Little Sesame’s Special Childhood

CHAPTER ONE

Collective Labor

It was a fine afternoon in late spring, and the clear, blue sky was scattered with white clouds floating here and there. While some clouds morphed bit by bit into different shapes and sizes as they sailed slowly by, others hovered in place, stubbornly refusing to change. Under the sky on a hilly tea plantation, women in their flower-decorated hats were picking tea leaves. From the top of the hill, the women could see other tea plantations, rice fields, and nearby villages. At the very edge of every direction that touched the sky were mountains of different heights. The blazing blue sky formed the roof and the mountains, walls, of a house suited for heaven.

The women’s hands darted up and down over the tea bushes, like famished roosters competing for scanty remnants of grain. They talked, laughed, and sang loudly while working.

“Xiaochun from Team Five is my dream daughter-in-law. She is not only beautiful but also has a great attitude,” a woman with a face full of pockmarks said. “That girl is only thirteen, but she works all the time. She’s either doing all the laundry, cooking for her family, or working in her family’s plot.”

Several more women shared good things about Xiaochun. Those women, who had sons Xiaochun’s age or older than Xiaochun, daydreamed of having Xiaochun for their daughter-in-law. They even went so far as to compare their sons to decide whose son deserved Xiaochun the most.

“But her mother treats her like a stepdaughter,” a younger woman sighed. “One time, as I was passing her house, I heard beating. I stopped to look through the window and saw her mother—” she paused. “No. I would rather call her Laolu’s wife. I saw Laolu’s wife beating the girl with all her energy. The girl was made to lay stomach-down on a long bench, so Laolu’s wife could hit the sole of the shoe directly on Xiaochun’s buttocks. As she beat, she asked the poor girl, ‘Xiaochun, am I serving you good beatings?’ The girl replied, ‘Yes, Ma, you are beating me well.’ Then Laolu’s wife asked, ‘Tell me whether you deserve to be beat and why. And the girl answered, ‘Yes, Ma. I deserve this because I over cooked the rice.’ The heartless woman asked, ‘Tell me how many more beatings you need in order to remember your mistake.’ Xiaochun cried, ‘Ma, I won’t make the same mistake ever again, but you can beat me as much as you wish if that will make you feel better.’ I walked right into their house. Seeing my shadow, Xiaochun slid off the bench instantly and dashed to her room. When she came out of her room, she was smiling, as if nothing ever happened. She greeted me with a cup of tea and then left to do her chores.”

“Let’s take a break,” someone who couldn’t bear hearing such a sad story suggested. After all, it had past midmorning and was time to recess, so all the women stopped working instantly. In small groups, some bolted down the hill and others ambled along the tea bushes toward where the nearest mountains were. Among the walkers, one’s eyes searched about the bushes as she turned her head from one side to the other and called, “Little Sesame, it’s break time!” The woman repeated her calls several times.

As her voice reached a five-year-old little girl curled up in the center of a tea bush, the girl struggled to free her two pigtails from the tangled bed of stalks. Next to the tea bush was a little basket half-full of pig food she gathered. The little girl grabbed her basket and raced toward the women. “Ma, wait!"

When Little Sesame and her mother reached the bottom of the hill, they crossed a small wooden bridge, and then followed a footpath that snaked between a creek and a row of plum trees.

One of Ma’s coworkers leaped and caught hold of a plum tree branch. She shook the branch and down fell the reddish cherry-sized plums. Other women bent down to snatch up the fruits with great joy.

Each gave a few to the woman who shook the branch.

“O-Lao knows you steal his plums every time you come,” Ma warned her coworkers. “He is not happy about this, but you are welcome to have some of our plums.”

“No one likes to eat your big plums. They are too sour.” The women giggled. “O-Lao’s plums are sweet and delicious.”

On the other side of the creek was a bamboo grove, and beyond the bamboo grove was a meadow. Against the colorful mountains, a big thatch-roofed hut stood in front of more plum trees and a drystone wall, garnished with a great variety of flowers, vines, shrubs, bushes, and trees. The hut belonged to the Lang Family, and the women headed there to have some tea.

Little Sesame didn’t go to the hut directly. She passed the hut to stop at a sweet potato field. She dug her fingers into the ground and expertly sieved the soil. She piled soil back over the hole she dug, tried place after place until she finally pulled out a reddish sweet potato smaller than her fist. She washed her found treasure in the small ditch running behind the hut and then went to eat it inside her home.

Little Sesame went to her mother and asked quietly, “Ma, do you know Xiaochun?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I want to see her.”

“Tell Mama why.”

“All the aunties on the tea plantation talk about Xiaochun. I want to see how she looks like, and I want to learn from her.”

“Good reason! Mama will introduce you to her at the village cinema.”

Little Sesame longed for movies in her village. Every day she would ask Ma Is there a movie today? Is there a movie tomorrow? She was so eager to see her role model Xiaochun.

#

Little Sesame was the second youngest child of Ma's five children—two daughters and three sons. At five, she was too young for school and had to follow her parents to work. Bright, the youngest of five, would tag along with his grandma all day long. Delight, the eldest, looked after the family’s thirty ducks. The other two children Keen, the second son, and Melody, the eldest daughter, were students in middle school and elementary school.

In Little Sesame’s household, the day started early. Ma rose with the rooster’s third crow to do the family laundry. At daybreak, she woke up her husband and two elder sons. While Delight, the one-handed son, fetched water from the well to fill the large crockery pot in the kitchen, her husband and the other son went to work in their private plot.

After Ma was done with the laundry, she woke up the rest of her children, so they could start their morning chores. While Ma fed the pigs, Melody emptied and washed the chamber pot, then swept the floor. After that, she tended the fire behind the clay stove where Ma cooked breakfast.

Being the youngest, the three-year-old Bright had the easiest chore. He gathered eggs from the duck coop. Unlike hens that lay eggs during daytime, ducks lay eggs during the night.

Once the ducks were let out from the duck coop, Little Sesame drove them to the nearby pond, which was her favorite chore. Little Sesame loved watching the ducks. Despite how eager they were to play in the water, the ducks still waddled to the pond in line. Some stretched their necks and quacked while others stretched their wings to shake any possible dust off their bodies. As soon as they saw the water, they overestimated their flying ability—they opened their wings to fly and ended hitting the water face-first. Those that were more aware of their flying skills flapped their wings and threw themselves into the water. Once in the water, the ducks became playful. Some dived into the water to wet their feathers and then completed their grooming by combing through their feathers with their beaks; others talked and laughed as they chased each other, running and skipping on the water surface.

Upon returning from the pond, Little Sesame needed to take care of the chickens. She had to first chase the roosters to the tea plantation, separating them from the hens. Ma said that the dried grated sweet potatoes were only for the hens. The roosters couldn’t lay eggs, so they had to search for worms or wild seeds to feed themselves.

Dusting furniture was the last chore. With a feather duster and a damp old cloth in hand, Little Sesame glided into the room she shared with Melody. She dusted the wooden bench next to the bamboo bed. Because the bench and the bed were all the furniture in the room. Next, she dusted and wiped the stool and desk in the room her older brothers shared. Her parents’ room contained the most furniture: a beautifully engraved bed, two wooden chests, one dresser, a wicker chair, and a sewing machine. Little Sesame dusted the surface before wiping each piece until they shone. The central room contained a dining table, an ancestor’s tablet, and some stools and chairs, but Ma herself would clean the ancestor’s tablet. Bright had no room, for he slept in his parents’ bed.

After finishing her morning chores, Little Sesame and Melody headed to the creek with a tin washbowl to wash their faces and brush their teeth. The girls were never in a hurry to go back. Melody loved telling her younger sister the dreams she had and their parents’ nightly conversation she overheard. She also loved to fill the tin washbowl with water and admire her own reflection in the water. All Little Sesame did was splash the water and listen—listen to her big sister’s talk, water running, and birds singing.

#

After breakfast, the Langs’ hut would become as empty and quiet as a schoolhouse during winter break.  

Delight was the first to depart since he had to drive the ducks to neighboring villages’ empty rice fields or rivers. With other people’s ducks competing for fish, shrimps, snails, bugs, and water grass with his ducks, Delight always wanted his ducks to get there earlier. Once his ducks were full and resting, Delight would sit on a nearby bank or shore and eat the lunch he had brought with him. He would stay with the ducks until the sun went down.

Keen was the next to depart. He always left for school with his first cousin Clear, who Keen and the younger children called Second Brother. Clear was an orphan living with his paternal grandparents next door. Clear was fourteen years old, one year Keen’s senior. His mother died of childbirth and his father in a storm. As soon as the pleasant-looking cousin swung in, his bookbag straps slung across his shoulders, Keen would say good-bye to his parents and head to school.

Now it was Melody’s turn to leave. She would often leave with Uncle, the village’s barefoot doctor and her father’s younger brother who lived next door. Like Clear, Uncle also lived with Little Sesame’s grandparents. Since the elementary school Melody attended was only five minutes away from the village clinic Uncle worked, the pair sometimes came back home together as well.     

Finally, Grandma came to get Bright and went to join Grandpa in their private garden. He had to follow his grandma throughout the day to wherever she went, but Bright would often cry, “No, I don’t want O-Po. I want to stay with Mama.”

#

As soon as the drumbeats reached their ears, Ba and Ma departed from their hut, Little Sesame riding piggyback on her father, heading toward Team Two’s headquarters.

Since there was no kindergarten or daycare center in the village, Little Sesame had to go with her parents to their collective labor.

“Why don’t you and Ma always work together?” Little Sesame asked her father.

“Always?” Ba replied. “It won’t work that way, but your Ma and I would work together more often if our team had more rice fields.”

Most of the time, men and women had different work. Men hoed earth, fertilized plants, and chopped firewood, while women picked tea leaves and raised pigs. Herding sheep, cow, and water buffalo, each family within the team had to take turns.

“Then, why don’t you work with Uncle Dashui and Uncle Yanjiang?”

“These friends of mine and I belong to different teams. Uncle Dashui needs to work for Team Five and Uncle Yanjiang for Team One,” Ba explained. “I work in Team Two.”

 “Why can’t people from Team Two work with people in Team Five or Team One?”

“That’s because different teams have different assignments.”

“What is an assignment?”

“An assignment is a piece of work. A goal to be accomplished.”

“Who gives assignments?”

“The local county leaders.”

“Do the local county leaders want something from you?”

“They want each team to turn over a certain amount of its productions to the county purchasing stations. Team Five supplies rice and soybeans to the county purchasing stations, while our team supplies tea leaves, pigs, and wool. Our team keeps rice to ourselves since we have so few rice fields.”

Little Sesame’s family lived in a mountain valley called Tongxi Village. It had a population of five hundred people. The village contained six teams. Little Sesame’s family belonged to Team Two, which had fourteen households and seventy-eight people. The villagers from different teams knew each other well, although most of them didn’t work together. They met during the village’s communal movies, plays, meetings, clinic, or grocery store.

#

On each workday morning from Monday to Saturday, the Team Two leaders, Mr. Len and Mrs. Wu, would beat a drum hard and loud. When the drumbeats reached the ears of the team members, they were supposed to leave their homes and head to the team headquarters to check in. The Lang family lived slightly farther from the headquarters than most of the other households in the team. For most of the workers, it would take them only two to five minutes to reach the headquarters. Nevertheless, Ba and Ma always arrived earlier than most of their coworkers because the people who lived closer would stay home longer to finish their own morning chores. The arrivals would greet each other and then chat in small groups while waiting for the others.

It was 1972, and there was no electricity or loudspeaker in Tongxi Village. Mr. Len was the only person in Team Two had a watch to tell his team members when to start the day by beating the drum. The team leaders were the ones to decide what work needed to be done for the day and who should do what. Most of the time, the team leaders would tell the workers what the next day’s work would be at the end of the day, but detailed information would always be given on each workday morning.

