On January 21, 2023, the Lunar New Year is here. The 26-year-old Xu Fei followed his parents back to the fourth uncle's house as usual to join his grandmother for the New Year. At Chinese New Year's Eve dinner table, he wondered if his parents or relatives would urge marriage in person, but fortunately he "escaped a catastrophe." After the first day of junior high school, the end of the big family group year, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
Chinese New Year's Eve the people who rushed to gather.
Xu Fei has been home for almost a month. On December 26, 2022, he returned to his hometown in Hubei Province while studying at 985 University. It is the day of the first month of the traditional solar term, when the family buys New Year goods. In order to welcome him back, his parents poured an extra thirty pounds of sausage.
But as the days went on, he found that the stability of these substances was not enough to bridge the "spiritual gap" between him and his parents. On normal days, parents will consciously or unintentionally urge marriage. He had to resort to delaying tactics to avoid the outbreak of conflict.
Xu Fei has had two relationships, but in his sensitive cognition, neither of them can be called "love". He always remembered Cai Lan saying: "You can believe in love, but don't be superstitious." He loved the answer, with anticipatory love. In the tug-of-war, he reached the only consensus with his parents - feelings first, marriage later.
Now, Xu Fei is about to graduate in a year and a half. If you plan to rely on your computer science major to set up a home in a second-tier city, of course, you can't do without the help of your parents. He is sometimes confused and feels that he may not be able to withstand the trials of society. But he still holds out hope for a little more than his current life.
The following is Xu Fei's dictation:
Xu Fei's fourth uncle's family was preparing dishes for Chinese New Year's Eve rice.
On January 21, Chinese New Year's Eve, I went with my parents to see my grandmother, who now lives in the fourth uncle's house, so I will go there as usual. It's the countryside, and in previous years we used to burn braziers for warmth. Now the conditions are good, the air conditioner is turned on, but the brazier still has to burn, and it burns all day. The firewood should be filled enough, not extinguished, which means that the New Year is prosperous.
Xu Fei's charcoal brazier of the fourth uncle's family.
We divided the Chinese New Year's Eve meal into two tables, one for adults and one for children. It's twenty-six, and I still like to squeeze the kid's table. Then watch TV with them, wait for the countdown to the Spring Festival Gala, and go to the fireworks together at almost twelve o'clock. The houses in my hometown are small buildings that rise along the roadside. Each family has to set up fireworks in front of their house before midnight. When the New Year's bell rings on the TV, fireworks follow the main road, lighting up the night sky of every household, and the New Year is here. The remaining garbage cannot be thrown away after the fireworks are set off, and my grandmother said that this is money, and it can only be thrown away after the New Year.
Xu Fei's family's Chinese New Year's Eve meal.
Fireworks set off in front of Zero Point's house.
My relatives live close to each other, and early in the morning on the first day of the new year, I went to my uncle's house to eat dumplings. In the second year of junior high school, I went back to my grandmother's house for dinner before I got married.
They started pushing me about getting married two years ago, and this year is no exception.
On January 7, I watched TV with my parents, and the TV was showing skits, the first talking about older young women being urged to get married, and the second talking about having children. I complained at the time that it was boring. Mom and Dad said: "You young people don't understand, only if you have a family will you be happy, and someone will love you and take care of you." I said, "Young people are under pressure to work and can't support themselves." My mother thought, "When you have a child, no matter how hard and tired you are, you will be happy when you go home and see the child." "I was silent when I said that.
It's been almost a month since I went home, on December 26 last year. Sometimes after staying outside for a long time, I always want to go home and see it for a moment or two. But when I got back, I had to find a way to make my mom happy – deliberately getting up early and eating breakfast on time. At home I don't dare to order takeout, my mother will think I am wasteful. When I got home that day, they picked me up and cut a plate of my favorite sausage, a must-have New Year item in my hometown. Starting from the lunar month, New Year goods are on the minds of parents. As soon as they have a holiday, they will run to the market, and when they see good quality beef, mutton and fish meat, they will buy it, marinate, blow dry it, and make bacon. In previous years, the family would prepare more than 20 pounds of sausage, but in the past two years, when I was outside, my parents prepared a lot, with 50 or 60 pounds.
New Year goods not made by parents.
Two years ago, when my parents urged me to get married, they said that having a stable family would give me the motivation to take on the responsibilities of being a man.
But I don't think. During the New Year's holiday, my mom and I went to her cousin's house. Mom's cousin is still unmarried. Every time I came home, my mother said that her home was too deserted, and although she was comfortable, it was also a life without fetters and broken.
My parents' ideal daughter-in-law is the same as most families - kind and filial, with equal conditions. But they told me anyway that the premise is that there is affection on both sides. On the contrary, I sometimes advise them that the times have changed, the human heart is not so pure, and it is difficult to find a person who delivers the true heart. A person can also live well.
