湖泗桥到渡普口 ‍1 、母亲走过民国与改革开放 ‍

Wanxin 万象更新

腊月二十四，是我母亲的生日。母亲一九三四年腊月廿四日出生于武汉市江夏区湖泗镇万家湾，于农历二〇一四年四月廿六日在武汉市武昌徐东大街沙湖园去世，享年八十岁。

母亲离开我们近十一年了。这些年来，我对母亲的思念与日俱增，常常自言自语地呼唤“妈妈”，不时与妈妈的天灵对话。昔日与妈妈在一起的情景不时浮现在眼前。岁月如梭，母亲在我心目中的形象也在不断升华。

如今，在我心目中，一个经常担心受怕的母亲，其实是一位谨言慎行的母亲；一位逆来顺受的母亲，其实是一位随机应变、处世泰然的母亲；一位儿多母苦的母亲，其实是一位勤劳担当、千方百计的母亲；一位克勤克俭的母亲，其实也是乐于助人、慷慨大度的母亲；一位不太在意自己的生活与健康却十分关爱家人的母亲；一位拘谨沉默却充满慈爱和追求自由的母亲。

2025年10月，我阔别故土近10年，从悉尼回到武汉。在盘龙城的房子中，我打开母亲在我高中毕业后参加工作时送给我的小红箱子，里面有我珍藏的一些历史照片、书信和笔记等资料。我翻看母亲早年的照片和证件，触景生情，思绪万千。

我翻开其中一张1956年武汉市私立前进会计补习学校的学生上课证，让我再次走近年轻时代的母亲。

那是一张用繁体字填写的上课证，学校地址在武汉市民族路四十一号。证件上记载着：农业会计1956年第三期，学生姓名万腊英，女，二十岁，籍贯武昌，现住延安上里井（字迹略模糊），有效时间为1956年9月6日至12月31日。

从我的出生时间推算，那时正是母亲怀我三个月到六个月的期间，所以我也是一位编外学员。

母亲年幼时在民国时期读过三个月私塾，加上这次参加了三个月农业会计补习学校的学习，六个月的学校学习经历，奠定了她的人生基础，也让她可以离开村湾，走出同湾的女同胞不一样的历程。

母亲的一生跨越了中国历史上多个重要阶段——民国时期的战乱、新中国成立初期的社会变革、人民公社年代，以及各种社会运动，她有幸遇到千年不遇的改革开放年代，与我们共同享受时代的红利。她不是历史书中的人物，却真实地生活在时代的变迁之中。

母亲曾对我说，在民国时期，听说日本兵来了，她和家人、村里人一起跑到一里路外的湖泗石山上，躲在荆刺丛生的灌木丛中，吓得浑身发抖。

新中国成立后，母亲投身到火热的社会主义劳动和建设中。我小时候读过母亲的日记，其中一篇挑塘泥的日记让我记忆深刻，展现出母亲作为女青年的朝气蓬勃。

在后来的运动中，母亲遭遇天有不测的风云，突如其来的变故让她一时晕头转向，也让她失去无忧无虑的纯真，产生恐惧的本能。但母亲坚定地稳住了脚步，理清了思路，根据实际情况确定了新的生活道路。在外婆的鼎力支持下，根据当时的情况和条件作出尽可能周全的安排，最大限度地安顿好我和大妹的生存出路，重新组建家庭，面对新的挑战。

2005年，母亲在中风之前来到武汉武昌东亭花园看我，回顾往事，侃侃而谈。她对自己一生的工作和生活经历感到满足和乐观，对所经历的挫折和苦难不屑一顾。

母亲的一生平凡而坚韧，没有惊天动地的故事，却与时代紧紧相连。她所经历的岁月，也正是无数普通中国农村农民和小城镇居民共同走过的经历。追忆母亲的往事，也是记录他们那一代人的工作、生活和成长故事。

写这一系列回忆母亲的短篇，是我多年以来的愿望和规划。我希望不断提高自己的认知能力和思想深度，通过回顾母亲的人生经历，去了解那个年代发展的底层逻辑，去思考历史的脉络，去理解人的本质需求，去发现社会发展的核心动力，去了解传统教育与学习方法的效率，去品味普通百姓的人生百味和底层社会的千姿百态。

以此为目标，我将逐步把这些回忆文章以中英文两个版本，一起献给我亲爱的母亲在天之灵，以释怀和对妈妈不尽的思念和深深的眷恋！献给我的五位弟弟妹妹以及后人，让我们在母爱的护佑下永远相亲相爱！献给母亲和那个时代的普通同龄人，他们在很狭小的空间里本能的作出自己的选择，献给每一位现在和未来的亲爱的读者，给他们增加一点历史资料。回忆录中真实的人物、事件和场景，是这些岁月长河中小小的几朵浪花！同时也介绍外祖母、母亲和我的两个故乡—武汉市江夏区湖泗桥街和嘉鱼县渡普口镇，这两处美丽的小镇哺育了我们，湖泗街万家湾也是我外祖父，外祖母，母亲等亲人长眠的地方。这里民风淳朴，山川秀美，我们会永远铭字在心。

A Mother Between Two Hometowns

—A Memorial life in Changing China

The twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month was my mother’s birthday. She was born on that winter day in 1934, in Wanjiawan, a small village in Husi Town, Jiangxia District of Wuhan. She passed away eighty years later, on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth lunar month in 2014, at Shahu Garden on Xudong Street in Wuchang.