There was a large blackboard covered with rows of hooks and small wooden tags, with a full-time worker’s name printed on each wooden tag, and Mr. Len and Mrs. Wu raced to move the tags from hook to hook and row to row every day, as if they were playing some sort of game. After they moved the tags, the workers sauntered over to the blackboard to check out their work assignments for the day. The recorder took attendance at this time as well. After the attendance was recorded and work was assigned, Little Sesame had to decide which of her parents she would like to follow.

At work, ladies liked to demonstrate their talent, trying to earn the reputation of “the fastest tea-leaf picker,” or “the best singer.” There were no prizes awarded for these sorts of titles, but the performances of the women would be observed by their coworkers and then their reputations would be quickly spread to their coworkers’ families, relatives, friends, and other teams. Talented young maidens would therefore attract more matchmakers and that made them more likely to land a good husband. As for married women, they just enjoyed the good reputation. Unlike young maidens who preferred to sing songs from movies and plays, married women sang whatever came to their minds. Most of their songs were about food, children, husbands, or clothes. Although Ma was married with five children, she liked to tell fun stories and enjoyed singing songs of all kinds.

With hoes carried over their shoulders, the men shuffled along to their assigned plot. Once at work, they had to work hard and act like strong men, because only strong men could be considered real men. The men were extremely conscious about their performance being discussed in their coworkers’ conversations at home. However, they also were very aware that they would become tired, exhausted, and bored quickly if they concentrated too much on the simple farm work. So, to make collective labor more enjoyable, they entertained themselves while working. They made jokes or told stories to their coworkers, and they gossiped about the wives of male workers who were assigned to different plots.

The men had even more fun during recess. They squatted in little clusters to smoke, joke, wrestle, play tricks, or play poker.

Ba enjoyed listening to good jokes, and he loved to hear both his own laughter and the laughter of his coworkers. But he never participated in any gossip because he didn’t want those men to gossip about his wife if he was assigned to a different plot to work. During recess, Ba liked to play poker or sit alone on the ground and read a historical novel, so he could tell the story he read to his family after dinner.

Those men wished break would last until lunch time, because they wanted to save some energy so that they could work tirelessly on their own private plots after collective labor. No one cared much about how much work the team accomplished during the day, because collective labor offered them very little. Under the welfare policies, team income and agricultural products were distributed according to family size rather than work points; besides family size, it had to follow a complex scale of age and gender.

The team workers considered work points more of a bonus than salary. After all, the workers couldn't earn much of a bonus anyways. The highest number of work points that could be earned a day was eight points for a man and six points for a woman. Usually, each work point would be worth eight to ten cents, or the value of an egg. The work points that a man earned in a day could buy only two kilograms of rice, and one day’s worth of a woman’s work points was worth only two bars of the cheapest soap. Besides, they wouldn’t receive their bonus until the end of the year.

#

Like his coworkers, Ba spent all his spare time taking care of his private plots. He had endless work to do on his own land. He hoed, seeded, watered, weeded, fertilized, and harvested, because his family of seven lived on his private plots. The vegetables and fruits on the table had to come from the garden. Money for groceries and other everyday expenses had to come from selling products from his garden as well, so Ba planted on every available inch of land. He grew cabbages, turnips, beans, greens, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, melons, pumpkins, sunflowers, sesame, potatoes, peonies, roses, and mulberry trees. Nevertheless, the Lang family was always poor and lived by the day, no matter how hard Ba and his family worked.

Several reasons contributed to their poverty. First, eighty percent of China’s population were farmers supplying food to the remaining twenty percent of Chinese, who were city folks, so goods produced by farmers were always sold at very cheap prices. Second, anything manufactured by city residents was relatively expensive, so even fertilizers or pesticides became unaffordable for most farmers. Third, farming with bare hands and manual labor was an extremely time-consuming task, especially when the garden work could only be done in one’s spare time.

#

“I was wondering what Chairman Mao would feel if he saw how the farmers work,” Uncle once mused at the dinner table.

“If Chairman Mao sees how poor we the farming workers are, he would understand why we are unmotivated to do more work during collective labor,” Ba said. “Then, he would change our fate by assigning someone more talented to fix our current welfare policies to encourage the farming workers to be more productive.”

“You are right,” their father echoed. “Chairman Mao would surely get someone skilled to create some new policies that would motivate the farmers at work.” He looked at Ba, adding, “Then, you would have less energy to work in your own private plot.”

They all laughed.

“O-Lao is funny,” Bright said of his grandpa, as he saw all the men were laughing.

“I would be pleased with the new welfare policies that are supposed to increase productivity and improve our lives,” Ba stated. “Then, I would no longer need to work as hard in my private plot.”

“Then I no longer need to hoe the earth, loosen the soil, water the plants, cut tough sod…” Keen daydreamed.

“I will be more pleased,” Melody cheered. “After Chairman Mao’s new policies bring us all the food we need, Little Sesame and I would no longer need to weed the garden, rid the vegetable plants of insects, gather pig food...”

“But before Chairman Mao comes here,” Ba interrupted his children’s wild imagination, “we all have to do our daily chores.”

In reality, no one complained about how much labor they had to do in exchange for such little money. To the Lang family, this was simply the standard life of farmers. They didn’t need much money anyway. They only needed money to purchase kerosene oil, salt, sugar, soy sauce, cooking wine, vinegar, rice, vegetable oil, and soap. Going to the market in the early morning or on the weekends was fun. However, they could only purchase half a kilogram of salt by selling ten kilograms of cabbages, so the family had to save for a while if they had to make some big purchases to replace things such as hoes, kitchen knives, thermos bottles, or rice bowls.

Little Sesame’s family was content with their simple life. They were in a much better situation than most of their team members. At least, they had some extra income from Delight’s ducks; the duck eggs satisfied any financial hardship. On an average day, Delight’s ducks produced from fifteen to twenty eggs, which were worth about one yuan or a little more than that. They could then use the egg money to purchase half a kilogram of sugar and half a kilogram of cooking wine. How could they not be grateful? Delight was the only person who graduated from middle school and didn’t have to participate in collective labor. Because he had one hand, Ba proposed for his son to work for himself by looking after some ducks. Although everyone knew that Delight was able to perform farm work as well as any two-handed person, no team member voted against Ba’s choice. To express their appreciation, the Lang family always lent anything they had, such as rice, to their needy team members.

The Langs loved summer and fall a lot. There were many fat mushrooms for Little Sesame and Melody to gather in the meadow and tea plantations, so the Lang family could have both fresh and dried mushrooms to eat. The girls also picked snails in their neighboring teams’ rice fields. They fished for shrimp with some leftover rice by putting the rice in the rice basket and then lowering the rice basket into the pond with a rope. At night, Delight and Keen would go catching yellow eels and frogs with torches in the neighboring teams’ rice fields as well.

It was easy to catch eels and frogs at night, because yellow eels and frogs wouldn’t move when they saw the flames from the burning torches. For frogs, the brothers wouldn’t catch more than their family could eat the next day. For yellow eels, they would catch as many as they could.

Once the brothers returned home, Ma would keep some eels in a water pot so that the family would have fresh eels to eat for a couple of days, but she would release both the extra big ones and extra small ones to the pond. The small ones would grow bigger, and the big ones would give birth to more eels.

As Little Sesame watched Ma cooking, Ma said, “Aren’t we lucky that we live in the countryside and get all this good food at no cost? City folk need to buy what we eat.”

Little Sesame nodded.

“No,” Melody said from behind the clay stove, “City folk are luckier. They eat meat and fish and tofu often, while we eat those good food only on holidays.”

Little Sesame’s most enjoyable time of day always started at dinner. Like the rest of her family members, she loved to eat. Meals always seemed so tasty even if the food was not fancy. At dinner, everyone shared what happened during their day.

After dinner, Melody cleaned the table and washed the dishes, and Little Sesame dried the dishes. When they were done, Melody carried hot tea and Little Sesame carried fruit out to the table. Then all three generations of the Lang family gathered around the dinner table to hear stories.

O-Lao liked to tell stories about ghosts or demons, which would scare Little Sesame forever. Ba liked to tell historical stories. Keen and Clear liked to tell adventure stories. It made story time even more special since everyone was a great storyteller. Ma was a good storyteller as well, but she never told stories during the regular story time. Most of her stories were either fairytales or folktales that would not have interested the adults.

During story time, only Ma worked under the dim light from the kerosene oil lamp. Sometimes, she made cloth slippers for her family, and other times she mended their clothes. Ma seemed to like every story her family would tell because a gentle, soft smile would often creep onto her face as she listened and illuminate her features. Occasionally, she asked questions that were on her daughters' mind, as if she were a mind-reader; the girls could not voice the questions themselves for they were taught not to speak out at the table or to interrupt older men, though Melody sometimes broke this rule.

After story time, O-Lao, Ba, and Uncle moved to the side and sat on chairs to chat and smoke. While O-Lao and Ba smoked homegrown and self-processed tobacco from long pipes, Uncle smoked cigarettes because as a barefoot doctor, he had to be more sophisticated than ordinary farmworkers. He purchased the cigarettes with the money O-Po made from selling piglets. As for the non-smokers, O-Po returned to her own room. Ma put Bright to sleep first and then continued to do needlework in her own room. Little Sesame would follow Ma because she was afraid of going to sleep alone. The entire family vacated the dining table so that Clear, Keen, and Melody could use it to study or do their homework. Delight liked to occupy the fourth side of the table to read; he didn’t want to read in the room he shared with Keen, or he would have wasted some kerosene oil by using a kerosene oil lamp all for himself.

In Ma’s room, Little Sesame sat quietly on the bedside, watching her mother work under the dim light from the kerosene oil lamp. When Ma asked whether she wanted to hear a story, the little girl nodded her head earnestly. She always craved her mother’s stories, but she would never dare to ask for any because she knew her mother was busy and might be tired. Sometimes, when Little Sesame felt sleepy, she would climb onto her parents’ bed to curl up next to her little brother, and when Melody finished her homework, Ma would carry Little Sesame to her own bed.

CHAPTER TWO

Little Sesame, Not Little Pig

Little Sesame always longed for weekend or summer holiday to spend time with her big sister, who was three years Little Sesame’s senior, because Melody had plenty of stories to share.

On a sunny summer afternoon, as Little Sesame and Melody emerged from the mountain with their hands over their pockets, they raced toward boulders that were about their size by the stream and under a big plum tree. Without another thought, they kicked off their cloth shoes because their hands were still safeguarding the treasures inside their pockets. The cloth shoes were old and there were holes. The girls liked this, as their big toes got more fresh air. The blue pants and printed long sleeved shirts they wore were decorated with patches.

Finally, they removed their hands after they settled themselves on the big stones. Melody fished red berries out of her pockets, and then one by one she delivered the fruits to her mouth. Little Sesame cautiously created a cup with a corner of her shirt and then filled the cup with the wild fruits from her pockets. There were two types of wild berries in her cloth cup: one looked like a cranberry but a little bigger and the other was like a strawberry but much smaller.  

“Little Sesame, what are you doing?” Melody broke the silence, looking at Little Sesame while chewing.

“Sorting. The ripest and best ones are for Ma, Ba, and our brothers.”

After Little Sesame moved the wild fruits that she believed to be the ripest and best ones back into her pockets, she started eating the ones left in the cloth cup. The strawberry-like berry tasted sweet if it was ripe, and it would not have much taste if it was not yet ripe. The ripe cranberry-like berry tasted sweet and sour, but it would taste more sweet than sour if it was ripe, and it would taste more sour than sweet if it was not yet ripe. The unripe cranberry-like berry made Little Sesame wrinkle her face, but she still enjoyed this mountain snack very much. While savoring the fruit snacks, they let the cool spring water that ran directly down from the mountains tantalize their feet.

Every place that the sunlight touched was hot. There was no wind. The lovely-sounding songs of the birds and the bubbling, gurgling of the water strove to overcome the pessimistic, monotonous cries of the cicadas. 

“Do you think the cicadas have their own language?” asked Melody. Without waiting for a response, she continued, “They must cry ‘It’s hot. It’s hot. It’s so hot and we cannot breathe.’ Their stupid noises bother me. Do they bother you, Little Sesame?”

