从【双乳峰】到【剑桥大学】: 第二章 （英文版）

剑桥博士HimalayaSoft

我和妈妈花了几个月时间一起写这本书的第二章。无数次电话，入夜的学习研究，比做剑桥大学的博士论文还认真。目的是尽可能真实、生动地再现咋们中国人当年的生活场景—— 卧室角落里大夜壶散发出的刺鼻氨味， 矗立在院子里的炮楼， 臼杵敲击时发出的沉闷而有节奏的声响， 还有脚踏缝纫机的“嗒、嗒、嗒”声，回荡在20世纪30年代的一个偏远村庄的布坊里。 如果你慢慢阅读，细细品味每一段文字，我相信你会生动地感受到咋们中国人当年的生活。

可以滑到以下的任何章节

1. 火烧圆明园

2. 外婆家的大院

3. 知足常乐的大院

4. 小女孩逛大院

5. 小女孩的教育





火烧圆明园

“Ere long a dense column of smoke rising to the sky indicated that the work had commenced, and as the day waned the column increased in magnitude, and grew denser and denser, wafting in the shape of a large cloud over Pekin, and having the semblance of a fearful thunderstorm impending. ”

— ROBERT SWINHOE. Amoy 11th June, 1861.

Roommates and I at the largest remaining ruins of YuanMingYuan, 1983. At the time, I had no idea how intertwined my life was with the burning.



外婆家的大院

While Beijing was engulfed in the smoke of the burning YuanMingYuan, far away on the Guangdong-Guangxi border, a man stood on the northern slope of a long valley, carefully planning out the construction of a compound for his family. Down below in the valley, chimney smoke drifted lazily over a small village, mingling with the rhythmic chant of schoolchildren reciting their morning lessons. His choice of location was deliberate — perched on higher ground, the south-facing compound would offer ample sunlight, flood protection, and a commanding view of the long valley.

Today, the LiMu (Pearwood) River still winds through the valley before merging with the mighty Pearl River. (Google Earth image, 2022)

‍At the base of the converging valleys, the LiMu (Pearwood) River meandered through a landscape that, from a bird’s-eye view, resembled a sea of pine-covered hills, their undulating ridges rising and falling like frozen waves that stretched endlessly in every direction. After merging with the YiChang River, it flowed past Cenxi, the county seat, before reaching the district city of Wuzhou. Eventually, it joined the mighty Pearl River and emptied into the South China Sea.

‍Family genealogy records note that the man was my Granny’s great-grandfather, Huang LiZhong (黄立忠), who had been appointed in 1859 as a county magistrate [1], the highest authority in the county under the Manchu government. His responsibilities, supported by a small staff, were extensive: he acted as judge, enforced laws, and administered governance. He resolved disputes, managed tax collection, and supervised public works — essentially every aspect of life in the county.

Time has frozen in the compound; little has changed since the 1860s. (Google Earth image, 2010)

‍The compound and its surroundings appeared frozen in time. If Granny’s great-grandfather were to stand on the same hill behind the compound today, he would see the same rice paddies, the Pearwood River, and the green hills overlooking the valley, and still hear the echoes of children’s laughter along the river, nearly unchanged. A 2010 satellite image showed the structures largely intact, aside from a few new additions to its perimeter (Note: I have digitally removed those few new buildings from the image). Today, on the map, this compound with its surrounding area has its own name, GuZeng village (古增村).

‍The compound, a network of interconnected buildings and walls, had only two entrances. The main entrance was the front gate, which faced the rice paddies that stretched from the drying yard to the little river. To access the road behind, one turned left from the front gate and followed a narrow path along the left wall. A small entrance at the northwest corner provided another access point, just a few steps away from the road. Eighty years later, my mom recalled, “Each morning on our way to school, we squeezed through a narrow hallway, passing by someone’s kitchen before slipping through the small entrance onto the main road.”

Most buildings were one- or two-story structures with black tile roofs, except for those at the four corners, which stood three stories high. The third floor of these corner buildings was designed for defense, with specially crafted holes in the walls for shooting guns outward. This reflected a time when bandits roamed the remote mountain wilderness, when the Manchu government was greatly weakened after its humiliating defeat in the First Opium War in 1842 and also by the uprising led by Hong XiuQuan (洪秀全) in 1851. The uprising began in a village just 150 kilometers from the compound, but it moved north, away from the compound, and eventually took Nanjing, where the rebels established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It remained in power until it was defeated by the Qing army in 1864.

