In the 1960s and the 1970s, the mothers who drove the population boom of this eastern country was led by the “Heroic Mother”1 to mould the future successors of the country’s socialist system. And because of the traditions passed down in the past five thousands years, the phrase “continue on the family’s line to keep prospering” was deeply rooted in people’s hearts. For a society that revolves around farming, physical prowess was regarded favourably. Hence, a family’s status in society was determined by how many males there were in the family. And in this era of distorted thinking, Hei Nuo reported to the call for socialism.

However, for the parents whose only daughter died at a young age, what they looked forward to was the birth of a girl whom they could treasure in their palms. As for a son… the birth of another male could not offer them the usual pride or happiness anymore. For people of their economic status, managing to raise five sons was really more than enough. They have already done their duty, and could proudly face their Hei family’s ancestors. Now, they just want a gentle, sweet daughter whom they could cradle in their arms and spoil rotten. This idea was bolstered when their cute, infant daughter of three months passed away and left them. After a period of rest, Hei Papa and Hei Mama regained their strength and will, and were determined to fight the heavens to take back their daughter.

Hei Mama fulfilled her wish and was pregnant once again. She didn’t have any obvious pregnancy symptoms, like vomitting. In the first few months, the baby was relatively quiet and peaceful. Hei Papa and Hei Mama were convinced that this baby was their daughter reincarnate. Their excitement slowly rose with the enlargement of Hei Mama’s belly. Unexpectedly, on a snowy midnight, their usually obedient daughter showed an abnormal wilfulness by moving her due date in advance. In the small, southern county where their nights were so dark you couldn’t see your fingers and where there was no traffic or communication devices, Hei Papa could not send Hei Mama to the hospital. It was only after he frantically knocked on the doors of his neighbours before he managed to find a midwife.

The Hei Mama who had went through several successful births was full of experience and courage, but even this Hei Mama had to admit defeat. The little one wreaked havoc in her belly, and yet refused to come out. At first, Hei Mama was still smiling happily, and helped her baby explain, “Daughters tend to be more delicate, please pardon her.” But with the deepening of the night, Hei Mama could no longer smile, and did not even have the strength to follow the midwife’s instructions. Hei Papa was originally happily strutting about outside, then he sat on a chair and anxiously rubbed his hands, but by the end he was squatting on the ground, holding his head in worry.

Before dawn, Hei Papa finally heard the crying of a newborn. For someone who had several past experiences of becoming a father, Hei Papa actually looked up in disbelief. It was only after he heard the sound of successive cries that he stood up on his sore and numb legs. He breathed a sigh of relief and a big grin spread across his face as he walked towards the door, anticipating his first meeting with his precious daughter. However, when the door opened, someone rushed out and knocked into him. That person was his colleague’s wife, Zhang Baozhen.

“Old Hei, hurry, hurry and go in, I’ll go look for people.” Zhang Baozhen threw down these words and ran out.

Hei Papa felt the energy drain from his body, and vaguely heard the midwife shout, “Hei Ma, don’t sleep. Hei Ma, don’t sleep! Don’t sleep!” When she saw Hei Papa, she dragged him over and said, “Talk to her, don’t let her sleep!”

Hei Papa didn’t know how he arrived at the bedside. His nose was filled with the smell of blood. Hei Ma’s eyes had lost their past brilliance, and he could not even find his own reflection in them. Hei Papa panicked and fumbled about to search for Hei Mama’s hand. He found it, grabbed it and pleaded, “Hua Di, Hua Di, don’t sleep. Talk to me, talk to me.”

Hei Mama’s eyes lit up again and smiled weakly. “That little one…in the future she will definitely be a crafty one. Let me see her.”

Hei Papa turned around, took the baby from the midwife and bent down to let Hei Ma see her. Hei Ma wanted to lift her hand up, but did not have the strength to so her fingers could only tremble in Hei Papa’s palm. Hei Papa held her hand up to the baby’s face. “Pre-tty, daugh-ter…” her weak voice drifted off at the last syllable.

By the time Zhang Baozhen led her husband and some other men to look for a handcart and rushed back to bring Hei Mama to the hospital, the bedding had already been stained red with blood. Zhang Baozhen pushed the rigid Hei Papa away and called people in to carry Hei Mama along with the bedding onto the handcart, then they frantically ran into the depths of the night.