“If you think the cicadas have their own language, maybe they really do. Uncle said if you were sick and had problems breathing with your nose, you should breathe with your mouth. If you think the cicadas are saying they are hot and cannot breathe, you can ask them to breathe with their mouths too. Ma said the cicadas were singing lullabies that rocked little kids and mountain birds into naps. Sometimes, their songs have rocked me to sleep too.”

“You stupid little pig!” Melody snapped. “How can I talk to the stupid cicadas when I am a human? Ma always lies. Birds never take naps. Listen. They are singing.” And Little Sesame turned her head toward the mountains. She couldn’t see the birds, but she could hear them sing.

Melody glanced at her younger sister from head to toe. As her eyes rested on Little Sesame’s pocket, she asked, “Can I trade some of my fruits with the ones in your pocket?”

“No!” Little Sesame said, “those are for Ma, Ba, and the brothers.”

“What a Big Fat Flatterer you are!” 

“I am not a flatterer,” murmured Little Sesame. She lowered her head and felt both embarrassed and shameful to be a Big Fat Flatterer. But she didn’t dare say anything that could be heard by Melody.

“No matter how much you want to please MY parents, they will never treat you the same as they treat me and my brothers.”

“Why do you say they are your parents and your brothers? They are mine too.”

“Ha! How can they be yours? You were a beggar’s daughter.”

“If I am a beggar’s daughter, you are calling Ma the big beggar. I am going to tell Ma."

“I am not afraid of what you are going to tell Ma. Although Ma didn’t want us to tell you, I think it’s time for you to learn your true identity."

Melody started, "Six years ago, a beggar woman in ragged clothes came to our house, asking for something to eat. She was bony and had a baby girl in her arms. The woman and her baby looked starved, so Ma invited the beggar in to have lunch with us. On that same day, I heard a baby crying from the barn and went to get Ma. We ran to the barn and found in the chicken coop a baby girl, the same one that the beggar had brought with her. There was a note pinned on the baby's ragged clothes that read: 'Good people, I'm very sick, and I think I'm going to die. I leave my daughter to you. Please take pity on her. Buddha will bless you.' At the bottom of the note was the baby's birthday, but no name. Ma took the baby in to raise, and out of convenience, Ba named her Little Sesame since her ma had left her in the barn with the pigs. That baby girl was you."

In their dialect, “little sesame” and “little pig” sounded the same.  

Sitting on a stone her size halfway immersed in the stream water, Little Sesame soaked in her sister's words. She didn't have the courage to level her eyes with Melody's, so all she could do was kick the stream water, murmuring, "Don't trick me. If I am a beggar's daughter, then you are too."

Melody didn't respond. She bent down to disturb the water with her hand for a minute, then stood up to look at the light blue sky ahead of her.

Her fingers twisted her bands, then sent the tip of her braid to her mouth. As she realized the taste of hair was unpleasant, she spat and tossed her braid behind her shoulder. "I do not mean to hurt your feelings,” Melody said. “I just want to tell you the truth. Have you ever thought about why no one in this family loves you? Or why your name is so different from the rest of our family? Let's not talk about names. You see all the children in this family were born five years apart, except you."

"Just because I'm not five years apart from any of you doesn't mean I am a beggar's daughter. If you keep teasing me, I'm really going to tell Ma," Little Sesame said in a low voice.

Melody didn't say another word but kept eating the wild berries she had gathered from the mountains, her eyes moving constantly and face wrinkling every now and then as if she was trying to remember something important. A while later, her eyes landed on a distant hilltop. Little Sesame's eyes followed her sister’s.

It was an elderly lady with bound feet moving slowly and daintily towards them. "Here comes the witness.” Melody said with a sly smile. “If you don't believe what I just told you, let's ask Grandma Nan. You almost died when you were about one to two years old because no one in our family ever liked to hold you—the beggar’s daughter—for a minute, so you had to lie in the cradle all the time. Because you had been lying in the cradle too long and always looked in the same direction, your neck became stiff and couldn't move. The news of you being so near death reached Grandma Nan’s ears. Grandma Nan felt sorry for you, so she took you to her house and saved you. So, if I were you, I would go back to her." 

As Grandma Nan was approaching the girls, Melody said eagerly, "Good afternoon, Grandma Nan. Little Sesame wants to thank you for saving her life." 

With great satisfaction, the elderly woman patted the little girl’s head fondly and replied, “You are welcome, my good girl.” Then she proceeded straight to the girls’ hut, and the girls’ eyes followed her.

After the long break under the plum tree by the stream, the girls returned to their task of weeding their family's vegetable garden. The already quiet Little Sesame became even quieter after learning who she really was. She started wondering about her beggar mother: "Is my beggar ma still alive, or has she died already? What if she were to come back and claim me? Should I go with her to be a little beggar, or should I beg Ma not to let me go? If I don't want to go with my birth ma, then how sad would she be?"

Little Sesame was familiar with the life of beggars, for she often saw them come to beg for lunch. When they obtained some food, they would either sit in the doorway or eat on the roadside. Little Sesame didn’t want to be one of them. She felt lucky that Ma had adopted her. For the rest of the afternoon, Little Sesame worried over her beggar mother coming to claim her.

That night after the family's routine story time, Little Sesame followed Ma to her room and sat there watching her mother do needlework.

"Would you like to hear a story?" Ma asked.

Little Sesame nodded. “Ma, do you have any stories about a beggar?”

Ma didn't ask why; instead, she smiled. A simple and pleasantly surprised smile that meant: Wow, Little Sesame, you have a request for a story! I am very proud of you for daring to voice your thoughts. She paused her work to point her nose to the roof with her eyes closed, as if she were begging the heavens for a beggar story. After thinking for a few long seconds, Ma selected a beggar story from her story bank. It was a story about an old beggar and his Zhuangyuan son.  

A long time ago, there was a beggar father who loved his son very much. Every day he went from door to door to beg for food and money, with his son on his back. When his son reached school age, the poor beggar wished to send his little boy to school, like rich people did for their sons. The father fed himself the minimal amount of food he needed to stay alive and visited as many houses as his feet could carry him. He sold the food and saved money to buy books and clothes for his son. He dressed his son well and sent him to school in a strange town where no one knew they were beggars. Every morning, after the beggar sent his son to school, he went to other towns or villages to beg. When he went to pick up his son from school in the late afternoon, he pretended to be his son's servant to keep other kids from teasing the boy. Genuinely understanding his father's heart and efforts, the beggar's son studied very hard, and at last he became a Zhuangyuan, the highest level on the country’s official test. The emperor held a big party for the new Zhuangyuan in his palace. The Zhuangyuan didn't feel ashamed to have an old beggar as his father. He invited his father to the palace party and to live with him from then on. At the party, the emperor’s beautiful daughter fell in love with the beggar's son immediately, for he was a good-looking and talented young man, and he had a golden heart. The emperor was pleased with his daughter’s wise choice, and he had a splendid welcome party for the beggar. The emperor praised the beggar for raising such a good son. And the beggar lived happily as a royal family member for the rest of his life.

Little Sesame really liked the Zhuangyuan story. But she kept wondering "Why didn’t Ma tell me the story about my beggar ma?" After thinking about her mother’s story for days, Little Sesame came to believe she was a bad person, for she wished never to see her beggar mother. She felt guilty for being a heartless girl, and these bad feelings depressed the little girl. As she sat silently at the edge of her mother’s bed one night, Ma asked, “Do you want to hear a story?” 

Little Sesame, who usually was eager to hear a story from her mother, shook her head. Being a sensitive person, Ma realized her daughter was behaving strangely. She stopped her work and reached her palm out to feel Little Sesame’s forehead. “Are you well?”

Little Sesame nodded.

“Did your big sister pinch you again?”

Little Sesame shook her head again.

“Tell Mama what’s wrong,” Ma pursued.

"Ma, if I become as great as that old beggar's son, should I invite my beggar ma to live with me?" Little Sesame finally opened her mouth, avoiding her mother’s eyes, for fear of hurting her mother’s feelings. 

"I believe you will,” Ma assured, “because you have a genuinely kind heart."

"But I don't know where to find her. Maybe she has already died. Big Sister said six years ago my beggar ma was very sick then."

"Your big sister said what?" Ma said.

Little Sesame repeated her sister’s story.  

"Melody! You wicked girl, come over here!" Ma demanded.

Melody burst into laughter after learning why Ma wanted her. She laughed some more on her way back to her room.

"Treasure, listen. None of Mama's children are adopted," Ma assured the little girl. "You are Mama's very own flesh and blood."

"Then why have I been treated differently from my brothers and sister?"

“Treasure, Mama loves you the same as Mama loves your brothers and sister."

Wanting to verify Melody's story, Little Sesame asked: "Big Sister said I almost died because no one cared for me. Is this true? And why did Ba give me such an ugly name, the same name as the stinky animals in the pig pen?"

“What?” Ma said, her eyes wide open and her jaws drop open, “animals in the pig pen?” “Melody,” Ma raised her voice and called out, but she changed her mind and didn’t repeat her call. Then Ma lowered her tone, taking the little girl’s hands into hers, "Your big sister was teasing you. Your name means the plant sesame, not the animal pig. ‘Sesame’ and ‘pig’ do sound the same in our dialect, but you will learn that they are written differently once you start school.”

 “Oh.” Little Sesame nodded.

Ma looked straight into Little Sesame’s eyes with full of love. “Your name came purely out of your Baba's love for you. He wished for you to grow as easily as a sesame plant and your life would bloom like sesame flowers, one higher than another and then another and then more. Your Baba also wished you to be as productive as a sesame seed––the seed is small, but it will grow into a plant that can produce lots and lots of sesame seeds.”

“Why did Ba wish for me to grow as easily as a sesame plant, but not as a person?”

Ma explained that since Little Sesame was born during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Ba feared that she might have a bad fate and die early, like his beloved first daughter who died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward.

Her parents’ love and her sister’s teasing made Little Sesame wish to start school sooner so that she could learn to write her name and distinguish words that sound the same in her dialect.

At this point, she wanted to ask Ma all the possible questions she had. "Did I almost die?"

"It’s true that you almost died when you were a baby. I will explain all of this to you when you get older. It is a long story, and you are still too young to understand it now.”

Little Sesame pressed on: "Why did I almost die? Why did Ba name me after a plant?"

Pushed by her little daughter, Ma started telling the whole story.  

#

When the Cultural Revolution started, Little Sesame’s parents had no idea what life would become when the political movement began. Schools were closed, and the Red Guards criticized their teachers for reading old books, owning foreign magazines, or teaching capitalist ideology. The Red Guards also burned books, denounced those they saw as traitors, and imprisoned many good people. Most denounced traitors were those who loved their families more than they loved their country leader Chairman Mao.

Ma and Ba were afraid that the Red Guards would denounce or imprison them if they stayed home when there was a criticism meeting in the village. Ma and Ba were also afraid that the Red Guards would accuse them of loving Little Sesame more than they loved Chairman Mao if her parents carried her wherever they went.

“Although we didn't spend much time on you," Ma stated, "we never stopped loving you. When we found out your neck had problems moving, we were worried and scared. We feared losing you so much that we searched far and wide for cures. We went to many villages and many commune hospitals and visited numerous barefoot doctors, but no one could cure you.

When Grandma Nan stopped by, she realized you had a similar problem as her sister’s child. She said all you needed was sunshine and a different sleeping position. With that, your Ba started to make a small bed with four wheels and four poles right away. He bought a piece of fabric and tied it on the poles over the bed so the sun would not hurt your eyes or skin. Because your face was kept stiff towards your right shoulder, we put a pillow next to your right shoulder to cure the crick in your neck. Your Baba placed the bed in the garden and faced your left side to let you look at the roses and peonies. We did anything we could to convince you to turn your neck in another direction, so it wouldn't be frozen in one place.

