This morning I awoke in Beijing not wanting to get out of bed. Why would I? I feel like a queen living in luxury. My duvet covers are crisp and fresh from just being cleaned in the wash the night before. The fabric softener’s “spring lavender” scent still lingers in the air. My head rests lazily on two overstuffed pillows stacked on top of each other, while the double mattress pad provides support from below. The uniform white walls of my room are spotless, just like the floors. A plant sits on the windowsill, its bright green leaves stretching out towards the vast cityscape. I compare this morning with the life I awoke to just three short weeks ago. Surely, that was just a dream. Someone couldn’t really live in the conditions that I am recalling now. Or could they?
I remember driving with my friend to the countryside in the Shanxi province. We pull up to what appeared to be a wasteland. There is nothing around save for bricks, rubble and dirt. I ask if we are lost, but my friend replies that we are home.
I get out of the car and upon closer examination see signs of life – electric poles, a wheelbarrow, and red streamers hung for the New Year. Ironically written on one banner is“五福临门” or “Five Fortunes,” to invite good fortune into the home. But as we pass through the entrance I see no signs of longevity, wealth, serenity, kindness and happy endings. I just see poverty.
But then peels of laughter come from the small farmhouse and I wonder what there is to laugh about. Grandma opens the door to the one room house and welcomes me with a smile with half her teeth missing. There’s no need to remove my shoes because the floor is littered with the shells of sunflower seeds. Someone tells me to sit on the bed and my only response is a puzzled expression. Is there another room I missed?
They pat the structure they are sitting on. Its length takes up nearly a third of the room and the upper half rests upon the stove where Grandma is cooking. This is a bed? There are no pillows, blankets or mattress pads. I sit on the tarp that covers the kang, the name for this traditional Chinese bed, and a warmth travels up my legs. Someone adds more wood to the oven and my bum becomes toasty. Four women are sitting on it too and busy themselves making dumplings. In the daytime, the kang serves as a table. At night, a place for sleeping. The aunties chatter away in their local dialect, giggling among themselves. I can’t understand the jokes or the gossip, so I seek entertainment outside. I walk over to the dairy cows grazing on corn and inspect the greenish welts on their backsides. In this moment, I reach my boiling point.
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I thought culture shock was a thing of the past, something I had conquered after years of traveling to underdeveloped places. But damn, it got me again. I pity these cows. I pity these people. Selfishly, I even pity myself. I want to click my red heels (or rather, black boots) and be magically taken home just like Dorothy. I want to be back in my polluted Beijing, back in my bed that sometimes collapses because the workman uses tape instead of nails to put it together. I want to use my toilet that’s always clogged because I break the rules and put toilet paper down it. I don’t want to use the open-aired hole out in the yard. I don’t even want to spend a single night in this place. How can someone spend a lifetime here?
My friend’s dad must have read my thoughts, as he comes outside and hands me his mobile phone. He communicates with me via text since he isn’t able to speak standard Mandarin. “ 我们很幸运, 农民的生活很幸福。[We are very lucky. Farmers’ lives are very happy.]” His simple words teach me an invaluable lesson. Happiness is not a statement on one’s bank account. Happiness is a state of mind.
That night I sleep on the kang with three other people. We tuck blankets tightly around our bodies, the likes of which you would purchase at a flea market. I use my sweater as a pillow and sleep in my underclothes. A basin is placed on the edge of the bed in case you need the bathroom in the middle of the night. We sleep knowing we are surrounded in both poverty and wealth.
The five fortunes have entered the door of this humble home.