In 1998, Xiao Huamei, a 21-year-old girl from Yunnan, was introduced or sold to Dong Moumin, a poor young man in Feng County, by traffickers in Henan, Jiangsu and other places for about 5,000 yuan after wandering in Shangqiu for a month. Just this year, Xiao Huamei finally decided not to run, and this life and Dong Moumin will live.
First, the first blow of life - the failed marriage of parents
In 1977, Xiaohuamei was born in Puluo Village, Fugong County, Yunnan Province. At the age of 3, his parents divorced. Xiaohuamei followed her remarried mother to Yagu Village, Fugong County, until she got married and left the family at the age of 18. Xiaohuamei may not be able to understand when she is 3 years old, but when she married at the age of 18, she must have been very clear about what her biological parents divorced meant to her. That is, it may be difficult for a person to regain a sense of belonging and security.
Where is your hometown in your own mind? Was it the village of Puluo, or the village of Yagu later? Or maybe it's not. Parents or a haven of hearts? Do ethnic minorities have the saying of "dragging oil bottles", and what about the adoptive father to Xiaohuamei? She didn't want to be here, or she wanted to escape. None of this is known to us.
The only thing that is certain is that 18-year-old Xiaohuamei is still full of hope for the future and full of hope for marriage.
Second, the second life blow - the failure of his marriage
In 1995, 18-year-old Xiaohuamei married into Baoshan City, Yunnan Province.
Baoshan City, like the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, where Yagu Village is located, are two distinct areas in Yunnan Province, equivalent to districted cities. Nujiang Autonomous Prefecture and Baoshan City area, west of the Nu River, east of the Lancang River, the terrain is complex, the traffic is inconvenient. Yagu Village is the closest place to Baoshan City, with a straight-line distance of about 120 kilometers.
Now I can't understand how she could have married so far. In fact, xiaohuamei's mother remarried yagu village and the ex-husband's puluo village, the straight-line distance is about 10 kilometers. It seems that the locals do not have the custom of marrying far away.
In 1997, Xiaohuamei divorced and returned to her parents. The first marriage was only about 2 years. We don't know how her first husband was, or how she's been in the past two years. What we know is that after Xiaohuamei's divorce, she began to have the situation of "abnormal speech behavior".
Perhaps, from this time on, the light in Xiaohuamei's eyes became dimmed.
Third, the third blow of life - marriage failed again
In early 1998, Xiao Huamei, who was less than 1 year after the divorce, followed Sang from Yunnan to Donghai County, Jiangsu Province, and was introduced or sold to her second husband, Xu Mou. I don't know how everyone understands sang's behavior, objectively speaking, the introduction of Xiaohuamei from the backward ethnic minority areas in Yunnan to Donghai County, Jiangsu Province, where the economic development is slightly better, if Xu mou of Donghai County barely gets by, this is not in line with Xiaohuamei's wishes, and it is not a complete Xiaohuamei.
The fact is that the behavior of Sang and his wife is definitely to abduct and sell women. They sold Xiaohuamei to Xu Mou, who had extremely poor conditions, for five thousand yuan, which obviously went against Xiaohuamei's true wishes. At the same time, after Xu paid five thousand yuan to buy a daughter-in-law, the family's economy may fall into a worse situation. This is obviously not the marriage that Xiaohuamei expected. In the face of the second failed marriage, Xiaohuamei bravely chose to flee, and after living with Xu for less than 3 months, she did not quit.
Xiaohuamei has experienced so much misfortune, deception, and mental illness, but she always has hope for the future.
When she successfully escaped from Donghae County, you can still see the light in her eyes.
Fourth, the fourth life blow - more than 1 week of life and death test
However, the light in Xiaohuamei's eyes soon disappeared. A 21-year-old girl is alone, with no place to stand, sleeping in the wind, sleeping and displacing, and consuming her last thoughts about the future.
Some people live very hard, some people are even more bitter, and Xiaohuamei only deserves to live, which may be the life of Xiaohuamei.
In May 1988, xiaohuamei was found by Tan and his wife, a Shangqiu person, after wandering alone for a week. She was ready to accept fate, including being trafficked and having another bad marriage. In the month that Tan and his wife took her in, Xiaohuamei was finally able to eat and have a place to sleep, and she even had a little gratitude to Tan and his wife.
Fifth, in Feng County, Jiangsu Province, married and had children - she finally gave in to fate
In June 1998, through the operation of Tan Mou and his wife of Shangqiu people, Huo Mou of Feng County and others, 21-year-old Xiao Huamei came to Feng County, Jiangsu Province, became the daughter-in-law of Dong Moumin, and has never left Jiangsu since then.
This must not be the vision of life that Xiaohuamei envisioned when she left her parents at the age of 18, and Dong Moumin is not her ideal partner, but after experiencing one blow after another in life, she feels a long-lost sense of stability and warmth. Life here is still hard, but she may have decided not to run away. In the 24 years in Feng County, she and Dong Moumin had 7 sons and a daughter. When the eldest son was in elementary school, Xiaohuamei sometimes picked him up and dropped him off from school.
The only thing that tormented her was the mental illness that arose after her first failed marriage in 1997. When she came to Feng County in 1998, she was basically able to take care of herself and communicate with people, but sometimes there were performances such as laughter and sluggishness. After giving birth to her third son in 2012, her mental disorder symptoms gradually worsened. In 2022, when we see Xiaohuamei, her mental illness is already very serious, she is chained and lives in a small, gray room. It unfolds before us in a very powerful picture.
Postscript: Parents divorced, divorced by themselves, escaped after being abducted, life and death tests, this is the life that Xiaohuamei experienced before she was 21 years old; after the age of 21, she accepted the sloppy life arrangement, although suffering from mental illness, she still survived strongly. It is not easy for people to go through in this life, and they have to go through too many tribulations. Some people are more bitter, some people are particularly bitter; some people don't hold on and bid farewell to the world in advance; some people are relatively strong and have passed one hurdle after another. Xiaohuamei is strong, and after more than 40 years, she has finally lived herself as a living fossil of life's suffering.
What makes us feel a little relieved is that the main blow to Xiaohuamei's tragic life basically occurred before 2000. The socio-economic environment has improved, such as extreme poverty in ethnic minority areas, marriages against women's wishes, and trafficking in and abduction of women. Of course, there are still many things to be done, such as carrying out a comprehensive rectification and investigation and severely punishing relevant criminals who abduct and sell women. The more important thing may be to increase the professional treatment and assistance of patients with mental disorders. A mentally ill person who only helps but does not help will often drag down a family. What if there are 1,000 families with mental disorders like Dong Moumin in Feng County?
Accelerating the construction of a professional psychiatric hospital may be something that should be done to reduce the occurrence of similar tragedies in the future.
