From a Country Cottage to the National Library
A few days ago I returned to my hometown to visit the elderly at home. I also took the chance to renovate the old country house; work on the house had started shortly after this year's Spring Festival. But several new projects, which my father had been reluctant to begin while I was away, were finally started. The reason was simple: the old man hates spending money. My father has already fallen twice in the old house in recent years, and since last year he has shown some symptoms of early Alzheimer's disease. He refuses to move to Beijing to live with me, so I have to do what I can to improve his living conditions and prevent further injury.
My old country house is built against a hill; behind it is a small slope. My plan was to level the slope so the flattened yard could become a small vegetable garden, and to prevent mudslides during the rainy season that could endanger my father. Since the house was built, part of the back slope has collapsed every year, blocking the drainage ditch in the backyard and requiring manual cleanup.
My father disagrees; he has listened to my uncle and uncle-by-marriage and refuses to have the slope leveled. The elders are unanimous: having a backing hill behind the house is good feng shui. Although collapses happen every year, they are not severe and have not caused disaster. If the hill is leveled, the backing is gone, and without it the descendants' luck will suffer. I cannot persuade my elders, so I let it be.
But my father is 77, no longer as strong; when he cleared the mud that had collapsed this year, he strained his lower back and was in great pain. Watching his pained expression on the camera, I knew he was hurt. So I decided to go back and fix the backyard: even without leveling the slope, I would reinforce it with brick and cement to prevent further collapse. I also wanted to build steps up to the back hill, because my father still grows some fruit and vegetables up there and climbs up with a stick almost every day; last year he had fallen on that narrow uphill dirt path.
My father opposed this, convinced he could never fall on that path a second time. Ignoring his opposition, I pushed the plan through. To stop me from wasting money, he complained and scolded me almost daily; I turned a deaf ear, did not argue, and just got the job done. I even went back myself to carry bricks and cement, helping my fourth uncle, who was doing the construction.
Country mosquitoes are fierce; the first night at home one bit my eye, swelling it up, and it took nearly a week to subside. Hubei's weather is also brutally hot, and doing this work in this season is genuinely hard. My aging father is more stubborn than when he was young, and only his own son can change his mind; so, no matter what, I could not avoid this drudgery.
Once the steps were built and the slope reinforced with cement, I felt satisfied. I went to the nearby market and bought some new appliances and cookware for the old house, installed them, and taught my father to use them. He grumbled but reluctantly accepted; some of the new appliances he quite liked, such as the microwave. He had lived in Beijing for a while and had used one. Cooking alone at home, a microwave saves a lot of trouble and makes life easier, so he was glad to have it.
But he was very displeased when I proposed replacing the rusty ceiling fan. Still, when I brought the new fan home and replaced the old one, he accepted reality and stopped complaining. Obviously he had realized that his son would rather be scolded than obey him. My only response to the old man's scolding was to smile and stay silent; my fourth uncle said, "You really have a good temper; anyone else could not stand it."
This year I removed every possible hazard I could think of in the old house. The old well that drew water by windlass I replaced with a hand pump, and I plan to seal the well cover so my father cannot fall in while drawing water—an elderly neighbor woman had drowned in just such a well. Where falls were likely, I built steps and railings. Cracks in the old walls I reinforced with cement. The old firewood kitchen I rebuilt into a modern gas kitchen with a range hood, and I bought a small refrigerator.
My father is growing older year by year; he can no longer chop firewood or split logs, and will gradually lack the strength to draw water, and will be more prone to falls. Though he stubbornly refuses to admit aging, decline and death are inevitable natural laws that no subjective will can change. I undertook all these renovations only to improve his old age, reduce accidents, and make his later years less painful.