It has been nearly eleven years since my mother left us. With time, my longing for her has only grown stronger. Sometimes I catch myself whispering “Mama” aloud, as if speaking to her spirit. Memories of our life together return unexpectedly, like familiar scenes rising from the past. As the years pass, the image of my mother in my heart becomes clearer, steadier, and more profound.

The mother who often seemed anxious was, in truth, careful and thoughtful. The mother who appeared to endure hardship quietly was in fact resilient and composed in the face of life’s uncertainties. The mother burdened with raising many children was diligent and deeply responsible. The mother who lived frugally was also generous and kind-hearted. She cared little for her own comfort or health, yet devoted herself entirely to her family. Quiet and reserved, she was nonetheless full of love — and somewhere within her lived a quiet longing for freedom.

In October 2015, after nearly ten years away from my hometown, I returned from Sydney to Wuhan. In my home in Panlongcheng, I opened a small red box my mother had given me when I graduated from high school and began working. Inside were old photographs, letters, and notebooks I had carefully preserved over the years. As I turned the pages of my mother’s early photographs and documents, memories stirred, and emotion quietly filled my heart.

Among them was a student certificate from the Wuhan Private Qianjin Accounting Tutorial School dated 1956. Holding it in my hands felt like stepping back into my mother’s youth.

The certificate, written in traditional Chinese characters, listed the school’s address as No. 41 Minzu Road, Wuhan. It recorded her enrollment in the Agricultural Accounting course, Third Session of 1956. The student’s name: Wan Layin. Female. Twenty years old. Native of Wuchang. Residence: Yan’an Shanglijing, the handwriting slightly faded. The course lasted from September 6 to December 31, 1956.

Based on my own birth date, that was when my mother was three to six months pregnant with me. In a way, I too was present in that classroom, an unseen companion to her learning.

As a child during the Republican era, my mother had attended a village private school for only three months. Together with the three months she later spent studying agricultural accounting, these six months of education quietly shaped her life. They gave her the courage to step beyond the village and walk a path different from other women around her.

My mother’s life stretched across some of the most turbulent and transformative periods in modern Chinese history — the wartime years of the Republic of China, the early decades after the founding of the People’s Republic, the era of the People’s Communes, and the many political movements that followed. She also lived long enough to witness the Reform and Opening-up period, sharing with us the opportunities of a changing world. She was never a figure in history books, yet she lived fully within history’s current.

She once told me that during the Republican years, when word spread that Japanese soldiers were approaching, she and her family ran with the villagers to Husi Stone Mountain, about one li away. There they hid among thorny bushes, trembling with fear.

After the founding of New China, my mother threw herself into the energetic labor and construction of the socialist era. When I was young, I once read her diary. One entry, describing the work of dredging pond mud, left a lasting impression on me. It revealed the vitality and determination of my mother as a young woman.

In the political movements that followed, unexpected storms entered her life. Sudden changes in family and work circumstances left her disoriented for a time, taking away her carefree innocence and awakening an instinctive fear. Yet my mother did not remain lost for long. She steadied herself, gathered her thoughts, and chose a new path according to the realities before her. With my grandmother’s unwavering support, she made careful and practical arrangements under difficult conditions, ensuring the survival and future of me and my younger sister. She rebuilt a family and faced life’s new challenges with quiet strength.

In 2005, before she suffered a stroke, my mother visited me at Dongting Garden in Wuchang, Wuhan. Looking back on her life, she spoke with calm satisfaction and optimism about her years of work and living. The hardships and setbacks she had endured seemed small to her, hardly worth mentioning.

My mother’s life was ordinary, yet resilient. There were no dramatic or heroic stories, but her life was deeply intertwined with the times she lived through. The years she experienced were the same years lived by countless rural farmers and small-town residents across China. To remember my mother’s past is also to record the work, daily life, and growth of her generation.

Writing this series of short memoirs about my mother has been a long-cherished wish of mine. By revisiting her life, I hope to deepen my understanding of that era’s underlying logic, to reflect on the course of history, to understand fundamental human needs, to discover the forces that drive social development, to learn from traditional ways of education and learning, and to appreciate the many textures of ordinary people’s lives.

With this purpose in mind, I will gradually dedicate these recollections to my beloved family, to those who belonged to my mother’s generation, and to readers of today and the future — as a way of easing my endless longing and expressing my enduring love for my mother.