My mom came back from China and HK and when she was in my grandparent's village I heard of many heart breaking things. About a year ago the small stream that runs through the tiny village overflowed it's bank and unfortunately that area was hardest hit.
" You could see from one of the few 3 storey houses, that didn't get washed away, that the flood line went up into the second floor" said my mom.""In the village shop owners and their families lived in the back of their shops and when the waters came, they didn't want their things to be washed away so they closed the gates. However the waters just kept rising and all of them died inside their shops. People were afraid to open the gates because a family of dead bodies would immediately pile out. It was horrible. The reek of it all stank to the the heavens, of animals and humans. The roads were all washed out and everything was coated in stinking mud. They said that sometimes they would be walking on a particularly slippery section, and it took a while before you noticed that you were standing on a body covered in mud. So many people died and now many of them are homeless, orphans and widows and everyone is having a hard time trying to survive."
I (my mom) was walking down the street with my sister, her husband and my cousin ( My grandpa is the 2nd oldest of 9 children ) when she pointed out that the man there was my 8th uncle. To put it rudely, he looked like a beggar. His coat was filthy and his pants a patchwork of fabrics. He wore cloth shoes and never owned socks. (My mom and her sister were both clad in a down parka and thermal underwear, the works, and she was STILL freezing.) His job was to gaurd the parking lot and he lived in a shack on the dirt road just off the corner of the parking lot. He had took a number of bricks and stacked them into four square columns and he found few sheets of scrap metal that he put on top for a roof. He had no form of heating inside. He said to me, "Oh, nice to meet you, I've just made some duck kidney congee, would you like me to scoop you a bowl?"I couldn't stand it, I started to cry. Later, I found that he kept all the clothes he had, in a salted duck egg jar. He said that this way, the mice wouldn't be able to chew on it, and also that if the river over flooded again his belongings would be safe. As poor as he was however, when people gave him things he would always go and offer it to his older brother (his only brother that is still alive ) who had a family of his own. He was very cheerful despite his horrible living conditions.
That's what my mom said over the phone to her friends. When I heard this, I got pretty emotional and I agree with my mom when she said, " It's hard to imagine that a relative of mine would live the way a beggar does ". My mom left this village, and left behind all her other jackets and as much clothes as possible. There are more stories that she told, but I'll leave it for another update.
