Mum Left Home for Food

During the Second World War and just before the Communists occupied  mainland China, my mother, my eldest brother and my paternal grandmother were living in a remote village in Southern China.
At that time my mother had to shoulder the burden of taking care of the whole family. She had to take up any odd jobs available in the village. She would  toil in the field, threshing rice. At times she would pluck fruits in an orchard. Other times she would work as a construction worker, carrying stones, sand or cement, just to earn a meagre income to support the whole family.
Job opportunities at that time were scarce, especially in the remote and underdeveloped villages in China .At times, my mother was out of work for days at a stretch, particularly during the drought, flood and winter season. The livelihood of the family was badly affected.  Consequently, all the members in the family had to “tighten their belts” during those difficult and trying times.
Sometimes my mother could not stand to see my grandma going without proper meals for days. So, she had to resort to a short-term but yet effective measure: to bring my brother along to visit my maternal uncle for a few days, so that they could have “free food and lodging” at my uncle’s house.
When it was time for my mother to go home, my uncle would provide her with plenty of foodstuffs and other daily necessities acquired from his sundry shop. My cousin sister would also ‘pilfer’ other essential goods from her father's shop to let my mother bring home too. Although my maternal uncle and auntie knew about what their daughter was doing, they pretended not to notice and they did not pursue the matter.

(http://zest-zipper.blogspot.com/search?q=a+letter+from+nanyang)

Many a time, out of concern for the well-being of my mother, my maternal uncle would get somebody to deliver a letter asking my mother to bring my brother to visit him if he had not heard news from my mother for quite some time.

Unfortunately,some ignorant and irresponsible folk in my ancestral village misconstrued the noble intention of my mother. They blamed her for being unfilial by leaving grandma alone at home uncared for, while my mother and my brother were having a gala time at my uncle’s house. Little did the folks know that the provisions my mother brought back from my  uncle’s place were worth far more than my mother’s income for the entire month, as the rations she brought home could feed the whole family for weeks. The folks were unaware of the fact that if my mother had not gone back to her brother's house for material assistance, all the members in the family would have died of starvation. In those difficult times, it was a matter of 'do or die' that matters most. It was no point to go around telling people of your legitimate 'birth right' which nobody would bother to listen anyway.

In a way, my mother was a wise woman. She quietly went back to her brother's house instead of proclaiming her 'birth right' for all the villagers to hear.