preface
On November 25, 2021, Han Shimei, a 51-year-old farmer woman from Huaichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan Province, was specially invited by UN Women to take the UNITED Nations podium to tell her story.
People under the stage were touched by this kind and simple peasant woman, and they were distressed by her suffering, and the majority of netizens strongly supported her divorce after watching this speech.
As a rural woman who has only just Chinese, what are the outstanding features of Han Shimei that have allowed her to appear on the podium of the United Nations? What kind of speech did she give that touched the audience? After listening to her story, why did everyone persuade her to divorce? Let's walk into the life of Han Shimei, a peasant woman.
Because of 3,000 yuan, he was "sold" by his mother.
In 1971, Han Shimei was born in a poor family in Xuegang Village, Huaichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan Province, with six sisters, and she ranked fifth. It is said that the younger the child, the more painful the parents are, but when it comes to Han Shimei, she has become the most unpopular of the six sisters.
Because she was born "with her spine facing up and her face facing the ground", her mother, who had always been superstitious, thought it was an ominous sign, and when she grabbed her, she wanted to drown in the urine bucket, but fortunately her father saw this scene and intervened in time to block it, and she picked up a life from her mother's hands.
After growing up, her mother still did not dispel her worries in her heart, and always believed that Han Shimei's arrival would bring misfortune to the family. At that time, people were really deeply tormented by feudal superstitions.
Han Shimei has been aware from memory that her mother does not like herself, there are delicious and fun things to give to her sister and sister first, and she is always the one who is forgotten, she once felt that she was not her mother's own child, but a child picked up from the outside garbage can, otherwise her mother would not hate herself so much.
Despite this, she is still very sensible, bent on pleasing her mother, and she is the one who works hardest and most seriously in farm work and housework.
Han Shimei has a good academic performance, she likes to write, loves to express, teachers often praise her when she grows up, she will definitely have a career, Han Shimei also yearns to escape from the village to the city life. But this dream shattered when she was in her second year of junior high school.
Han Shimei, who was preparing to go to school at the time, was stopped by her mother: "Don't go, our family can't afford to pay the tuition, help cultivate the land at home."
Han Shimei burst into tears when she heard it, but she did not say a word of resistance, because she was the most obedient child.
The tuition fee of 18 yuan ruined Han Shimei's career in learning, and also ruined her youth, her ambitions, and her dreams.
But so what? She also understands the difficulty of her parents, and it is not easy to pull herself up.
In the days that followed, Han Shimei either farmed in the fields or did housework at home, and slowly she got used to such a life, although it was bitter, but at least she could live with her family.
Unexpectedly, however, a year later she was given a dowry of $3,000 by her mother to a man with a slight intellectual disability, when she was only 19 years old.
Naturally, she was unwilling and desperately resisted, but it was useless. At that time, three thousand yuan was already a very high price for Han Shimei's family.
After resisting for three years, her parents never softened their hearts, and at the age of 22, she married and began a painful life.
Life after marriage is not satisfactory
On the day of the marriage, Han Shimei's tears could not be suppressed, she could not imagine that she would have to live with this slightly mentally retarded man for the rest of her life, but at this point, she did not ask for anything else, only that her husband Wang Zhongming could be kinder to herself after marriage, but in the later life, even this poor wish she did not achieve.
Han Shimei married in the past only to find that her husband not only had low intelligence, but also did not learn any skills, was lazy, smoked, drank and gambled. And the in-laws were not rich, and when they were the poorest, they couldn't even afford to buy a bag of salt, which was beyond her imagination.
The family did not have any savings, still owed more than 4,800 foreign debts, their three thousand dowries or mother-in-law searched the whole village, from the villagers a little bit of collusion, these foreign debts are waiting for Han Shimei to repay, her husband is not at all counting, in-laws are seriously ill, and can not do hard work.
Not long after the marriage, the person who wanted to be in debt found the door, the in-laws and mother-in-law were silent, what help could the two sick old people help, and the husband Wang Zhongming hid early in the morning, leaving only Han Shimei a woman to face wave after wave of debt collection. She said all the good things to reassure everyone.
