Fourth Year of Growing Vegetables, Still Just as Happy

Four years of growing vegetables, four different plots; this year I finally found the one that satisfies me most. This plot is still in a planting garden at the foot of Fragrant Hills, about forty square meters, outside a greenhouse, with excellent light. The rent is four thousand yuan a year, about the same as what I spend on vegetables annually.

Four or five families share about half a mu of land, enclosed by an iron fence. The fence has a gate and a lock, and every family has a key; we must use the key to open the gate to enter the garden. This is the safest garden I have ever rented; reportedly nothing has ever been stolen here. My farming tools can finally be left by my own plot without worry, and I no longer have to bring them home after every use.

I am especially fond of this plot. I told my wife that if in the coming years I have to leave Beijing to study elsewhere, we must keep this land no matter what. When I come back, I will still grow vegetables here. The other "landlords" growing vegetables here are all retired elderly people; only we are in our prime. If we continue to live in Beijing, I hope to keep this garden into old age.

The neighbors I garden with are all extraordinarily warm-hearted; we are the least experienced. When they see my vegetable beds not tidied up to their liking, they simply pick up their own tools and help me fix them up. One helps me tidy a few beds, another helps with a few more; my forty-square-meter plot is tidied up almost without my lifting a finger.

While tidying the beds they guide me along. These elderly people have gardened for years and are all masters; their gardens are tidied up like works of art, every small patch looking artistic. Whenever someone comes to help me, I am sweetness itself, calling them Uncle, Auntie, Granduncle, Grandaunt endlessly. And when they need a strong back for heavy work, I help without hesitation.

This atmosphere is just like when I was a child doing farm work in my rural hometown. After meeting three or five times, everyone knows everyone. While working together we chat and joke. Every time I come back from working in the garden I feel happy; being close to green things already lifts the mood, and with such warm-hearted, humorous neighbors, it is hard not to be happy. So for us, gardening really is a wonderful way to relax.

The whole planting garden has a friendly atmosphere. My vegetable seedlings are ordered from within the garden, and usually they always give me a bit more than I ordered. The old gentleman who hands out the seedlings is especially kind; without me having to ask, he generously gives me a few extra every time. He has also helped me tidy two or three beds; the beds these elderly people make really do look much better than my own.

This year my time is very tight; I need to devote a great deal of it to review and practice problems, so I can only go to the garden two or three times a week, working for a bit over an hour each time. Naturally the vegetables do not grow very well and cannot compare with the neighbors' plots. But we never expected to manage the garden perfectly; we only wanted a place to go and unwind. Living in this cement jungle where housing is so hard, having such a small plot to grow green vegetables is already more than enough for us.

Four years of gardening has slowed our hectic work and life pace considerably and made us less impatient. The biggest gain from four years of gardening is that I have become much more relaxed and more lenient with my child; our parent-child relationship has improved a lot. My experience tells me that when parents themselves are satisfied with life, they do not make harsh demands on their children, and the children actually grow up better.

I love idyllic life, but I also know that real rural life is hard. Because I lived in the countryside as a child and did a lot of farm work with my parents, I know how hard country people have it. So the ideal situation is not to farm too much land; too much turns pastoral life into a toilsome chore of "face to the yellow soil, back to the sky." This small plot of mine is just enough to poeticize life, without being tiring.

I am always full of gratitude to heaven; my needs are few, and it has met them all, without the slightest discount. I always say it has given me far more than I need, so I have no complaints about my life. But it is hard to expect everyone to have modest demands; people who are contented and happy are not many in this world, and most people live in endless troubles. Although I constantly pray that all sentient beings may be free from suffering and attain happiness, I also know this is only a beautiful wish that is hard to realize.

That being the case, then let us first live our own lives well! After all, if we ourselves become happy, there will be one more happy person and one fewer suffering person in this world; that is also a good thing.