Hi there:
I hope this message finds you well in every sense of the word, or weathering life's challenges the best you can. That's all we can ask of ourselves.
I'm quite excited about this issue's selection, as exhausting as the translation process was.
Leper colonies may be a thing of the distant past in the West, but they are still common in China, a legacy of a longstanding approach of treatment in segregation. Despite a campaign to phase them out, one news report in 2019 put the outstanding number at 67 in Guangdong Province alone.
In this deeply personal essay, Hong Mengxia profiles Xu He, a late resident of one of these facilities. The first word that comes to mind after reading about Xu's life is epic—not in the sense of worldly achievement, but in terms of the amount of turmoil she endured and the enormous span of her life, which lasted over nine decades.
What stands out about Hong's piece is her tremendous eye for detail and her strong bond with Xu, which evolved over the course of a three-year oral history project. Hong stayed at the hospital where Xu lived for several days during each of her visits.
Hong's genuine affection for her subject is evident in the way she beautifully captures Xu's voice and personality. I hope the story, first published by The Livings on March 11, moves you the same way it affected me when I read it in Chinese.
The length of this story exceeds the word limit for many email services. If your message is truncated, you can read the rest of the story here.
Take care and see you soon.
—ML
The Tenacious Optimist: the Extraordinary Life of Xu He
By Hong Mengxia
Edited by Xu Zhibo
Preface
Barely anyone is aware of the fact that a 60-plus-year-old leper colony lies at the foot of Maofeng Mountain, just north of Guangzhou. As of five years ago, it couldn't be found on any smartphone mapping apps.
This hospital that's home to 30-odd elderly patients is utterly peaceful, belying its proximity to a major city. The village where the colony is located is perennially draped by a gentle coat of sunshine. Mist pervades over the lake near the entrance to the village. A common picturesque scene finds a lone pole-wielding fisherman skimming the lake surface on a raft. Pawpaws, palms, camellias, azaleas and sweet-scented osmanthi alternate in local plots. Villagers can be seen laying turnip under the sun while others stroll the fields fresh from picking Chinese flowering cabbage.
The first time I met Xu He was on New Year's Day in 2017. Already 90 at the time, she was too weak to work and killed time sitting on a sofa in a hospital corridor, wrapped in a thick cotton-padded winter coat. Tiny in stature, she had a chubby belly and gray hair. A smile revealed no teeth. Even though her arms and legs were disabled, which confined her indoors, she was an upbeat presence who spoke in vivid sentences as she summoned a clear memory that remembered details from dozens of years ago.
When we sat across from her and asked her to tell us her life story, she agreed without hesitation and she began her narrative with the cheeky comment: "You know what? I even sold myself once."
The old, infirm body and the carefree, childlike tone made for a magical tension that piqued my curiosity. What exactly went down in the nearly century-long duration of her existence?
The elderly lady struck me as a puzzle. But as she relayed her story, it gradually dawned on me that she had been branded by all the important milestones in her life.
1.
Xu He was born to a family of struggling farmers just north of Guangzhou in 1927. She was the firstborn. Her mother tended to their fields while her dad mostly worked as a wage laborer in Guangzhou. Father got Mother pregnant during each of his annual trips home. Thus arrived for Xu He seven younger brothers and sisters.
Xu He started working from a young age. As a toddler, she joined adults scooping potatoes from the ground. When she was a bit older, she herded cattle for neighbors, also scouring fields and slopes in the vicinity for withered branches to use as firewood.
In 1938, Japanese forces invading China took a detour from Huizhou to head south, which resulted in the quick capture of Guangzhou. War had spread to the Xu household. When the rice fields were ready to harvest, the Japanese circled them with metal fencing to prevent villagers from entering. The fields encompassed the entirety of the modest harvest the villagers could look forward to. Xu He's eldest uncle on her dad's side tried to sneak through the fencing to retrieve a small portion of unhusked rice with a basket when the Japanese were off-guard, only to be busted and shot dead on the spot.
Unable to harvest, Xu's family also stopped receiving cash from the city. Roadblocks meant that Xu's father couldn't return from Guangzhou, nor could Xu's mother travel to the provincial capital. All she could do was hunker down at home and tough it out with her eight children. All she could do for sustenance was boil water spinach growing in the wild, without a single drop of oil. On the rare occasion that rice was made, Xu He settled for the rice water, leaving the actual grains of rice for her younger brothers and sisters.
At wit's end after six months, Xu's mother decided to make a run for her parents' place. Xu's maternal grandmother lived in Heshun Village, located in Foshan's Nanhai District. Xu's mother told her kids that Grandma grew a lot of corn and that they probably didn't have to starve anymore when they reached Heshun. Xu's mother carried her youngest child in one arm and held the hand of another, while the remaining kids surrounded her. Halfway to Heshun, they ran into a Japanese checkpoint. Black barrels in their faces, the Xus had no choice but to turn around.
On the way back, Xu's mother bought a bunch of cucumbers—one for each kid. That constituted the meal for the day. Getting home before dusk was out of the question, so when they spotted a straw hut by the road, they decided to spend the night there.
Later that day, a middle-aged woman they didn't know approached the Xu clan to ask about their situation. Xu's mother relayed the facts. When the woman finished talking to Xu's mother, she pulled Xu He aside and whispered: "How about you become my girl?"
"Your girl?" Xu He was confused. In Cantonese, this particular use of "girl" could mean daughter or girl servant.
The woman said: "If you become my girl, I'll feed you—both potatoes and taros."
Twelve-year-old Xu He pondered the proposition. She had been walking all day and all she has eaten recently was a cucumber. The promise proved to be extremely tempting. But after some more reflection, she said: "If I go, there will be no one to take care of my younger sisters and brothers."
"How about this—I'll give you some money!" the woman responded.
The woman suggested payment of a 20 wen bronze coin. Xu He agreed immediately. When the woman left, Xu He gave the coin to her mother. Xu's mother asked her where she got the coin from. Xu said it was the auntie who approached them earlier—without mentioning she had sold herself.
The woman returned the next morning to fetch Xu He. Only then did Xu He fess up to her mother: "I'm going to become her girl now."
Xu's mother instantly caught on to what happened and tears streamed down her cheeks, although she said deferentially: "Oh... That's not a bad idea, not at all,"
Xu's mother was at a loss for words and in no position negotiate. Xu He knew her mother couldn't bear the separation, but the departure of the oldest child in the household meant one less mouth to feed and the family was up 20 wen.
"Remember to write" was the refrain Xu's mother repeated as she gazed at her daughter with tearful eyes.
Xu He mumbled in agreement—even though she was illiterate at the time.
**
The woman led Xu He onto a boat on the banks of the Pearl River. The boat traveled north about 100 kilometers north to a ferry crossing near Shaoguan's Wushi Village, where the woman sold Xu He to a second person. Only then did Xu He realize the woman lied about wanting to adopt her.
Human trafficking and kidnapping were common in China during wartime. Xu He wasn't the only child on sale at the market by the ferry crossing. Adults scanned and judged these infantile faces and bodies in search of the appropriate servant, male heir or child bride. After examining several children, a woman zeroed in on Xu He, telling her vendor: "I want her as a bride." Then the woman paid.
And thus Xu He became a child bride after three transactions, settling down with a Hakka family in Shaoguan. Before reaching marriage age, Xu He shared a bed with the woman who bought her, whom she addressed “mother-in-law." Mother-in-law was raising a young son by herself. A year younger than Xu He, the son was still in school. A boarder, the boy only spent Sunday nights at home. The first time Xu He laid eyes on him was when he showed up carrying a small rattan holder filled with books. "What's up with the barber?" Xu He asked. "This is your hubby," Mother-in-law responded. Xu He went silent. She was too young to know what "hubby" meant.
Mother-in-law's designs on Xu He naturally didn't end with serving as a future bride—she also wanted the manpower. Xu He got up everyday before dawn to work the fields with Mother-in-law, barefoot. Whenever she was bent over transplanting rice seedlings, the sight of rice seedlings reminded her of her family. Are Mother and my younger brothers and sisters home yet? Do they have food? Are they going to survive? Every time she lapsed into that train of thought she would stand up and let her attention wander, resembling a plank stuck in the mud.