知足常乐的大院

After my Granny’s great-grandfather passed away, the compound was divided equally between his two sons. My Granny’s grandfather inherited the northern half, located at the back of the compound. He might also have had daughters, but they were not recorded in the family genealogy.

The division of family inheritance exclusively to male heirs and equally among all sons, regardless of their mother’s rank or role within the family, reflected the male-dominated society. Daughters could inherit only if no male heirs were available to claim the property. This practice, explicitly stated in the Qing Dynasty’s Laws (大清律例 [2]), was enforced by the clan system and, if necessary, by the county magistrate.

Me at Winston Churchill’s birth palace, 1989. Awed by its enormous size — and the fortune he must have inherited.

‍After the division, both sons inherited substantial estates and both chose to remain comfortably within the compound, feeling no pressure to seek greater wealth elsewhere. This contrasted with the traditional European practice of primogeniture, in which the eldest son received most of the inheritance, leaving the younger sons with very little or nothing at all. For example, in Winston Churchill’s family, his grandfather had two sons and died around the same time as Granny’s great-grandfather. He left nearly the entire family estate to the eldest son, while Winston Churchill’s father received only a small share. When I visited the grand Blenheim Palace in 1989, where Winston Churchill was born, I had no idea that he had inherited almost nothing from his father, except for a family trust of £54,000, which he could borrow against but had to repay with interest. Today, knowing the differences in inheritance laws between the two cultures, I finally understand why Winston was so motivated to seek war adventures in his youth (see My Early Life by W. Churchill), while my granny’s grandfather and his brother both settled contentedly in this little compound [3].

A visual representation of Granny’s ancestry and inheritance shares (shown in parentheses) across generations

‍Granny’s grandfather had two wives and six sons, with an unknown number of daughters. After his passing, the northern half of the compound was divided equally among his six sons. After two generations, each son’s share had dwindled to just 1/12 of the original compound. Granny’s father inherited one of these portions, settling in the north-west corner beside the fortified gun tower. Granny’s father also inherited 1/12 of the land originally belonging to her great-grandfather. By this time, the family’s wealth had been thinly divided, and each descendant was far from wealthy. As a man of modest means, Granny’s father could afford only one wife.

小女孩逛大院

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Though modest in wealth, Granny’s parents had a large family, with four sons and two daughters before Granny joined as the youngest child. With four older brothers and two older sisters, Granny’s housework duties were minimal, leaving her free to roam the compound with around a dozen cousins and second cousins from the various households in the compound.

One early summer morning, Granny played with her cousins along the river until her stomach began to rumble. She ran home along a narrow path that wound through the rice paddies and led to the large drying yard in front of the compound. Its sun-baked surface scorched her bare feet as she hurried along. In that region, people always walked barefoot — to the fields, to gather firewood, or to nearby villages. “On market day, I walked barefoot to the edge of town, washed my feet, and then put on my shoes before entering," my dad would tell us during my childhood, even though his family was well-to-do and he was among the first batch of graduates from the county high school.

Granny darted across the drying yard and reached the front gate, a sturdy double-door framed with wooden beams set into walls of fired bricks. There, she slowed down behind one of her many aunts and two water buffaloes as they were herded slowly through the front door by one of her cousin brothers. Passing the first building, they stepped into a very small courtyard, sunlight pouring through the open roof.

Daylight pouring through the gap between the roofs of the first and second row buildings, 2025

‍The water buffaloes turned left into a narrow alley between the first and the second row of buildings, heading to their designated livestock pens, where spaces for pigs, water buffaloes, or cattle were allocated to each family according to inherited shares. The aunt, carrying two wooden buckets of water fetched from the river on a 扁担 (Flattened Carrying Pole), turned right into an alley toward her kitchen. (扁担 is a remarkable tool that few Westerners understand. See Note [4].)

With the animals out of the way, Granny stepped over the threshold into a spacious room in the second building. She waved to a cousin sister, who was climbing a sturdy wooden ladder onto the floor above. The wooden floor was supported by four solid tree trunks, not beams, firmly resting on the brick walls. The walls themselves were built with small fired bricks in sections exposed to rain and moisture and larger solid mud blocks in more protected areas. While the ladder was permanently attached, sturdy, and wide, it was not a staircase one could walk up. She passed her cousin’s mom, who was busy with house chores in the room, which also served as a hallway, its open side facing the large court yard.

