Even though I haven’t seen her in over 20 years, I still remember her name: QingMiao, which means ‘green seedlings’ or something similar. You can tell her family are farmers from her name. Her name is not special or beautiful, and quite straightforward, but at least it is better than names with “Di”, which means the family is looking for a son.
QingMiao is one of my father’s students in 2001. My father has hundreds even thousands of students, she was not the smartest or most famous. The reason I was deeply impressed is: she was disabled in her leg, and the first one went to school with crutch. It was unusual at that time, and it still is now. Because in China, people who are disabled live in small towns, seldom can go to school. There were two major reasons for this. Firstly, there was no accessibility facilities at campuses or anywhere. Secondly, it would take a lot of time and money to take care of them. However, her parents never asked my father to pay extra attention for her.
I didn’t quite like her at that time. I thought she was too tough, always wearing armor, seldom smiled. And maybe she was too sensitive. But we were not friends, and we rarely talked. Even she came to my house, she just talked with my father.
Since her home was far away from the school, she had to live there with many other girls and boys who also came from rural areas. It was her first year (Grade 7) living away from home and staying at school. Most of the time, she was alone. Maybe she was competitive and sensitive. She didn’t expect people can understand her, so she just preferred to stay alone. And she liked writing, she would send some of them to my father, or just send some to the radio station of the school.
I read some of her articles (can’t remember it was for my father directly), she said she was always mocked and scrutinized because of her disability. People can hardly understand her feeling. Nevertheless, she always wanted to chase her own life, be more independent, rather than just marry a random man, and just rely on him.
That strongly impressed me. Usually, girls are taught to be a wife in her life. They don’t have to be strong and independent, because they can just rely on their husbands. It is patriarchal society, the main stream thought is: men’s responsibility is to make money; women take charge of the housework, including raising kids and take care the elderly. Women have the second chance to reborn by marriage. However, women’s work is never being valued. The worst part is: women can hardly get any support from the society or family. As a result, most women are low-educated. Most of QingMiao’s girl classmates or friends would go to the factories to be a worker after Grade 9 or before that. And, few of them would question the practice or the idea, they just accept it.
I think that’s why I still remember QingMiao. However, she didn’t contitue studying after Grade 9. From time to time, I wonder how her life is going. Especially when I get older and older, I know how hard life for women is. I hope she is happy.