While O-Po worked in the garden, your big sister stayed nearby to watch you. Sometimes, your big sister even took naps there at your feet. But you never looked to the left side; you buried your face in the pillow. Since your neck was so stiff, we didn't dare to move it, fearing we would break your neck bone or hurt you. With that, we asked Grandma Nan for help. She took you home with her. She took care of you for about a month. Every day she held you like a newborn baby, with one hand always held on your head. Little by little, she brought your neck back to normal. She is like your second mother, and we are always thankful to her.”

Little Sesame was happy to know that her father loved her that much and that her name meant a lovely and admirable little sesame, not a stinky little pig.

Even though Little Sesame liked the meaning of her name and the story behind it, she asked Ma, “Can I have a different name when I start school? Since the plant sesame and the animal pig sound the same in our dialect, other kids at school might tease me as Big Sister did?”

"Treasure, Little Sesame is only your nickname. When the Cultural Revolution is over, we will give you a proper name," Ma said. "Or you can choose a name for yourself when you are old enough to do so.”

“I’m going to have a new name! Really?” Little Sesame leapt up excitedly.

“Really!” Ma smoothed Little Sesame’s hair, smiling. “Have you asked all your questions?”

Little Sesame pondered. "Ba’s first daughter. The sister before Big Sister. How did she become the whole world to Ba?" Little Sesame was curious, wishing one day she could become the whole world to her father.

"That little girl was extremely smart,” Ma started. “Very protective of her big brother. Loved her family dearly. Loved her Baba more than anyone else. Her Baba was so very fond of her," Ma proudly recalled before pausing to let out a sad sigh. "That special sister of yours died of starvation when she was only three years old."

Ma never mentioned that girl's name, so Little Sesame referred to her as That Special Girl.

During the Great Leap Forward, the villagers were not allowed to have their own kitchens. Their woks, pots, knives, and other tools were taken to the commune to make iron and steel in order to increase industrial development. The villagers were told that their country was going to catch up with other industrialized countries, and they were going to leap from socialism to communism. To reach that golden goal, the commune opened a huge childcare center. All the children under school age were required to live there, so that their parents could have more time participating in communal work. With that, Ma had to send away her firstborn son to live in the childcare center with the other kids, and she went to visit him once or twice a month.

Since That Special Girl was still breastfeeding, Ma kept her at home.  

When it was mealtime, everyone took a bowl and lined up before the commune cafeteria to wait for her or his portion. During that time, the villagers got much less food to eat than their bodies needed. Since Ma had so little to eat, That Special Girl had very little milk from Ma, so That Special Girl started to eat whatever food was offered at the commune cafeteria.

A bittersweet expression crept over Ma's face with each word Ma spoke, "She was a very sweet and independent girl. Smiled to everyone she saw. Learned to walk and talk quite early. Eager to help me with chores. Liked your Baba more than anyone else."

On weekends when Ba didn't have to work, he went to find anything he could to feed That Special Girl. Usually, he went to catch small wild animals. First, he found their dens. He stuffed some dried grass into one end of the den and lit the grass to drive smoke inside to chase the animal out, and he waited at the other end of the den with a fish net. He then killed the animal and coated it with a mixture of yellow soil, water, and salt and made a fire at the foot of the mountain to roast the animal. When Ba could catch no more of those small den animals, he caught birds to feed That Special Girl. He found bird nests during the daytime and went to catch them at night.

“The girl loved her big brother very much," Ma recalled. "When we were about to visit him, she would save her food for her big brother. One time, when she found her brother playing alone in a corner, she felt sorry for him. What made her mad was her big brother wearing someone's patched clothes instead of the new clothes Mama had sent him. She didn't go to play with him as she always did. She walked among hundreds of children and then grabbed a little boy who was wearing your Big Brother's new clothes. She screamed at the boy and made him take her big brother’s clothes off. That boy pushed her on the floor and kicked her. Instead of crying, she rushed to the boy and grabbed his hand and bit him viciously. She knew her big brother's clothes very well because Mama had his name embroidered on them. She went to play with her big brother after the teacher switched back his new clothes."

Ma stopped, then proceeded heavily, "Half a year later, she died. Many millions of people died of starvation during the Great Leap Forward as well."

How nice if That Special Girl were alive, Little Sesame thought. She would have treated me much nicer than Big Sister.

Thinking of Melody, Little Sesame wondered aloud, "Why is Big Sister so special to Ba?"

Ma was surprised to hear this from the quiet Little Sesame. "What makes you think so?"

"Big Sister dares to do whatever she wants. She is not afraid of Ba when she does something wrong, and Ba never beats her." Little Sesame was not jealous of Melody; she just spoke the truth. 

"Your big sister has indeed been spoiled," Ma agreed. Then she went on to answer Little Sesame's question.

“That Special Girl's death broke Baba's heart. He complained that fate was unfair to him—his first child was handicapped; his second child died at such a young age. He wanted to know the answer to his woes, so he went to see a fortune teller. The fortune teller said that That Special Girl's soul would reincarnate as his next daughter and that his next child must be a girl, because a girl represented a flower. Everything would turn out right when a fruit came after a flower, which meant his family must have a son born after a daughter; otherwise, his family would forever have no peace and no happiness. Because of this, Baba longed for another daughter symbolizing a flower. That would bring the fruit of happiness and hope to the family.”

 Not long after That Special Girl died, Ma gave birth to Keen, who a healthy, handsome boy, so Ba liked him very much. Two years after the Great Leap Forward was over, when Ma gave birth to a baby girl, everybody was overjoyed, for she was the family's hope. That baby girl was Melody. Ba also believed that Melody was the reincarnation of his dead daughter. He wanted to make sure that Melody had enough nutrition. During Melody's nursing period, Ba killed many chickens and bought a lot of good food for Ma to eat. He said the better Ma ate the more milk Ma could make for their baby daughter. Because Melody was the hope of the family, her older brothers favored her very much as well. They waited to take turns to hold her and to rock her. When Ma quit nursing Melody, Ba bought all kinds of delicious snacks for her. He also spent a lot of time making toys for her to play with.

"Since everybody tried to spoil your big sister, she is spoiled. This is not good," Ma concluded.

Since the family had a flower already, Ba longed to have a fruit produced next. When Little Sesame was born, naturally, Ba was a little disappointed to see another girl, for he expected to have a fruit, not another flower, but he loved Little Sesame the same.

Now Little Sesame was content about who she was, but she had more questions for Ma.

"What had happened to Big Brother’s left arm?"

            “His left elbow was broken at the time he was born, so the midwife cut his forearm off."

Even though Little Sesame didn’t completely understand all the information her mother provided, she stored every single word Ma said in her mind, so she could review and digest it whenever she wanted.

"Ma, where is the Cultural Revolution? Where are the criticism meetings held? What do the Red Guards look like?”

Ma replied patiently, “Treasure, the Cultural Revolution is everywhere, and criticism meetings have been held everywhere as well. In our village, criticism meetings are always held in the village theater. Red Guards look just like your older brothers; they wear red sleeve emblems. Ma tries to keep you and your little brother from seeing or knowing these things. Your Baba only allows your older brothers to talk about these things with him at the private plot when they work together, and that is why you know very little about the Cultural Revolution. When you start school, you will be exposed to those things every day."

The Cultural Revolution sounded horrible, but Little Sesame longed to be part of it. She always felt her family was living a paradise-like life. She had loving parents and protective brothers. The villagers and team members cared for one another, and the youngsters respected the elders. Little Sesame also believed that her older brothers had a terrific time at school. Their school went to camp occasionally, and the stories about their camping trips that Keen told his family were always exciting. The students carried with them only quilts, pots, salt, and matches. They climbed through mountains and crossed rivers to remote places. They gathered wild vegetables, caught fish and small animals, gathered firewood, and cooked whatever they had when they came to rest. They used tree leaves for bowls and sticks for chopsticks. The students also brought with them cymbals and drums. They played music and sang songs at night by the campfire. They slept with their teachers and schoolmates in the open air at the foot of mountains. Those camps were to prepare the students for becoming future liberty army soldiers, because soldiers had to have survival skills to confront any circumstances.

“Treasure, what are you thinking?” Ma asked. “Just forget about the Cultural Revolution, criticism meetings, and Red Guards.”

Because her mother asked her to forget anything about the Cultural Revolution, she thought she was supposed not to mention it again. So Little Sesame told Ma, "I'm thinking about my proper name. Could I have Treasure for my proper name?"  

"Yes," Ma agreed. "But you must be more specific as to what treasure you want to be. Pearl? Silver? Gold? Ruby? There are many."

Without much thought, Little Sesame blurted, "I want to be Pearl!" Pearls often occurred in Keen’s adventure stories.

“Pearl will be a beautiful name,” Ma said as she resumed her needlework. “Then let’s try it tonight and see how this name sounds. If you like it, we will save it in our heart and use it when the time comes.”

Little Sesame’s mouth widened, and she nodded her head earnestly.

“Mid-Autumn Festival is only a couple of days away,” Ma said in a loving tone as if she were talking to a fine little girl who could match up perfectly with a name like Pearl. “Will you check the chestnut tree more often to collect more chestnuts for the festival, Pearl?”

“Yes, Ma,” Little Sesame answered happily. But, seconds later, she threw her palms over her eyes—she was embarrassed for wanting to be as special as a pearl.

“It’s now time to sleep, Pearl.”

CHAPTER THREE

Mid-Autumn Festival

Little Sesame woke with great excitement on the 15th day of the eighth month. It was the Mid-Autumn Festival. The lantern parade was going to be fun, and the food would be yummy.

After breakfast, Ma called home the chickens and ducks and Grandpa helped her kill a big rooster and a huge duck.

Little Sesame’s five-year-old brother Bright cheered as he watched Ma lift the animals up and down in the boiling water until they were well-scalded.

When Ma took them out of the water, Little Sesame cheered, “Ma, I want to help!”

“Me, too,” Bright said.

Ma let the eager children help her rub and pluck the feathers off. Then they followed Ma to the stream where she washed the rooster and duck.

#

Baba returned midmorning, bringing with him mooncakes, tofu, brown sugar, wine, candles, incense sticks, and paper money. He purchased all these with the money from selling two big roosters and a wagon full of fresh vegetables and fruits. He hauled these things into town to sell long before his family awoke.

“Ba! Ba!” Little Sesame and Bright hugged Ba’s legs as if they hadn’t seen their father for an age.

“I know what my little sheep and little rooster were expecting,” Ba beamed, giving each of them a pat on the head. He called the kids sheep and rooster since Little Sesame was born in the sheep year and Bright in the rooster year.

The children dug their hands inside Ba’s shirt pocket and fished out some hard candy.

“I prefer lollipops, but I’m happy with the hard candy, too,” Bright whispered to Little Sesame.

“Me, too,” she whispered back.

The children enjoyed the candy and smiled contentedly.

Ba hurried through his breakfast and then left for work.

Mid-Autumn Festival was not an official holiday, so the male workers still had to participate in collective labor. However, all the female workers were allowed to take the day off to prepare for the festival feast.

#

The Mid-Autumn Festival was an important festival. Team Two, the team Little Sesame’s family belonged to, killed a big hog and was going to distribute the meat to its members. On their way to the team headquarters to pick up the pork, Little Sesame and Bright ran and skipped before Ma. Like her kids, Ma was in good spirits. She sang a happy song and swung the little basket in her hand back and forth.

Many people were already at the team headquarters. Ma joined the other women chatting in groups.

When the butcher carried the whitened carcass of the hog over to the butchering board, everybody knew it was time to divide it for each family. Everybody gathered around it and pointed out which part they wanted.

When the women saw the butcher's helper coming with a can, they all rushed to him like a swarm of bees. Each family had to draw a number from the can. Each number was written on a small piece of paper, which had been folded, so no one could see the number she was drawing, and each family would receive the meat in ascending order. The butcher would cut the meat from the neck to the hind legs. That would be fair when no one could choose which part she wanted. Number one would get the first section of the hog, number two would go next, and so on.

“You two are my lucky stars,” Ma told her kids. “Little Sesame, you draw Grandma’s number, and Bright, you draw ours.”

Little Sesame and Bright handed Ma what they drew, and Ma announced, “8 and 13.”

