Customs of Xiezhang Village

For this reason, the customs and daily habits of the residents also varied.

Take Xiezhang Village, for example—the meal times here differed from those in the cities. In some cities, breakfast was at eight, lunch at twelve, and dinner after six in the evening. In others, breakfast was still at eight, but lunch would be around two o’clock, and dinner not until after eight at night. In this region, however, most households took breakfast between five and seven in the morning; even the breakfast stalls would close no later than eight. Lunch was served between ten-thirty and twelve-thirty, and dinner fell between five and six-thirty in the evening.

This was why the Xie sisters prepared the meal early; by the time their parents returned from work and Xie Yunfeng had finished playing and came home, they could all quickly wash up and sit down to eat. Father and Mother Xie finished work at four-fifty. Their father’s workplace was nearer, so he only needed about ten minutes to walk home, while their mother took fifteen. After washing up, the family could start dinner by a quarter past five.

Though the family was not wealthy, they lived comfortably enough, never lacking the basics. The meals usually consisted of two dishes and a soup. Tonight, there was stir-fried chicken bones, a plate of sautéed greens, and a simple soup made with dried vegetables. As for the bamboo clams Xie Yunfeng had brought home, they would be left to purge themselves overnight and cooked the next day.

Each year, as spring turned to summer in Xiezhang Village, mustard greens were harvested and made into pickles, then dried into preserved vegetables. While drying the greens, they would add blanched spring bamboo shoots, making dried bamboo shoots with greens. If the drying was done during the rainy season, the resulting preserved vegetables were called "plum-dried greens." Every household made a batch each year, without exception.

In the summer, some people treated the dried greens almost like tea leaves, soaking them to make a vegetable soup that replenished the salt lost during daily labor. At mealtime, a big bowl of this soup might be poured over rice, transforming the meal into a fragrant, satisfying dish.

Xie Yihuang particularly enjoyed her rice soaked in dried vegetable soup. She ate a full bowl and still felt a lingering craving for more, but as a young child, one bowl was enough to fill her. Though her health had greatly improved, her parents still believed she was frail, for in their minds, their youngest daughter had always been delicate.

“This year, the collective is going to allocate a batch of homestead plots. I’m planning to apply for one,” Father Xie said, taking a sip of his homemade rice wine and picking up another piece of chicken bone. “The children are growing up; we can’t all squeeze together forever. It’s time to think about giving them their own rooms.”

Although chicken bones had little meat, they were delicious when stir-fried and made an excellent dish to go with wine.

Mother Xie mixed some of the chicken bone soup into her rice and took a bite. “That’s a good idea. The sooner we get the plot, the sooner we can build a house and move out. That way, we won’t have to listen to so much gossip around here.”

“Has Mother been giving you a hard time again?” Father Xie asked, concerned for his wife.

Xie Grandfather and Grandmother were classic farmers, uneducated and traditional. Grandmother Xie had borne three sons and four daughters, but after much hardship, only two sons and two daughters survived.

As the eldest, Father Xie had suffered the most. Though the family could have afforded to send him to school, Grandfather and Grandmother Xie made him leave after elementary school to earn work points. It was only because his elementary teacher, impressed by his grades, approached the clan leader that he was grudgingly allowed to finish middle school.

Even during middle school, his mornings began with tending the cattle after breakfast. When he finished, he’d go to class on an empty stomach, come home at noon to cut grass for the cattle, grab a quick bite, and head back to school. In the afternoons, he’d once again take the cattle out, and afterward, study by moonlight outside.

Fortunately, with the clan leader’s oversight, his parents didn’t dare push him too far, even if they’d have preferred he earned more work points.

In contrast, his younger siblings had things much easier.

His brother, Xie Weiguo, attended both elementary and middle school without trouble. After graduating, he happened to be eligible for military recruitment, passed the physical, and was accepted into the army. Perhaps because of this, Grandfather and Grandmother Xie always favored him.

When Xie Weiguo retired from the army, though he had no job at first, his veteran status soon landed him a permanent position as a security officer at the town’s chemical factory.

Father Xie also had two sisters: Xie Qiujv and Xie Qiulan. Xie Qiujv was clever and sociable from an early age; she married the accountant of the neighboring village and had a son and a daughter. Xie Qiulan, as a child, suffered a high fever that wasn’t promptly treated; though she recovered, her mind was a bit slow. Nonetheless, she managed daily life and chores and married into a Zhang family in Xiezhang Village, where she had a son.

Of the four siblings, Grandfather and Grandmother Xie doted most on their youngest son, followed by the two daughters, and only turned to Father Xie when they needed something.

For this reason, Mother Xie was never treated kindly, especially after she had two children and then had a contraceptive device inserted. Even though the first birth was twins—a boy and a girl—Grandfather and Grandmother Xie, who believed “many sons and grandsons are a blessing,” considered her unwillingness to have more children an act of filial impiety.

Mother Xie’s reluctance to have more children made Father Xie, in their eyes, an unfilial son. After the family divided their property, tradition dictated that the elderly should live with the eldest son, but Grandfather and Grandmother Xie chose to stay with Xie Weiguo instead. Father Xie, by the terms of the division, had to give them twenty yuan and a hundred and twenty jin of rice each year—rice, specifically, not just any grain.

Fortunately, Father and Mother Xie had worked hard, and their household was doing fairly well.

Still, the house they lived in was joined wall-to-wall with Grandfather and Grandmother Xie’s. Only a dividing wall separated the two families, and Mother Xie was constantly subjected to her mother-in-law’s sharp tongue. The space they had was just one large room, which had been partitioned into two; not nearly enough for a family of five.

Father Xie longed to secure a plot of land for a new house, sell their current place, and move away—both to escape the daily sniping and to solve their space problem.

“I’ve heard there are six plots available this time,” Father Xie said, taking another sip of rice wine. “This year, not many people are applying, since the economy hasn't fully recovered. That’s why I think it’s better to act now than wait. We may not be rich, but we’ve managed to save a fair sum.”

“If we get the homestead, I estimate it’ll cost around five hundred yuan. As for building materials, our factory recently did some roadwork and bought a lot of cement—there’s plenty left over. I can buy some of that at a discount, since it’s surplus. As for bricks and tiles, we can calculate the cost based on the size of the house. I’ll try to keep the total construction cost under eight hundred yuan. All told, we’ll need to prepare between thirteen and fifteen hundred.”