Sixty-year-old Li Xiulian has never left her village. She has made jar after jar of wheat-berry sauce by the stove, and each sealed jar holds more than a tangy fragrance: it holds the shadows of her four children, scattered far and wide. The eldest, Wang Jianjun, in Shanghai, says his business is stable. The second, Wang Xiang, in France, says life is sweet. The third, Wang Hua, in Beijing, says her paintings are selling well. The youngest, Wang Xiaoguang, in the provincial capital, says he’ll come home as soon as things quiet down.
But on the day of her sixtieth birthday, the stage was set up in the courtyard, the wheat-berry sauce was opened, and four pairs of insoles wrapped in red cloth were laid out again and again. Not one of the children came.
Her husband, Wang Shoutian, crouched beside the haystack and pulled out a crumpled old ticket stub from a traveling opera troupe. When he was young, he had traveled with the troupe to the regional capital and seen roads wider than the wheat fields. But later he stayed to tend the land and care for his family, pressing his dream of “going out into the world” into the ashes in his tobacco pipe. That night, he told Li Xiulian, “Don’t wait anymore. Let’s go find them.”
This is no visit to pressure their children into marriage. It is an “escape” by two old people. They may not understand the “pressure” their children talk about, but they know that “life isn’t just about staying home. You have to go see the sun outside, too.” They may not have had much schooling, but they understand that “grown children are kites. The string is in your heart, but you have to take your own steps forward.”
From the village minibus to the provincial capital’s subway, from Shanghai’s office towers to Beijing’s art studios, the old couple draw on the resilience of the haystack and step beyond the familiar field paths, one step at a time. The tangy fragrance of wheat-berry sauce drifts on the wind in unfamiliar places, becoming their compass. It turns out the best kind of freedom isn’t having your children gathered around you. It’s carrying the warmth of home as you shape your life into what you want it to be.