Spending three thousand yuan to "sell" himself to such an in-law family, Han Shimei laughed bitterly deeply, not knowing what to say. At that time, everyone believed in "marrying a chicken with a chicken and marrying a dog with a dog", and Han Shimei thought to herself: "Since the fate is like this, then admit it."
So she worked hard for the family, and did all kinds of hard work in order to make money and pay off debts. The family's 12 acres of land have always been her labor alone, from sowing seeds to pulling to the market to sell. The money earned from farming is too small, only enough for a family to eat, so she goes to work in the factory and works overtime all day, just to earn some overtime pay.
She participated in road construction and piling, and worked tirelessly. A day to push more than 100 truckloads of soil, but also tie steel bars, cut steel bars. These living men are struggling to do, but Han Shimei does not say a word of bitterness and tiredness, and has been holding on to death.
The four women of the same village who went to work with her could not stand it and retreated, and only she stayed, because she wanted to pay back the money owed to others as soon as possible.
After a long time, everyone in the village praised Han Shimei for her hard work and ability, saying that her in-laws really picked up a big bargain. This three-thousand-dollar daughter-in-law is really worth it!
After Han Shimei became pregnant, she also had to work in the field and pick peppers in the hot sun, and the whole person was thin and out of phase, and her husband did not know that she was hurting her.
Later, her stomach was getting bigger and bigger, and she couldn't work in the field, so she let Wang Zhongming go, one day she went to deliver food to her husband who was working in the field, and as a result, the shoes were stuck in the quagmire, she bent down to find shoes that were very inconvenient, it was very embarrassing, the husband was not far away, and he didn't come to help, nor did he greet him, it was cold and stupid, Han Shimei felt very cold.
When she was pregnant with her young daughter, she was fined 4500 for family planning, and Wang Zhongming could not come up with any money, so Han Shimei could only borrow money everywhere and pay the fine after making up enough. If it weren't for the villagers' trust and heartache for Han Shimei, they wouldn't have come up with this money.
Although Han Shimei was poor, her ambition was not short at all. She desperately made money to pay off the debt, for the children to go to school, and then her son's school has a quota of subsidies for poor students, if she applies, she can get a subsidy of five thousand yuan, which is a big expense for her family, but Han Shimei said to the child: "We can't apply for this subsidy, mom can afford you, leave this subsidy to people who need more help"!
On weekdays, han shi needs to worry about big and small things in the family, the care of the in-laws, the human relations in the streets, the payment of the family's debts, and the support of the two children to go to school... Wang Zhongming did not have a serious matter all day, saying that he was helping others shave their heads and paying for the year, but he did not take a penny from his family for seven years, but he also owed 180 yuan of gambling debts, and the debt collector came to the door to let Han Shimei repay.
Han Shimei often said: "I may owe him in my previous life", marrying such a person, her married life is very miserable;
But fate has closed a door for you, and it will surely open another window for you, and by chance she has discovered another interesting world, which has lit up in her gray life.
Write poetry to change yourself
Although Han Shimei did not graduate from junior high school, she knows the importance of learning, she has been teaching children to study well, go out of the countryside, and children are also very competitive;
She finally succeeded in making her children a college student, and her wish was fulfilled. The children are very sensible, know that their mother is not easy, go to school logistics work-study for their mother to share the worries, Han Shimei's shoulders are less burdened.
With the development of the network and the popularity of smart phones, in July 2020, Han Shimei also began to follow the trend, playing smart phones, flipping vibrato, and shooting vibrato. She wrote her unspoken mood into poems and sorted them out in a book, and then posted them on Douyin, accumulating hundreds of works over time.
In real life, the husband does not understand himself, and there are no people around him who understand him, but on the Internet she found a lot of people with common language, they will interact in the comment area, cheer each other up, they are strangers, but always feel so close.
The poems written by Han Shimei have resonated with many people, although she has not been in school for several years, and the rhetoric is not so gorgeous, but the poems she wrote are sincere, maybe this is the talent, just as she is immersed in her own little happiness, her husband Wang Zhongming is not happy.
He found that his wife was holding the phone all day silly, not smiling like before, and he suspected that his wife must be "ghostly".
