Traditional Chinese women may leave a sad face in modern times, but under their sad appearance, there is a hidden light of humanity, and this light is essentially genderless, but society has branded it on them.
01
In 2003, when the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project was implemented, there was a nail household that resolutely refused to relocate without compensation, and this family was able to support itself by a woman who had been operating for many years, and behind this seemingly stubborn, strong and rigid woman, there was a microcosm of traditional Chinese women.
The woman, named Zhang Bing'ai, was born in the 1970s and 1980s in a poor mountain village in Xintan Town, Zigui County, Yichang City, Hubei Province.
When the party and the government suggested that they relocate for the construction of the Three Gorges Hydropower Station and compensate them with a corresponding amount, everyone cooperated with the work of the government, and at the same time walked out of the backward mountain villages and moved towards a more convenient life.
Only one person refused to relocate from beginning to end, indifferent in the face of the government's compensation payment, stubbornly guarded his poor family and an acre of land, and became a famous "nail household" in China at that time, this person was Zhang Bingai.
Why did Zhang Bing'ai refuse to relocate, even risking his home being swallowed up by the river? Opt for another option in addition to relocation, "back-leaning" (remodeling the house higher and further back from the riverside). This also begins with her marriage story.
Like many women to be married, Zhang Bing'ai has a crush on Miaoling, but her parents' eyes are bound by backwardness, according to local cognition, if any family can marry their daughter down the mountain, it will be more beautiful, so she beat the Mandarin duck and forcibly arranged the rest of her life to the family of a family surnamed Xiong under the mountain.
Zhang Bing'ai was naturally reluctant, but the "order of her parents" could not be violated in that era, and in September 1981, she was finally forced to wear a pair of short pants, a cheap shirt, and ordinary mesh shoes, and married into the Xiong family in Guilin Village, Zigui County. Her husband Xiong Yunjian is a cripple, with thick legs and thin legs, slightly heavier work can not be done, and the mode of life after marriage with her is "male inside, female outside".
The former crush has become a past that Zhang Bing'ai buried in her heart and cannot be mentioned, and she and her husband Xiong Yunjian have no emotional basis, and the two get along lukewarmly in this arranged marriage, which makes Zhang Bing'ai feel wronged for a time, and the beautiful years are like a thick cloud.
02
However, although Zhang Bing'ai can't choose her own marriage, she can work hard to manage the life in her hands, she is a diligent woman, her thinking is more traditional, since she is married, it is her home, and she always has to live a better life.
Every day, after she finished her housework, she went to the field alone to do farm work, and there was only one acre of land in the family, and she tried to harvest more grain with sweat to support her husband and herself.
And although her husband's legs and feet are inconvenient, but he is also diligent in the face of capable work, the two of them in the life of chai rice oil and salt, living a plain, bitter, harmonious, and gradually developed feelings.
Soon after, Zhang Bing'ai became pregnant with her first child, but unfortunately, she worked hard every day, was the pillar of the family, and she could not relax for a moment when she was pregnant, resulting in the miscarriage of the first child.
Zhang Bing'ai is very sad, fortunately, she is still young, and later gave birth to a pair of children with her husband, while rejoicing in becoming a mother, the burden on her shoulders is also heavier, going up the mountain to cut firewood, washing clothes, cleaning, ploughing, sowing, fertilizing, weeding, harvesting crops, etc., all by herself, her husband can only do some small things such as choosing vegetables, wiping the table, accompanying children and so on.
However, for a woman, it is enough for her husband to have an attitude there, as long as the two are in the same heart, she can grit her teeth and carry it down on the hard days.
In this way, Zhang Bing'ai's family lived warmly and bitterly until 1996, the government wanted to build a large hydropower station in the local area, tens of thousands of people faced attractive compensation and in order to cooperate with the development of the country, collective relocation, moved to Dongjia Town, 120 kilometers away, that is, the government arranged a new home for them, compared with the original backward villages, where water and electricity, transportation is convenient, the economy is also very good, so at that time there was a popular phrase "if you want to be rich, go down to the reservoir."
Only Zhang Bing'ai, no matter how unwilling to relocate, did not hesitate to choose to lean back, there are three main reasons:
First, her husband is disabled, even if she relocates in the past, she cannot support a family; second, her own words, she does not have a skill, has always relied on the spirit of hard-working, through farming for a living, if she relocates in the past, how to maintain her survival after losing the land, the government's compensation is also exhausted, she cannot sit on the mountain and eat the sky.
Third, when the villagers were relocating, although the firewood cut back from the bottom of the mountain was reluctant to be moved away, their land could not be moved, so some people transferred or entrusted the land to Zhang Bingai, adding up to more than 20 acres, which made her who was very dependent on the land for many years, as if she saw a great opportunity.
03
She thought to herself that if she could take care of more than 20 acres of land every year, the family's life would be better. For the sake of her husband and children, Zhang Bing'ai preferred to guard that land, painstakingly support the poor family, and strive to raise her two children.
Later, seeing that the river was going to flood the home she had painstakingly managed for many years, she signed the homestead application at the suggestion of the village cadre, and then continued to lean back, moved into her own vegetable field, and temporarily built a shack that barely sheltered her from the wind and rain, and there was no electricity in the shack.
After that, she got 4800 yuan of compensation from the village cadres, bought several old and dilapidated resettlement houses next to a local highway, and after simple decoration and decoration, the family finally settled down.
In 2020, Zhang Bing'ai's son Xiong Changwen, who chose to be a soldier in the college entrance examination, retired from the army and has since worked in Guangdong to earn a living. Zhang Bing'ai, who supports the family alone, it is not easy to raise his children to adulthood, but fortunately, his son is very filial and often mails his salary home.
Her daughter Xiong Lingzhi will start a family in 2021, work hard with her husband after marriage, and run transportation in Xintan Town.
Zhang Bing'ai also regretted the "stubbornness" of that year, and envied the villagers who moved away... But her children are now able to share the worries of the family, making her life a lot easier.
However, as a mother, she is most pleased that her children can stand in society and do not have to guard a piece of land for a lifetime like her. But she did not know that the land had been watered by her hard work and sweat, hiding her magnificent years, and she was a great wife, a mother, and a warrior in the family who had not been crushed by wind and rain.