In an alley on the west side of Jiangxi Provincial Cancer Hospital, less than two hundred meters into the alley, you can see a conspicuous red sign hanging on the side of the road, on which are written four big characters - Love Kitchen.
This unusual "kitchen" is located between the narrow alleys of two self-built residential buildings, occupying a depth of more than ten meters inward from the doorway, two meters wide, with a white tile desk and a sink on one side for washing and cutting vegetables, and ten coal stoves on the other side for stir-frying.
This kitchen has been open for 19 years, has been for cancer patients and their families to cook, the fee is cheap: only one yuan for stir-frying a vegetarian dish, two yuan for meat dishes, three yuan for soup, free spices and kitchen utensils, unlimited time.
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Compared with the cancer hospital, which is only separated by a wall, the fireworks here are full of smoke, the sound of chopping meat, the sound of spatulas, the sound of pressure cookers, and the aroma of meals wafting out of the alleys.
The kitchen is bustling with people and the fire is endless, and for many patients' families, the time they cook here is a rare breathing and comfort they get under the pressure of their loved ones' illness.
The founders of the love kitchen, Wan Zuocheng and Xiong Gengxiang, are nearly seventy years old, but they still stick to it, "People who are sick want to eat the meals made by their families, whether they are sick or their families, with this kitchen, they can always have a little less regret." Now their simplest wish is to continue the kitchen as long as they are in good health.
Loving kitchen
Wan Zuocheng's day began at 4 a.m.
The first thing he did when he went downstairs was to make a fire for more than ten stoves outside the house and put them on the kettle. Every day he had to boil a lot of boiling water to make it easier for people to cook. Knowing that the patient's general appetite is not good after chemotherapy, he will also boil a large pot of porridge.
(Wan Zuocheng in the fire)
When the sky was dark, Xiong Gengxiang began to cook rice, and when there were many people who came to cook, she had to cook more than ten pots of rice a day.
Since 8:00 a.m., the families of patients have come here to cook with buckets of water, vegetables and oil. At about ten o'clock, the flow of people reached its peak, and the family members finished processing the ingredients on the board on the left side of the gate, quickly picked up a pot, and turned around to find an idle stove.
Wan Zuocheng paced through the crowd, always paying attention to the situation of each stove: the fire was not enough, he picked up the tongs to add new coal; the pot was placed there and no one fried, he took the spatula to help; the pressure cooker could not be placed outside the house, afraid of safety accidents, be sure to remind guests to put it in the small room on the first floor...
Xiong Gengxiang stood in the middle of the kitchen, holding a rice spoon, guarding the three rice cookers, and shouting loudly in front of him from time to time: "Turn off the water, don't waste!" ”
(Xiong Gengxiang is responsible for cooking rice, and when there are many people, he can cook more than ten pots a day)
After one o'clock in the afternoon, the crowd gradually dispersed, and the couple packed up the kitchenware, covered the stove, wiped the desk clean, and then began to prepare their own lunch. Although they founded the Love Kitchen, they ate casually, a pot of bean shoots, a bowl of leftovers from the first day, and passed the day.
After eating it was close to four o'clock in the afternoon, Wan Zuocheng went upstairs to rest for a while, and Xiong Gengxiang continued to cook rice and wait for the evening guests. The two had to work until 10 p.m. to rest, and the next day they had to continue to be busy, a life that had been going on day after day for 19 years.
Xiong Gengxiang described the days here as "in prison", circling the kitchen 365 days a year, but she did not think that "going to jail" here was a bad thing, "as long as you don't go to jail there", while pointing to the direction of the cancer hospital.
(After Wan Zuocheng and his wife cleaned up, it was three o'clock in the afternoon and they began to eat lunch)
The establishment of the kitchen was founded by chance.
In 2003, Wan Zuocheng and his wife did breakfast business in the street, got up at two or three o'clock in the morning to fry fritters, and invited two people to help, taking advantage of the dawn to fry 2,000 fritters and send them to several college canteens in Nanchang, earning hundreds of yuan a day.
One morning, they had just finished frying fritters at the intersection, and a couple pushed their children over, carrying vegetables in their hands, carefully asking them if they could borrow a fire to stir-fry them. The child in the wheelchair had bone cancer, had been in the hospital for a long time, said he wanted to eat his mother's cooking, and clamored to go home. They asked a lot about restaurants along the way and were all rejected.
