Running for People

My name is Chen Dashan. This name is imprinted on me by the vast mountains in southeastern Guizhou. My childhood was spent measuring the height of mountains with hunger, and feeling the barrenness of the land with bare feet. When I was sixteen years old, carrying a few sweet potatoes that my mother had secretly stuffed into my luggage, I boarded the green train that symbolized a turning point in fate. From then on, my life was closely tied to the word "running around". My youth was squandered in the jungle of steel and concrete, watering other people's cities with my sweat, but I couldn't find a light of my own. I moved from one construction site to another, from the scorching heat in Shenzhen to the windy sand in Xinjiang. My footprints drew a map of China. I am like a migratory bird, the only direction of migration is the opposite direction from home. The meaning of my life is Axiu, the five children who came into the world one after another. Every remittance receipt is a love letter I write to my family; every back view of me leaving home is soaked in the heartbreaking cries of my children. I use my spine to carry the weight of life, and use my calloused hands to build a distant place for them that can shelter them from the wind and rain. I witnessed the children growing up, studying, and starting a family, and I also experienced five times of fighting for "family" with all my heart. My lumbar muscle strain and rheumatism are the medals left behind by this long battle. Today, I am sixty years old. My peers are already having fun with their grandchildren, but I am still standing on the scaffolding I am familiar with. The setting sun stretches my shadow very long, like an endless road. This "Running" is my blood and tears. It is an epic about love and responsibility written by an ordinary little person who spent his whole life.