Humans of China│人在中国（十二）

原创 Cameron Hack CJHphotography

Humans of China

人在中国

Exploring China one person at a time

一次探索一个中国人

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I was born in 1963 and life was hard.
For the first few years of my life I had never eaten meat and I didn't know what an egg was. We had no money for food my diet consisted mostly of weeds.
At a very young age I started a very simple but very important job as a wood collector to build fires during the winter as it was bitterly cold and at 7 years old I started working in the fields using a hoe to move the soil to help grow rice.
Back then everyone was the same we all had very hard lives and although we were all so poor everyone loved to help each other. No one was selfish unlike in today's sociality, there are too many selfish people.
Growing up I had no shoes and my clothes were full of holes during the long cold winters we'd stuff cotton in the holes in our trousers to try keep our legs warm. We just didn't have the money to buy shoes let alone new clothes. These days having clothes full of holes is fashion.
We lived in a mud house and we made beds with branches from trees covered in dead grass. If it was raining outside then it was raining inside.
I started school at the age of 7 but then my mum gave birth to my little bother and then to my little sister so I stopped school to help take care of them whilst my parents would work. At 10 years old I started school again.
At the age of 17 my mother died so from then on I acted as a mother figure for my siblings. If we had money my mother could have seen a doctor or bought some medicine but we had no money. Maybe she would have survived.
In them days if you were sick there were two choices; survive or die. No one cared if we were sick. No one cared if we couldn't see a doctor. No one cared if we died.
1988 was the hardest year for us we had nothing and at this point I had two children. We had nothing to eat nothing to drink and nothing to wear but after that year things gradually got better.
My life today is the best it's been I still have two children along with grandchildren. My children are quite successful and we have managed to buy a house in Beijing. I love my job as a cleaner and general helper at a school which I started 3 years.I love children and my colleagues.
One piece of advice I'd like to give to the next generation is to appreciate the freedom you had and take care of yourself,your family and friends.

Beijing