When Mother-in-law noticed the stoppage she'd ask: "What's wrong?"
"N-, nothing," Xu He would respond.
"Then why are you just standing there? Keep transplanting."
"I'm done."
"Do you miss your mother?" Mother-in-law would empathize.
Xu He would nod.
Mother-in-law would then promise: "I hear you. Keep working first and when you're done, we'll bring your mom a few potatoes."
Believing the promise, Xu He would continue.
Even though Xu He carried a heavy workload, she never starved and Mother-in-law was kind to her. Whenever she missed her family, Mother-in-law would console Xu He by promising to visit her mother with her soon. The white lie persisted until Xu He was 16 and old enough to marry.
A wedding banquet was held, featuring pork and a freshly slaughtered chicken. Relatives and neighbors were invited. And so Xu He's nuptials were confirmed. Xu He moved into her hubby's room, but the couple spent little time together. Hubby also only spoke the Hakka dialect, so communication was strained.
2.
After some time had passed, Xu He noticed her tummy was growing. In panic, she sought out Mother-in-law. "Oh no! Why is my tummy getting bigger?"
Mother-in-law asked her to walk straight and felt her tummy. "You're pregnant!" she declared.
What exactly was pregnancy all about? Xu He was a bit terrified. But apart from an expanding tummy, the condition didn't seem to give her any grief. Soon she became desensitized, going about her farm chores, feeding the chicken and taking her own meals as usual.
The days continued and soon it was well after Xu He's due date. Mother-in-law began to worry. "Other pregnant women give birth after 10 months. How come you're taking so long? What's wrong with your baby?" she wondered.
"What baby?" Xu He responded.
"The baby you're having!"
"It's fine. It doesn't move or cause pain."
Now that Mother-in-law mentioned it, Xu He recalled a recent development. There was movement in her tummy. It stopped after she tripped on a potato vine while cutting potato leaves and fell on a ridge in the fields.
But the young Xu He ignored the baby in her tummy. She wasn't worldly back then, so her appetite and sleep went unaffected. Mother-in-law probably already suspected a miscarriage, but what could you do about something like this in rural northern Guangdong in the 1940s? A war was raging and being alive in itself was a blessing. Who would dwell on the due date of a young woman in a village?
After those turbulent years that saw regime change every few years, Xu He turned 22. That year she developed rashes out of the blue. The rashes resembled ringworm and presented as circles on her hands and feet. When others noticed, rumors started that she had caught leprosy.
Back in those days it was common for adults in Hakka communities to scare kids by saying: "You better take off. A leper is on its way!" Once a man walked by while Xu He was working in the fields. "He's a leper!" someone mumbled. Then several people attacked the man with bamboo poles. Xu He was spooked. That man didn't do anything wrong. He was just passing by. Why attack him? Such evil.
Yet who would have thought that this despised disease would strike me? What should I do? I never socialize with anyone. How come I contracted this illness?
Why don't I commit suicide by jumping into a river then? The Qu River was nearby. So Xu He secretly made her way to the river one day. But as she stared at the water surface, doubts crept in. If it is indeed leprosy, then I want a decisive death. What if it isn't? Then I would die for nothing!
And so Xu He changed her mind. A few days later, she wanted to kill herself again and walked to Qu River in tears. Standing on the edge of a pier, she couldn't bring herself to leap. Still crying, she went home instead.
Xu He's rashes persisted. In the spring of 1951, when the political situation in China finally seemed stable, Mother-in-law decided to take Xu He to a major hospital in nearby Qujiang for a checkup. Being Xu He's first visit to a hospital, the trip left a lasting impression. The doctor removed a small piece of skin from her finger with a scalpel, put it on a glass slide and inspected the specimen under a microscope. When the doctor was done, he declared: "It's leprosy."
"How could she contract leprosy if she's been with me since she was a young child?" Mother-in-law was incredulous. Word on the street back then is that people who "fooled around" got leprosy, while Xu He grew up before her very eyes.
"So I actually did get leprosy," Xu He said stoically. "What should we do? I better leave then."
"Leave? Where would you go?"
"I'll go back to Guangzhou then."
"What are you going to do in Guangzhou? You need to survive, not nurse a death wish!"
News of Xu He's diagnosis had spread across the village by the time she and Mother-in-law returned. There was even talk of burying Xu He alive. When Xu He heard the rumors, she scrambled to a local hill and saw several men actually digging a ditch. Xu He stormed toward them and fumed: "What do you think you're doing?" "You have leprosy. You have two choices—either leave or die. You better wise up!" the men said.
The men added all they needed to do was bury her, sprinkle lime on her grave and the threat would be resolved. Xu He knew about lime. She used it as a fertilizer. She lost a layer of skin on her hands whenever she came in contact with it.
Cognizant of Xu He's dilemma, Mother-in-law slaughtered a capon and made chicken soup with it. "Have some, have some," she told Xu He tearfully. "You'll never taste it again." But Xu He was in no mood to feast.
The same evening, Xu He escaped when everyone was sleeping. "I had to flee overnight!" she recalled. First, she hid in the mountains, where she spent the night in total darkness. At dawn, she followed a vehicle transporting pigs to Wushi Train Station. Penniless, she couldn't buy a train ticket. Luckily, a sympathetic soldier approached when he saw a stranded Xu He crying. After learning Xu He's story, the soldier bought her a ticket to Guangzhou.
3.
After leaving Guangzhou Train Station, by asking around, Xu He managed to find her way to a shop her father had visited with her when she was a child. An old lady at the store told Xu He her father returned to their home village a long time ago. Xu He wanted to head home too, but she had no cash for a train ticket. At a loss, her eyes wandered as she stood in the streets of Guangzhou.
The shop wasn't far from the big clock tower on the banks of Pearl River. The clock tower was once one of the busiest landmarks by the Pearl. Built in 1916, the clock tower was 30-plus meters tall, with the clock chamber alone measuring 13 meters. It reported the time every 15 minutes, with the English hymn Westminster playing loudly at the top of the hour. In the spring of 1950, KMT fighter jets that took off from Hainan Island, which had yet to fall to the CCP, bombed the clock tower. Repairs weren't completed until July 1951.
When Xu He arrived at the clock tower, she was oblivious to foreign music that signaled the time. She did see the cluster of beggars at the foot of the clock tower, whom she shadowed. New to begging, Xu He struggled to get enough food. A kind woman who was begging alongside her blind husband shared her food with Xu He, perhaps out of sympathy for her enlarged tummy. After 10-plus days, Xu He became embarrassed by the charity, proposing instead: "Why don't you give me a few tools so I can beg on my own?"
The woman gave her a bowl and a pair of chopsticks, telling her: "If you see people standing in front of a restaurant, just follow suit."
Armed with the bowl, Xu He hit the streets. When she saw two men standing in front of a restaurant—one on each side—she joined. She tried making conversation with the two men but was ignored. After a while, a woman emerged from the restaurant holding two big bowls of rice. She handed the rice to the two men but bypassed Xu He. Xu He asked: "Auntie, do you have any extra rice?" The woman eyed Xu He and asked: "Are you a beggar too? Where are you from?"
Xu He said she was from the countryside. The woman's tone changed instantly when she heard the answer. "They've been redistributing land in the countryside after liberation. You must be one of the lazy ones, out here begging at such a young age!" she scolded.
Xu He was clueless about the pilot land reform programs going on in villages on the outskirts of Guangzhou at the time. She wanted to defend herself against the dressing down badly, but words failed her. The only reason I left my village is because I contracted leprosy! She didn't want to reveal her condition, so all she could do was retreat to the foot of the clock tower in anger. She wiped away her tears with one of her sleeves. The retracting sleeve revealed a small red rash, which she was trying to conceal. At the time this 23-year-old woman with her long hair tied in a bun and wielding a protruding stomach had no idea how the tiny rash was about to turn her life upside down.