Hei Mama never returned again. The grieving Hei Papa was wounded heavily by the hands of fate within one night. The last straw came when the midwife turned to him and said, “We need to hurry and find some milk for this little son of yours.”

“Son?” he repeated in confusion, then when he realised the meaning behind the word “son”, he suddenly hollered, “Son! It’s a boy?!”

^^^Footnotes:^^^

^^^1. Mothers are given the title “Heroic Mothers” if they gave birth to a lot of children… in a time long long ago it was considered an honour to be a baby production factory lol but this was cuz at the time I think they needed a population boost^^^

Hei Papa did not need the comfort of others to get back on his feet and resume his life. Even though he was never the type to whisper sweet nothings to his wife, everyone could tell how good their relationship was just based off how many children they had together. This was the kind of love that they had gradually built up bit by bit. After 13 years of sharing their life together, he had already long been smitten by that woman. He was very proud that he had her. In this small county, his woman beautified its landscape. Even though the whole country was dressed in the same grey-blue colours, the same oversized clothes that looked like a uniform – that grey and that blue on his wife appeared extraordinarily elegant.

Hei Papa’s love was expressed through Hei Mama’s status in the family. He was unlike the other families’ chauvinists who would go home expecting to be fed, and knock over oil bottles but refuse to pick them back up. He liked to pick vegetables, cook and do other chores with his wife while he appreciated her every look, every smile and every raised brow. His heart radiated with warmth and happiness. When the men got together to drink and joke about, a few drunkards would envy Hei Papa for marrying such a beautiful woman who looked like she descended from Hangzhou1. The uncouth blue-collared workers would cajole Hei Papa to describe Hei Mama’s beauty and loveliness. Hei Papa would only chuckle and laugh patronisingly. Please, why would he want to share his baby with others. This amazing woman was his, and he didn’t want to share even a strand of her hair with others.

It was exactly because of their strong relationship that everyone was surprised at how quickly Hei Papa recovered. He could already return to work and talk to everyone normally – as if nothing had changed in his life. But, no one saw the tears Hei Papa shed alone at night, and no one saw the hole that had formed in his heart. The woman he loved had left him forever, but she left behind five sons who were relying on him to get back on his feet. Please forgive Hei Papa for not considering the newborn, because he really had no milk to give him. Milk powder was a luxury that he couldn’t afford, so the newborn had been entrusted to a colleague whose wife had just given birth and could share a bit of her milk with the baby.

The Hei family had five sons, and the oldest was already twelve years old. Each of them were about two to three years apart. Respectively, they were the eldest Hei Aiguo (1960), Hei Aidang (1962), Hei Aijia (1965), Hei Aiwen (1967) and Hei Aige (1970)2. The Hei Papa who didn’t have good naming sense gave his sons names rich with social flavour, which realistically reflected the strange inclination of that era. The two eldest sons Aiguo and Aidang dutifully took over most of their mother’s work. They understood that the departure of their mother was permanent; but the other three little ones, Aijia and Aiwen still couldn’t fathom why their little sister hadn’t arrived, but took their mother away instead. Their relentless questions only added onto the burden on Hei Papa’s heart.

Five months later, the new mother had done the most she could and sent the youngest son back. In these times when resources were scarce, no one had it easy; an additional mouth was really too much to bear. At the same time, Hei Papa found an effective way to cover up his wounds: every day after work, he would hang out with his colleagues, listen to their nonsense, drink some strong white wine and go home slightly drunk so that he could have a peaceful sleep.

The ones who got the worse end of the stick were the children. They often had to wait for their father to give them money and tickets before they could buy rice and noodles to cook for dinner. The elder two had already begun to plant cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants and shallots in their yard, but the plants needed time to grow. The seeds didn’t come from a celestial sister’s hands that, once planted, would miraculously sprout fruit the next day. But no matter what, the children proudly watched the seeds they planted sprout, flower and bear fruit. Hei Papa never noticed any of this, if not for what happened next.

One day, he was called up by the Cultural Revolution Working Group. The team leader was an old colleague who patted Hei Papa’s shoulder and sighed, “The organization understands that you’re experiencing some difficulties, but right now everyone is going through a hard time, why cause such trouble? In the face of difficulties, we should bite down on our lips and continue to work hard, not engage in capitalism…….” his words only served to confuse Hei Papa even further. When he remained dumbfounded after several hints and reminders from his old colleague, the team leader’s face blackened and said, “Xiao Hei, I don’t care if you accept it or not, the organization has already handled it. We chose to handle it as gently as we could because you are a hardworking member of our working class. Go back and think about it carefully.”

