Beijing Lights: Without a Good Heart, We Lose Our Purpose

This post is part of an ongoing series by the Spittoon Collective that aims to share some of the voices that make up Beijing’s 21.7 million humans. They ask: Who are these people we pass in the street every day? Who lives behind those endless walls of apartment windows? These interviews take a small, but meaningful look.

Earlier this month, I headed to Beijing Station to catch a 3am train. I arrived about one hour early to find the station unusually quiet, people sleeping on the floor, and a few walking around selling bottled water and phone chargers. Ma Changyou was one of them. He had a limp and dark skin, looking much older than he is.

He mainly sells plastic mats, selling until 3 or 4am every day. To save money, many red-eye passengers choose to sleep on the ground instead of paying for a hotel, for whom Ma’s mats are very helpful.

Ma also sleeps in a make-shift bed in the station square, right in front of KFC. He has a big black umbrella on each side to shelter himself from the brutal Beijing wind. Under the umbrella, his belongings are tidily packed, ready to run whenever police patrols come to shoo him and the others away.

Sitting on the bed that made up his 2-square-meter “home,” I talked to him until I had to leave for my train. Before we said goodbye, he gave me a sincere handshake and wished me a safe trip with a big, genuine smile.

Ma Changyou, male, 59 years old, from Tongchuan, Shaanxi, hawker

My parents named me well, but that didn’t spare me from a life of hardship.

My family was so poor that we couldn’t eat. Sometimes I had to go out begging or searching for scraps to fill my belly.

There are many mines near my village. The canteens would provide steamed buns for the workers, a luxury many locals couldn’t afford. I always brought a bowl with me to school and dashed to wait in front of the canteen after class, catching the leftovers before they got dumped in the bin.

Without money to support me, I dropped out of school early in my junior high years to work for private mines. Several times I nearly died.

One time, the mine collapsed. I was buried under debris for hours. By the time they finally dug me out and took me to the hospital, I’d lost consciousness. I was in a coma for seven days. On the eighth day, I woke up to crippled hands and a seriously damaged leg. My leg never completely recovered. After that, I couldn’t walk without a cane.

A private-run mine means no contract, no protection of rights. The boss gave me hardly more than RMB 10,000 and settled in secret.

I’ve also been to prison. What happened? Well, you might laugh, it’s really nothing serious – I stole a hat from a police officer.

I remember it well. It was in 1983, a time when the government imposed a nation-wide crackdown on crime. A minor mistake could cause you big trouble. Even for small crimes, people were taken to jail, even shot to death.

Ok, here is what happened. We were watching an outdoor movie put on by the town. Sitting in front of me was this officer wearing an army cap. It was a gorgeous cap. So on a whim, I took it. I just couldn’t help it. Anybody would want a cap like that. With that cap, I’d look almost like a respectable officer.

Because of that minor offense, I was sentenced to eight years. They released me after four years. Alas, I came out just as muddleheaded but with the unerasable mark of being a prisoner.

Her father was a heavy drinker. He drank so much one day he died from alcohol poisoning. So we married as we wanted. Our daughter inherited my wife’s family name, while my son inherited mine.

We actually had a second daughter before the son. The family planning policy only allowed families with one daughter to have a second child, but not those with two. We wanted a boy, so my wife decided to send our second daughter away. I didn’t object.

Then almost two years later I found out my daughter was adopted by my wife’s aunt, who lives in the neighboring village a short walk away. I would have said no if I knew our daughter was adopted by someone so close to us, by both distance and kinship. I’d rather send her farther to save trouble. This made a good mess of our family relationships. When she was little, she knew nothing about it. While visiting us she would call my wife—her biological mom—sister.

When this daughter turned 12 or 13, she found out the truth. She got very upset. She cried out loud, asking why we sent her away. Her cry changed nothing. It was what it was.

She’s now married and a mother herself. She still visits us during Chinese New Year and other occasions like Mid-Autumn Festival.

To be honest, I do have regrets about sending her away. She is my daughter, after all, my flesh and blood. But I didn’t have any better choices. The family plan was so strict. You got fined if you broke the rules. They’d take away your livestock, seize your cattle. They’d tear your house down. We wanted a son. We need him to carry the family line.

I came to Beijing over ten years ago, been hanging around the station like this the whole time. Most of the people here, I know them all. Pretty much like me, they sell bottled water, boiled tea eggs, boxed lunches, they clean toilets and such. Usually we offer a hand to each other when we can.

For example, I always pick bottles off the ground and save them for that guy sweeping the floor. Each bottle can get him four cents. And that woman selling boxed lunches is seriously disabled. She has problems with both her hands and legs. Every day, I help her carry stuff. As a way to thank me, she often cooks tofu with rice noodles for me. Knowing I have bad teeth, she cooks the food longer than usual to make it easier to chew. See? This world still has more good people than it does bad.

It’s all about the exchange of human feeling. If you treat people with kindness, surely you’ll get treated with kindness too. Kindness is the most important trait for humans. Without a good heart, we lose our purpose for existing.

My whole life, I’ve seen so much hardship. Life only got slightly better after I entered my 20s—that’s when I at least didn’t suffer from starvation anymore.

I’m turning 60 very soon. Luckily still in good health, never caught a cold even in the flu season. No matter how much I earn from selling mats, be it RMB 1,000 or 2,000 a month, I take it happily. I’m satisfied financially. I can afford a drink and some cigarettes every day. That’s good enough. Remember I used to go hungry.

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