A building in the second row behind the front door, with detailed construction materials and methods exposed, 2025

At last, she arrived at the largest courtyard within the compound. On her right, she could see a large pond, rice paddies, the little river, and hills on the other side.

The center of the compound: the largest yard, with the family hall on the left, 2025

Straight ahead, on the other side of the courtyard, were more buildings occupied by some of her cousins’ families. To her left stood two key structures: the family hall, a space for gatherings, and behind it, the ancestral hall, the heart of the compound and its most revered space.

Crossing the threshold, she stepped into the family hall, where children played while women gathered to sew or tend to household tasks, gossiping about the goings-on in the compound. Along either side, she could pass a small courtyard and arrived at the door to the ancestral hall.

My second cousin (黄伟波) in the courtyard in front of the ancestral hall, 2025

Inside, important family rituals were conducted: food offerings were made, paper money burned, and incense smoke rose during various festivals throughout the year. Outside in the courtyard, hundreds of firecrackers burst and scattered in every direction.

Granny did not enjoy most of these activities; the bursts of firecrackers were dangerous, and the solemnness of the adults made her fear that her life was controlled by the spirits floating in the ancestral hall. The only time she truly loved was when the beautiful red lanterns were hung high above the ancestral shrine, each lantern celebrating the birth of a male heir in the past Chinese lunar calendar year.

The red lantern day was observed widely in that region. To celebrate the birth of my grandson, my mom had a red lantern hung above the shrine in my father’s ancestral hall along with 17 other lanterns, each honoring a boy born into the 杨 family in the last Chinese lunar year. (Photo by my niece 杨金洁, 2025)

‍After midnight on the 10th day of January, the newborn boy’s family hurried to hang one lantern on the central beam above the shrine. The red lanterns added cheerful color to the otherwise solemn atmosphere. The birth of a girl, just like every aspect of their life, was not celebrated or recorded in the family genealogy.

Inside the ancestral hall, the shrine is set against the back wall, squarely facing the front door, 2025

‍Granny and her cousins often explored these interconnected buildings. The ancestral hall occupied only the front half of the building. A door in the bottom right corner of the shrine led to a long, dark hallway, opening into a courtyard surrounded by more buildings. However, Granny and her friends rarely used this door, as the hallway was too dark and scary. Instead, from the front door of the ancestral hall, they turned left or right along a corridor winding around the hall, linking to buildings on all sides.

But today, Granny wasn’t in the mood to wander. Her stomach growled insistently, urging her back home. She turned right, hurried through the narrow hallways, and entered her family’s kitchen.

The focal point of the room was a large brick stove with a wide opening in the front. During cooking times, ferns, pine needles, or brushwood (but rarely firewood) were pushed into the hearth by one of her sisters-in-law, sending smoke curling up the chimney and out through the roof. Flames danced beneath a massive cast-iron wok, and its contents bubbled and churned energetically, sending soft wisps of steam into the air. The kitchen bustled with activity — the rhythmic chopping on the cutting board, the clatter of utensils, occasional shouts, and the explosive sizzle of food hitting hot oil in the wok — all blending into a lively chaos. Now, however, the kitchen stood silent, as all the adults were busy elsewhere.

Earlier that morning, a large wok of rice gruel was prepared for breakfast, lunch, or any meal throughout the day until evening when dinner preparations began. Granny lifted the bamboo cover and dipped a wooden ladle into the wok. White rice grains floated on the surface of the gruel. Cassava flour was added to thicken the gruel and prevent the rice from settling, ensuring a smooth, even texture. She ladled a generous portion into her bowl and drank eagerly. A small wooden table nearby held a few side dishes — salty vegetables and bamboo shoots. Granny picked up some vegetables with her chopsticks, savoring their salty flavor as she finished another bowl of rice gruel.

With her hunger and thirst satisfied, Granny lingered in the quiet kitchen, pondering how to spend the rest of the day. Her two eldest brothers were married, and her other brothers were away at school. Like her two older sisters, she had no lessons or homework to keep her occupied. With nothing to do, Granny sat on the wooden threshold at the kitchen entrance, watching flies lazily buzz in the courtyard, where most of the household’s minor washing chores were carried out. After a while, she rose and strolled down the hallway toward the three-story gun tower.