When Hei Papa left the factory, he met Zhang Baozhen and Aige who were waiting for him. “Hurry home and take a look, they’re still crying at home.”

On the way back, Zhang Baozhen explained what had happened to him. Someone had reported that the Hei family secretly planted vegetables in their yard to the Cultural Revolution Working Group. Once they were notified, they immediately dispatched some people to get rid of the vegetables and confiscate the ones that had ripened. This was a symbol of nipping the capitalist’s roots in its bud. When he got home, the children were standing next to their garden that had been ravaged into a mess. Some held tears in their eyes, while others were snivelling. The moment they say their father, the third and fourth son pounced on him while crying, “Papa, papa, they- the bad guys came.”

As she looked at the crying faces of the children and Lao Hei’s sorrowful face, Zhang Baozhen knew that this family needed a new mistress.

^^^Footnotes:^^^

^^^1. Women from Hangzhou are apparently famous for being beautiful↩^^^

^^^2. Lolol omg the son’s names. The direct translations are: Aiguo \= Love country; Aidang \= Love political party; Aijia \= Love family; Aiwen \= Love literature; Aige \= Love revolution/reform↩^^^

With a dual income and Hei Mama’s meticulous planning, raising the kids they had was barely manageable. But now that their income was suddenly cut in half, the family immediately fell into a tighthold. One could imagine how difficult it would be to also try to find a woman under these circumstances. Hei Papa’s colleagues and neighbours were filled with enthusiasm as they pitied the children, so there wasn’t a lack of people who were trying to help Lao Hei. However, many were scared away the moment they heard the number “six”. After several twists and turns, a girl whose surname was Zhou from the countryside finally agreed. She was a pretty lady, but it was because of her above average looks that she was a bit proud, and was thus unwilling to marry someone from the countryside. Now she was already 25 years old, and was considered a pure, old lady in her village.

A family with a woman in it slowly recovered its vitality. Aside from Aiguo and Aidang who, because they were older, couldn’t really get close to the new woman, the other three little ones happily accepted Zhou Xiaoyu as their new mama. As for the sixth son who couldn’t understand anything, it was still the eldest and second son who were taking care of him. Instead of the sixth son, the new mama would rather play with the fourth son who would act coquettishly and the fifth son whom was more talkative. Hei Papa’s face was also slowly regaining some colour. As such is life. Even though the one he loved was the woman who had passed away, Hei Papa still had a duty towards his six children and was obliged to provide them with a proper home. As he gained a companion to accompany him through the lonely nights, he felt a spark of hope and the courage to continue living, so he was unwilling to continue ruminating over the past.

With Zhou Xiaoyu as a new addition to the family plus her income from her new job at the factory, their days passed by peacefully. By the time Hei Papa knew that his wife was pregnant, they had already been married for almost two years. Several conflicting feelings arose in Hei Papa. They could barely afford feeding all the mouths in his household, but asking Zhou Xiaoyu to never have a child of her own would be too unreasonable of him. Eventually he and Xiaoyu would need to have a child of their own. At this thought, his previous wish of having a daughter was slightly stirred up again, though his heart still remembered the trauma from two years ago. Zhou Mama was completely elated at the news, who wouldn’t want to have a child of their own? Even though there were six sons in the family, according to conventional ideas, she could not rely on any of them on the future. As the saying goes, “raise a child so that someone will look after you in old age”, Zhou Xiaoyu also needed to make plans for herself. She hoped that it would be a son, so her status in the household would be more stable.

This time, Hei Papa was abnormally worried, so in the summer of 1975 Zhou Xiaoyu gave birth in the hospital.

The birth of the newborns…brought one parent happiness, and the other sorrow. Was the heavens telling Hei Papa that he was cursed to never have a daughter? Or were the heavens being way too kind to him? As Hei Papa looked at the twin boys who looked exactly like each other, he completely destroyed his dreams of having a daughter. Zhou Mama could not rein in her excitement, with these two sons she no longer had to worry about the future.