**
The kind woman shared her extra food with Xu He again. Two weeks later, word spread that PLA soldiers were about to launch a sweep to clear the streets of beggars and homeless people. Such campaigns were common during the early days of communist rule. Folks evicted from the foot of the clock tower were relocated. If you were able-bodied, you were usually assigned to a state-owned factory while underaged beggars were sent to children's homes. You always ended up somewhere. The beggars brainstormed for back alleys and side streets to wait out the sweep. The kind woman suggested Xu He join her and her husband. Xu He refused. "So be it. If I'm evicted, I'm evicted. It beats living on the streets," she said.
The PLA showed up as rumored. A soldier who approached Xu He asked for her story. Xu He answered honestly, telling him that she escaped from the countryside because she was infected with leprosy. The soldier was incredulous, asking Xu He to walk and flash her fingers. She didn't limp, nor was she missing any fingers.
Xu He was wearing long sleeves, so the rashes on her arms and feet were covered. The only visible one was on the back of one of her hands. The soldier was still skeptical and took her to a hospital for a checkup. When the diagnosis was confirmed, the soldier said: "OK, let's go on a boat ride."
"A boat? What kind of boat? Where to?" Xu He asked.
"Are you taking me to an execution site?"
"No, we're going to get you treated at a hospital."
Am I really so blessed? Still in disbelief, Xu He boarded the boat. As soon as she was on board, two soldiers flanked her and held her arms, saying they were worried she might fall into the water. "No need. I'm not going to jump," Xu He said.
As the journey continued, the surroundings became increasingly remote and desolate. Xu He spotted leaning and dilapidated houses on islands awash with wild grass. The longer the trip, the more uneasy she became. She finally asked: "Comrades, is this an execution site?"
The soldiers said no.
"Look at how tall the wild grass is! And you're telling me this isn't an execution site? I'm OK with dying—just don't lie to me!"
Amused, the soldiers responded: "It isn't. We promise you won't be executed. What did you do to justify an execution? Only robbers, murderers and arsonists need to be executed. Silly you!"
Having been lied to by a human trafficker, Xu He still couldn't relax. But she was already on board—turning around wasn't an option and jumping ship even less so.
Finally, after a journey of some 50 kilometers or so, the boat docked. "We're there," the soldiers said. When Xu He disembarked, "there was a big hospital." "It was magnificent! It turns out they were telling the truth. They weren't lying," she later recalled.
This island that was completely foreign to Xu He was located along the East River near Dongguan's Shijie Village. Enveloped by water, the island was covered in lush greenery. Amid the heavy foliage stood several two-story buildings.
The cluster of buildings was Joseph Island Hospital. It was founded by Belgian priest Louis-Lambert Conrady of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1907 to treat homeless lepers in Guangdong. When Xu He arrived, the hospital was still being managed by foreign nuns and doctors. Even though the nuns were covered in robes head-to-toe and spoke an alien language, Xu He soon realized these foreigners treated lepers much more kindly than people in the outside world. The nuns had no fear or taboos. Whenever patients were in pain, the nuns touched their limbs directly.
At that point some 300 patients lived on the beautiful island. It was the first time Xu He had seen so many fellow lepers—there were men and women of all ages. Under the management of the nuns, there was strict separation of the sexes. Female patients who wanted to visit the kiosk in the male quarters had to seek permission first. The female patients were housed in four buildings, with each building accommodating 40-plus women. Kitchens took up the first floor while dorm rooms were located on the second.
"You need to survive, not nurse a death wish." Xu He clung to Mother-in-law's advice. Carrying a fetus of unknown status, Xu He survived in the leper colony, like the island's grass seeds, relying on the wind, water and sunshine.
4.
At the end of 1951, the provincial government of Guangdong took over Joseph Island Hospital, "inviting" its nuns and doctors to leave. On the day the nuns left, the patients lined the coast to bid them farewell. Grateful for their care, the patients stood at the pier tearfully imploring the nuns to stay.
"We don't want to leave either, but your government wants us to, so we can't stay," the nuns said as they too wiped away tears.
By then Chinese doctors had already moved into the hospital. They tried to console the devastated patients by saying: "Don't cry. Now that we Chinese are in charge, we'll do a better job than the foreigners."
There was truth to that statement. These were indeed the best leprosy doctors in Guangdong. The provincial government placed the hospital under the jurisdiction of its health department and renamed it Guangdong New Island Hospital. The best medical personnel in the province were assigned to the hospital.
When Xu He got sick on one occasion after the government takeover, a doctor prescribed her western medication, instructing her to take a single pill after each meal. As a sick child, Xu He was used to drinking dark herbal broths. Eyeing the tiny pill barely the size of a finger, Xu He was skeptical of the dosage and decided to take a whole bottle instead. Soon she had a bad case of the shivers. Her roommates piled comforters on top of her. Wrapped in cotton quilts that weighed 10-plus kilograms, Xu He continued to tremble. The woman who occupied the bed across from her summoned the doctor, who gave Xu He an injection that cured her. "What happened to your medication?" the doctor asked. "I downed all of it," Xu He responded. Shocked, the doctor commanded: "No wonder. Don't do it again. Just take the dosage I tell you to!"
The incident became a running joke in Xu He's ward. After that Xu He never strayed from doctor's orders again.
**
The provincial government disbursed funds to New Island Hospital on several occasions to build new wards and dorms for hospital staff and expand medical facilities. The hospital also mobilized patients to run a farm and a brick factory, adopting a twin approach of treatment and labor. Xu He worked at the brick factory.
In 1953, agricultural cooperatives were the norm in outside villages. Likewise, the hospital managed their patient-workers on a points system. The brick workers were divided into several categories. Carrying bricks into kilns was considered second-tier labor because the entrance to the kilns was quite high, requiring workers to maneuver along ascending planks. Xu He was only strong enough for third-tier work, moving finished bricks from the kilns to the pier and then loading the bricks onto boats. For this she was awarded six credits a day.
Bricks came in larger sizes back then. A freshly baked brick weighed about 3.5 or 4 kilograms. Xu He carried four sets of bricks in one go—each set comprised four bricks—which amounted to just over 50 kilograms. At that point she weighed some 35 kilograms, baby included. She had to balance her load on a bamboo pole while crossing a plank that led to the boat. On rainy days the plank became quite slippery, which made for a terrifying walk, considering she also had a baby in her body.
As soon as dawn arrived, everyone in Xu He's ward got up and went to work. They ate together after the workday. The female patients were assigned to the same cafeteria. Each patient was issued a clay pot, with the women taking their meals seated in single file. At a time when she was enjoying hot meals consistently, Xu He was often found clutching her clay pot in tears. Now that she was being properly fed, she wondered how Mom and her siblings were faring. Having left home for so long, she wondered when she could see them again.
Perhaps Xu He's fellow patients were used to her sadness—when they saw tears drop into her meal, they never probed, simply consoling: "Get on with your meal. Don't cry. We have to get back to work soon.
For a young Xu He, no hardship was too much to bear as long as she was fed. When it came time to cash in work credits, while fellow patients splurged on fancy meals, Xu He settled for rice flavored with soy sauce. She was reluctant to spend her savings, hoping to turn over every cent to her family when she was discharged. Even though she had been separated from her family for more than 10 years, she still held out hope for a homecoming.
**
It was also on this island that Xu He made genuine friends for the first time. Apart from working side-by-side every day, the patients also learned how to read together, also chitchatting and joking around. A steady stream of fresh admissions brought new faces.
About two years after she was admitted, one day Xu He returned to her ward after work to find a young girl sitting on an empty bed. "How come there's such a young girl here?" she asked. Her roommates said the girl was a new arrival. "Do you want some water? Shall I pour some for you?" Xu He asked the girl. The girl ignored her. Xu He's roommates told her she was deaf and mute. Xu He then made eye contact with the girl and mimicked the action of drinking water. The girl nodded, so Xu He filled a bowl with water and handed it to her. The girl finished the bowl and nodded pointedly to Xu He several times in a gesture of thanks.