After finishing our old house, I visited my mother-in-law. Her heel had just been stung by a venomous insect and was red, swollen, and oozing pus, but the old lady, similarly reluctant to spend money, had stopped after two days of antibiotics. Luckily, by the time I arrived, a neighbor had told me at once—she herself would never have mentioned it. I bought her the internal medicine Pifang Xuedu Wan (Skin Blood-Toxin Pills) and the external Longzhu Ruangao (Dragon Pearl Ointment); internal plus external, she was markedly better after just one night, and after two or three days the scabs formed and the swelling subsided. I also withdrew some cash from the bank for her mother-in-law, telling her not to begrudge spending on treatment; most elderly in the countryside still do not use WeChat or Alipay and need cash.
My mother-in-law is nearly ten years younger than my father, somewhat stronger, and has several grandchildren around her, so she is not lonely; for now we need not worry too much about her. But elderly people inevitably suffer this or that ailment, and without children at hand to care for them, life is genuinely hard.
I installed cameras at both my old house and my mother-in-law's home; I check on my father and mother-in-law almost every day, and if something looks wrong I go back. Technology has, in its small way, filled some of the gap. The age we live in is the most rapidly changing era in thousands of years of Chinese history. People's ways of life have changed greatly, nothing like when I was a child. I saw the original state of rural Chinese society: the elderly at least lived in the same village as their sons, who could look after them whenever needed.
Now the countryside has largely hollowed out. Our village is one of the largest natural villages in our county, yet it cannot escape rapid decline. When I went home last year, two large shops in the village still sold vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat; this year their business had slumped so much that they no longer stock produce, fish, or meat. For the elderly to eat meat, they now must go to a market ten li away. The reason is simple: fewer and fewer people live in the village; the remaining elderly pass away one after another, demand falls, and the shops stop supplying.
When I was a child, our village was bustling. From age seven, during farming season, I would take the melons, fruit, and sugarcane my parents grew to the crossroads where villagers passed and sell them; there were so many busy villagers that my little stall did well. Now, walking through the village, almost everywhere is quiet and deserted; only a few spots still gather three to ten people chatting. Every year I go home, I clearly feel the village has fewer people each year.
This generation of elderly is spending its old age in loneliness. They stayed in the village keeping one another company, but their old companions leave this world one by one, and fewer and fewer remain. Their children are mostly a thousand li away; this slow walk toward death without family affection is hard to bear. I can clearly see in my father the changes that come from this necessary emotional deprivation: they are far more negative than elderly with children around, and more easily emotional and prone to late-life depression.
As a medical student who has studied aging, death, and physical-mental illness to some degree, I know how to ease my father's and mother-in-law's condition, but I lack the ability to do so on scientific principles. They both refuse to move to a big city with us—first because they are not used to city life, and second because they do not want to burden their children. Rapid urbanization has drained rural youth from the countryside; the remaining left-behind elderly and children suffer a steep decline in quality of life without the companionship of working-age family. This era's problem may be beyond anyone's solving; it can only be borne by sacrificing several generations to achieve social transformation. This is the price of development.
After three or four days at home, I returned to Beijing, back to the National Library. This exquisite modern building and my country cottage are like existences in two different worlds; the contrast is vast. I told my father and mother-in-law: for now, since you can still care for yourselves and refuse to come to Beijing with us, we will respect that. But in a few more years, when self-care becomes difficult, I will bring you to live with me for your old age.
When that time comes, the elderly will likely have little choice. But uprooting them from the environment they have adapted to all their lives and transplanting them somewhere new is genuinely hard on them. The last leg of life is not easy.
Today is the weekend, and the library is crowded, so I arrived early to queue for opening; arriving half an hour later would mean no seat. When the library opened, the waiting crowd filed in. Looking around, almost everyone is young. A considerable number of them, like me, must come from rural areas across the country. The parents of these assiduous young students, like my own, are far away in the countryside, living lonely lives. As their children, they too must feel a helpless guilt, as I do.
I hope our next generation will never again experience the helpless separation of loved ones that we live with today. In a lifetime, is not the most precious thing family affection and companionship? Without these, whose heart does not grieve?