Hi, Steemit friends. I hope you continue to enjoy reading my stories of growing up in China.
Stemmit的朋友们，你们好！我希望你们继续喜欢阅读有关我在中国的成长经历的故事。
After San Niang and I got off the train through the window and landed at Neijiang train station safe and sound, San Niang hired a labor to carry our luggage – a bamboo sling filled with my clothes and personal items as well as things she bought in Chengdu. We walked about an hour and finally arrived at her home.
We were greeted by San Niang’s son named Mao Mao. He was twelve years old and appeared to be friendly and kind. He was very happy to see his mother and greeted me with a big grin on his face. San Niang had another son who did not live with her. His name was An Bang and he was a “Sent-Down Youth” living in the countryside of Neijiang.
San Niang’s home was located in a small town called “White Horse’s Town”. Her home was just one room within an old style quadrangle (Siheyuan) housing. The original quadrangle must have belonged to one rich family before the communist revolution but now four families lived here and each family just occupied one room. Each family had a kitchen area outside of the room on the hallway. I walked into San Niang’s home exhausted and feeling sick. The overwhelming smell of bathroom made me sicker. There was actually no bathroom within the room, nor a public bathroom in the quadrangle. The smell came from a large wooden nightstool placed at the corner of the room. Although the nightstool had a wooden cover, foul smell from it still permeated the room. The room was dark, the furniture very sparse. There were two beds, one queen size and the other a single; a square dining table accompanied by three long wooden benches; a stand with washing basins; a trunk and a dresser. San Niang was a widow so she and I shared the queen size bed and her son Mao Mao slept on the single bed.
I was woken up next morning by a loud noise coming from the room next to ours. San Niang’s next door neighbor was a man who used to live in Chengdu. He was having a conversation through the wall early in the morning with San Niang because he was excited to learn that San Niang brought home a relative from Chengdu. Later that day I met San Niang’s other neighbors. They all seemed to be very friendly and curious about me. They looked at me with admiring eyes and commented on how I was wearing Dengcao cashmere clothes and my family must be well-off. I heard them saying: “Rich people are indeed different because they can afford to wear Dengcao cashmere.” I noticed that people at Neijiang, including my San Niang talked with very strong local dialect. Most of the people I met wore shabby clothes and appeared to be very poor. Another neighbor living in the quadrangle had a daughter my age who always wore a pair of shoes with holes in the front and her big toes were exposed. We became friends a couple of months later. In the winter time she never worn any socks and her feet inside the shoes with holes on them always looked bright red to me.
One morning during the first week I lived with San Niang, I was woken up not only by loud noises but also by strong smell of urine and feces. I got up and went out of the room to find out what was going on. I walked outside the gate of the quadrangle and saw a couple of peasants chatting loudly with each other and with our neighbors while emptying the contents of every household’s nightstools into their night-soil carts. San Niang told me later that it was the night-soil collecting day and this ritual happened once a week. The peasants used the night-soil as fertilizers.
It took me a while to get used to going to the bathroom on a nightstool that was emptied only once a week. Back at home in Chengdu, my family did not have a bathroom but there was a public bathroom in the courtyard. We used a spittoon at night but empty the urine into the public bathroom every morning. We always washed the spittoon thoroughly so there was never a smell in our rooms.
One day San Niang and I were on an outing walking on a hilly area, I needed to go to the bathroom badly. San Niang located an outhouse which was just a shack with a big hole on the ground. After I finished my business, I called out to San Niang asking for toilet paper. What she brought to me was a piece of bamboo sliver and she instructed me to use it to clean my bottom. I was very confused but San Niang gestured to me trying to show me how to use it. I did what I had to do to clean myself and after I pulled up my pants and stood up, I saw there were soiled bamboo slivers scattered around all over the bathroom. This was the very first time I experienced using a piece of “toilet bamboo sliver”, a practice very common for local people who were too poor to afford toilet paper.
I will continue my memoir about my exile in Neijiang in my next post. I hope you enjoyed reading my story.