Xu He liked children to begin with and the young girl further endeared herself with good manners. Word had it the girl was abandoned by her family because she was infected with leprosy. Because she couldn't speak, everyone affectionately called her "Mute Girl." Mute Girl looked like she was 4 or 5 years old—she wasn't even tall enough to get into bed. A sympathetic Xu He managed to secure a stool for her to climb onto bed with. After each shift, Xu He brought food back for her from the cafeteria. She also bathed Mute Girl, carefully tending to her rashes on the process. Fellow patients joked that Xu He had landed herself a goddaughter.
The hospital subsidized patients who couldn't work, issuing a monthly stipend of several yuan. Xu He was illiterate and didn't know basic arithmetic, so she asked a fellow patient to keep track of Mute Girl's expenses. How much she ate and spent each day, how much she had left—not a single cent was left unaccounted for. Even though her intentions toward Mute Girl were noble, Xu He wanted accurate bookkeeping so that no one would think she was pocketing Mute Girl's cash.
Noticing that Mute Girl had saved a substantial amount at the end of the year, Xu He thought she deserved new clothing for Lunar New Year just like any regular child. She decided to make a dress for Mute Girl. Xu He gestured to Mute Girl, circling Mute Girl's waist with her hands. "I'm going to make a new dress for you!" Xu He announced. On Lunar New Year's Eve, Xu He put Mute Girl in the red dress she made, tied her hair into two ponytails and adorned them with bowknots. The other patients were also enjoying the festivities, sharing their dishes among themselves. Decked in her new dress, Mute Girl weaved through the throngs like a spring butterfly fluttering above an open field for the first time. Even though Mute Girl never spoke, Xu He had never seen her happier. Xu He remembered that joy for the rest of her life.
**
With Mute Girl's arrival, the hardship of hospital life was eased by tenderness and laughter. As the grass grew and insects flew amid the changing of seasons, Xu He witnessed Mute Girl's gradual growth from the height of her bed to a mature young woman who resembled an adult.
One day when Xu He was chatting with other patients, someone on a whim suggested that she test Mute Girl's reaction by feigning illness. The proposal was warmly received and Xu He found it amusing, so she went along with it. That afternoon, Xu He stayed put when her work shift started. Noticing Xu He was bedridden, Mute Girl gave her a gentle push. Xu He responded with a languid wave, saying she was skipping work. Using sign language, Mute Girl asked Xu He what was bothering her. Xu He pointed to her head, meaning she was dizzy.
New Island was home to a type of water plant locals called "flood flower." It tasted a bit sour. Xu He and her friends made herbal tea out of it. On that occasion a resourceful Mute Girl rushed outdoors to pick flood flowers and brewed tea with it. She poured it in a bowl and made sure it was lukewarm before serving it to Xu He. The other patients who were monitoring Mute Girl's movements bent over in laughter. "She's indeed worthy of love! She knows to brew tea for He!" they said.
The adorable, thoughtful and considerate child that Mute Girl was, Xu He's affection for her grew leaps and bounds.
But as much as patients treated each other as family, New Island Hospital wasn't a real village. When Xu He had been taking aminophenol for nearly 10 years, the doctor took a sample from her. After examining the sample, the doctor said Xu He's mycobacterium leprae levels had dropped to a point where she could be considered cured. She could be discharged soon if she didn't relapse during an observation period.
By then Mute Girl was a teenager. When she learned about Xu He's imminent departure, her roommates consoled her by saying: "Your godmother is about to leave. Quickly pack your things and go with her."
A gullible Mute Girl was packed and ready to go on the day of Xu He's discharge. She had tied together a pair of clogs and several items of clothing with a piece of string and thrown the bundle over her back.
The sight confused Xu He. "What are you carrying all that stuff for?"
Mute Girl gestured: "I want to go with you."
"You can't. I may not even have a place to stay. I may end up on the streets. If you stay, the government will take care of you," Xu He said.
But Mute Girl insisted, while Xu He refused repeatedly. Mute Girl couldn't speak. All she could to was cry. Xu He couldn't bear parting with Mute Girl either, but after pondering the matter repeatedly, she concluded that leaving Mute Girl at the hospital was the most foolproof move, considering she had no idea how she was going to make a living. As torn as Xu He was, this was the best she could do.
One can only speculate how much longer Mute Girl cried after Xu He left, how she untied her luggage, how she got used to eating alone and life without Xu He in general.
5.
Xu He left New Island Hospital in 1960. Apart from the fact that she had more or less recovered, her discharge also likely had to do with the fact that New Island was seeing a surge in new admissions. The government launched the policy of segregating leprosy patients in 1958. As a longstanding provincial hospital that was properly equipped with both doctors and hardware, New Island carried the brunt of the policy. At its height in the 1960s, New Island housed several thousand patients. For old patients like Xu He who had met the recovery threshold, discharge was a natural priority, so as to make room for newcomers.
Xu He's discharge wasn't smooth sailing. When the doctor first informed her of his decision and asked her to move in with her family, Xu He agonized. Earlier she had gotten word from Guangzhou that her parents had moved away from their hometown. After losing contact with her family for more than 20 years, where could she start tracking them down in a vast sea of people?
One of Xu He's fellow patients had also lost contact with her family for 10-plus years and got back in touch through letter writing. The patient suggested that Xu He try the same. "Just write to whatever place you remember. The people at that place will pass on your letter to your dad," the patient said.
Xu He did indeed have a rough address in mind. It was the name of the store in her hometown her mother had once mentioned. She committed the name to memory the day she and her mother parted when she was 12. At a time when electronic communication still wasn't common and given the fact that Xu He didn't remember the store's street number, the name of the shop was a beacon of light. The fellow patient's suggestion rekindled Xu He's hope—her family may have moved, but maybe someone could pass the letter to them.
Xu He didn't have writing paper or stamps, plus she couldn't write. The sympathetic fellow patient supplied the stationery and wrote a note mimicking Xu He's voice that explained her story. The envelope was inscribed with the approximate address of the store and the name of Xu He's father. And off the letter went.
Lo and behold, the store still existed and people at the store recognized Xu He's father's name. The owner of the shop passed the letter onto Xu He's father's younger brother. Sixth Uncle in turn took the letter to Guangzhou and gave it to his older brother.
After a period, Xu He got a response from her father promising to visit on a certain date. Elated, Xu He walked to the shore on the day to pick up her father. On the seawall leading to New Island Hospital, a middle-aged couple emerged from the other direction. Xu He walked by without recognizing them. Meanwhile, the middle-aged man stopped, yelled at Xu He and asked: "Are you He?"
"Yep," Xu He responded.
"Then why didn't you greet me?" the man asked.
"I don't know you. How should I address you?" Xu He said.
"I'm your dad!"
Only then did Xu He come to her senses and stare at the person in front of her. It was her father, someone she hadn't seen since she was around 10. She had nearly forgotten what he looked like. Father, on the other hand, recognized the mole on her face.
"Who's this then?" Xu He asked her father.
"She's your auntie."
Xu He got the message instantly. She was his second wife.
Xu He led her father and stepmother to her room, where everyone sat down. Father and daughter exchanged their life stories since they parted. Father said he only got back in touch with relatives back home after the Japanese surrendered. According to Sixth Uncle, Mom and most of her siblings ended up dead and buried. One younger sister was possibly alive, but her whereabouts were unclear. Later on Father started a new family with Stepmother, giving birth to a boy after the communist takeover. The family now lived in central Guangzhou, where Father worked at a coal shop.
Xu He was initially worried that Stepmom might be afraid of her. Little did she expect Stepmom to pick up her hand and say: "There's nothing to worry about. It's not contagious."
She's not afraid. When their hands touched, Xu He was awash with surprise, then overwhelming joy.
Reuniting with her family after more than 20 years was a dream-like experience for Xu He. Father was also delighted to hear that Xu He was about to be discharged and urged her to come home.
Xu He felt both extreme sorrow and utter happiness that day as she was overcome with mixed emotions. She was ecstatic to see Father, but started feeling sad after seeing him and Stepmom off.