A foot-operated pestle-and-mortar (舂碓), similar to the one I used in 1972. Image from the internet.

‍On the ground floor stood a large foot-operated pestle-and-mortar system (舂碓). As she stared at this peculiarly masculine device, her thoughts drifted to the times when the whole family gathered here two or three times a month, spending an entire day de-husking rice grains and pounding them with the heavy pestle to remove the bran. The quiet room came alive with the rhythmic pounding of the pestle against the mortar, blending with echoes of laughter and singing from her brothers and sisters-in-law. The pestle was attached to a lever, enabling two people to step on one end, repeatedly lifting and dropping it to pound the coarse rice in a stone mortar embedded in the ground and level with the floor. The lever’s fulcrum was positioned close to the ground, making it easier for the operators to step on and apply force. Ropes dangled from the ceiling, providing support as the operators used their body weight to press the lever into a pit below. The pestle-and-mortar was mainly used to remove bran from rice grains but was also occasionally used to pound rice into powder for making rice balls (汤圆) or to pound cooked sticky rice into cakes.

I used such a device in 1972 back in my birthplace to pound sticky rice into powder for Chinese New Year. There were only a few such devices in my hometown of a few hundred families. One of them was located in a backyard near my home. About a month before the Chinese New Year, families began taking turns to use the device. One day, it was our turn, and the whole family of five spent nearly the entire day in that backyard. Sticky rice was poured into the mortar. My dad and I, with regular assistance from my mom and elder sister, stepped on one end of the lever to lift and release the pestle, pounding the rice. Frequently, a wooden spatula with a long handle was used to turn the rice in the mortar as the pestle was lifted. A few times, the falling pestle struck the spatula. My dad had to pay for the damaged spatula and borrow a spare. That day, I learned the expression ‘妈个屄’ (Fuck!) from my dad as he vented his frustration repeatedly.

When enough powder became visible, the contents were removed and sieved to achieve the desired fineness. The portion that failed to pass through the sieve was mixed with fresh rice and returned to the mortar for additional pounding. By the end of that exhausting day, our family of five had processed a few pounds of rice. Triumphantly, we carried home the powder along with the remaining unprocessed rice. It was a cheerful and festive occasion, perfectly suited for the days leading up to the Chinese New Year. However, my dad never attempted this operation again, opting instead to buy rice powder from others who endured the arduous labor. A few years later, machines were introduced, but the rice powder they produced was half-cooked, and the rice balls(汤圆) made from it didn’t taste half as good as the ones made from the powder we pounded ourselves.

When Granny woke up from her daydreaming, she turned around to face two mills, one made of beautifully carved stones (石磨), and the other resembling two mud-filled bamboo baskets (土砻, mud mill). The stone mill was used to grind soybeans into a slurry, which was then filtered to make soy milk for tofu. The mud mill was used to remove husks from rice grains.

A functional stone mill (石磨) for soy milk still sits idle in the compound today, with its connecting rod hanging on the wall beside it. (2025)

‍The stone mill consisted of two stone disks: the bottom one remained stationary, while a vertical axis protruded from it, allowing the upper stone to rotate and create a grinding motion between them. The upper disk had a fixed horizontal side arm with a connecting rod attached to one end. The other end of the rod, shaped like a bicycle handlebar, rested on a rope hanging from the ceiling for support. She often saw her sister-in-law push and pull the connecting rod, which moved like a steam engine piston, applying torque to the upper disk through the side arm. This caused the upper disk to rotate and grind the material fed through a central hole.

While Granny was always awed by the imposing strength of the pestle-and-mortar system, she disliked the grueling effort required to operate it. In her heart, she admired the ingenuity of the mud mill. Operated similarly to the stone mill, it could remove husks from 50 kilograms of rice in a half day. She never knew what was inside those baskets, but it worked like magic: grains flowed in, and out poured rice mingled with the removed husks.

The bottom half of the mud mill (土砻), before its surface was finished, contained 300 pieces of hardened bamboo or hardwood strips embedded in a mud disk [5]. I never knew how rice grains were de-husked in the old days until my mom told me about the rice mill in Granny’s compound.