Since the size of the portion for each family was distributed according to the family size, no one could exactly figure out which part of the pork would be her portion even if she had her number already.

“I want this part,” one woman pointed at the section with a lot of fat.

“I want that one, too,” another woman hoped. “It would make the bamboo shoots tastier.”  

Everybody waited anxiously for her turn. When her portion was fat, she would yell or jump up and down for joy, like a little kid, and then would happily take her portion straight home. When her portion was lean, she would stay there, watching silently until the end, to see if the butcher had anything left for exchange.

Ma was happy with the portions she received and headed home straight.

On the way home, Bright and Little Sesame sang songs they learned from Melody. When they ran out of songs they knew, they made up their own song:

We like mooncakes. We like mooncakes.

We are going to eat mooncakes tonight, tonight, tonight.

We are going to parade tonight, tonight, tonight.

We are going to have fun tonight, tonight, tonight.

After lunch, Ba had to take some gifts to visit his mother-in-law, Wai-po. It was their custom to do so in the countryside––sons-in-law thank their mothers-in-law for the fine wife they have. While Ba went to pick the biggest pumpkin from the garden, Ma called the chickens home and caught the biggest rooster. She tied its legs and wings up and put it in a basket. Ba carried the pumpkin, the rooster, two thirds of their pork, some eggs, some chestnuts, and one package of mooncakes to visit his mother-in-law.

In the meantime, Ma set off to visit Auntie Benzi with one package of mooncakes and the remainder of the pork. Auntie Benzi was Ma’s best friend and her childhood neighbor, as well as Melody's homeroom teacher. Auntie Benzi was from the city. She lived among the Team Two members but didn’t belong to any teams, so she didn’t have pork and had to buy everything for the festival. Little Sesame didn't say anything, but she felt sad to see that there was no pork left for themselves. Always knowing what her daughter was thinking, Ma soothed Little Sesame, “Don’t worry, Treasure. You will have pork to eat—we are going to eat O-Po's pork.”

When the sun went down under the mountains, Melody and Little Sesame headed home with wild berries. Their mother was still busy cooking dinner. Without being asked, they filled the big wooden tub with water and bathed themselves in the tub in their own room.

Little Sesame felt comfortable with her clean clothes on. She skipped happily.

While Ma was bathing Bright, Little Sesame followed Melody and sneaked into the kitchen to see what Ma had cooked for dinner. They saw only some vegetables on the clay stove. The good dishes were kept warm in the steamer in the biggest wok of the three. In the middle-sized wok was cooked rice. Delicious-smelling chicken was still cooking in the small-sized wok.

Melody looked around. Nobody was in sight. Her face had a satisfied gleam. Quickly and quietly, she grabbed a pair of chopsticks, digging into the wok where the chicken was and coming up with her treasure. She did it twice and pocketed the pieces, then sneaked out to the sidewall, with Little Sesame following behind.

Fishing the chicken out of her pocket, Melody handed one piece to her younger sister and kept the other for herself. The chicken looked so delicious with its light-brown color, and it smelled so good. They hadn't had chicken for eight months, since the Spring Festival. Little Sesame had a desire to devour the piece of chicken, but she didn't dare. She handed it back to Melody and told her that they'd better not eat it; otherwise, their tongues would be cut off according to the World of Yin. Melody grabbed it without a word and ate it merrily. Little Sesame watched her big sister eat every mouthwatering bit off the bone.

After the chicken had traveled down to her stomach, Melody wiped her mouth with her sleeve and told Little Sesame something that surprised the younger girl. “What Ma has told us is a lie. She just wants to keep us from stealing food.”

#

A little later, seeing their grandfather carry a table over, Melody said, “O-Lao, do you need help?” But the grandfather asked Melody and Little Sesame to carry the benches from his living room to theirs. That meant O-Lao, O-Po, Uncle, and Clear were coming to have dinner with them, which was what they did on every festival.

Then, O-Po came and whispered something to Ma. But Ma said, "I don't think so. Let's wait a little later or the people will see and catch us." They were talking about ancestor worship.

Although the government forbade ancestor worship, the Lang family always took the risk whenever they celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival and Spring Festival.

After it was completely dark, O-Po and Ma set the table, and O-Lao prepared the "paper money" for the ancestors. Ma sent Melody, Bright, and Little Sesame to the private plot that was on the other side of the pond to tell their father and older brothers that dinner was ready. The children walked in a line slowly and quietly, almost tiptoed towards the plot, because there were many wolves in the mountains, and they didn’t want to let any wolves hear them.

Thinking of wolves, what happened not long ago came back to haunt Little Sesame. While the three of them were playing soldiers, marching along the path behind their house, a big wolf walked by just in front of Bright. They didn't pay any attention to it, thinking it was a dog. Minutes later, they were stunned to see that "dog" carrying a big chicken in its mouth and running in front of them to the mountain. Yelling, O-Po ran after it. "Beat the wolf! Beat the wolf!" Later, the children were told that hungry wolves might eat kids as well, if the animals couldn't find anything else to eat. That piece of information really scared Little Sesame, and she tried to figure out which one of the children would have been the victim of the wolf, if O-Po’s chicken was not available to it. She asked her father how one could distinguish dogs from wolves. Her father said, “The one with its tail dropped straight down is a wolf, and the one with its tail curled up is a dog.”

The children feared running into wolves. As they moved forward, Little Sesame paid very close attention to see if any wolf would dash out. Meanwhile, in her mind she constructed ways to escape from a wolf¾ climbing up the nearest tree, jumping down into the ditch, running home, or grabbing her younger brother and big sister tightly with one in front and one in back. Little Sesame felt guilty about even imagining using her siblings as a shield.

Their father and older brothers were bathing and swimming in the pond. When the children heard jumping into the water with a splash and the laughter from the men, they knew they were safe now.  

The food on the dinner table looked wonderful and smelled delicious and made Little Sesame awfully hungry. By looking at the delicious dishes, her mouth kept watering. She couldn't take her eyes away from the dishes. She silently counted how many dishes there were. It seemed they had the same dishes every Mid-Autumn Festival, but she would never get tired of them. They had stir-fried fresh yellow eels with onions, steamed dried fish, stir-fried snails with ginger and garlic and red peppers, roasted duck, stir-fried pork with bamboo shoots, stewed chicken with chestnuts, stewed tofu with dried mushrooms, stir-fried eggs with chives, mooncakes, and plenty of vegetables.

Staring at the food, Little Sesame started to make plans. “I will touch none of the vegetables since I eat them every day. I don’t have much appetite for yellow eels and snails since I eat them once in a while. I may want a little egg with chives since we eat it occasionally. Bamboo shoots and chestnuts wouldn't interest me; but when they are cooked with meat, they taste good, so I may have a little. I will first eat pork and then chicken and then duck and then tofu. I also want some pork gravy to go with my rice. I shall not eat much rice because I need to save my stomach for the mooncakes.”

After the men changed into their clean clothes, O-Lao went outside with some lit incense sticks in his hands. All the family members lined up by age and walked outside to invite their ancestors. No one spoke a word, except for Melody. She sang loudly, “Ancestors, ancestors, please come get your gifts.” The adults hushed her, for they feared that the villagers would hear what she had sung and then send them to the village meeting to be criticized for engaging in a feudal superstition activity.

O-Lao stopped, he lowered his head to say something softly as he bowed, inviting the ancestors to come for dinner. Then they all bowed before returning home.

O-Lao carefully placed the joss sticks in the incense burner on the ancestor’s tablet, which was near the dinner table. The ancestor’s tablet was a long, tall, rose red, wooden table with elaborately carved dragons all over its sides. It was the finest piece of furniture that the Lang family owned. Many candles were burning on the tablet to represent the ancestors. O-Lao filled the small-sized rice bowls with wine and carefully laid them in front of the ancestors. He politely asked them to help themselves to the dishes.

After a while, Ba and Uncle took turns pouring a little bit more wine into the wine bowls and repeatedly asked the ancestors to make themselves at home. The wine bowls slowly filled up with more and more wine. When the bowls were full, it was time for the ancestors to have rice.

It took a long time for the ancestors to finish their meal. Little Sesame could neither see these visitors nor hear them. She also noticed that nothing had been eaten from the table. The dishes, the rice, and the mooncakes had never been touched.

But Ma assured Little Sesame that the ancestors were eating: “Since the ancestors are now spirits, they eat differently from living people. Their food is within the steam from the warm dishes. Although we cannot see them, we can feel their presence.”

Little Sesame knew that her family still felt the influence of these relatives who had lived before them. She watched her parents as they sat peacefully and patiently, waiting in respect for the ancestors.

“Ma, I don’t believe you,” Melody snapped impatiently, for she couldn’t wait for dinner to start. “First of all, there is no steam from the mooncakes and the wine, for they are cold. And you tell the stories differently each time. You told us that after people died, their souls would be taken to judgment. The super good people’s souls would go to heaven. The good people’s souls would reincarnate into humans. Other people’s souls would reincarnate into animals twelve times before they could reincarnate into humans again. The evil people’s souls would be tortured in hell. According to your reincarnation story, our ancestors’ souls wouldn’t be sitting here eating dinner. I will only believe you if you can prove the ancestors are here at the dinner table.”

O-Lao and Ba hushed for Melody to be quiet, or she would upset the ancestors. Keen and Clear smiled at Ma with their eyes enlarged, expecting to see some proof.

Ma stated flatly, “Someone once told me that a child of seven or younger would be able to see the ghosts eating. A bamboo colander and a pair of new cloth slippers are all the tools needed. The child would have to wear the bamboo colander on his or her head with the pair of new cloth slippers placed on the top of the colander.”

Melody and the teenage boys were excited to hear this. They urged Little Sesame to see the ancestors with her very eyes and then to describe to them what she had seen. Little Sesame was willing to run this experiment, too. So, quickly, Melody found a bamboo colander, and Keen took out his new cloth slippers Ma made for him to wear during Spring Festival.

But O-Lao and Ba wouldn’t let the children perform the experiment. O-Lao went on to explain: “First, your unfaithful behaviors will upset our honorable and respectable ancestors. Second, Little Sesame will be horrified to see the way ancestors eat. It is said that they eat from mouth in and nostrils out.”

Little Sesame wondered how someone could eat mouth in and nostrils out. She didn’t see any food on the table that would be small enough to get out through the nostrils, and they didn’t serve the ancestors any noodles. Soon after, Little Sesame imagined the presence of the ancestors. They sat at the table eating and talking and laughing. The sight was horrifying. They were ugly, dirty, old women and men who had no teeth, and the food they put into their mouths soon became round worms as it came out from their nostrils; whenever they talked or laughed, the food dribbled out of their mouths and back into their rice bowls. Little Sesame rubbed her eyes and shook her head, and then she found that all the ghosts had disappeared at once. As she looked at her parents, they were still sitting on the chairs peacefully and patiently, waiting in respect for the ancestors.     

Finally, O-Lao burned the "paper money" because the ancestors could use only money that was burned, that went up in smoke. Just as the ancestors themselves had disappeared and were no longer visible to the living people, so was the money no longer visible. Each person in the family took a turn to crouch before the table and thank the ancestors and ask them to bless the family to be healthy, happy, and peaceful.

Then, O-Lao nodded to the ancestors, as if the ghosts were communicating with him. He turned to his family and solemnly reminded them, “Being morally virtuous is the best route to inner peace. If we do not cheat or steal, we don’t need to worry about getting caught or being looked down on by others. We will have more friends if we are nice to others. We will make ourselves more lovable and trustworthy to the ones we love if we are highly moral. Treating others well and good behavior will bring the opportunity for personal fulfillment both now and after this earthly life.”

When they believed the ancestors had gone, it was time for the living family members to have their dinner. After putting away the ancestors’ rice and wine, they all went to sit in their seats, with the grandparents at the head of the table in front of the ancestral table. Since Melody, Little Sesame, and Bright were small children, they sat at another table, with Melody at the head.  