**
Xu He had a major issue to resolve before her discharge—and that was her tummy. Whenever people asked about her tummy, Xu He would joke that it was fat. When the government took over New Island Hospital, she had an X-ray, which revealed a shadow in her abdomen. Only then did Xu He come clean about her pregnancy. When Xu He told her story, the doctor knew the baby couldn't possibly be still alive, so he suggested surgery to remove the fetus. Xu He was terrified. She never knew you could cut open your tummy, plus at the time a fellow patient had just died from complications after surgery. So no matter what the doctor said, she refused to have surgery. And thus she literally carried this burden while carrying bricks for 10 years on New Island.
Before her discharge, doctors lobbied Xu He again extensively, listing all the benefits one by one: "The surgery is free here. Once you leave, you have to pay for it. Plus you are still young. If you get married and have another baby, the jamming of a live and dead fetus could kill you!"
Xu He responded: "Who am I to fancy marriage?"
"You say you're no interested now. Just wait until you meet the right person."
Meanwhile, fellow patients also got on her case, telling her to not be afraid and go ahead with the surgery. After pondering the matter repeatedly, Xu He finally summoned the resolve to proceed, giving herself a pep talk befitting a warrior about to take to the battlefield: "So be it. If I die, then I die. I don't care!"
The surgery was scheduled for a Saturday. Father and Stepmother made the boat journey again to sign consent papers. Xu He passed out on the operating table after receiving general anesthesia. She was clueless to the entire procedure. When she woke up, she felt her tummy and exclaimed: "Oh, it's flat now."
A week later her surgical wounds had more or less healed and she had her sutures removed. A nurse took Xu He for a viewing of what had been removed—the fetus that probably only lived for a few months but stayed in the womb for about a dozen years. All that remained was a skeleton and a skull, soaked in chemicals in a glass jar. Xu He marveled: "Only these bones are left!"
While the surgery left a scar on her tummy, having lost the extra weight, Xu He felt she could walk more easily. Reflecting on the many years she spent gingerly navigating the plank while carrying bricks over a bamboo pole, she was also a bit mad at herself for not having the surgery sooner.
People told her you had to supplement your diet after surgery, so Xu He ate extra eggs. She was very pleased with her quick recovery—despite undergoing such a major and risky procedure, it only took her six eggs to feel better. A true warrior she was.
**
On the day of her discharge, Xu He bid farewell to her doctor, Mute Girl and her friends before boarding a boat bound for Guangzhou with her luggage. She then switched to a bus and got off at Huangsha Station, where she hailed a tricycle that took her to Xiaobei. The address Father had given her was just off the main road. This was her new home.
She was just shy of 33, still young, and sported long, lush hair, which she rinsed carefully with tea seed powder. With her hair tied in a bun, Xu He looked magnificent. She was also hardworking. Just like the doctor said, she might find someone and get married.
For a brief, fleeting moment, it seemed as if life had turned a page for Xu He, landing on a fresh leaf that kept her with family and away from unrest and lonely struggle.
But the new beginning didn't pan out. Fate, or perhaps the times, played a big joke on her. A gigantic force that loomed large and overpowered individual will denied Xu He her wish.
6.
Mindful of Xu He's poor health, her father excluded her from hard labor after she got home, limiting her to household chores and taking care of her stepbrother, who was still a toddler. While sitting idly in front of their house one day, Xu He noticed a woman heading to the mountains to collect firewood. Hoping to contribute to her family's stockpile, Xu He decided to join. Xu He left her new batch of branches tied up in front of the house. Father saw it when he came home and took offense, telling her not to repeat the trip.
On New Island, doctors constantly reminded patients to protect their hands and feet because leprosy attacks nerve endings, resulting in loss of sensitivity in skin. By the time lepers notice a wound or a burn on themselves, the damage is already quite severe. But injuries were inevitable at the hospital, be it carrying bricks or cutting grass. The edge of grass was as sharp as a blade and firewood was covered with splinters. Xu He's practice was to rinse her wounds, cover
them with strips of cloth and get back to work. Now that Xu He was finally cured of leprosy, her father was worried about risking further handicap. That's why he banned her from hard labor. Xu He had long been used to ignoring the wounds on her body. The fact that Father got mad out of concern was heartwarming. Father genuinely cares about me.
But the biggest obstacle to Xu He's homecoming was actually China's strict household registration system. In those days, the government issued food vouchers for basic items like rice, oil and salt, which were handed out by your local cooperative or a street-level office. Xu He was registered as a rural resident in her hometown, along with her mother, while Father was classified an urban dweller. The urban-rural divide was rigidly enforced, with the two groups receiving a different number of food tickets and it was extremely difficult for a rural resident to transfer to the city.
To secure her foothold at home with Father, Xu He went to the local police station after meals to plead her case. "Why can't kids follow their parents? I'm my father's child. Why can't my residency status be the same as his?" she asked.
Officers gave her the same answer every time: "True, kids can follow their parents, but you're a rural resident, so you need to go back to the countryside."
But how could she head back to the countryside? She was a single woman just discharged from a leper colony. Her limbs were weak. How could she live independently? Would fellow villagers who didn't know her be comfortable with her presence? Not to mention she didn't want to give up her hard-fought reunion with her father.
Yet policy and regulations were set in stone and enforced at every level of government, regardless of the reality of people's lives. When Xu He lined up to buy bread, the salesperson didn't recognize her and refused to sell her any, which led to a major argument. At the end of the day, food vouchers for three weren't enough for four people. Xu He pulled all stops to secure more tickets, so she would pose less of a burden to her family. She queued in food lines for other people in exchange for meat vouchers instead of cash. She cleaned house for a neighbor, asking for a kilogram or two of rice in lieu of payment.
As the days went by, moving her residency status seemed like a dead end. Father and Stepmother never said anything, but Xu He couldn't bear putting them in a tough spot. She started thinking the only solution was heading back to a leper colony.
A fellow patient from New Island Hospital had transferred to another leper colony in Foshan. After learning that Xu He had returned to Guangzhou, the friend decided to visit. Xu He confided her dilemma. The friend told Xu He that a new hospital near Guangzhou was taking patients. The friend suggested checking it out, especially considering it was closer to home.
Thus Xu He set off for Taihe Village, just north of Guangzhou. She told senior management at the leper colony she was "homeless." Technically speaking, as a recovered leprosy patient, Xu He didn't qualify for a place. Still, her application was approved, perhaps out of sympathy or because the hospital needed the manpower and Xu He was in her prime.
Taihe was situated 30 kilometers from Xiaobei. Public transportation was limited back then, so it was a tortuous journey back and forth. Father and Stepmother had the same night shift moving coal several times a month. On those occasions, Xu He asked for leave from the hospital so she could go home to babysit her younger half-brother. The hospital was considerable walking distance from the nearest bus station and it was a desolate stretch. A fellow patient who was concerned for her safety always gave her a lift to the bus station by bike and picked her up when she got back.
In 1960s Guangzhou, the dirt roads were yellow and people wore mostly gray and blue clothing. And thus Xu He commuted between Xiaobei and Taihe repeatedly by bus and on the backseat of a wobbly bicycle. The routine ended only when Xu He's family left Xiaobei.
It was a mere two months between Xu He's departure from New Island and her move to Taihe. Xu He was back in a leper colony again. This time she never left. Taihe Hospital ended up being the longest base of her life.
7.
In fact, "Taihe Hospital" or "Taihe Village" were nicknames for the facility drawn from its location. The official name of the complex was Guangzhou Dermatology Hospital. Even to this day, the name is emblazoned on the front door—with significant fading.
As was the case with most leper colonies, Taihe was a sparsely populated village. You got there by taking a narrow path to the foot of Maofeng Mountain. In the early days, the only structures that existed were a few mud huts with straw roofs. In 1974, the government built Helong Reservoir. From the entrance to the hospital you have a clear view of the swaying water surface.
Xu He was among the second batch of patients to arrive at Taihe. Back then there were only about a dozen patients in total, which didn't make for much of a scene. At its peak, the hospital housed just over 500 patients. With sheer will, these folks created a small universe out of the total wilderness that lacked basic footpaths.
