Both of them were startled by Zhao Suisui who suddenly ran out.
Feng He knelt down, touched Zhao Suisui’s little head, and asked her, “Why are you here?”
Zhao Suisui hugged Feng He’s neck and said anxiously: “Mom, please don’t have any more children, okay?”
Feng He was a little surprised when she heard Zhao Suisui keep saying this. She didn’t expect that her daughter would be so resistant to having younger siblings.
Zhang Taohua also heard what Zhao Suisui said. She couldn’t help but say: “Hey, why are you so ignorant, little girl? Isn’t it good for your mother to give you a younger brother and sister?”
“No, not good at all!” Zhao Suisui said loudly.
Zhang Taohua was not a bad person, but she inevitably had some backward thinking in her heart that having more children meant more blessings. The sons would be able to support the family, and the daughters would be obedient.
In her opinion, Zhao Suisui was obviously not a qualified daughter.
So, Zhang Taohua couldn’t help but say to Feng He: “Sister Feng He, why did your Sui Sui develop such a domineering temperament?!”
After criticizing, she continued to scare Zhao Suisui: “You should let your mother give you a younger brother and sister and then they take away all your things!”
But this time Zhao Suisui didn’t respond yet, but Feng He was the first person to be angry.
How she raised her children was her business, and it was not the turn of outsiders to dictate.
Moreover, Feng He clearly felt Zhao Suisui’s hug tightening around her, presumably because she was frightened by Zhang Taohua’s words.
Feng He’s face looked a little worried. She stood up, took Zhao Suisui’s hand, and said to Zhang Taohua, “I can raise my child as I like, so I won’t bother you.”
After saying that, she whispered to Zhao Suisui: “Let’s go home.”
Zhang Taohua looked at the backs of Feng He and her daughter leaving. She couldn’t help but say to herself: “Didn’t I just make a joke? Why is she angry?”
Zhang Taohua thought about it over and over again and felt that what she just said was okay.
Which family in their country did not want to have a son?
For example, she herself gave birth to four sons in one go. In the countryside, they all walked with wind in their eyes. No one didn’t envy her.
However, although Zhang Taohua was a bit patriarchal, she was not the kind of person who thought that her daughter’s life was nothing. Otherwise, she would not have pitied Lin Juan and Zhang Panpan before and helped them stay.
But compared to her son, she subconsciously thought that how could her daughter be treated the same as her son? The daughter had to get married after all!
During the time when she lived opposite the Zhao family, Zhang Taohua could also see how Zhao Haoyang and Feng He raised their children. Every time she saw it, Zhang Taohua couldn’t help but feel speechless in her heart.
Feng He was not partial. Everything was divided equally between the brother and sister.
For example, Zhang Taohua saw Feng He making a new set of clothes for each of the Zhao brother and sister some time ago, which made Zhang Taohua sigh.
In this day and age, who did not give the younger child the old clothes that older children could no longer wear?
But Feng He specially made new clothes for the youngest child, and the child was still a girl.
It was just that the cloth tickets and money for making clothes belonged to other people. Although Zhang Taohua couldn’t say anything, she still felt a little disapproval in her heart.
Feng He didn’t care, but Zhao Haoyang surprised Zhang Taohua even more.
The rag doll that Zhao Haoyang bought for Zhao Suisui last time made Zhang Taohua think that he was crazy.
With so much money, what couldn’t he buy? But, did he have to buy a girl’s toy?!
Zhang Taohua really felt that Zhao Suisui was not worthy of being a girl.
Therefore, when she just heard that Zhao Suisui would not let Feng He have another child, Zhang Taohua really felt that she was extremely overbearing. She was not satisfied with taking so many advantages and could not tolerate other younger brothers and sisters.
*****
Translation’s Comment:
I can understand a little bit of Zhang Taohua’s speechlessness.
Even I, who is living in the modern era, sometimes still get leftover clothes from my siblings, let alone in their era, where materials are so scarce and many people are still poor.
But, I already admire her for being considerate and not commenting here and there about other people’s business seeing she is from the countryside.
If I read other novels in the 70s theme, many people from the countryside are described as a ‘nosy’ person. Maybe if it is another person, she will already be gossiping about the Zhao family with other people.
She is only asking about when Feng He will have another child, which is still in line with her ‘backward’ thinking. Even that question is still a popular question in this era, haha…
Well, if Zhao Suisui doesn’t have a dream about her mother, maybe this will pass without any problem at all.
So, I think Zhang Taohua is not a hateful woman. (＾▽＾)
Please leave your comments/ideas in the comment area, so I can also know your opinion! (╹◡◠)
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Lucien On ABRWF Chapter 34.1
Zhang Taohua’s problem is her misogyny not the fact that she disagreed with Feng He for making new clothes for her younger child. Misogynists are hateful even if we understand that this was a standard part of the outlook of many peasant communities then and now. Female emancipation, however had at least been on the cards for half a century in China by the 1970s, being particularly popular in peasant communities where many of the antagonisms associated with a patriarchal system were experienced more sharply. Also, Zhang Taohua’s question clearly had the implication that Feng He hadn’t had enough children; this is at least as impolite as saying directly that Zhang Taohua should mind her own business. This was true in 1970 and it remains true today.
She’s not a misogynist. The author even goes to lengths to point that out for you so I don’t get where you’re coming from. It’s the complete opposite from what you said. While the environment she grew up in instilled a for us incomprehensible norm that daughters are worth less as they are married out, she’s not one to mistreat girls. She only has sons and they aren’t pampered. Obviously a daughter wouldn’t be pampered either. If she had one she may treat her worse in the sense of priorities but not abusive like Zhang PanPan’s grandmother (who is a great example for a misogynist). Her disapproval at the cloth making is mainly because it seems wasteful to her to not have the younger one wear the elder one’s cloths. That the younger one is a girl to top it off is more of an afterthought.
Asking about future children like that though is definitely nosy. As aside from not wanting more one may have health reasons to not have more which would needlessly poke at sore spots.
She’s still a misogynist tho. Like yes, you’re right in the part abt wastefulness and the frugal lifestyle that the woman is used to, but she’s very clear about how she thinks that daughters are meant to be married off.
More than once, she states that suisui is not worthy to be a daughter because in this kind of patriarchal culture, daughters are supposed to be submissive and not as assertive as suisui. So while she might not have intended to be malicious, it’s not just an “afterthought” and that her mentioning suisui being a girl has misogynistic connotations.
ZT simply uneducated. I think she is a good person by nature, but with everyone view so skewed at that era, no wonder she turned like that. All her life she can only see one and same ‘scenery’. Thus her common sense is different. She did not know that other good option is available out of her ‘normalcy’.
If she go to school, met people who think at least like Feng he, she prob won’t turned that ignorant. And I agreed that its already good that she is not gossipy.