Humans of China│人在中国（八十一）

I’m on the way to take my granddaughter to hospital. She has something wrong with her skin, but we live in a bit of a remote area so it takes some time to get there. This year she is 8 and she will lead a very different life compared what I've led. This year I am 50 years old. I have 1 daughter and 1 granddaughter. My daughter has no time to take her to see the doctor, as she is busy working. I have more free time than she has. During the evenings I sell oranges and dragon fruit on the streets, and in the daytime, I grow rice. We can grow two crops of rice once a year, but we grow far too much, so we can sell some to make money. The work is hard and it gets very hot during the summer here. If I have any more spare time, I like to make cloth and clothes using an old wooden machine I have. I married at the age of 16 to my husband, who is still alive. He was also 16 and at 20 I had our daughter. It was very common back then to marry at such a young age without knowing the man. I started to tattoo my hands and dye my teeth at the age of 10. Tattooing was pretty painful, but we all wanted tattoos. Afterwards my hands were big and swollen, we all helped each other. The black layer on our teeth keeps them healthy. My daughter and my granddaughter won't follow these kinds of traditions. They don’t have black teeth or tattoos, but we continue to celebrate our festivals such as, the Water Splashing Festival in April. 

Yunnan