As for how much land Taihe took up—villagers had a tongue-in-cheek take. The mountains surrounding the village and the land before it belongs to them, so the saying goes. Locals lived off the mountains, chopping trees to build houses and fueling fires with their branches. They planted bamboo at the foot of the mountains, raised chicken and bred fish. Planting gourds and veggies, building footpaths, houses and digging holes for ponds—there was no sparing the hands that Xu He's family pampered. All hard labor was fair game.
On one occasion when Xu He was herding a cow by the pond, the cow threw a fit and shoved her into the pond. The pond was quite deep. Xu He paddled frantically. Luckily fellow patients who were working nearby heard her pleas for help and rushed over to rescue her. After a change of clothes, Xu He went back to herding the cow.
Patients were issued a monthly stipend of 9 yuan for food, with each meal including a mere two pieces of vegetable. A month's salary couldn't even get you a hat. But compared to being at home, at least Xu He got her own food vouchers at Taihe. The first time she was issued food tickets, Xu He bought 500 grams of sugar and another 500 grams of cookies. She made sugar water and ate all the cookies. This was a month's worth of rations. Fellow patients cracked up over Xu He's diet, with one joking: "What a blessing it is to have a healthy appetite."
Having eaten to her heart's content and nursing a full stomach, Xu He responded: "It is a blessing indeed. You gotta eat when there's food on the table. Only worry when there isn't."
This was her secret to survival distilled from never being full in the first 30 years of her existence. Who knew what life had in store for you around the corner?
The male-female ratio at the leper colony was lopsided in favor of the women. Xu He had pretty features, she was generous and kind. It's fair to say she had her pick of the litter. At New Island, she still had a fetus of unknown status in her belly, so she was hardly in the mood to find a mate. At Taihe, her burden was gone and she was in great shape both mentally and physically. Out of all the men at the hospital, she had her eyes on someone with the last name Liang.
A year younger than Xu He, Old Liang also hailed from Guangzhou and likewise had to endure a turbulent life. His impoverished parents sold him to another family, which mistreated him because he had a healthy appetite. So Old Liang decided to join the army. He was diagnosed with leprosy while he was serving. The diagnosis coincided with his marriage. His wife died giving birth to their daughter. Old Liang had no choice but to had the newborn over to his mother-in-law as he was admitted to a leper colony.
Old Liang wasn't good looking—the edges of his mouth were slightly crooked, the aftermath of leprosy. But he was exceptionally kind. He never hesitated when he was asked for help on a convoluted matter. Xu He had a soft spot for two types—people who had suffered and people who were kind. Old Liang checked both boxes. Plus Xu He had been helped by soldiers twice when she was homeless, so she felt a natural affinity to men in uniform.
At the time Chinese law banned lepers from getting married. Relationships were mostly carried on in secret at the hospital. If you were busted, at the very least you were punished and severe cases were subject to expulsion.
It wasn't until 1985 when revised laws finally removed lepers and recovered lepers from the marriage blacklist. Hospital management at Taihe told patients in their 50s and 60s that they would officiate the weddings of interested couples. They felt it also made sense for aging patients to have a life partner. In 1987, the hospital obtained marriage certificates for 10 couples, including Xu He and Old Liang, and held a group wedding for them at the hospital auditorium. Apart from a couple that were married to begin with, the others had bonded at the hospital. On the day of the wedding, each couple was issued new pillows, bedsheets and plastic chairs. They had red flowers pinned to their chests and wished each other well.
Xu He and Old Liang had similar temperaments. They talked through all their issues and never argued. Their daily exchanges were extremely civil. One would ask politely: "Shall I go pick up some things for us?" Then the other would respond equally politely: "Sure thing."
A few years later, the hospital expanded with new buildings erected on flatter terrain. The row of houses near the hospital entrance and the structure housing the cafeteria were allocated to married couples and dubbed "Couples Blocks." Shortly after Xu He and Old Liang moved in, Old Liang took a bad fall in front of a tree located by a neighboring corridor. He suffered a stroke and half his body was paralyzed. Xu He assumed the role of full-time caretaker. Nursing assistance wasn't available back then, so all the unpleasant tasks fell on Xu He—feeding, body wiping, laundry and handling piss and soil. With Old Liang half-paralyzed, Xu He had to turn him over single-handedly, a hefty undertaking that left Xu He panting for breath wildly. Yet not a single complaint emerged from her mouth. Even though her hands had limited motion, Xu He recalled they could still take on significant weight.
Half of this marriage entailed Xu He taking care of a bedridden Old Liang. A few years later, one morning Xu He fed Old Liang a boiled egg. After the meal, Old Liang looked like he wasn't going to make it. By the time the doctor on the morning shift arrived at 8, Old Liang had already passed away. The hospital notified Old Liang's next-of-kin and the crematorium. Soon Old Liang's family arrived, as did a van from the crematorium. Xu He didn't attend the cremation, simply keeping watch as the hearse drove away. Perhaps Xu He's marriage karma in this life was limited. Now that her man was gone, living alone was OK too. Xu He kept a photo of the couple hanging on the wall though.
Old Liang had a buddy at the hospital named Uncle Lai. They went back decades. Uncle Lai was blind in one eye and one of his legs had been amputated, but that didn't prevent him from strutting around on his aluminum crutch. After Old Liang's death, Uncle Lai bought paper offerings and burnt them together with Xu He. From then on, Uncle Lai went out of the way to take care of Xu He. Xu He got motion sickness easily, so she rarely ventured beyond the hospital. Meanwhile, Uncle Lai went shopping at a local market every morning, making the 3-kilometer trip by electric wheelchair. He often brought back a snack of rice rolls for Xu He. Sometimes the two would sit together in the corridor by Xu He's room and chat. The conversation would inevitably lead to Old Liang. "What a great person. Very competent too," they would reminisce.
It was also during that period that Xu He's younger brother called to say their father had died. But the long journey home was too much for Xu He. She had suffered from car sickness since she was a child and it got worse with age.
Meanwhile, the palm, pawpaw and longan trees that were planted when the Couples Blocks went up grew taller and taller. Over time, the husbands in other couples also passed, leaving behind their hardened women. Thus the Couples Blocks became "Singles Blocks."
**
Before you knew it another few years flew by in the 1990s. Another fellow patient was about to be discharged. Equipped with basic nursing and medical knowledge, this particular patient had once worked as a caretaker. She didn't want to return to her hometown, instead eyeing employment at another leper colony. Xu He knew that a fellow patient from New Island was now a manager at Jinju Leper Colony in Dongguan. She offered to travel to Jinju with her friend from Taihe to see if she could transfer there.
As a favor to her friend, Xu He endured the car ride to Dongguan. She vomited the entire way, arriving at Jinju in a dizzy state. When she was chatting with her fellow patient from New Island, the friend suddenly pointed to a middle-aged woman and said: "Oh, that's Mute Girl."
Feeling a mix of joy and surprise, Xu He walked toward Mute Girl and greeted her by name. Mute Girl didn't recognize her at first, simply giving a blank stare. So Xu He mimicked the way she used to rub Mute Girl's back with a towel, as if to say: "Remember me? I used to bathe you."
Amid all the gesturing, Mute Girl finally recognized her "godmother" from 30-plus years ago. She came to life, tugging Xu He's hand repeatedly in an invitation to eat at her home. Xu He was busy at the time, so she could only wave off the invite and promise to visit another time. Mute Girl was a bit upset and pursed her lips.
It was only during this reunion did Xu He find out what happened to Mute Girl after they parted in 1960. She stayed at New Island until the hospital was closed in 1975, when she was moved to Jinju. She got married there and had two girls and a boy. The boy died when he was a toddler, drowning after falling into a pond. The girls were in their early teens. Mute Girl's husband later came down with a severe illness. Shortly before his death, he said he knew his wife couldn't live independently and asked a good friend to look after her. That man eventually became Mute Girl's second husband.
It was also around this time when a Hakka woman who had heard about Mute Girl's background showed up and claimed to be her mother. The woman said she abandoned Mute Girl on the streets after learning her daughter had leprosy. Now that Mute Girl had recovered, the woman wanted to re-establish relations. Mute Girl didn't remember what happened as a child. Yet she immediately bought the story. Not only did she recognize the woman as her mother, she even handed over the several tens of thousands of yuan she had earned over 10-plus years breeding chicken at Jinju. Once she got hold of the cash, "Mom" disappeared.
When Mute Girl got to that part of her story Xu He fumed with both anger and pity: "Are you stupid? You just believed what she said? Giving away all that money just like that."
Mute Girl had no response. She just blinked her eyes while wearing a child-like expression.
The anger was fleeting and the sense of joy and surprise lasting. The fact that she and Mute Girl could reunite after several dozen years gave Xu He great comfort. Leaving the hospital was a major challenge for Mute Girl, so Xu He visited her twice again at Jinju in spite of car sickness. When Xu He became too weak to travel, Mute Girl's husband accompanied her to Taihe. To mark Lunar New Year in 2018, Mute Girl and husband bought Xu He a padded jacket with a floral pattern, also bringing meat and veggies to Taihe and preparing a meal for her in the cafeteria. The trio enjoyed a festive holiday season.
When Lunar New Year arrived in 2019, Xu He waited and waited—but Mute Girl and husband didn't show up. She didn't have a mobile phone, so she couldn't contact them either. She brought up the missed appointment when I visited her at the hospital in April. I happened to have a friend who was a social worker at Jinju, so I asked him to get me Mute Girl's husband's number. When we called, Mute Girl's husband was quite enthusiastic. He said he and Mute Girl didn't make it to Taihe because he had a small operation last year that required several months of hospitalization. He then made repeated promises to bring Mute Girl to Taihe the following Lunar New Year. Delighted by the idea, Xu He felt more relaxed.
After we hung up Xu He showed me the jacket Mute Girl bought her. The jade green coat had buttons, so Xu He rarely wore it, given the condition of her hands. She also dug out a picture she took with Mute Girl the previous year. Sitting on the edge of her bed, Xu He carefully studied the gray-haired woman standing next to her, then had an epiphany. "Wow, Mute Girl is so old!" she said with a chuckle.
Having hit 70, Mute Girl was already a grandmother. But in Xu He's eyes, she was still the skinny girl in her early teens who literally looked up to her, the tearful girl who packed her clothes and clogs on her back wanting to leave with Xu He when she was discharged.
At that juncture none of us would have guessed a pandemic would hit the next Lunar New Year. Mute Girl's husband's promise, which brought Xu He temporary relief, ultimately vanished in the spring gusts of April.
8.
Xu He's world kept shrinking and shrinking. First, she couldn't make it to Dongguan anymore. Then it was downtown Guangzhou. Then Taihe Market, which was 3 kilometers away. Next the lake on the way to the village and the cafeteria across from the Couples Blocks also gradually became beyond her reach. Outside charity groups occasionally organized field trips for the patients. These were out of the question for Xu He, so she kept vigil instead, staking out a spot in the corridor by her room. She'd watch everyone leave by coach first thing in the morning, then the village would turn quiet. At dusk, she would watch the hustle and bustle as everyone returned. Then it would be nightfall and another day would have passed.
Xu He was aging day after day. If you took her health out of the equation, she was actually extremely happy with her life at 90 years old. She didn't have to work. Even as she idled away each day the local home affairs bureau issued her a stipend. Donors also contributed daily necessities. She didn't have to buy anything—be it rice, oil, salt or clothing, socks and comforters. That made the person who once had to haul some 50 kilograms of bricks for a measly six work credits wonder. Why was life now so much better? Except she could barely eat. Having lost all her teeth, she was largely reduced to sampling the flavor of food.
But Xu He still spent every day cheerfully. She smoked two packs of Double Happiness each day, which caretakers bought on her behalf and placed on her table. Because most of her fingers were immobile, she had to place each cigarette in a special bamboo mouthpiece that she could hold between her thumb and index finger. As a child she rolled cigarettes with pawpaw leaves stolen from her mom. At 94, she was still an addict. Another substance of choice was paracetamol, caffeine and aspirin powder, which came in small blue packets. Also known as "Ji Gong powder" after the 12th Century Chinese monk, this good stuff had been part of Xu He's diet for a significant portion of her life. It was used to treat nerve pain caused by leprosy or rheumatism. The standard prescription was three packets a day, but Xu He said she downed up to a dozen packets a day if she was in extreme pain.
The world is a warped place for all old people. The floor is always slippery as ice while spoons and scissors seem ever so elusive. Their own bodies resemble a puppet with a heavy head and light feet. Their feet are always as soft as cotton. Before Old Liang died, Xu He could still grab a knife, climb the mountain behind the hospital and chop down a big batch of firewood. Eventually, her hands weakened to the point where she could no longer tie her hair in a bun or hold a comb properly. So she cut her long hair to shoulder length.
Amid years of hard labor, Xu He's fingers dwindled in capacity day after day, year after year, just like a consumer good, shriveling until they became two fists with a thumb each. During silent pauses while chatting with another patient in the corridor by her room, she would lower her head to examine the two fists laying on her lap, bunching them together and raising them gently. "How did these damn hands deteriorate to this state? What happened?" she would mumble.
Xu He wasn't expecting anyone to answer. She was simply talking to herself, puzzling over her own fate.
Daily life became dependent on caretakers and her neighbors, which fostered a sense of guilt. During the annual Lunar New Year cleanup, she tried standing on her bed and clearing the spider webs on her ceiling with a broom tied to a bamboo pole, only to tumble to the ground. Walking in her room required an aluminium walker. Because her hands were too weak to lift the walker, she had to push it instead, producing a screeching sound from the ends of the four metal legs rubbing against the floor. Worried about the noise, once she made her way to the light switch by her door before bedtime by grabbing onto the furniture. The clumsy attempt resulted in dark bruises on her arms.
The lingering health issues made Xu He contemplate death. She didn't want to wait any more. She tried to bring death closer. Once Xu He asked the caretaker who delivered her meals if she could get her some rat poison because there were too many rats in her room. The caretaker stalled, saying rat traps would do the trick. Xu He knew the caretaker had figured out her intentions, so she didn't press the matter, gingerly carrying on with the fragile existence that was her life.
Death seemed to resemble a temperamental old friend. When exactly would he show up? You just never knew. The best scenario, Xu He started to think, was the outcome that greeted 90-year-old Uncle Lai, who died suddenly from a relapse of an previous illness. Neither did he suffer nor impose on others.
"That's not a bad end, to die quickly like that," Xu He said at the time in a slightly envious tone.
Xu He started sleeping less and less, as if conserving time for the eternal peace that was soon to follow. She spent many nights wide awake in the dark. One those occasions, she would go ahead and get up, turn on a dim lamp and sit in bed with a burning cigarette in hand.
On every single sleepless night, she thought back to when she parted with her mother in rural Guangzhou at age 12. That was the beginning of her life, the most important scene in her extended existence. After that, she was taken away and in the turbulent decades that followed, she never saw her mother and younger brothers and sisters again. When Sixth Uncle visited her after she reconnected with her father, Xu He asked about her mother's and siblings' whereabouts. Sixth Uncle said her mother died of extreme hunger by the well after she trotted over for a sip if water. The story devastated Xu He, who admonished Sixth Uncle: "You should have kept an eye on your sister-in-law!" "I could barely take care of myself," Sixth Uncle responded.
Nights in Taihe at the foot of the mountain were quiet enough to hear the rustling of the thick forest. It was against this backdrop that Xu He found herself immersed in thought--until the dark night sky was punctured by the thud of a large dried-up leaf that detached from one of the palm trees outside. The crash of the meter-long leaf snapped Xu He out of her recollections.
9.
As a witness to Xu He's final years, I wanted her to live another few. When we first met I was 23, the same age she was living beneath the giant clock tower. Over the course of the three years that my oral history project spanned, I stayed at Taihe for several days every few months. Our relationship was founded on precisely this type of daily companionship and the mundane detail that getting along entailed.
Before every visit, I would call the head of Taihe Village to make sure that Granny Xu He was still alive.