There were no dishes at the small children’s table. The three children took their bowls to their mother to ask for whatever food they liked. Little Sesame had two bowls—a rice bowl and an empty bowl. First, she asked Ma to moisten her rice with lots of gravy. Then, she had the empty bowl filled with food she wanted. As for Melody, first, she asked for the feet and neck and head of the chicken and duck. Bright ate whatever Ma gave to him and returned whatever he didn’t like.

“Melody, why do you always like to eat bony things?” Uncle wanted to know.

Melody responded with an easy shrug and didn’t even bother to raise her head or pay any respect to her father’s younger brother; she was much too busy eating.

Little Sesame thought Uncle would also ask her why she liked gravy and chicken wings, so she wracked her brain for possible answers. But Uncle didn't ask her.

There were some Chinese sayings Little Sesame had heard: a lady who wants to have a beautiful long neck must eat lots of bird’s necks; a person who eats animal brains will become smarter; a person who eats a lot of bird’s wings will be able to run as fast as a bird flying; and a person who likes gravy usually is a generous person. When it came to the food, Little Sesame liked the gravy simply because it tasted good, but she liked wings because she wanted to run fast. She wished to be able to run very fast in an emergency, such as encountering a hungry wolf.

The children ate quietly and listened while the adults chatted as they ate. It was a treat to have so many wonderful, special dishes.

O-Lao kept saying how delicious the food was and he praised Ma for being such a great cook. Ma replied modestly, “No, no, no, O-Lao. I am a terrible cook. The food tastes awful.”

Melody jumped in, “Good is good. Why do you have to say no?”

Ma had good news to share: Little Sesame might be able to go to school with Melody soon. “When I visited Benzi at noon, she asked about Little Sesame. After I told her that Little Sesame still follows us to our work, Benzi told me that some adult language at collective labor might not good to a little girl’s ears. She said a quiet and obedient girl like Little Sesame might be able to sit at the side of Melody’s desk. Benzi would have talked about this to the principal this afternoon.”

“I’m sure the principal would give a YES,” O-Lao said.  

 Little Sesame was delighted to hear the news. She very much wanted to know what students did at school, and what school would be like. One thing she was sure of was that her Keen’s teacher was better than Melody’s teacher. Ba, Uncle, and O-Lao were all proud of Keen’s academic performance, but they hardly mentioned anything about Melody’s academic performance. Most of Keen’s grades were above 95 on a 100-point scale and his calligraphy had often been hung on both the school's hallway and in the streets to exhibit.

Then, Little Sesame started to think more logically, “Of course, Third Brother receives higher scores for his tests since he is stronger and bigger than Big Sister. Strong and big students will have more energy to beat their textbooks.” Little Sesame had her own way of interpreting terms. Taking an exam sounded like kao-si in the dialect they spoke, which literally meant beat the book. She believed that the harder the students beat their textbooks, the higher points they would receive as their grades.

#

After dinner, everyone gathered around the table to hear stories. Although O-Lao, Ba, Ma, Keen, and Uncle all told good stories, Keen was Little Sesame’s favorite storyteller. His voice throbbed with emotion to create vivid scenes in his listeners’ imagination. When a hero and handsome man entered the story and talked, Keen raised his voice and erected his chest. With authoritative characters, Keen slapped the table with furrowed brows or steeled eyes. With wounded characters, he wrinkled his forehead and lowered his voice. He also wrinkled his forehead with traitorous characters.  

When story time was over, the children picked up the paper lanterns that O-Po and Ma had made and the watermelon lanterns that O-Lao and Ba and Uncle had carved. They took these all outside. While O-Lao lit a small pile of half-dried mosquito plants (the smoke of which could chase the mosquitoes away), Ba and Ma helped the children light the paper lanterns with dragons and boats and rabbits painted on them. Ma hung the lighted paper lanterns on the wall.

They then placed candles in the bottoms of the watermelon lanterns, and fastened a long, stout bamboo stick through the big carved stars on the sides near the top of each melon. After the candles were lighted, the children each held one end of the bamboo stick. The watermelon lanterns were safe and wouldn’t cause a fire, no matter how hard they swung the lanterns on the sticks which they used as handles. With much giggling and laughter, they paraded around the house.

Afterwards, they followed the footpaths beside the house through the hilly tea plantation. On the top of the hill, they could see many other glowing lanterns bobbing through the distant darkness. Little Sesame and her brothers and sister shouted to the other children, and they shouted back, until echoes of joy ricocheted back and forth across the hills. It was an exciting parade. And it was beautiful to see all the colorful lighted lanterns moving up the hill and then down again.

When they returned to the house, the children joined the adults in sitting outside and enjoying the full moon. Then Ma served fruit and tea and the long-awaited mooncakes. While enjoying the treats, Keen and Clear began to play their huqin and flute to entertain the family. All the family members liked to sit and listen to them and sometimes sing along. The beautiful music made the night even more magical.

As the family sat together in the cooling air, they gazed at the beautiful, brilliant moon. Ma reminded them that the goddess of the harvest was watching over them at that very moment. Little Sesame looked at the full moon and, quietly in her heart, gave compliments to the goddess.

Ma commented, “There must be a huge festival in heaven tonight. Can you see the billions of shining stars? I think they are the heavenly guests at this festival.” With these words, Little Sesame stared at the late-night sky, imagining each of the stars as a caring angel and wondering if these guests, too, were happy with the good food, entertaining stories, colorful lanterns, beautiful music, and warm feeling of being with her family.

Thinking of being watched by angels, Little Sesame looked at the stars and smiled sweetly. Because her mother had told her so many fairytales, Little Sesame always believed that angels do exist. She also believed that all angels had superpowers and that they would protect people. Then she recalled the time of her visiting angels.

On a foggy day, Little Sesame decided to meet angels, so she climbed to the top of the mountain. She had learned from movies that angels lived among clouds, and she thought fog was a special type of cloud. Normally, Little Sesame, who was afraid of wolves, would never dare to climb mountains alone, but that day, she feared nothing because she was sure that angels in the fog were watching over her. Even though she didn’t see any angels, she believed they were hiding somewhere observing her behavior. So, the little girl started looking for berries for her parents while singing sweet songs to please her angels. Then as she was picking some big, red, juicy berries, she noticed two shiny spots inside a dark cave. The shiny things instantly reminded her of hidden treasure in Keen’s stories. Looking up to the fog above her, Little Sesame said, “Thank you, angels, for guiding me to the treasure.” When moving closer to the cave, Little Sesame scared the shit out of her as she realized the shiny spots were a pair of eyes staring at her. “Wolf!” was all she could think. Suddenly, she turned her head and raced toward home, out of breath.  

When Ba announced it was bedtime, Little Sesame said good night to the Moon Goddess and made a wish to attend school. And that night, she had a lovely dream of attending school—she made many friends at school, and one of them was Xiaochun.  

CHAPTER FOUR

    Movie in the Village

Little Sesame was always thrilled about going to the village cinema, just like the rest of her family and all the folks in her village. They watched movies about once a month in warm weather seasons. Movies were the most luxurious entertainment to the villagers. The commune which Little Sesame’s village belonged to owned only one cinematograph. There were eight villages under the administration of the commune, so each village had to wait for its turn. When young people wanted to see more movies, they would travel in groups to the neighboring village where the movie was being shown. This was also the time when they associated with young people from other villages.

Finally, it was Tongxi village’s turn, and Team Two’s members dismissed themselves a little earlier that afternoon. While Ma prepared an early dinner, all her family members washed themselves clean and dressed in their best clothes.

Little Sesame and Melody bathed in a big wooden basin and helped scrub each other’s backs. The girls put on their best clothes and Ma braided their hair neatly. Although their clothes had some small patches, they were clean and comfortable and neat. Melody decorated her braids with two yellow plastic ribbons that she had bought from her schoolmate. Ma decorated Little Sesame’s braids with two pieces of red yarn she got from her coworker.

Ba weighed sunflower seeds Ma freshly roasted and wrapped the seeds with used notebook paper. Little Sesame placed the packed sunflower seeds in a small basket, and Melody filled another small basket with fresh plums and peaches. The adults and the older boys loaded their pockets with roasted sunflower seeds so that they could have something to eat during the movie. The three younger kids didn’t like to crack the seeds; they preferred to buy snacks they liked with the money earned from selling their sunflower seeds and fruits.

Right after dinner, all the Lang children, except Bright, headed to Team Five’s threshing ground where the movie would be shown. Before leaving, Little Sesame reminded her mother that she wished to see Xiaochun, so then Ma told Melody to point out Xiaochun to Little Sesame. The older girl wanted to know why, and Ma simply replied that a team member had mentioned good things about Xiaochun and Little Sesame was curious to know who she was. Eager to leave the house, Melody didn’t ask further.

Movies were always played by the creek, inside the gated threshing ground of Team Five, where was the center of Tongxi Village. Long before the movie started, Delight and Keen and Clear each carried a bench and marched toward Team Five, with Little Sesame and Melody following. Then other children joined to walk with them. They talked and laughed and joked all the way to Team Five’s threshing ground. The entire atmosphere was vibrant with everybody’s happiness and barely-contained excitement.

#

Many people were already there, most of them were children. The screen had already been set by fastening a big piece of white cloth on two bamboo poles. While two projectionists were setting up the cinematograph, four well-built young men sat next to the movie machine. They were selected to generate electricity with manpower in case something went wrong with the diesel oil generator that was used to operate the cinematograph. Dressed in their best clothes and with fashionable haircuts, the young men posed as cool guys. They wanted to seize this opportunity to attract pretty girls, but girls whose looks were their biggest asset preferred city men, or sons of influential government officials.

Between the young men and the cinematograph was an exercise bicycle-like metal machine. If the diesel oil electricity generator stopped working during the movie, the young men would generate electricity to continue the movie by taking turns to mount the seat of the exercise bicycle-like thing, grasp the handle, and pedal the motor with the greatest strength they could exert. The small chain on the bicycle-like machine was connected to a bigger chain that was connected to a motor. Electricity was generated through pedaling and then saved in the motor, and the motor was connected to the cinematograph. If the young men didn’t pedal hard enough, the pictures on the screen would become blurry and unfocused and the sounds wouldn’t be clear.

The two projectionists were twin brothers, whose father was the head of the commune. Everywhere the twins went, there were always some charming maidens. Those girls wished to date the projectionists and marry them.

“The twin brothers are not only handsome but also come from a good family,” the girls were whispering. “If I marry one of the twins, I will always have plenty of movies to watch and my father-in-law will also assign me to a comfortable office job for my role in collective labor.” So, the girls flirted.

Even if the twins didn’t flirt back, the girls were still happy enough just being around their commune cadre’s handsome sons. The girls would bring their favorite snacks to the twins, and the twins would have lots of good snacks to take home after each movie. On the other hand, the selected, unmarried manpower generators would try their hardest to perform their best while attempting to charm and impress the pretty girls. So, before the movie started, many people also liked to gather around the cinematograph to watch these young people’s interesting antics.

Team Five’s threshing ground became busier and busier with more people. Some movie goers browsed through the available snacks and fruits to find their favorites. Some waited for their friends. Some adults walked around to talk with acquaintances from other teams or other villages. Little Sesame sold her sunflower seeds to moviegoers while Melody sold plums and peaches. Then, suddenly, Melody nudged her little sister’s elbow and whispered, “Here comes Xiaochun. The one in the red flower shirt with a round face.”

Little Sesame’s eyes followed her big sister’s and landed on a happy and energetic girl with a chubby face. Xiaochun carried a long bench on her shoulder and walked between her two younger brothers. She had two thick, long braids and looked much older and taller than other thirteen-year-old girls. She smiled sweetly as she talked with her brothers, in a way that made it seem as if she were the boys’ mother. Then she stopped to buy sugarcanes, asked the seller to cut them into smaller sections, and handed the portions to the boys. She didn’t keep any to herself. The more Little Sesame gazed at Xiaochun the more she liked her, especially the two big dimples on her chubby face and the red ribbons on her long braids.

Little Sesame approached Xiaochun and held out a pack of sunflower seeds, but she was too shy to say a word.