Wan Zuocheng looked at the little boy who had no legs, which was really pitiful, and immediately agreed to let her use the fire to stir-fry. The child's mother fried two dishes, cooked a pot of tomato egg soup, and wanted to pay some money, but Wan Zuocheng did not agree.
(Mr. and Mrs. Wan Zuocheng prepare for patients and families who come to cook in the morning)
At that time, a briquette was only 2 cents, Wan Zuocheng thought, anyway, after frying the fritters, the remaining fire is useless, telling her that she can come to stir-fry in the future.
Unexpectedly, everyone in the cancer hospital knew that free stir-frying could be done here, and the family members came to queue up before they arrived at the meal, and there were people waiting until one or two o'clock. Six stoves were not enough, and Wan Zuocheng added more than a dozen stoves at his own expense.
The patients came more and asked Wan Zuocheng if he could charge some fees, so Wan Zuocheng and his wife charged 5 cents a person. The kitchen has been operating at a loss until the price rise in 2016, which is priced at 1 to 3 yuan, barely maintaining its operation.
(Wan Zuocheng shuttles between the family members of the patient who cooks)
Wan Zuocheng and his wife live in a three-story single-family house on the side of the alley, with a monthly rent of more than 4,000 yuan. In 2018, the government paid part of the rent, they moved to the second floor, and the business of fried fritters also stopped.
Running an "anti-cancer kitchen" became the only thing in their lives.
"The Fleeing Man"
When they have free time, Mr. and Mrs. Wan Zuocheng like to chat with patients or family members. Xiong Gengxiang often leaned on the rice cooker, looked at the people who came and went, and told acquaintances about the stories of his suffering when he was a child because he did not have food.
(Xiong Gengxiang chatting with the family of the patient who came to cook)
She likens the people who come here to cook as refugees, "they are all people who have come to flee," and she wants to provide a place for these people to eat a full meal.
After running a kitchen here for nearly 20 years, Wan Zuocheng's relationship with other relatives and friends has become increasingly indifferent. Relatives once scolded him for "begging for food", "He said that we have money and conditions, and we still have to get involved with cancer patients, and we deserve to die." Some people say that this disease is very serious, and if it is infected, it will die."
But Wan Zuocheng understands that cancer is not an infectious disease, not to mention that relatives and friends only meet once every New Year's Festival, and the interaction with these patients is day after day. "They stay away from [me], I'm happy, I'm physically good, that's it."
(Wan Zuocheng)
The patient who left the deepest impression on him was Lao Rao, in his fifties, with advanced liver cancer, and doctors said there were only 3 to 6 months left to live. When he first came to the love kitchen, Wan Zuo found that Lao Rao had a good attitude and chatted with him as soon as he came to the kitchen. "He's very happy, [he thinks] dead is dead, whether he lives for three months or six months, live a happy day." 」
Lao Rao eventually survived for three years, and finally lay in a hospital bed, and the hospital issued a critical illness notice, informing his family to take him back to his hometown. Before leaving, Lao Rao wanted to come to see his old friend, but the ambulance could not drive into the alley, and he was pushed into the kitchen lying on a stretcher.
Wan Zuocheng still remembers Lao Rao's appearance that day, "He cried, saying that he was very happy here for three years and had no regrets." Looking at Lao Rao's face of saying goodbye to him, Wan Zuocheng couldn't help but cry, telling him not to get excited, to go home and recuperate, and to have a chance to meet later.
Four days later, Lao Rao was gone.
(Wan Zuocheng is helping the patient's family)
Wan Zuocheng felt that the thousands of people who had come to this kitchen were like Lao Rao, and their hearts would be grateful to him, and some people did not say it, but he could feel it. "Helped them on the last road of life, and each of them had me in their hearts." That was his greatest satisfaction.
In his dealings with cancer patients, Wan Zuocheng also apologized to his father. In 1993, Mr. and Mrs. Wan Zuocheng decided to come to Nanchang to develop. Before that, Wan Zuocheng dug wells in the countryside, Xiong Gengxiang could also dry, chartered more than twenty acres of land, husband and wife worked together, saved a lot of money, and was an early batch of ten thousand yuan households in the village.
In order to stop farming for the next generation, they brought their sons to Nanchang. Less than two years after coming, the restaurant business was booming, but Wan Zuocheng's father had lung cancer.
(Wan Zuocheng watched the patient's family pack the prepared meal)
In Wan Zuocheng's impression, his father was physically strong, and "young people can't beat him in their work." He remembered that his father, in his sixties, could still ride more than a hundred miles of bicycles from his hometown to see him, and he would go back and forth on the same day.
