The Diary of Ma Yan Page 7

  I must study hard. When I’m older I’ll make sure that my children have happy days, that they’re not always caught up in money problems, which is the case at home now. If they don’t go to school, I’ll ask them to grow grass and tend the ox and the sheep. Then what they earn in a year will be enough to support them.

  But I’m already planning my future life even though I have no idea if I’ll succeed. Let’s hope so.

  Sunday, August 5

  A fine day

  This afternoon, when my parents got back from their work in the fields, they fell asleep on the bed. I went out to tether the donkey and give him some grass to eat. When I came back inside, I saw that my parents were even more deeply asleep. I didn’t wake them. I found a little wood for burning and some dung and brought them in. I took yesterday’s ashes out of the stove and started to light the fire. But it wouldn’t take. Nothing I did would make it light. I wanted to die.

  At that moment I understood how painstaking Mother has to be when she prepares our food. Just getting the fire going is a struggle. I’ve tried it just once and it makes me want to die. How has Mother managed to keep the fire alight, let alone do all our cooking for so long?

  I started helping in the kitchen at the age of seven. Many years have passed since then. I’ve also lit the fire in the stove on occasion, but always with the help of my brothers. Today I’m alone. But I’ve got to get it going.

  Finally I manage and I can start cooking. When the food is ready I wake my parents so that they can eat. During the meal Mother starts to tell stories from her childhood. It’s so nice to listen to her. She laughs, and her eyes seem to laugh at the same time. I want her to laugh all the time and wish she had no more worries and no reasons to be sad.

  If only my wish would come true!

  Thursday, August 9

  A fair day

  This morning my two brothers went out to cut grass for the donkey while Father was working on the threshing floor. Mother is ill. She stayed in bed.

  I tried to get the fire going for the meal, but my brothers came back before it caught. I asked them why they had been so quick.

  “We want to work today. When we’ve finished eating, Cousin She, a friend from the village, is coming to pick us up so that we can walk to Wangshanwa together and help with the harvest there. It’s an hour away.”

  Soon lunch is ready. Cousin She arrives. I fill two bowls for my parents and also offer one to She. But She doesn’t want to eat. So I offer the bowl to my brother. We’re sitting on the threshing floor, which has been tidied up, and we laugh and talk. Cousin She tells us a story.

  “When we go to pick fa cai, we always have a great time. My fifth uncle’s grandmother always sings while she’s scything. And she dances. All the people at the top of the hill stop working and just watch her. She’s such a spectacle. She may be old, they say, but she’s got a joyous heart and wonderful character.”

  I don’t believe this description of the grandmother’s character. I believe this woman to be sad and unhappy. How do I know? Because my mother’s done the same work. So this grandmother who’s been cutting grass all her life into her old age, who’s never had a decent outfit of clothes, who had to earn money to find a good wife for her son…well, now her life is so unenviable that her only joy is dancing. If she doesn’t dance now, she’ll never have time to dance at all.

  Why are we alive? The rich die after having known all kinds of pleasures. It’s a happy death. The poor live with tears in their eyes. When they die, their death is painful. And that’s the truth of it.

  Farming methods have remained traditional and labor intensive in this area.

  Saturday, August 11

  A fine day

  Today at midday I finished eating, then went into the kitchen to wash the pot. My parents and brothers stayed in the room to watch a film on television. I washed up then came back to write in my diary.

  Mother is feeling very bad. Always these stomach pains. I write a few words on a scrap of paper that I stick to the door: “Mother is ill. She’s resting. Don’t go in unless it’s urgent. Come back later.”

  I haven’t quite finished writing this, when Mother calls me. She’s feeling sick, nauseous. The traditional medicine hasn’t helped at all. I come close to her, and she takes my hand and won’t let it go. She’s still feeling awful. I call Father to come and have a look at her, but he only chides her. Mother cries and laughs at the same time.

  I’m terrified. I don’t know why Mother has had so many bizarre illnesses these last years. When she’s going through a crisis, the whole family is desperate. The worst thing is that when she’s ill, the sweat pours down her face like water. I don’t know how she can stand it. In her shoes, I think I’d have died of the pain. I really hope she gets better soon.

  Sunday, August 12

  Fine weather

  Tomorrow I have to travel a long distance to harvest fa cai. I’m following the road my mother has taken so many times. Now that she’s ill, I have to go with my father and my brother, so that we can earn enough to live. And take care of Mother. Then I want to earn a little more money so that I can make my dreams come true. I want to go and study in the district school. But since Mother has been ill, our lives are so hard.

  I really don’t know why the heavens are treating us like this. Why everything is so unjust.

  Monday, August 27

  Tonight I’m repairing a wooden box when Mother asks my brother and me to go out and cut a little grass from behind the house for the donkey, who hasn’t eaten all day. We go. My brother has only torn off a single handful of grass when he stops to pee.

  Ten minutes go by and he still isn’t back. I call him and he appears, grumbling, “I can’t pull the grass up. I’ll have to go and get a scythe.” Again he runs off, and I have time to cut almost a bagful of grass.