One day while Han Shimei was asleep, he looked over Han Shimei's mobile phone and found that she was always interacting with others in the network, he was afraid that Han Shimei would run, so he angrily cut off the network cable and deleted Han Shimei's poetry friends, in order to beware of Han Shimei, Wang Zhongming followed her all day long, monitored her, and did not allow her to play with mobile phones.
This was no different from restricting personal freedom, and the last straw that weighed on Han Shimei's heart was also broken.
Han Shimei said that after spending most of his life with Wang Zhongming, he never understood himself or felt sorry for himself, as she wrote in the poem: "Living with trees / Not knowing that there is suffering / Living with walls / Not knowing how painful / No one can understand the mood of my life / Wanting to cry without tears." ”
Wang Zhongming was like the tree that couldn't speak, the cold wall, and this marriage made Han Shimei suffer a lot of grievances.
Now it was hard to have a place to express his emotions, and he also had to stop it, and Han Shimei couldn't stand it anymore: "I'm like a prisoner, I really can't go on"! She filed for divorce.
She left all the property in the family to her husband, and she did not want the house, the land, and the savings, and she was willing to leave the house in exchange for a free body.
Although Wang Zhongming has a slight mental retardation, he is not stupid at all, and when he heard that Han Shimei wanted to divorce, he did not agree with ten thousand. It is good to say that han Shimei cannot be persuaded to return, so he took out a killer skill: "The eldest son is not yet married, we cannot divorce, we cannot delay the children to marry the daughter-in-law." Han Shimei put up with it.
When the eldest son successfully completed the marriage, Wang Zhongming said: "The younger daughter is about to take the college entrance examination, and we must not be affected because of our divorce." No matter how strong Han Shimei is, the child is always her weakness, so she endures it again.
Han Shimei put the pain brought to her by the arranged marriage, all the truth poured out, she fell in love with writing poetry when she was most helpless, those unmasked netizens gave her great encouragement and support, and the push of the short video platform let more people see Han Shimei's story.
Han Shimei said: "The beginning of my life was ruined on arranged marriages, and I did not expect that the Internet gave me a new life. ”
Netizens supported her divorce and encouraged her to escape from this lazy and selfish man.
In this life, people will eventually have to live for themselves once, and it is obvious that Han Shimei listened to it.
She wrote in the poem: "I am no longer asleep, the waves have lifted me up."
On April 9, 2021, she and her lawyer went to the county court to file a case, which was bound to divorce the marriage, and after her husband received the summons, the lawsuit was heard on May 19, and Wang Zhongming did not think that Han Shimei would not hesitate to go to the court in order to divorce.
When a person has no worries in her heart, that is, when she can make up her mind the most, the children have established a family, Han Shimei has fulfilled all her obligations, and in the last years of her life, she wants to live as she pleases.
Recalling the bits and pieces of life with her husband, Han Shimei said: "I am his tool to use", which shows that there is no love in the marriage between the two. Someone in the village advised Han Shimei: Haven't you come this way for most of your life? With three children anyway, you're fifty now, and divorce really isn't necessary.
In the eyes of others, it is really unnecessary, because these thirty years have also survived, but for Han Shimei, such a life she did not want to go on for a moment, she said: "Divorce him pitiful, not divorced I pity, this time I will be a selfish person, and he divorced me alone can live well, I cook in the factory, manage to eat and live, but also make some money, my children will not ignore me, I have been here since I was born to the present, the children still want to take me to the past city life, to where there are mountains and rivers and scenery, I can also write poems"!
Life is your own, don't care too much about other people's opinions, divorce or not depends on yourself, what about in your fifties? Today's society is different from the past, love is free, marriage is free.
The era of arranged marriage of "marrying a chicken with a chicken and marrying a dog with a dog" has passed! When marriage brings you not joy but pain, we have the right to choose to stop and leave. Han Shimei's choice is the awakening of women, no longer oppressed by feudal and secular.
Do you think the 51-year-old Han Shimei's decision to file for divorce is absurd? Do you think she's a failure?
Bad marriages turn people into lunatics, good marriages turn people into fools, and best marriages turn people into children.
May we be so blessed to be forever childlike, like a child.
May we always have the courage to start over even if the marriage fails!
Bless Han Shimei and may the rest of her life be loved by herself.
What are your views on Han Shimei's deeds, welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss.