Cocoon Day

In the late 1990s, Zhao Shunran was born in an ordinary county in the south called "Yunyu". Her arrival was accompanied by an inaudible sigh from her father, Zhao Liye, and reluctant comfort from her grandmother, who said, "It's okay, it's considerate." Life in the Zhao family is like the turbid river in the county town. It is calm on the surface, but underneath there are deep-rooted rules and silent expectations - expectations for boys. In this depressing soil, her mother Li Huifen is Shunran's only source of warmth and her deepest pain. She combed Shunrun's hair with calloused hands and secretly slipped her a boiled egg late at night. She was the only person who truly "saw" her in her daughter's eyes. However, this love is mixed with bitter salt. Huifen's eyes were often complicated: when her daughter was holding a book, she would reveal an almost jealous trance, as if she saw in her daughter the youth and possibilities that she had never had the opportunity to touch; Huifen said to Shunran over and over again: "You have to strive for success, go out, and don't be like your mother." But when Shunran really showed her talents in academics, she would murmur worriedly: "It's not good if a girl is too strong, her husband's family won't like her in the future." She longs for her daughter to escape from this quagmire, but she subconsciously uses the rules of this quagmire to measure her daughter's future. Shunran loved her mother, relied on her, and regarded her as the only driftwood in this suffocating family; but she could not ignore the unquestionable priority in her mother's eyes towards her younger brother when the family resources were stretched thin. This "love" and "more love" are like fine needles, piercing Qinghe's heart day and night, turning her feelings for her mother into a rolling "sea of ​​hatred and love" - ​​deep love, but also powerless hatred. Shunran's childhood was the always extra piece of meat in her younger brother Zhao Chengyu's bowl. It was her silence in the corner when relatives touched her brother's head and said, "There is a successor to the Zhao family." She is like a grass planted in the cracks of the wall, trying hard to absorb the thin sunlight: the textbook is her refuge, and the world outside the window is a vague temptation. Everything that happened outside seemed to be just the distant background sound on the TV. What she felt more clearly was the exhaustion of her mother, Li Xiuhui, arguing over a few cents at the vegetable market, and her father's nagging at the dinner table, "What's the point of a girl reading so many books? Find a good family as soon as possible." Enter adolescence, and the air of misogyny becomes thick and concrete. Gossips in school about girls "not loving themselves" spread faster than textbook knowledge; when she grew up, relatives began to "walk around" enthusiastically, mostly targeting men in the county who "had houses and stable jobs", as if her value was about to be marked with a price tag. As an adult, the college entrance examination became the only straw she grasped. She tried her best, but her scores were embarrassingly hanging on the second line. Should I repeat my studies for a year and try to "turn around", or should I accept my fate and go to a "practical" college and work early to help my family? Family quarrels, financial pressure, and the notion that "girls don't have enough stamina" around her trapped her like an invisible net. Shun Ran looked at her mother, longing for firm support, but what she saw was her mother's silence and evasive eyes under her father's tough attitude. There was concern and helplessness in her eyes, but she lacked the courage to fight the world for her daughter. At that moment, Shun Ran understood that a mother's love has boundaries, and these boundaries are often defined by the needs of her younger brother. Time advanced to the year when Zhao Shunran graduated, Shunran struggled to settle down in a small company in the provincial capital and became a "promising" role model among families in the county town. However, the pressure to get married is always there. Returning to hometown during the Spring Festival, former classmates gather together. Some people show off the leisure of "marrying well", while others have been smoothed by life and talk about the shortcomings of their parents. In the blind date corner, her mother brought her photos and bargained with people like selling goods. The other person's conditions were repeatedly weighed: bride price, house, job stability... She looked at her tired self in the mirror and felt a huge absurdity and alienation. Discussions on women's issues are in full swing on social networks. The glamor of big cities and the reality of the county she has experienced and witnessed are like two separate worlds. She saw the forbearance and sacrifice of women of her mother's generation, and also saw the confusion of the younger generation caught between tradition and modernity. She began to read awkwardly, wondering: What is a "good family"? What's behind "stability"? Apart from her status as "daughter", "sister" and "potential wife", who is "Zhao Shunran"? She tried to understand her mother and the maternal love that was distorted under the patriarchal structure - there was complicity, sacrifice, unfinished dreams, as well as secret jealousy and projected expectations for her daughter. This understanding could not eliminate the pain of the past, but it allowed her to see a similarly devastated land called "Mother" in the waves of the sea of ​​hatred. "Cocoon Day" is the spiritual history of Zhao Shunran, and it is also the epitome of the growth of a generation of women. In the roar of the rapid development of the times, in the fierce collision between traditional and modern concepts, and in the ubiquitous atmosphere of misogyny, how does an ordinary girl go from being ignorant, obedient, struggling, to finally shining her own light in the gap, looking for a way out that belongs to "people" and not just "women"? This is a story about silence, pain, slight resistance, belated awakening and the complex bond between mother and daughter, recording the trajectory of dust in the torrent. Purpose: Focus on women's plight and growth