‍‍After she passed the two mills, Granny climbed to the second floor, a dull, cluttered space filled with miscellaneous items. Restless, she longed for adventure. She had heard that this building, known as the gun tower (炮楼), once housed guns on the third floor. These guns fired through specially designed holes in the walls to fend off invading bandits. Her parents had forbidden her from going up there, but today, curiosity got the better of her. Halfway up the ladder, the floor above creaked as if warning her of unseen perils. Just as she hesitated, she heard her mother calling.

“Little one! Come help me with this.”

女孩子的教育

Following her mom’s voice and the rhythmic ‘ta, ta, ta…’ of a sewing machine, Granny found her in the cloth-making room, steadily pedaling the treadle of the sewing machine, a rare sight in the village during the 1930s [6]. In this room, all the cloth needed by the household was handwoven on a loom, using purchased cotton threads known as ‘Western thread’ (洋线)[7], which were much finer than the coarse hemp thread they made at home. The cloth was then cut and sewn into garments using the sewing machine. Additionally, all the shoes, bedding, and mosquito nets had to be made at home by the wives. Unbeknownst to Granny, her mother had already begun teaching her the skills she would need for marriage.

“But Mom, you’ve never needed my help before!” Granny frowned.

“I want to show you how to do it.”

“But why?”

“Because soon you will have to do all the housework for your husband’s household,” her mother softly explained.

“Just like my sisters-in-law?”

Her mother nodded, aware of the reality her daughter would soon face. Granny had to learn to manage housework: cooking, cleaning, tending animals, and working the fields. She would need to harvest crops, prepare meals, and manage the home — just like her sisters-in-law, who managed the entire household in their husbands’ absence. The men had left the village to seek better opportunities, as the land and compound inherited from their ancestors had been divided into ever-smaller portions.

With so much for her to learn, Granny’s mom almost regretted not starting her little daughter’s training earlier. In her eyes, Granny was always her baby girl. So she decided to begin with something simple — making hemp fibers into a long, continuous thread.

After watching her mom demonstrate, Granny picked it up quickly, having often watched her sisters-in-law do it. She picked up a hemp fiber ribbon, carefully split it into a dozen or so thin threads, and laid them neatly on her lap. Next, she overlapped the ends of two threads. To strengthen the connection, she twisted the overlapped portion, blending the thin fibers from both threads together. She held the left end of the overlapped portion steady with one hand and rolled the right end between her thumb and forefinger, twisting the fibers tightly together.

After much trial and error, Granny finally made a strong connection. She learned that she had to press her thumb against her forefinger firmly to tightly twist the fibers within the two threads.

“Look, Mom! I made a really tight twist!”

“Wow! What a beautiful twist!” Granny’s mom was pleased with her daughter’s enthusiasm and smiled as she challenged her: “Let’s see how long a thread you can make today.”

After a long stretch of work, Granny finally finished connecting all the threads on her lap. Her fingers ached from the effort.

“Mom, have I made a really long thread now? My fingers hurt.”

Granny’s mom got up from the sewing machine and walked over. She took Granny’s little fingers in her hands, gently blew on them, and, with a playful smile, pretended to be surprised.

“Look at this beautiful long thread! Yes, you’ve made a really long thread.”

Granny stretched the 15-meter-long thread across the room, looping it around a pole and back, mimicking her sisters-in-law’s movements as if she were coating it with sticky rice glue. Her feet were light as she danced and skipped across the room.

Granny’s mom planned to weave the thread into cloth for a new mosquito net — but she would need nearly 500 times as much thread. Even for a skilled adult, producing enough thread would take months of painstaking work. In fact, all the hemp plants they harvested each year yielded only enough for one or two mosquito nets. Granny’s mom nearly shuddered at the thought of a time when cotton was not yet widely used in China. Every thread for household garments had to be hand-twisted, meter by meter — the way her daughter had just done. Women never had a moment of rest; the relentless demand for hemp thread made their work seem endless (see The universal struggle of making thread [8]).

With the men away for work or school, the young daughters-in-law bore the burden of both farming and household duties. In just a few years, those same responsibilities would fall on Granny’s shoulders, even though she was now still a child.

从【双乳峰】到【剑桥大学】

第一章 ：我的外婆妈妈（英文版）

谢谢阅读

Notes

[9] All photos of the compound were taken in 2025 and provided by my second cousin (黄伟波) unless otherwise stated.

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‍字数超限，其余的注释省略。