After three days in village, my uncle freed me from mental stress

This is my second uncle, once a genius boy in the village. This is my maternal grandma, engaged in "popping" every day.

They lived in this old house, built when the United States did not even exist.

My uncle was the top student in primary school, and remained so in junior high school. During the citywide examination, uncle's test paper was among the only three submitted. One day, he went down with high fever, and after a doctor from an adjacent village gave him four shots on the hip, he became disabled.

Uncle, then 12, lay in bed, refusing to return to school. His teachers visited him three times, trying to persuade him. He lay on the bed with his eyes shut, utterly silent, just like the famed politician and strategist Zhuge Liang, albeit with a broken leg.

During the first year, uncle refused to leave the bed. He somehow came by a copy of a handbook for barefoot doctors, and devoured it like mad for a whole year.

However, his leg was not just wounded, but disabled, and thus the chronic illness did not make a physician out of him.

So in the second year he chucked the book, pulled himself out of the bed and, like the fabled frog – and an oversized one at that time – "looked at the sky from the bottom of a well."

In the third year, uncle stopped looking at the sky. There was an itinerant carpenter, who left after working for the family for three days. Uncle told his father that he had learnt carpentry by watching the carpenter, and asked to have tools made for him at the local blacksmith's. For the first time in three years, he stepped out of the yard, and started making stools for the production brigade, priced at one dime apiece. By coming up with two stools a day, he could now support himself.

It went on like this for a few years, until one day when uncle waddled with a stick to the brigade, he was told by the team leader: "No need to come anymore. The production brigade is no more."

Uncle asked why, and the answer was: "The reform and opening-up has started."

Thus uncle started his own reform and opening-up, becoming an itinerant carpenter in the villages in the township. One day he ran into the doctor who had mishandled his illness many years ago. The doctor confessed: "If that happened today, I would have been sued and found guilty, and would have to provide for you for life." Uncle simply muttered a curse in good humor, and staggered back to his work.

Due to some procedural issues, uncle could not obtain a certificate of disability. Frustrated, he traveled to Beijing, with a stick. He wanted to visit Chairman Mao's Memorial at Tian'anmen Square, saying he missed him.

He said that the reform and opening-up was good, so was Mao. Why? He said: "Mao stood for justice."

Soon uncle ran short of money. A cousin of his served as a soldier in Beijing, and uncle stayed in the servicemen's quarters, but who would have thought that he would soon become quite a celebrity there. Since uncle was not quite sociable, but hard at work, having somehow managed to obtain some carpentry tools. And in those difficult years, unobtrusively, he became specialized in making chests and tables for the servicemen. Who would not favor a home bird like uncle?

One day uncle's cousin saw an elderly guy taking bath together with him. The cousin was astounded, for the elderly man was none other than a senior official whom the cousin had seen a couple of times on rare occasions. The official, squatting in the bath, was giving the uncle's back a vigorous rubdown.

When uncle returned to the village and was asked about his impression of Beijing, he said: "Beijingers do give a good run-down."

When his two younger sisters reached the marriage age, uncle was reluctant to let go, choosing instead to express this in his own way. Every piece of furniture for the dowry, every blueprint, every chip of wood, every glass, every ornamental strip, all the nuts and bolts, and each layer of lacquer – were crafted by uncle single-handedly.

Can you imagine how wonderful it was for a village girl to possess, in the 1980s, a complete set of furniture like this as dowry?

Given grandma's destitution, such dowry gift would naturally earn the sisters more respect from the in-laws, which could lead them to receiving more decent treatment. You might accuse me of bragging – but actually these were furniture adorned with the Shanghai Brand. That's because you forgot that that was uncle, always resourceful, thus always ready to slap on the furniture any label you wanted. He did not lack brand labels – Tianjin, Beijing, Hong Kong, De Luxe, you name it.

Soon afterwards, the young uncle adopted Ningning after her birth, and seemed hell-bent on making money in the neighboring areas. Thus it was that most of the time Ningning stayed with the aunt and saw little of uncle.

While Ningning was young, she was often accused – behind her back – of lacking in etiquette, but what kind of politeness do you expect from a girl abandoned twice?