But they didn't listen, tacitly acknowledging that I would get married in two years. I had to adopt procrastination tactics and draw a pie: fate has not arrived, the time is not ripe, and when my job is stable, I want to get married again... Sometimes I also use my eldest cousin who has failed in blind dates repeatedly as a shield: "Look at the hurry, my eldest sister is 31 this year, and she has not been married after urging for a few years." "To be able to fool once is to be once. In two years, the contradictions are expected to be more intense, and I can only hide.
In their hearts, if I am not married, they will not fulfill their mission.
I've had two relationships. One time in college, it was the first time I really liked a girl. Another paragraph is a recent entanglement with my childhood sweetheart. Neither segment is really together. But for me, it was all done with the heart, and at the end there was a deep sense of exhaustion. But sometimes I feel that I like them just like someone who is not bad, and I can't say that I "love" them. I also asked my friends, what is the state and feeling of love? She said something I didn't understand and asked me to go to The English Patient.
The bus stop in front of Xu Fei's hometown.
For me, feelings come first, marriage comes last. I don't believe in human nature and it's hard to start a relationship easily. And marriage is more like an exam essay, a standard answer sheet for the last question. At this age, you get married, and the mainstream society judges you to pass. I don't like loneliness, but loneliness becomes bearable compared to two people forced to get married.
I have a college classmate who is also a fellow countryman. He went to work after graduation, did the operation and maintenance of the electronics factory, and got married last year at the urging of both parents, the woman was a former colleague, he informed me that the marriage was very sudden, and my impression of his feelings was still stuck in his first love in college. He was serious then, and although they later broke up, it took him a year and a half to die completely. So much so that when I heard the news of his marriage, I was in a trance, and time passed so quickly.
Later, when we talked about it, he told me that my life was stressful, that I had to pay off the mortgage and take care of my parents on both sides. I think he's tired of living, but it seems to be the same situation as many people.
There is also a very good friend from elementary school who is also married. Before watching his circle of friends, he brought a pair of children to eat KFC, and the children were very cute. At that moment I felt that he was very happy, and it was also the kind of family happiness that my parents believed in.
But this doesn't seem to be the life I'm looking forward to now, I remember that the day he posted the photos of his moments was Wednesday, and I laughed and complained to my friends around me: "My elementary school classmates have all children, but I don't envy them." He is going to take the children to eat KFC on Wednesday, waste, I will endure the day, until crazy Thursday to eat the special food. ”
Most of the elders in the family use Douyin, and they also have a Douyin group, which follows each other in a circle, and also brings a selfie stick to TikTok when they go out. What was pushed back and forth to them was pretty much the same. I also get bored seeing what they brush. For example, my mother, who used to love to watch masters preach reasoning, such as "what shortcomings do women have to change in order to be happy", now loves to watch videos of "One hundred good filial piety first" and "gratitude to parents", and often forwards them to me.
There are quite a few people in our old family Douyin, not only middle-aged and elderly. Once someone I liked (childhood sweetheart) sent me a Douyin video to reason with me - a certain "Buddhist master" on Douyin said: "If the road is not accessible, you must learn to turn, and if you are unhappy, you must learn to look down." The answer is tomorrow. "At that moment I realized that we weren't all the same way.
Actually, my parents are very good to me. I studied computer science, took graduate school for three years, and finally went from a second book to a 985 part-time graduate student. During this period, they did not force me to find a job, support my family and earn money, but always provided me with financial support. There are no requirements for my work, I think I can support myself. In our generation of only children, many parents gave everything, and my parents were no exception - they also planned for me to start a family and buy me a house, prepared a down payment of 1 million yuan, and when I worked, bought me a car, and helped me get started in life.
There is a line in "The Thief of Years": "To be a man, always believe." "I still think of this sentence in "The Thief of Years", and I still long for love. Cai Lan Weibo also asked him: "Can you still believe in love?" He replied, "You can believe, don't be superstitious." "I love this answer.
Learning computer science is not my hobby, but because it is a popular major, it has become my survival skill. But this year's internet employment is sluggish, and I haven't officially started looking for a job, but I have to plan ahead. In the future, I want to choose an affordable city to live in Chengdu, Suzhou, Changsha, all of which have their own unique charm of life. When I can't hold on, I'll consider going back to my hometown. Sometimes I get confused and feel that I may not be able to withstand the tempering of society. But I still have hope to go beyond my existing life. I usually like to listen to folk songs, but when my work is stable and I am free, I want to learn a musical instrument and work for a band.
(At the request of interviewee, Xu Fei is a pseudonym)