Autumn Is Great, If You Are Here

In a small town in western Guangdong in 1983, Lin Qiuyue, an unattractive seventeen-year-old girl with a square face, small eyes, thick lips, and dark skin, was an ugly girl who her neighbors said would "never get married". That winter, she, who was a fan of Leslie Cheung, was detained for getting into a fight with someone while watching the Hong Kong TV show "Golden Songs" at her neighbor's house. Her sick father learned about it and his condition worsened and he passed away. The only top job left for her by her father was a factory job, and she was demoted from the financial position to the papermaking workshop. From then on, she spent her entire youth amidst the roaring machines and the pungent smell of alkali. She has always been a "problem" in the marriage market. The blind date said, "You're a nice person, but you're just average-looking." The dating agency even marketed her as an "export commodity" to foreign men. At the age of thirty-two, she finally got married, to Chen Jianghe, a 23-year-old temporary worker in a paper mill. It's not because of love, but because two people who have been mistreated by life need to support each other: one wants to get rid of the label of an older leftover girl, and the other wants to get a city registered permanent residence. At the age of thirty-five, the paper mill closed down and my husband was laid off and decided to go to Shenzhen to start from scratch. And she left the small town in western Guangdong, picked up an ancient local papermaking technique, and carried forward this intangible cultural heritage. From being laid off to starting a business, from separation to reunion, this underappreciated couple has survived all the ridicule and hardships. This couple, who first got married and then fell in love, survived countless nights alone by relying on books in two places, and finally gained a counterattack in their careers and relied on each other. Leslie Cheung's song "Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter" runs through her spiritual background spanning forty years: "Autumn should be very good, if you are still here."