Ten years ago Ningning got married, in a flat in the county seat priced at over 200,000 yuan (US$30,000), the lion's share of which was paid by uncle. It's hard to imagine how he got to make such a pile.

Uncle spent half of his life's savings on Ningning's flat, and was overjoyed, as is typical of Chinese parents, evocative at once of reverence and pity, for their humility and their greatness.

When uncle was in his early 30s, he began to be approached by a surging number of marriage brokers. But uncle told me that in this lifetime he could only afford to take care of himself, not others, thus his mind was never perturbed heart-wise.

But uncle lied. There was this woman in a neighboring village, with a husband and two children. Somehow, uncle seemed to be very thick with the woman. She often dropped in on him, and vice versa, even in her husband's presence.

The two children also took to uncle and then, as a formal member of uncle's family, the woman was present at all funerals and weddings in the family. She was solicitous about my uncle's welfare, and tidied up his small room in apple-pie order. Uncle would return home to a hot bowl of meal, and would then slip the day's earnings to her.

Many years went by like this, though she remained wedded to her husband. Uncle's four siblings were at the beginning very supportive of the liaison, but then became vehemently hostile, suspecting her of scheming for uncle's pittance.

Ningning, who was then attending primary school, began to call her "old vixen," and her daughter in the same class "little vixen." The honest uncle was eminently embarrassed, not knowing how to handle the mess.

And then the woman and her husband both died – of gas poisoning – in a shanty on a construction site. Uncle remained unmarried all his life. I do not know much about this entanglement of his – aunt could not remember it clearly, while uncle refrained from dwelling on it.

What on earth was this all about? Neither the scams in vogue nowadays nor the ménage-a-trois of the old days in the case of a chronically sick husband would quite fit. Was there love anyway?

After decades, the stories of these figures are gradually fading, leaving behind nothing but some opacity, which becomes rotten in my uncle's heart. Scarred after bleeding, yes, but would hurt to the quick at any prying.

Thus three decades went by, with little worth documenting, as is the life of most common people, to the degree of being still common even after being magnified ten thousand times. And in a blink of the eye, grandma was 88 years old.

With rural labor costs soaring, uncle found it a good time to earn some money. He wanted to put by a little for old age, so that he would not be too much of a burden on Ningning in the future.

Grandma could no longer take care of herself, and did not want to go on living. Once she even had a piece of rope tied on the lintel. Chinese often speak of "birth, old age, sickness and death," but why have two items intervening between birth and death?

Rather than a lack of heavenly benevolence, this is manifest compassion. If we are all allowed to die at 70 or 80, hale and hearty, then what kind of love we might have for this world when leaving it! Would not that be misery? In this sense, "old age" and "sickness" are necessary rehearsals between life and death.

So a few years ago, whenever my uncle ventured outside, he began to take grandma along on his vehicle. When uncle was engaged in work, he would have grandma on a little stool nearby.

A 66-year-old carrying his 88-year-old mother, this collocation of 6688 is simply so cool.

In recent years, uncle has given up carpentry, becoming wholly devoted to the care of grandma, washing her face in the morning, her feet at night, and coaxing her to do some exercise in the afternoon.

Grandma would stop to have ten seconds of respite after walking 20 steps, and uncle would lag by three meters behind grandma after every 20 steps, and he would make up for the gap of three meters in ten seconds, which is just right.

Such seamlessly synchronized walk – the like of which I only saw in NBA stars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Jordan liked to send Pippen supercars, while uncle liked to cook noodles for grandma, topped with tomato and egg. Delicious!

There is little education to speak of regarding the bringing up of Ningning, though she grew up to become the kid best known for filial piety in the village. This suggests that example is probably the best way to teach about filial piety, as exemplified by how you treat your own parents. Children are young, but not blind.

It would be unfair to define my uncle simply as a carpenter. During my three days' stay in the village, he fixed a power strip, a gas stove, a bedside lamp, a toy car, a hoe, a washing machine, and a faucet for fellow villagers.

On his way back he was intercepted by an aunt, and then he went to fix her lock. Before he could reach home he was accosted by another uncle, and had to repair his induction cooker. When uncle reached his home, he discovered the problem lay in the man's failure to switch on the electricity.

Poor uncle, after getting home he succeeded in fixing another grandma's old fashioned mobile phone and radio set.

