Li Xiuying was born in an ordinary village in Jimo, Shandong.
She has three older brothers, so she is luckier than many girls in the same village - she is not called Zhaodi or Pandi, and she does not drop out of school early to go home to look after the children. She read, taught, and wrote well. In the years when everyone thought that girls would get married sooner or later, she stubbornly wanted to see the world outside the village.
Later, she married Zhang Shidong, a college student from Northeast China.
She thought it was a road leading to a distant place, but she didn't know that marriage was never the end of the story.
Poverty, quarrels, four children, daily necessities, food, rice, oil and salt, she built up a family bit by bit in her imperfect days. The eldest daughter and the second daughter worked early, and the third daughter and the youngest son were admitted to college; some stayed in Shanghai and some went to Shenzhen. The children grew up, got married, and had children of their own.
From the countryside where food and clothing are scarce, to the city where the lights stay on all night; from an era when girls were criticized for studying, to the next generation entering university and traveling to distant places.
More than eighty years have passed, many people have left their hometown, and many things have changed.
But the roots of a family must be guarded by someone.
Li Xiuying is not a hero.
She is just like a plant, growing, taking root, branching out, and bearing fruit in its own time.
This is her whole life.
It is also an ordinary family's life in the times.
The intention: to use the life of an ordinary woman to write about the growth, continuation and choice of a family in the changing times. Plants and trees have roots, and so do people. Through the changes of time, we can see how a family grows step by step into what it is today.
