The powerful force behind Ningbo A-Niang's harshness

What I want to say is not the Ningbo women of today, but the Ningbo A-Niang of my grandmother's generation. They have had an unprecedented impact in Shanghai. Their origins are mostly civilians. They generally shoot a little late and arrive at a place where their own men or men of their own birth make a living, such as Shanghai, such as Nanyang Dongyang. Most of the aunts of my generation came to Shanghai before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and very few of them returned to their hometowns quickly. My grandmother, from Fenghua to Shanghai, took forty years to complete one-way journey; another one-way, she was already in the urn, escorted back home by the 11-year-old me, following the sailing line when she came.

Most of them are illiterate, but they generally have considerable wisdom in understanding life. They have thick accents, coherent sentences, and use the vocabulary of their birthplace without scruples, and as soon as they open their mouths, they are far from the written language. This does not affect their standards in the daily verbal responses such as perfunctory, attached, polite, praise, judgment, bargaining, round field, argument, and socializing. This is probably because Zhejiang is densely populated, and their original conversation experience has reached a considerable level; after arriving in Shanghai, the living space is more cramped, and then the grassroots solution to Pepsi does not like to rely on intermediaries, the frequency of communication is high, and the promotion exercise is strengthened. The knife was sharpening all the time, sharpened, and natural.

Ningbo women are a category that can bear extreme hardships. In those years, life was stressful, their sense of security was poor, and they needed to get positive hints from the short words of the parents. No wonder they often look down on their peers to affirm themselves in disguise. After constantly determining that the ratio is insufficient and the lower is more than enough, their sense of security is more or less strengthened. They are mostly ruthless in playing with right and wrong, and they are often not their first choice, for the same reason. In this regard, compared with women in many other places, Ningbo women are indeed not necessarily more accessible.

In addition, the Ningbo women of our aunt generation have clear life goals, shrewdness when living a difficult life, a sense of face in desperation, and an eloquence that is partial to argumentative writing skills. They take any loss as more serious and spare no effort to promote family reputation and emphasize self-legitimacy. They are not very negotiable to sons, and the men who support themselves behind their backs usually have no complaints or regrets. Don't think that the ladies can give up as long as they don't lose their interests, they see righteousness as a kind of profit. Therefore, disrespect and injustice are also important to the ladies.

Another crucial feature is that these ningbo women who have gone from graceful and colorful young women to elderly women step by step have rarely considered themselves. Before they could pay attention to their dedication to their families, they had already given everything.

My grandmother gave birth to only one son of my father, plus two daughters. After having my grandson, the status of this family is ranked, in the eyes of my grandmother, my father is the eldest, my grandson is the second, and my grandmother herself and other women are not old. The family is based on the male as the central axis, and the others are secondary. Men have a unique position in the family and are commonplace in the families of Ningbo people. The point is that the most vigorous advocates of male superiority and female inferiority are not necessarily men, but Ningbo women themselves. Is it not that the traditional Ningbo people subconsciously feel that the family is supported by men, and the family bloodline mainly depends on men to reproduce? For this reason, in the hearts of Ningbo people, there is probably a very positive priority for reproduction and survival, and the main force in this behavior is particularly preserved, and men are blessed.

I remember that Ah Niang was very strict with my sister, and once she found that she was chewing with her front teeth or making a smacking sound when eating, she would scream to stop it and never give up. And the spoiling of the grandson is unconditional. Double standards, just so unreasonably placed in the home. In the hot summer, my grandmother still did not forget to bring me a popsicle on the way home in the case of severe asthma. The old man walked into the house, sweating and panting, and the popsicle in his hand had already melted in half. At that time, when I was seven or eight years old, I took over the semi-melted popsicle, and I didn't have too much pain for Ah Niang, but I was thinking, if Ah Niang bought popsicles at the cigarette paper shop closest to my home, would she be able to melt less?

The real gratitude that came out of my heart was that I was close to my grandmother's age. I found that the emotions that have no reservations and do not need to be exchanged are still allowed to be weighed rationally. It was not a post-thought act, it was a very natural blood impulse. For my pleasure, my grandmother could give herself completely disproportionately. No second person in my life would have been willing to do so. I knelt down to the tombstone, could she receive it?

Ah Niang once said to me, never use a toilet with a paper with words, it is disrespectful, it is not good. Even if the rice grains that fall on the toilet seat should be eaten, wasted, that is not good.

One thing, my cousin, who is still in Fenghua, told me. Before the War of Resistance, my grandfather earned money in Japan, and my grandmother in the town had a good life. After my grandfather disappeared inexplicably in Yokohama, my grandmother ran out of means and still had no whereabouts. Since then, toyo's regular remittances have been cut off, and relatives and friends of similar classes in the family have continued to communicate. At noon, the family said that they had seen a certain master and mother carrying a large bag and a small bag, and the family was already poor. The grandmother took an otter-skin coat from the cupboard, stroked it with a woman's instinct and hesitated for a moment, then threw it to the family to pawn, and once again maintained decency with a sumptuous luncheon. This is the style of the Ningbo woman who later told me that I wanted to eat the rice grains on the toilet seat. At that time, the taste of this family banquet should be rich enough.

I was thinking that at that time, the family way changed, if I put it to this day, seeing Master Li or Master Zhang coming from afar, there should be at least five kinds of practices that are not difficult for my own family. And at that time, my aunt was just for a little decent, and she had to ignore the coolness and smoothness of the otter skin in her hand, and how much strength did this city woman need to weigh in those few seconds? (Wu Qiaofeng)