Grandma had a stomach ache, and he began to administer acupuncture treatment for her. Someone didn't like the picture of unadorned wood upstairs, thus uncle had the wood painted all by himself, according to his own design. There was a temple atop a mountain, and all the dragons there were carved by uncle.

There was no witch in the village, and uncle by necessity became the diviner. Of course, all the chips, container, books, and the divination symbols were of his own making.

Such was his flash of fancy that one day he found himself in the midst of making an erhu. The body was made of wood, the string of the copper core made of telephone line, the bow of bamboo and the fishing line. We don't have boas in these parts, so he went to the mountain, caught two twin-spotted rat-snakes, and pieced up the snake skin as the skin for the instrument. You see, uncle always had a way.

I really want to show you the image of this perfectly admirable erhu but unfortunately, about a decade ago, my grandma let my silly brother toy with the instrument as a hoe, and he broke it.

Of all the farming instruments, furniture, electric appliances and motor vehicles in the whole village, only three things are beyond uncle's capability: smartphones, motor vehicles, and computers. Uncle doesn't have any of these things – except for the smartphone Ningning bought him. There is no doubt the smartphone would not be a problem soon – all that is needed is just some disassembling and assembling practice a few times.

It is in the dead of night, but the lights at uncle's are still on. He must be fixing up something again.

Heard the sound of gong and firecrackers? No, not for weddings for some villagers, but for scaring away the boars, who began to show up after the village's young men had gone.

Following the departure of the youngsters, there are only about several hundred elderly men and women left now in the village. If something needs to be repaired in a shop, it might mean 15 kilometers of hilly road to the township, or a bus ride to the county seat, and it would be quite a feat for them to remain oriented after the long journey, not to mention the expenditure involved.

My uncle always says that it would be good if he could take care of himself. As a matter of fact, he manages to take care of the whole village. Villagers jokingly call him waizi (cripple), but we all confess that we love this cripple, and could not well live without this cripple.

In 1977, when the national college exams were restored, after being abolished for a decade, uncle was 18 or 19. If it were not for the four fateful shots for the fever, he might have been admitted to a college and become an engineer.

Then there would be flats allocated by the units, pensions, leisure and a carefree old age, as an elderly guy in the neighboring villager is now enjoying. The guy was not so good at studies as uncle in the old days. If all had turned out like this, then how wonderful. Uncle would not be unlike Wang Jusheng, as a Peter-Pan-like figure depicted by his son Wang Zengqi, a celebrated man of letters.

The sight of uncle often reminds me of a line from the movie "The King of Chess": "The kind of genius like him just gets born in the wrong time. He really needs to be cultivated by the state, enjoying fame far and wide, and not come to a bitter end like this."

Bitter, indeed. Unspeakable bitterness.

I asked if this flash of insight has ever crossed his mind, and the reply was no, and this mindset enables him to be the No. 2 happiest person in the village. The No .1 happiest is Ganggang, our counterpart of Mr Tree in "Hello! Mr Tree."

Thus, you see, the No. 1 happiest is someone who need not be responsible for others, and the No. 2 is someone who never casts a backward glance.

Who has not experienced regret? But when you are approaching death, the only regret often turns out to be the perpetual regret itself. In movies, regret is often a prelude to the rise of the hero, but in actual life, it often turns out to be a poison that led to perdition.

During my nine years' struggle in Beijing, I have made acquaintance of quite a few outstanding personalities. But it is this uncle of mine that affords me a glimpse of all that is ordinary, beautiful and strenuous about our people.

Hence the saying that in life the most important is not to be dealt a good hand, but to make the best of a bad hand. Uncle has really made the best of a lousy hand, and the high solemnity and respect he displayed during his years of struggle have earned my deepest reverence.

I'm healthy with four limbs, have been admitted to college, and have lived in a time of opportunities, and I should live a more fulfilling life.

My uncle continues to travel along his life's path, and whereto does this long, long road leads?

Under uncle's bed was a notebook left from decades ago, and on the first page of the notebook was a political slogan he had copied: Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory.

Yes, a path like this could lead only to victory.

(The author is a popular uploader on Bilibili. Wan Lixin translated the story into English.)