“No, thank you,” Xiaochun said politely and walked away.

At first, Little Sesame was stunned. Then, she walked quickly to catch up Xiaochun and slipped the sunflower seeds into Xiaochun’s pocket. “This is my gift to you. Freshly roasted sunflower seeds.”

Xiaochun turned, her face puzzled, and asked, “Why do you want me to have this?”

“People in Team Two talked all the good things about you. I want to grow up just like you!” Little Sesame replied.

In a reaction between pleasantly surprised and embarrassed, Xiaochun didn’t know what to say or what to do for a few seconds, but then quickly, she patted Little Sesame’s head and inquired, “You are Keen’s sister, aren’t you?”

Feeling like she won the lottery, Little Sesame nodded. “Yes, I am! I’m Little Sesame, the plant sesame, not the animal pig. So, you know my Third Brother!”

Xiaochun smiled. “Thank you for the gift. That is very sweet of you.” Turning to her idiot-looking brother who was staring at Little Sesame, Xiaochun said, “Give Little Sesame a section.”

Little Sesame and Melody used some of their earnings to buy sesame candy bars. They traded some of their unsold snacks for other kids’ fruits and gave the baskets with the remaining sunflower seeds and fruits to their brothers.

It was still not dark enough to start the movie, but some people shouted excitedly, “It’s already dark! Let’s watch the movie.” Many others echoed and cheered, “Yeh!!! It’s dark enough to start the movie.” The rest smiled widely, hoping that the movie projectionists would listen to the shouters and start the movie.

Most people were seated on their own benches and chairs on the threshing ground. Many young people sat on top of the stone wall. A few school children sat in trees by the creek, and Clear and Keen were among these children. Melody sat with her friends in the very front, by the movie screen. Little Sesame wanted to cling to her big sister, so she could pretend she had friends, too. But Melody said firmly, “Go away to where Ma is. Don’t stay with me.”

Little Sesame felt bored sitting with her parents. Ma was on a chair with Bright on her lap, and her other family members were cracking sunflower seeds while chatting. Ba and O-Lao shared a bench, Uncle and Delight shared another bench, and O-Po occupied the third. Little Sesame liked to sit with neither Delight nor O-Po. She wished to sit on her father’s lap, but it would be too selfish of her to bug her father, who must have been tired.

So Little Sesame carried a small stone with her and sneaked to sit behind Melody without her sister knowing. Eager to learn how to have conversations with friends so that she could make lots of friends once she started school, Little Sesame loved to listen to the conversations Melody and her friends had.

The movie was about how the Chinese guerilla bravely fought against Japanese soldiers who invaded China. Melody and her friends screamed in pained horror when the Japanese soldiers brutally tortured their captured Chinese guerilla member with a big, burning iron rod. When the evil Japanese saw that the guerilla member would rather die than betray his guerilla cadres, they scattered salt over the guerilla’s freshly opened wound. Then the Japanese tied the guerilla member’s hands and legs and hung him from a pole by his hands with his legs dangling in the air. From time to time, they beat him and then poured salty water over his wound to wake him up from fainting away.

It was unbearable for the girls to watch such inhumane torture, but no one wanted to leave the movie theater. They threw small rocks at the Japanese devils on the screen to show how much they hated the Japanese. Little Sesame was not brave enough to watch that scene. She covered her eyes with her palms. Then from time to time, she peeked through her fingers to see if the cruel torture was over.

Everyone cheered at the ending when the guerilla killed the Japanese security guards, set a fire to burn the entire Japanese army alive, and then happily joined the Liberty Army.   

The villagers discussed the movie for days, and workers in Team Two were not an exception. The more they talked about the movie, the more they appreciated the guerilla and the Liberty Army that made it possible for them to live the peaceful and secure lives that they lived. They were so satisfied with the simple lives they led, and poverty was not a concern to them.

#

After the movie, Little Sesame often thought of her role model Xiaochun. One day Little Sesame was sick and her parents left home all by herself. The big hut was so quiet, too much silence made her feel scared to be alone. Then, suddenly, a hen started cackling. The hen had just laid an egg. Little Sesame scrambled out of bed and rewarded the hen with a handful of unhusked brown rice grains, and sure enough, as soon as the hen saw her reward, it stopped cackling. It made Little Sesame feel much better to realize that she was not alone—even if it was just a hen.

Little Sesame went to the wooden window and opened it, letting the sunshine flood into the room. But as soon as she thought of the possibility of wolves seeing her and then eating her, she shut the window close in a hurry. Thinking of wolves made her hair stand up on end.

At night, wolves often came in packs and stood right outside the hut howling, howling, and howling for a long time. Their howls sounded so scary that even the adults didn’t dare go out to chase the wolves away, and their howls made Little Sesame hold her breath while she quivered under the quilt. She was afraid that the wolves would break the window and come inside to eat her up if they heard her breathing.

One time, a man from Team One returned home early from a movie and saw a pack of wolves herding a calf to the mountain. Even during the day, wolves carried away chickens in front of O-Po. Another time, when a wolf stole one of O-Po’s piglets, Ba and Keen chased the wolf half-way up the mountain, but that stubborn wolf wouldn’t give up the piglet even when Ba beat it with a pole. While Ba beat the wolf, Keen pulled the piglet. At last, the wolf let go of its food and ran for its life. The piglet was dead, so Ma cooked it and the Lang family feasted.   

With the door and windows closed, Little Sesame was soon overcome with a vague but certain sense of boredom. The stories of her role model Xiaochun resurfaced in her mind, and Little Sesame wondered what Xiaochun would have done in this situation. So, she started looking around the house to search for chores she could do.

There was nothing to do in the bedrooms and nothing to do in the central room. When she entered the kitchen, she was happy to see the dishes still soaking in the wok, unwashed. Carrying a chair and positioning it next to the clay stove, Little Sesame stood on the chair and proceeded to wash the dishes. One by one, from the inside to the outside, she carefully washed them clean. After the dishes were done, she scooped the dirty water into the large wok, which was used for pig mash. Then she scooped clear water from the large crockery pot to wash the dishes two more times. After the dishes were dried and placed neatly into the cabinet, she no longer felt sick at all. Little Sesame was proud.

It was always her big sister washing the dishes and Little Sesame drying them. Now she learned how to wash dishes. She was in high spirits and wanted to search for more chores to do. 

Little Sesame wished to cook lunch but didn't know the proper ratio of water to rice. So, she decided to cook rice porridge instead, thinking rice porridge would be easier to manage, because all she needed to do was fill the wok with lots of water and then add a bowl of rice to boil. Little Sesame started to fill the middle-sized wok with water, and swiftly scooped some rice grains into the wooden rice pot and added some water to wash the rice. She poured the milky water that resulted from rinsing the rice into the large wok. She was excited about what she was doing, as she realized doing some chores could make a person smarter and happier. It amazed Little Sesame that all the steps came to her automatically for things she really wanted to do.

Hearing Ma talking with other women, Little Sesame couldn't wait to show Ma what she had done. She pulled Ma into the kitchen.

Ma said, "You what?" in a surprised rather than questioning tone. She fondly rumpled her little girl’s head and looked at her with twinkling eyes. Seeing the way her mother responded made Little Sesame feel sweeter and happier than drinking a cup of sugar water. The other ladies followed them into the kitchen. One lady took a bowl out of the cabinet and examined it all over and then showed it to the others. "See how carefully Little Sesame washed it. Even the bottom!" Then all the ladies whose sons were Little Sesame’s age wanted her to be their daughter-in-law.

At the dinner table, Ma told the entire family about how surprised her co-workers were at how clean the dishes Little Sesame had washed. Melody wrinkled her nose at her younger sister and sniffed. “If Little Sesame has done such a marvelous job, why don't you ask her to wash the dinner dishes? Let’s see how clean she can wash the dishes."

But Little Sesame didn't want to wash dishes in the dim and scary kitchen at night. For one thing, it would take her too long to complete the task. It would also be an unpleasant task having to wash dishes under the dim light from the kerosene oil lamp while her heart and mind would be far away yearning for an after-dinner story. Anyway, she often felt too lazy to do anything after dinner. Thinking of all this, Little Sesame regretted what she had done that morning.

"Little Sesame, how about you and your big sister taking turns washing the dishes? You wash and she dries tonight, then she washes, you dry tomorrow," suggested Ba. He looked at the little girl, his eyes sparkled with encouragement. For as long as Little Sesame could remember, her father never looked at her this way before. No words could express how happy and special she felt at that moment. Without a second of hesitation, she answered cheerfully, "Yes, Ba, I will wash the dishes tonight!" Then she quickly added, "If you let me, I will do it every night!"

No one understood how much Little Sesame wanted attention from her father, how much she wanted to impress her father with every opportunity she could possibly have, and how much she wanted her father to love her as much as he loved her big sister.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Amazing First Tractor

The community movies were so entertaining that the team members kept talking about it until Mr. Len brought much greater news to share: “Our village is going to purchase a tractor to plow the rice fields. The commune leaders are not happy about Team Five and Team Three falling behind with planting the rice seedlings. Yesterday, the village leaders had selected two high school graduates to learn how to operate the machine.”

The news excited everyone. They cheered, and nobody could wait to see the tractor.

“When the tractor will come to plow our rice fields,” they asked.

“Our team will be the last in line,” Mr. Len said. “Since we have so few rice fields, it will take the tractor less than half a day to finish plowing the fields.”

Nevertheless, the Team Two members were not disappointed to learn that they would be the last to use the tractor, for the village leaders’ decision was understandable. It amazed everyone that the tractor could work this fast.”

“How nice if our village has a few more of such machines, but with different functions, so the machines will take over all of our work,” they wished.

Mr. Len disappointed them a little bit by explaining the real function of the village’s tractor. “The tractor cannot plow the raw rice fields. It will only break big clumps of already plowed fields and make the fields even for planting rice seedlings. So, we still need to use cows and water buffalos to plow the field.”

Xiaoha, a middle-aged know-it-all man, remarked, “Oh, it’s the tractor for leveling the already plowed the fields. Then, it is not an iron buffalo, but an iron person. They have a name for an iron person. It is called ROBOT.”

People wanted to know where Xiaoha learned all those advanced terms.

He smiled proudly and said, “Magazines. I go to the city to read them on weekends while you work in your private plots. I know lots more, but for now I just want to keep my knowledge to myself. If I tell you now, it will be like I am telling a cow, for you know nothing about any of those things. And then you will annoy me with many nonsense questions.”

Little Sesame was glad that her father was assigned to plow the rice fields. She loved to follow Ba to find loaches and yellow eels among the freshly plowed fields. Whenever she saw a loach, she positioned her hands on both sides of the fish and then moved her hands closer and closer to it. With a quick scoop, she had the loach safe in her palms and then she immediately covered her palms. After opening her hands to release the fish into her basket, she felt the loach belonged to her completely. Catching loaches, which required perfect hand-eye coordination, was an enjoyable activity to Little Sesame, especially when the loaches wouldn’t bite her.

Whenever Little Sesame found a yellow eel, she would scream for her father, shivering with horrified excitement. “Ba, hurry! I found a big yellow eel!!” She didn’t have the guts to touch the eel, for it slithered and was too big with much too sharp teeth. Little Sesame didn’t even dare to look at the reptile for too long, but still she wished to find more eels than loaches because eels tasted more delicious.

Hearing her call, Ba would stop the water buffalo to catch eels for his daughter. To make Little Sesame feel at ease, Ba cut a stick from the nearest bank and strung the eel on the stick so that the eel couldn’t bite her or run away. 

When they headed home for lunch, Ba carried the basket with loaches and yellow eels in it, and Little Sesame happily rode on the smooth back of the water buffalo. The huge animal walked steadily with a comfortable pace, and Little Sesame loved the relaxing and hypnotically rhythmic feeling of riding the buffalo. Sometimes, she liked to close her eyes to feel the motion of its movement.

