“A man can’t cry out in pain. But suffer long enough, and you even forget what pain feels like.”
Chen Tie came to the city at fifteen and became an apprentice at an auto repair shop. He slept on discarded tires and lived on cold steamed buns. Even when his master called him “dumber than a pig,” he didn’t dare talk back. His mother secretly tucked money into the pickle jar, while his father wove rattan chairs until his fingers bled, all so Chen Tie could “make a life for himself in the city.” He learned to fix cars, and he learned to keep quiet: never speak of pain, never mention exhaustion, and swallow all his bitterness.
Ten years passed. He had become a highly skilled mechanic, yet he was still a “broke bachelor.” At a blind date, the woman asked, “Do you own a place in the city?” His friend Li Dachui was abandoned by his wife and nearly died by suicide after drinking pesticide. Chen Tie could only keep him company as they slept beneath a bridge. His mother scavenged rotten vegetable leaves, and even after suffering a stroke, his father kept weaving rattan chairs, saying, “I don’t want to be a burden to my son.” Chen Tie gripped his wrench. He could fix machines, but not his fate.
When he turned forty, the repair shop was demolished. His father died, and the urban village was slated for demolition too. The neighbors begged him, “Master Chen, don’t go.” A Hong, the widow who ran the barbershop, brought him a bowl of hot soup and asked, “After all these years, have you never thought about settling down?” He lowered his head and tightened a screw. “Someone like me? Forget it.”
This is a story about “accepting your lot, but never giving up.”
