
‘(‘–My death draws near, this tragic symbol is all I have to leave to my parents!
(Oral testimony: Yao Jiaxin; edited by Zhou Lubao)
Golden Swallow’s mother continued: ‘Xinran, I think that all of us parents of only children should read this child’s words. If only we could teach our children what love is before they learn how to hurt people with knives . . . But as parents of these children, at a time like this of “breaking down the old and building up the new”, how do we know what kind of love they need? While everyone is so busy chasing after their own dreams, we are losing our only children. Who can understand our pain?’
As I read this final letter from Yao Jiaxin to his parents, I was saddened. It was the writing of both a genius and an emotional cripple. A child ruined by ‘mainstream education’, unrealistic competition and social climbing. I reread, again and again, the letter that Golden Swallow’s mother had written. Yes, I thought, who indeed can empathise with the love and pain of Chinese mothers with only children?
1 The Li Gang Incident took place on the evening of 16 October 2010. A black Volkswagen Magotan knocked over two young women in Hebei University campus, leaving one dead and the other severely injured. The driver did not stop, but drove on and dropped off his girlfriend at the dormitory. He was detained by students and security guards on his way back, but failed to show any concern for the injured. His attitude was cool, indifferent, then aggressive. He shouted, ‘Report me if you dare, my dad’s Li Gang!’ The boy’s name was Li Qiming and he was sentenced to six years in jail on 30 January 2011. His father was Li Gang, deputy head of Baoding city’s Public Security Bureau. As soon as the story came to light, it became a hot topic among Chinese netizens and the media. ‘My dad’s Li Gang’ became one of the top catchphrases on the internet, used to describe only children who break the law but have powerful protection.