  I call him again, loudly. This time he comes back with a little grass and has the gall to ask me why I’m not cutting any more. I tell him I’ve finished and it’s his turn now.

  At home Mother starts snapping at me again. “How long do you expect me to continue being your servant? Since you’ve come home, you behave like a mandarin.” I don’t know what she means by the word mandarin.

  She adds, “You’re like my mother, or my grandmother. I serve you. I’ve raised you. Do you think you have worked as hard? I’m ashamed of you. The daughter of the Yangs is younger than you, yet she passed the entrance exam for the girls’ school. And you? You’ve disappointed me far too much. Tear up all your books. There’s no point in going to school tomorrow. You and your ancestors…who are you, after all? Your ancestors begged in order to eat. Even if I finance your studies, what will you be able to do? It would be better if you died right away. Every day I hope that you’re going to die. If you die, I’ll bury you under a bit of earth and at least I’ll be at peace for a few days.”

  I’m staggered. I don’t know why Mother is talking like this. Is she angry or does she really believe what she’s saying?

  In any case she’s wrong. Why doesn’t she put herself in my place? Tomorrow I have to leave. And what do I feel? It’s hard leaving my family, leaving my mother. My heart isn’t light. And when Mother speaks to me like this, tears flood my heart. I can’t contradict her. I have to win all the honors, both for my mother and for my ancestors. I want them to be at peace and proud of me, even if they’re in the ground.

  Tuesday, August 28

  A cloudy day

  This morning at about six o’clock my father got the cart and donkey ready. He took my brother Ma Yichao and me to Yuwang. School is about to start. It’s our first year in the middle school.

  When we get there, Father helps take our things out of the cart, then sets off for home. We’re alone again.

  The bell announces the beginning of classes. I’m in a different one from Ma Yichao, so he heads off in one direction, I in another.

  When I get there, the teacher asks me why I’m in class four.

  I say, “Mayb
e it’s because I didn’t work well enough.”

  “Why do you say that? This year is different from last, when the best students were in classes one, two, and three. This year the classes aren’t streamed according to your level. I hope you’re not getting discouraged.”

  I take in what the teacher says and store it up inside me.

  Having told me to sit down, he’s gone out of the room.

  The comrades are making a lot of noise, like mice fighting once the cat has left. My head feels completely empty, except for the noise around me. These boys and girls are all a little bigger than me. They swear all the time and they don’t look like middle school students. Our class has seventy students in it. Imagine what it’s like when everyone speaks at the same time. How is one to work in here?

  I’m so upset. What I hate most about myself is the fact that I cry so easily. I don’t want to cry now, but I can’t seem to stop myself.

  THE MIDDLE SCHOOL IN YUWANG

  The middle school in Yuwang has more than one thousand pupils. It consists of a series of enormous redbrick buildings. The benches are makeshift. There is a single blackboard. Plaster peels from walls unpainted for years. In a school such as this, the task of teaching is formidable, as is that of learning. Yet the students work hard, and many desire to take their studies further and attend college.

  Boarders provide their own rice. Twice a year, at the beginning of the term, each pupil has to bring a fifty-five-pound sack of rice to school. Every day the rice is prepared in large cauldrons by women who do the cooking for the whole school. Just as in the last school, one of the school buildings is a kitchen, where students go to fetch their meals, which they take back to the dormitory to eat on their beds. There are sixteen girls in Ma Yan’s dormitory, all of them from the surrounding villages. The beds are crowded against each other, but the girls don’t complain.

  Each pupil gets a bowl of rice for lunch. If they want an extra spoonful of vegetables, usually potatoes, they have to pay an additional ten fen. There’s never any meat. There are no other meals, neither breakfast nor dinner.

  Ma Yan has no money for vegetables. She eats a bit of steamed roll at dinner, which her mother has made and which she keeps in a box. Only when she goes home for the weekends can she hope to satisfy her hunger.

  The Yuwang middle school

  Wednesday, August 29

  A fine day

  After school I meet two comrades who were in my class in the elementary school. They haven’t gone home because we have a study period in the evenings, and their families live far away. Their results are a little worse than mine, one or two points lower. But they’re in classes one or two. I’m too depressed to talk to them.

  Other friends come and play. They look happy. I think of my two best friends from elementary school. But they’ve left school now. I’m all alone. Their families are better off than mine, but they don’t want to go to school anymore. I don’t understand them.

  The study hour arrives. The English teacher asks me to go to class three. The teacher there tells me I’m in his group. I find all this very strange.

  Monday, September 3

  This afternoon my old elementary-school friends Ma Shaolian and Bai Xue come to my dorm. They’re not boarders. I’m very happy to see them again; it’s as if we were back in elementary school. They look as pretty and happy as ever.

  We sit down to talk. Without knowing why, I turn my head to the right. I see a comrade taking a schoolbook down and starting to read. My friends say, “What on earth is she studying now? All the teachers like her.”

  I think to myself, Here’s this girl who’s already a good student, but she carries on working while I sit around doing nothing at all. That can’t be right.

  I say good-bye to my friends and go back to my books. I really have to work hard so that I can eventually get that ideal job and have Mother stop worrying about me.