Then all of a sudden, the water buffalo started running with such great strength that Ba was unable to hold onto the buffalo handling rope. It raced to the pond to soak itself in the water with Little Sesame crying on its back. Ba jumped into the pond to get his daughter, and sensing that it would be punished for its wild behavior, the buffalo leapt out of the water almost as soon as Ba leapt in, and then the buffalo proceeded to run away to the mountains. Then the entire team had to search for the water buffalo that afternoon, and it was found in a faraway mountain by a villager after dark.

That ride scared Little Sesame to death. Not to mention she had swallowed lots of pond water and might have drowned had her father not rescued her on time. She didn’t have a nightmare that very night, but she experienced something worse than a nightmare the next morning. She was awakened by her big sister’s painful pinch, followed by humiliating screams that the entire family could hear: “Ma! Little Sesame wet the bed! I no longer want to share the bed with her—she is so stinky! Ma, did you hear? Little Sesame wet the bed. I have no place to sleep!” Melody shouted as she uncovered the guilty person’s blanket. Little Sesame ran her hand over the bed to check and found herself lying on wet sheets and her underwear soaked with pee. She gaped at her older sister and hurriedly scurried out of the bed, overcome with shame.

This was unbelievable to Little Sesame, for she remembered the whole incident so clearly. She knew she had peed, but she did it in a chamber pot in her grandmother’s garden. She was gathering pig food in the tea plantation, and suddenly, she wanted to pee, but everywhere she went were people. She tried her hardest to hold it in until she raced home, but Ma's chamber pot was not in her room. Then she raced to the outhouse, and saw Delight was occupying it. She then hurried off to O-Po’s Garden. There, she spotted a chamber pot. She looked around and found nobody was watching. She quickly slipped down her pants and sat on the chamber pot and instantly felt relieved after she released that huge amount of urine. “It was so real! How could that be a dream?” she was puzzled.

 Later that morning at the team’s headquarters, some insensitive team members wanted to know how much water Little Sesame swallowed when the water buffalo dragged her into the water. From that day on, she never wanted to ride a water buffalo ever again.

#

Finally, it was Team Two’s turn to have the tractor. One afternoon, all the workers rushed to the rice field to see the new tractor, and Little Sesame followed them excitedly. They waited on the footpath and banks long before the tractor reached the rice fields. Although no one had seen any tractors before, some people sounded as if they had lots of information about tractors and others were eager to listen. One person began, "A tractor is a very smart thing to have. It can read its master's mind. It can cook meals better and faster than any lady in our village. It can plow the field faster than a hundred water buffaloes."

To Little Sesame, a tractor sounded like a person. She wondered whether this smart and strong tractor was a male or female, but nobody talked about its gender. When the sound of PO-PO-POPO came closer and closer, someone cried out excitedly, “The tractor is coming!” pointing with a finger. Some people started shouting and running toward the tractor, as if they were welcoming the most important person in the world. Just as Little Sesame started running, Ma pulled her back gently. She said that the tractor would demonstrate and level the field right where they stood. So Little Sesame waited there anxiously.

Everyone on the road clapped and shouted as the tractor driver drove the machine toward them. Then they followed the tractor until Ba stopped the driver to let him know which field to start with. All the people surrounded the tractor and its driver. They felt the tractor gentle with their palms.

“It’s so smooth!” one woman exclaimed, “Even smoother than a baby’s face!”

The workers admired the driver for being the master of this amazing machine.

Little Sesame was taught to be polite to any guests, so as she saw the tractor move slowly toward her, she wanted to greet it but didn't know whether to call it Uncle or Auntie. So, she just smiled at it and waved, hoping to see it smile back and tell her what a good girl she was. But it did not.

"Ma, where is the tractor's mouth?" Little Sesame wanted to know, and all the people started pointing. They guessed where its mouth, nose, and eyes were. But they were not sure if they were right, so they yelled and waved for the tractor driver to stop.

Everybody was surprised to learn that the tractor had no eyes and no nose, and its mouth was not on its face! Then they asked the driver what food the tractor ate. When the driver told them the tractor only drank fuel and water, they asked him to give some water to the tractor, and so did the driver. Then they all wished that they had enough money to buy a tractor, a machine that was so smart and so strong and so cheap to keep, because it could live on only fuel and water.

Then someone started a rumor about a bus. “Last time when I went to the town, I heard people talking about a bus killing a young lady. When the bus saw the young lady, it started to chase after her. The lady was so scared that she ran and ran and ran with all her might. She ran off the road into a rice field and the bus chased her through the field until it killed her. The bus driver tried very hard to stop the bus, but it wouldn't listen to him. It listened to the ghosts that dwelled in the bus.”

“Oh, my goodness! I'm glad our village bought a tractor not a bus,” one woman cried. 

The rumor of a bus killing a young lady gave Little Sesame many nightmares. In her dreams, when she saw a bus running on a far, faraway road, she would run for life breathlessly, as if a horrible monster was chasing after her. She didn’t even have time to turn her head to check how close the bus was to her. If the bus was controlled by a ghost, then it could run as fast as the wind. To save herself, Little Sesame jumped into a ditch, hid under a bridge, or laid herself flatly among tea bushes. She woke up screaming when she realized she was lying on a pile of snakes. 

#

After the tractor leveled the already plowed the rice fields, the team members were excited that the male workers and female workers could finally work together and have more fun. Little Sesame was excited about following both her parents to the same workplace. But Ma was concerned over her coworkers’ behaviors. “Treasure, you stay far away from us, okay? The adults may get wild and crazy. Ma doesn’t want you to hear from them.” Nevertheless, Little Sesame wanted to see how the adults become crazy.

A few workers whispered and giggled as they planned an evil joke on Laosan, whose wife worked in the village’s silkworm unit instead of participating in collective labor in Team Two. One woman started, “Laosan, do you know someone from the village’s flower garden lays eyes on your wife?”

Another woman jumped in. “You must be talking about Yang Maotu. His coworkers said he goes to the village silkworm unit to see your wife often. Sometimes, he sneaks out to help your wife pick mulberry leaves.”

“That is interesting to know, but I will not worry about that. I know her best,” Laosan answered calmly.

“You ladies don’t talk behind other people’s backs. Laosan’s wife is as beautiful as a blossoming flower—who wouldn’t help her if they have the chance? Pretty women are always comfortable to look at. She will never like Yang Maotu if she is not even interested in someone like me,” crooned widower Ah-geng. 

“Ah-geng, are you laying your eyes on Laosan’s wife, too? Ha, that is why you have been visiting Laosan’s place so often after he leaves to play cards,” chortled another man.

“There is nothing between us. Everyone knows she is a virtuous woman. We both feel lonely, so we just chat. That’s all!”

“Confess, Ah-geng. There must be something more than chat between you two. I once saw she went to your place, and you closed the door right after she entered,” the first woman scoffed. Then she turned to Laosan. “Laosan, why do you go to other people’s houses to play cards almost every night and leave your wife at home? Is there anything wrong between you and your wife? What does she do at home while you are gone?”

Seeing Laosan chuckle and ignore them, Ah-geng whispered to the first woman loud enough for Laosan to hear. “I’m a widower. I miss women. If Laosan’s wife no longer comes to see me, I will make you go to bed with me.”

When Little Sesame saw the adults either smiling or laughing, she smiled, too. When Ma caught her little girl listening to the dirty conversation with great interest, she stopped smiling abruptly and ordered Little Sesame to search for snails in the nearby rice fields. But Little Sesame left reluctantly, trying to stay as close as possible to her parents’ work spot.

Laosan became mad and threw some wet soil at Ah-geng and snapped, “Stop picking on my wife, or I will make you drink the ditch water. If you daydream of my wife visiting your home, it has to be after you die. She may then go to your home to attend your funeral.”

“You bastard!” Ah-geng gasped. “Don’t use your hands, or I’m going to use mine, too.” But Ah-geng didn’t take any further actions, and other people were disappointed. The fun seeking members wanted to know when Ah-geng was going to use his hands. Ah-geng retorted that his hands would come into use later at night when he would print his name on the buttocks of Laosan’s wife. Many women and men started laughing and they challenged Ah-geng, for everyone knew the widower was illiterate. At last, Ah-geng announced that he was going to mark something on the woman’s buttocks. He asked Laosan to check his wife’s buttocks the next morning because he might ask the woman to sneak out to his place while Laosan was asleep. The others were greatly entertained. 

Next morning at headquarters, the workers were talking about how badly Laosan had beaten his wife. When the neighbors heard Laosan’s children screaming and crying, they went to see what was going go on in that house and found Laosan beating his wife with a carrying pole. Laosan wanted his wife to confess to how she had gotten a circle on her buttocks. Some people stopped Laosan while others went to get an explanation from Ah-geng. The widower was scared to learn of the beating. He just wanted to have some fun and played a mean trick. He knew Laosan’s wife always left her cleaned chamber pot to dry outside her barn. Ah-geng sneaked to her barn during the afternoon recess and blackened the edge of her chamber pot with charcoal. To avoid further fighting, Mr. Len assigned Ah-geng to watch the team’s mountains and Ah-geng left early.

But Laosan’s wife disappeared that night. Laosan turned to his neighbors for help after he couldn’t find his wife at her parents’ and relatives’ places. Not long after, every family of Team Two came out to search for Laosan’s wife. Some went to search in the tea plantations and others in the mountains.

Her four children, ages ranging from two to eleven, were among the searching groups. They cried sadly and wanted to find their mother desperately. “Ma! Where are you on such a dark night? We don’t want you to leave us. We are scared that wolves or ghosts will come to get you. We cannot live without you, Ma—please, Ma, come out and go home with us.”

Laosan called his wife now and then with a weepy voice resounding with guilt, “Yuezhen Ma, I am sorry for what I have done. Please take pity on our children. They need you and our family needs you. Please come out and go home. I will let you beat me and beat me harder because I deserve it. I beg you for your forgiveness. Please don’t let an evil trick destroy our family.”

The team members asked Laosan’s wife to come out and take pity on her children because the children were scared, and they needed their mother.

It was a fine night with no wind, and the moon was bright. The searchers walked in groups of two to three people with their ears standing on end and eyes sharp and wide-open. There was no need for them to climb up the mountains to search for the woman. Laosan’s wife was a timid person, and she wouldn’t have the guts to go deep into the mountains, where there existed homes of wolves and ghosts. Since there was no wind howling in the searchers’ ears, the searchers could hear any noise and see any movement. If there was any, they would stop to identify whether the noise of movement was coming from a small animal or from Laosan’s wife.

Laosan’s wife was a shy, quiet, pretty woman in her mid-thirties. She liked to associate with neither her neighbors nor other team members. She said no more than a simple hello with a smile to people who passed by her. Her only friend in Team Two was Ma, but she rarely visited Ma. They would chat for a while when Ma stopped by her door on her way to or from somewhere. Besides work, Laosan’s wife devoted her time to her family. Her personality and her situation would have made her feel uncomfortable to be found and then dragged home by anyone other than Ma. Very late that night, Ma found Laosan’s wife in the mountain behind her house. While comforting her friend, Ma sent her children to get Laosan and dismissed the searchers.

After Ba and Ma walked Laosan’s wife and her family home, Uncle and O-Lao wanted to know what went wrong at Laosan’s home. Before Ba reported Laosan’s story, he ordered Melody and Little Sesame to go to bed. Melody told Little Sesame, "What Ba doesn't want us to hear must be the most interesting thing." So, the girls pretended to leave, but they hid in a corner listening.

Some days later, Laosan quit participating in collective labor. He went to work as a cook for the commune’s coal mine. Laosan was a great cook, and people in Team Two always asked him to cook for a large number of people during special occasions, such as wedding receptions, birthday parties, funeral receptions, and housewarming parties. Now Laosan lived in the coal mine and came home every other weekend. Some team members blamed Ah-geng for his bad trick that cost them a full-time worker and a great cook. Ah-geng became much quieter after the incident of Laosan beating his wife. But the team members still ached for some fun. Sometimes, Ah-geng would become their subject of fun. One worker teased him by saying, “Ah-geng, now you should have a better chance of getting Laosan’s pretty wife.”