A Picture of me and my two older sisters taken at our home in Chengdu in the summer of 1969 before I was sent to live with my San Niang in Neijiang.
当我和三孃从火车窗户爬下到内江的火车站稳脚跟后，三孃雇了一个劳力帮她背行李。她的行李是一个竹背篼，里面装满了我的衣服，生活用品和三孃在成都为自己买的一些东西。我们三人走了大概一个小时后终于走到了三孃的家。
三孃的小儿子毛毛在家迎我们。他十二岁，看上去很友善。毛毛见到他妈妈很高兴，见到我时脸上露出傻乎乎的微笑。三孃还有一个大儿子名叫安帮。安帮当时在内江的农村当知青，因此没有住在家里。
三孃的家位于内江一个叫白马镇的小镇。她家在一个老式四合院里占一间屋子。这个四合院在解放前可能是一个大户人家的私宅， 但现在有四户人家住在里面，每家人各占一间屋子。各屋的外面有过道都被围起来当厨房用。我到三孃家时已经精疲力尽，身体很不舒服。走进她的房间后，房间里一股非常刺鼻的厕所臭味使我感到更恶心。房间里其实没有卫生间，院子里也没有公共厕所，这股臭味来自于放在屋角的一个木制大马桶。虽然马桶上有一个木盖子，但臭气仍然弥漫了整个屋子。三孃的屋子很黑，家具很少。屋里有两张床，一张大床，一张小床，一张靠墙的方桌，围着方桌三面摆有三条长凳，一个洗脸架上放了几个盆子，一个大箱子和一个衣柜。三孃是一个寡妇，她安排让我和她一起睡在大床上，毛毛睡小床。
第二天早上，我被隔壁房间很大的声音吵醒。三孃隔壁的邻居是一个曾经在成都居住过的中年男人，他听说三孃从成都带回一个亲戚来家里住，很高兴，正隔着一堵墙跟三孃说话，说想要见到我。三孃在那天把我介绍给她所有的邻居。邻居们对我很友好，也很好奇。他们用羡慕的眼光看着我，指着我身上穿的灯草绒衣服说：“有钱人是不同，身上穿的是灯草绒。”我注意到所有的人，像我三孃一样，说话时都带非常浓的内江方言口音。我所遇到的周围的人大多数都是衣衫褴褛的穷人。四合院里一家邻居的女儿和我年龄一般大，她总是穿一双前面各有一个洞的布鞋，两个大脚趾都露在外面。我和她后来成为朋友。寒冷的冬天里她从来不穿袜子，她那双藏在前面有洞的布鞋里的双脚看上去总是冻得红红的。
刚到三孃家头一周的一个清早，我被喧闹声和刺鼻的臭味所惊醒。我起身跑到外面去看到底是怎么回事。我看见四合院门外两个农民正在高声说话，他们一边说话，一边忙碌着把四合院内每家人的马桶里的粪便倒进他们的拉粪车里。三孃后来告诉我那天是收粪便的日子，附近农村的农民每周来镇上收一次，他们把拉回的粪便当肥料使用。
我还是花了很长时间才慢慢适应了每天在三孃家坐在一周才清洁一次的马桶上方便。我在成都的家里也没有卫生间，但院子里有一个公共厕所。我们每天晚上用一个痰盂装小便，每天早上去公共厕所把痰盂里的尿倒干净，然后把痰盂洗得干干净净。家里的房间里因此没有臭味。
有一天，三孃和我在户外山路上走路，我急于要上厕所。三孃帮我找到一个茅房，里面就一个茅坑。我解完便后叫在外边等我的三孃给我手纸。三孃走进来，手里拿着一个竹片，她叫我用这个竹片搽屁股。我很惶惑不解，她然后用手比划着教我如何用那个竹片。我照她说的做了，当我穿好裤子站起来时我发现厕所里到处都是被用过了的竹片。这是我第一次经历用“刮屎片”。这在当地是非常普通的事情，人们那时实在太穷，用不起手纸。
我会继续在下一个帖子继续我在内江放逐期间的故事。希望你们喜欢阅读我的故事。