  Tuesday, September 4

  A fine day

  In the last class today there’s a general cleanup of the school.

  The term is starting. All the comrades are happy. We’ve finally arrived at the portal of secondary education. We have a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of goodwill. We put a lot of energy into our work.

  Our teacher asks us to clean the area behind the school. He’s like an old hen taking a group of chicks off to feed. The comrades make clucking sounds and clean with vigor. In very little time, the work is done. The teacher tells us to go off and rest.

  All the comrades have gone, and I’m standing alone on the sports field, watching the others at work. This school must have a thousand pupils. They work hard. If there were more like them, we’d certainly be able to plant more trees for China.* How wonderful it would be if there were more of us.

  Thursday, September 6

  A fine day

  Today after school some parents came to collect their children. They went off together to eat good things in the market. My brother and I haven’t eaten for two days. We only have hard old black bread to chew on. So we go off to the market to look for our parents. But they haven’t come. I think that Mother is probably not at home. When we left last week, she said she was going to go off to pick fa cai on Monday or Tuesday.

  I think so often of Mother! I don’t know how long it will be until I see her again. I want to see her hands, her poor hands.

  Friday, September 7

  A dull day

  This morning our last lesson is politics. A very tall teacher comes in. He’s about twenty-seven and exceedingly handsome. He must be a Han, while all my other teachers are Hui. The Hans’ pronunciation is very different from that of Huis, very rigid. We don’t understand everything they say. I only grasped a single whole phrase: “Make progress in your studies.”

  Why do all the teachers repeat this? It makes us feel we’re under constant pressure. But I’m going to do my best. I’ll achieve my goals.

  Ma Yan in her dormitory

  Saturday, September 8

  A lovely day

  After school a few of the comrades with money were allowed to leave early. They got onto a tractor for a yuan. Only my little brother and I are walking. On the track, the sun burns down on us, and we think we’ll die of thirst. My brother asks an old man for a watermelon. We both crouch at the side of the road and eat, like dogs who’ve been chased out of the house. We really look pitiful.

  When we get home, the yard is empty. I know Mother has gone. My paternal grandfather comes out of the house and says, “Ah, my little grandchildren are home. Come, you must be very hungry.”

  My brother says that there’s a watermelon in the wooden school box. I cut it and share it with my grandfather. While I eat, I think of my mother. I don’t even know how she is. Her stomach was bad again. And picking fa cai is such hard work. Really hard. Especially if you’re ill.

  When will I be able to keep Mother from exhausting herself for us like this? I really want her to have a better life. One in which she doesn’t have to go so far away to work. One in which she won’t suffer. I just hope my wish comes true.

  Sunday, September 9

  A somber day

  This afternoon my paternal grandmother came to visit. It’s as if my mother had come home. I gave her a slice of watermelon. I was writing in my diary at the table.

  While she eats, my grandmother says to me, “You look so serious! I really wonder what it is you’re writing. Our lives have so little interest.”

  “Don’t say that, Grandmother,” I reply. “I’ll read you what I’m writing.”

  While I read, tears flow down my grandmother’s face.

  “We old ones,” she says to me, “we’re good for nothing. And it’s because of us that you suffer.”

  “Oh no, Grandmother. Don’t talk like that. It’s because of you that I’ve been able to live until now. Without you, I wouldn’t have understood anything about life.”

  I think, then, of some things my mother keeps repeating: “No matter all our problems and exhaustion, I
’m going to pay for your studies so that you become people of talent, so that you make a contribution to the country, so that you don’t live a life like mine, which has no interest or value in it.”

  I won’t disappoint my mother. She’ll see what kind of daughter she has.

  Monday, September 10

  A fine day

  It’s market day again today. I have to go back to school, this school that I can’t leave. But since today is Teachers’ Day, we have a holiday.

  When I get down from the tractor, the driver asks me for money. But I don’t have any. I tell him I’ll pay him the next time. But he won’t let me go. I take out my pen and offer it to him. He refuses. This time it’s he who says I can pay him on the next journey.

  When I go through the school gates, I’m crying without knowing why. Maybe because I’m thinking of Mother. I don’t know how she’s getting on up in the mountains, but I know how tough life is there.

  Every time I’m faced with a difficulty, I think of my mother.

  What I told the driver was a lie. The teachers say students shouldn’t lie. They should be honest. But I had no choice. I asked my father for money, and he told me we had no money; don’t I know the problems the family is facing?

  I stopped asking him for money then. If I had gone on, he would have gotten angry.

  Had I explained all that to the driver, he would have made fun of me, and especially of my father. He would have condemned him and thought, What a father, a good-for-nothing. He can’t even pay for a tractor ride for his child!

  My father does his best. And I don’t want anyone saying bad things about him. That’s why I lied.

  Wednesday, September 12

  A fine day

  This evening during study time, the English teacher comes in and asks, “Do you really want to learn English?”

  We shout a unanimous, “Yes.”

  He goes on, “Since you really want to learn English well, I suggest you each contribute one yuan, and we’ll be able to buy a tape recorder so that you can work on your own during study hours in the evening. How about it?”