One one occasion in the fall of 2018, I got sick of taking public transportation and decided to make the 30-kilometer journey to Taihe by bike. I set off in the afternoon. By the time I reached Taihe it was dusk. The street lights were dim while large trucks zipped past me one after another on the provincial highway. As I turned into a section of a village street that was unlit, one of my wheels skidded off the margin of the path and I took a bad tumble. When I got up I saw a nasty wound on my elbow.
When I saw Xu He the next morning, without mentioning my fall, Xu He told me that a fellow patient leaving the hospital in an electric wheelchair recently died after being struck by a truck driving by on Provincial Highway 116. After that, hospital management decided to provide three meals a day to all patients, to reduce the odds of them leaving the premises.
The reason the elderly patients of Taihe needed electric wheelchairs was because of amputations necessitated by their leprosy. And yet they often fell in the blind spot of truck drivers because of their small stature. The oblivion was similar to the way they were ignored by the rapid development of society-at-large. The fact that one of them could die in a car crash in front of their home after enduring the suffering of physical pain and isolation—the accident made for a cruel analogy that had me wondering.
The immediate aftermath of the accident for Xu He was that breakfast switched from biscuits soaked in hot water to a uniform bowl of congee or noodles issued by the hospital cafeteria.
Because Xu He's hands and legs were handicapped, every time I visited I tried to help where I could—such as wrapping the ends of the legs of her walker in cotton padding, so they made less noise when they hit the floor; wash the stains off her cotton-padded coats; comb her messy gray hair. When I picked her ears, she stayed perfectly still, a picture of enjoyment. She said she was used to picking her ears with a pair of scissors, often resulting in injury that left her ears bloodied. She relayed the story in a boastful tone.
At times like this, I could only suppress my sadness and say with mock anger: "Hey, you should ask for help. Why are you doing it yourself?"
Xu He never bothered to impose on others for help with these minor tasks, but if you volunteered, it made her day. She would ask me occasionally: "Why are you so nice, visiting me all the time?" I never knew how to respond. I just said I was vacationing.
It's hard for me to articulate that sense of appreciation. Just sitting by her gave me an enormous, continuous feeling of peace. When Xu He was still alive, Taihe was my spiritual sanctuary. We'd bask in the sunshine sitting on the couch in the corridor by her room. Xu He was a tiny woman who wielded a chubby tummy. When she sat, she rested her hands on her lap while gently swaying her feet, which never touched the ground. She was in her 90s—and yet she exuded a child-like innocence.
I loved hearing her fragmented recollections, which came in dribs and drabs: the time the daughter of landlord gave her a bag of rice when she was hungry as a child; when a fellow female patient from one of her hospital stays washed her hair with tea seed powder; or the time she rode into town with Mom to see her father. The car rise was so bumpy she had a bad case of motion sickness. Mom gave her an olive to suck on and had Xu He lie on her lap.
The young girl who lied on her mother's lap became the old woman who rested her hands on her kneecaps and swayed her feet with a slight hunch. There was no resentment. No pain. Only memories of love that gently shimmered like the reflection of sunlight on a river surface.
When we first met, Xu He's mental state was at the point where she remembered her early life clearly but forgot what she just had for lunch. On one visit, I asked her: "Do you remember who I am?" "I remember your face but not your name," she responded with a smile. The next time I saw her I asked: "I'm Hong. Do you remember me?" "I remember the name but not your face," she said with a chuckle.
In retrospect, it dawned on me that this granny-child didn't remember me at all. She was just being polite.
She finally remembered who I was the time I biked to Taihe.
**
In the winter of 2019, I visited Xu He at Taihe again. I got ready to leave in the late afternoon on the third day. As I was packing, Xu He summoned me to her room and asked me to open the drawer to the nightstand by her bed. She told me to take two bills from the stack of cash inside. This was part of the charade every time we said goodbye. Just like on previous occasions, I said something along the lines of: "I have a job. You don't need to give me money." She stayed silent. Thinking that I had talked her down successfully, I left the room to wash my hands. As I was crossing the threshold when I returned, I noticed she had somehow made her way from her bed to next to my backpack. She was trying to stuff money in my bag stealthily. The main pouch of my backpack was sealed by a zipper, which she couldn't open. So she struggled to use her two fists to insert two thin paper bills into a side pocket instead. The side pocket was quite flat. The bills wouldn't go in and landed on the chair where my backpack was placed. She grasped the two bills with her fists to try again.
Xu He was so focused on the task on hand she didn't notice I was back. I rushed over and held her hands. "You really don't have to give me anything. Each trip barely costs me anything," I said.
She glared at me and said: "Do you wish me well or not? Do you want me to live forever?"
"Of course I do, but..."
"Then take the money!" Xu He interjected.
"It's getting dark. Why are you still here? You should get going!" Xu He's neighbor with a booming voice, Granny Yao, yelled. Considering how remote Taihe was and the long journey ahead, they had been urging me to leave since 4 p.m. Mindful of the time, Xu He stuffed the cash in my hands. I didn't know what to say, so I leaned down to give her a hug and said I'd be back to see her after Lunar New Year.
A middle-aged caretaker gave me a lift to the new subway station about 5 kilometers away on his electric bike. As dusk set in, the provincial highway was heavily congested, packed with large vehicles. Horns blared left and right. Grabbing onto the backseat on the electric bike, I departed Taihe slowly amid the din of traffic under the setting sun.
That turned out to be the last time I saw Xu He.
**
Two months later, the coronavirus pandemic broke out during Lunar New Year in 2020. The leper colony was historically classified as a hospital, so naturally it went into lockdown. All visitors were banned, including family members of recovered patients.
By that summer, when the domestic outbreak had largely come under control, Taihe was still sealed off. I stayed in my hometown in eastern Guangdong until July, when Xu He's caretaker told me she was gravely ill and might pass away soon. I returned to Guangzhou. From there I called the doctors at Taihe, hoping to get permission to visit.
"No way." The doctor's response was hardly surprising. "The city health bureau issued a notice in June drawing special attention to places like elderly homes and leper colonies. Even us doctors have to quarantine for 14 days before we're allowed in. Why don't you have her wave at you from the entrance?"
"But Granny is bedridden. She can't make it to the entrance," I said.
"If she can't move, then have her caretaker set up a video call," the doctor responded quickly, as if having fielded similar calls before.
I asked when the lockdown would be lifted. The doctor said he didn't know.
After hanging up, I stood aimlessly in the alley from where I placed the call briefly. Xu He's caretaker sent me a picture of her. The old woman in the photo was rail thin and ghastly pale. She looked like a fragile reed. I didn't have the heart to press the caretaker on Xu He's condition.
It poured amid the brutal heat of August that summer. Every time it showered, I couldn't help but wonder if Xu He was still alive. Would I see her again?
On the last day of September, Xu He passed away. She was stuck in bed for three months as her condition fluctuated. She was still clinging to life until her very last breath. Maybe it was because she was so hardened, as if wild grass bloomed inside her body. God had trouble taking her in. This was not the death Xu He had expected, nor the farewell I had anticipated. She never got to see Mute Girl again. I never saw her again. All her personal items were burnt. I kicked myself for not hanging onto any of her belongings—her letters, photos, her marriage certificate, or one of her old food vouchers.
The day after I learned of Xu He's death, I slept in until noon. It was a gorgeous sunlit day when I got up and opened my door. A black butterfly fluttered its way to my line of sight before taking off. I froze. Local belief in my hometown says black butterflies are reincarnations of deceased relatives. Was that Xu He saying goodbye?
A year later, when I no longer shed tears when I thought of Xu He, I put her story to paper. Sometimes I wonder where her thoughts took her in her final days. Did she dream of her mother and siblings? Did she dream of Mute Girl when she was still shorter than her bed? Did she dream of me? Did she dream of the warm afternoon sunshine of Taihe in April?
Just like the weather in many afternoons we spent in the corridor by her room. The leaves swayed amid the mountain breeze as sparkling sunlight seeped through the foliage. Xu He sat next to me, gently swinging her feet, innocent as a child, as if she would never age further. The way she recalled developments when she was 12, the way she relayed her entire life story—it felt distant and it felt like the events happened yesterday. It felt as if all her life's pain and regrets were shielded by the spring sun of that afternoon, never to see the light of day.