After suffering from cancer, the doctor diagnosed that the father's surgery could not prolong his life for too long, and the operation cost was tens of thousands of yuan, so the father returned to the countryside after chemotherapy.
Wan Zuocheng recalled that his father had been paralyzed in bed for the last few months, his whole body was in pain, and he could barely survive by beating Durandin. Because of the pain, my father could not eat, and people became thinner and thinner, "can't die, can't live." At that time, he had been busy with the restaurant business in Nanchang and did not have time to take care of it.
Two years after his diagnosis, his father died. He could feel the mood of the families of cancer patients, so he comforted them over and over again in the future.
(Ms. Zhang couldn't help but cry when talking about her husband's condition)
Wan Zuocheng remembered a man, his son suffered from bone cancer and lived on the third floor, his wife had cervical cancer and lived on the fifth floor, and the man's own hands were also somewhat disabled. When he came here to cook, the man once told Wan Zuocheng that he did not want to live. Wan Zuocheng advised him, "You are dead, and those two people are even more pitiful." They die of illness, there is no way, you have to accompany them to the end of life. ”
Every time this man came to the kitchen to stir-fry, Wan Zuo Chengdu did not charge money, and every New Year's Festival, he had to stuff some money and daily necessities for him, hoping to help their family tide over the difficulties.
In the end, the man's son died after two years of treatment, and his wife was cured and discharged from the hospital, and they are still alive and well.
Taste life
Everyone who comes here to cook knows in their hearts that their families suffering from cancer are facing the biggest difficulties in their lives. They come here, make a few dishes, cook a pot of soup, and hope that the patient will eat better and maybe help the disease.
Peng Yun always came to the kitchen when there were few people and cooked a pot of soup for his father. Her father has advanced lung cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.
(Peng Yun brought crock pots from home to cook soup for his father)
When she came home for the New Year this year, she brought crock pots from her home and thought the soup that came out of it was more delicious. Unfortunately, she underestimated the fire of the coal stove, the soup was grunting, the ribs were not yet cooked, and the next day she used the pressure cooker back.
The southern winter is wet and cold, she can't care about the frostbite at the joints, and cooks for her father in the semi-open kitchen. Her father often had no appetite, so she would put more salt in the soup and let him drink more water.
While waiting, she bought a box lunch herself and ate it while waiting. During the months of taking care of her father, Peng Yun felt an emotional connection with her father for a long time, and his father became very dependent on her, calling less than two hours after leaving to inquire about the situation.
There are not a few customers like Peng Yun, who rush to the kitchen, finish cooking and hurry back to their relatives, and use companionship to bring strength and security to their sick relatives.
(During the waiting time, Peng Yun bought himself a box lunch to eat while waiting)
There is also no shortage of patients in the kitchen who have their own cooking, and Old Ray is one of them. Every day after finishing his treatment at 11 a.m., he went to buy a handful of green vegetables, brought a small bottle of oil from home, and came to the kitchen to stir-fry vegetables, serve two bowls of rice, and eat for three yuan for a day.
Lao Lei was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in June last year, and now he has spent more than 300,000 yuan. Before the illness, he and his wife worked as a farmer in his hometown of Anning County, and after the diagnosis, his wife lived with him for a period of time, and went home in less than a week. Cancer treatment is a huge expense for him, and saving a little on food is a little.
The children had advised Wan Zuocheng and his wife to put down the kitchen and go on a tour, but Wan Zuocheng felt that he was doing happy things and that there were still many people who needed him.
He knew that the sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide produced by the combustion of honeycomb coal were harmful to the body, and it was not healthy to eat leftovers on weekdays, but he and his wife survived in this environment for twenty years, and both of them were still physically tough.
(In the anti-cancer kitchen, the pennant and handwritten thank-you letter sent by the patient's family, swipe left to view)
Xiong Gengxiang is the same, in her logic, she has not had a serious illness in decades, because she has run an "anti-cancer kitchen", she would rather "serve people" in this way, rather than want others to take care of her.
She even thought that if there is a next life, she will continue to run this kitchen, "as long as you don't go to the hospital, it's better than anything."
(Peng Yun is a pseudonym in the text)
Video, Editing: Wei Jian, Ono | Text: Wei Jian
Editors: Wu Jiaxiang, Ye Zhengxing
Typesetting: Han Ningning | Proofreader: Wu Yihe
Operations: Li Yongmin | Coordinator: Wu Wei