Bai Fengying

A story set in a bygone era, with marriage before love, a landlord family, a shotgun wedding, a family business, nuanced portrayals of human nature, and tangled love and hate. (There are no truly good people, especially in the countryside, where plenty of dirty business goes on out of sight.)

After Bai Fengying passed away, Zhang Yue wrote a book with Bai Fengying as its protagonist. It tells the story of several families through the generations, as well as everything Bai Fengying witnessed over her 120 years. The Bai family was a respected scholarly family, and she was its eldest daughter. Following her parents' arrangement, she married Zhang Jinlong. Later, she fled famine with him and came to what is now Xuzhou. The Zhang family had served as imperial physicians for generations, but Zhang Jinlong himself knew nothing about medicine. He worked as a driver for wealthy families. Bai Fengying and Zhang Jinlong had four children, two boys and two girls. Zhang Jinlong died young, but he left behind valuable assets that allowed the Zhang family to rise from poverty and finally enjoy a better life.

The Zhao family also appears in the story. For generations, they were poor, and by Zhao Chunsheng's generation, they were nearly starving. His three older sisters married young and left home. His mother borrowed money to find him a wife, but fortunately, he married a good woman who knew how to manage a household. Zhao Chunsheng worked hard, too, and eventually his carpentry skills brought them a better life.

But that's not the end of it. The fourth generation squanders the wealth their ancestors worked so hard to accumulate, returning the family to square one overnight.

Finally, I want to mention that “Old Bai Mao” passed away at the end of last year. But she was an extraordinary person to me. She inspired me when I was a girl, and I want to live a life as wonderful as hers.