After they left the hospital, Zhou Mama gave her two beloved sons resounding names: Hei Junhui and Hei Youhui1. No wonder they were husband and wife. Zhou Mama admired soldiers who had impeccable honour and high statuses in their society, so she wanted her sons to be “friends of the army”. At night, the couple happily looked at the two new names added to their household register2. They flipped the pages back and forth to look at their big family, and counted every person’s page. Eh? The couple looked at each other. They were missing a page? Who’s missing? They flipped through the book again, and realised that the sixth son wasn’t on their household register.

The next day, Hei Papa entrusted the duty of registering his sixth son to his third son who was almost ten, Aijia. When Aijia went to the office that handled household registrations, the uncle who worked there asked him for the name he wanted to register. That was when Aijia realised that his dad didn’t tell him what name he should report.

The Dragon Boat Festival was currently ongoing, and the colleague who walked in passed a dumpling to the uncle who was working in the office, “Eat up, it’s pretty good. I wolfed down a few in one go.”

“Glutinous rice? Or white rice?” (In the north, dumplings were made with glutinous rice; they were fragrant and even had fillings like red bean or jujubes. Originally there were even delicious bacon fillings, but in the times they were living in, how many families would have meat? So as long as they had glutinous rice it was good enough. But because the southerners weren’t very good at making dumplings, they used white rice instead. White rice scattered easily and didn’t have as good a mouthfeel, so its texture left much to be desired. The difference in taste between dumplings from north and south was immense)

“Of course it’s glutinous rice! It’s so sticky it sticks to your teeth, delicious!”

Uncle was about to tear the dumpling wrapper when he realised that the little boy Aijia was still around, so he asked, “Do you have a name yet?”

The smell of the dumpling had already wafted into Aijia’s nose. When his mum was still alive, she would wrap dumplings for them, and even though each of them only got one dumpling, it felt like they were celebrating a grand festival. Because Mama’s dumplings were really too delicious, around this time of the year many families would ask Mama to help wrap dumplings for them. After they cooked the wrapped dumplings for about 5 hours, they would send Mama a few but she never accepted a single one of them. For the past two years, they haven’t been able to eat those fragrant, delicious dumplings again.

Faced with the uncle’s question, Aijia’s head was full of images of green glutinous rice dumplings, so he blurted out, “Glutinous rice.3”

“……………” the two uncles were stunned for awhile before they burst out in laughter.

“Glutinous rice? Little buddy, do you want to name your brother Glutinous Rice? Un, let me see, Hei Nuo Mi, that’s good, the next one can be called Hei Gao Liang4.” Uncle teased.

Aijia scratched his head. He really didn’t know what name to come up with. The uncle who was looking from the side interrupted, “Why not we leave out the Mi, Hei Nuo sounds pretty good too.”

“Hei Nuo, Hei Nuo,” Aijia repeated a few times, and thought it was pleasant on the tongue. “Ok then Uncle, Hei Nuo it is.”

Uncle started writing in the new name, then suddenly said to his colleague, “Might as well change the “Glutinous” Nuo character to the “Promise” Nuo character5, it sounds a little better than Glutinous Rice?”

“Un, this name sounds really good, once you change the character it really makes a difference.”

After being a nameless member in the Hei family for the past 3 years, the sixth son finally had his own name and even had his own page in the household register. He had formally become a member of the Hei family – Hei Nuo.

^^^Footnotes:^^^

^^^1. Jun \= army/miltary, You \= friend, Hui \= light, so calling her sons Junhui and Youhui if you join the Jun and You together it becomes Junyou aka “friends of the army”↩^^^

^^^2. China has something called the Hukou system. From Wikipedia: Hukou is a system of household registration in mainland China and Taiwan, although the system itself is more properly called “huji”, and has origins in ancient China. A household registration record officially identifies a person as a resident of an area and includes identifying information such as name, parents, spouse, and date of birth. A hukou can also refer to a family register in many contexts since the household registration record (simplified Chinese: 户口簿; traditional Chinese: 戶口簿; pinyin: hùkǒu bù) is issued per family, and usually includes the births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and moves, of all members in the family.↩^^^

^^^3. Aijia said Nuo Mi; Nuo \= glutinous, Mi \= rice↩^^^

^^^4. Gao Liang refers to sorghum which is a type of crop, so maybe he was trying to make a food joke lolol like name all your brothers after food!!↩^^^

^^^5. 糯 and 诺 are both pronounced the same way i.e. “Nuo”, but 糯 \= glutinous and 诺 is a part of 许诺 which means “Promise”↩^^^