This dinner was a really important thing for Li to do, to thank and recognise all these people who had been so instrumental in his life. It was a special moment in time for everyone in the room – a bittersweet reunion.
When the bill arrived, we couldn’t believe it – it was something like a couple of hundred dollars to feed more than forty people for the whole night! Everyone walked away happy, if rather wobbly.
Being with Li in his own country was so different to our life together in Houston. With every passing day that I spent with him, he revealed the generous type of person he is. Not once did he hesitate to translate so that I could be involved in the conversations. Soon, I would discover where he got his generosity from.
Before long it was time to say goodbye to Li’s Beijing friends. We boarded the plane for Qingdao, his hometown, and Li could hardly breathe the entire flight, especially when we were landing. I held his hand and we walked out. ‘There they are, Mary!’ he said, and I saw a group of people waving madly – all of Li’s brothers except his fourth brother, their wives and children. (Li’s fouth brother, Cunsang, had to stay home to prepare the welcome feast.) They were not allowed inside the airport and I will never forget the row of faces pressed to the glass wall and the children jumping up and down with excitement. Two stern soldiers with guns were guarding the doors as we walked through.
‘Cunxin! Cunxin! Jing Hao. Jing Hao!’ the family called out. Then Li was surrounded by bodies, all talking at the same time. He had tears in his eyes as he greeted his brothers and was introduced to his sisters-in-law and children he had never met. He introduced me and then I was greeted by each of them, one by one. I had attracted a lot of attention in the airport and people were standing staring both at the reunion and at me. It was still not common to see foreigners in Qingdao, particularly young blue-eyed women. Several people asked Li’s brothers who I was, and they proudly told them that I was their sister-in-law.
The brothers took us to two trucks they had borrowed and we drove to the village. The traffic again was insane. I was sitting in the front seat of one truck and Li was in the other, both with no seatbelts. There was a lot of happy chatter coming from the wives and children in the open bed of the truck. It was another perilous journey in the traffic, with a lot of old bikes and tractors, and very few cars. No one seemed to be worried except me. It was a pretty stark environment, with old buildings. There were lots of communes – little clusters of low, tile-roofed brick buildings with mazes of alleyways between them. These villages were punctuated by fields and I could see men and women working in them, some wearing traditional conical bamboo hats. We passed the occasional group of shops, with market stalls where women were stirring large woks of food and people were milling around shopping. I gazed out of the window, fascinated.
We slowed in one village and had to walk the rest of the way as the trucks were too big to squeeze through the narrow road into Li’s village. I noticed that there were deep concrete gutters down the edges of the dirt laneways – open sewers. You wouldn’t want to trip and fall into the mess of rotten eggs, garbage, leftover noodles and human waste. The smell wasn’t pleasant.
Finally, we arrived at the last row of houses. ‘This is it!’ Li said excitedly. ‘We’re home!’
I jumped as firecrackers started going off and children came running out of houses everywhere. Faces with big smiles were peering out of the doorways and windows. The whole village knew that Li was coming home and they were keen to catch a glimpse of him. We turned down a laneway and I saw Niang and Dia standing by a gate. His mother went straight to Li and threw her arms around him. Li’s eyes filled with tears once again. He took both his father’s hands, then the hands of his fourth brother and his fourth uncle. A tall, grey-haired lady pushed through and shouted loudly, ‘Shi Jing Hao ma? Zen shi Jing Hao ma?’ She gave Li a big hug, and he told me, through tears, ‘Mary, this is my fourth auntie. She asked me whether it was really me. She was the one who saved my arm when I was little and it got badly burnt and infected.’
We stepped through the door into a shady little courtyard. A ceramic teapot was on the table and we all sat and had tea. Niang then showed me the rest of her home. The Li family house consisted of four small rooms. You walked through a doorway covered by long ribbons of plastic to stop the flies and mozzies, into a space that had a pantry cupboard and a small table with short legs pushed up against the wall. A large wok was built into a countertop. Doors on either side of the room led into bedrooms. Each bedroom was only just the size of a double bed. The beds, made of mud bricks, were all built against the walls. The floors were cement – an improvement since Li’s time, he told me.
Our bedroom was tiny – standing room only. Two walls were decorated with floral paper, another with red and gold cigarette packets. There was no such thing as plaster, paint or even cladding. The bed was hard but covered with colourful soft quilts. The pillows were filled with straw. It was summer so it was very hot, even with a window. Li told me his family felt very lucky to have glass panes in the windows and that with the little bit of electricity available we could use fans at night, provided the electricity was on. It was pretty intermittent.
My head was beginning to spin with all the emotion and Chinese language swirling around. Also, I was beginning to wonder where I would be able to have a shower. ‘Third Brother has a detached house known as the “army general”-style house, where they have a shower and a toilet,’ said Li. I later discovered the shower was really just a hose attached to the wall.
There was a little shed outside for cooking in the summer, which gave the family more space in the house, and then further outside was the toilet. The toilet was the dreaded hole in the ground. It was just a hole, with two concrete patches either side for your feet. You had to squat right down to the ground, very close to the hole. As the waste stayed in the hole, you can imagine the stink over many years, and God knows what kind of creepy-crawlies were living in there. I said, ‘I can’t go there, Li. I just can’t. I’m thinking that a creature is going to come out and grab me. I’m not used to relaxing in a squat.’
Li just laughed. After all, I was a ballerina completely used to Western amenities and comforts. I was so bloody precious, so used to an ordered, scheduled life, going from home to studio to stage in my pink tights and pink ballet shoes. What an experience this was for me! Needless to say, I had all kinds of problems with my bowels during my time in China.
Late in the afternoon, Dia said, ‘Li, everyone is calling for you on their way home from work. You must go and say hello.’ So out we went. There were children everywhere and they sang and danced together, and I clapped for them, laughing.
‘They are much nicer, sweeter tunes than the revolutionary songs I learned when I was growing up,’ Li said.
Villagers popped in to see Li and to check out his Western wife with the big nose, blue eyes and curly brown hair. They told me I was the first Westerner to visit their village since 1949. There were many questions for Li to answer. I got busy with the gifts for the children. I loved having so many of them around. They were easy to communicate with using gestures and lollies, and were a joy to watch. But the biggest hit with everyone was Li’s Polaroid instant camera. They couldn’t believe that it could spew out images instantly. Every villager wanted a Polaroid photo of themselves. The American ciggies were very popular, as many people in China smoked. Li had been panicked about running out of gifts, so they were ideal, perfect for anyone.