Gao Yuan

There is a special family in the Damaying Range at the foot of Qilian Mountains in Gansu, a province in northwestern China. There are altogether more than 20 people in the family, from three ethnic groups and in five surnames. The family came together because of misfortune, poverty, death, and love, and it has prospered because of love.

Adan, a Tibetan woman, originally lived as a herdswoman in the grassland at the southern side of the Qilian Mountains in Qinghai Province. Shortly after her parents and father-in-law died, her husband dropped dead from an acute disease. Without economic resources, she crossed the mountains to the northern side of the Qilian Mountains with her mother-in-law and her daughter and found a horse-herding job at the military pastureland. The family lived on the highland barley she received as wage.

The first one that joined her family was a sick young man she found on the road. He was a bagger in rags and was extremely sick. His name is Ma Qian, a man of the Tu ethnic and in his late 20s. The sick man had been homeless and wandered in the region for eight years. Adan took him in, treating him as his son.

Under the care of Adan, Ma Qians health recovered. He began to work. Adans daughter Lazhong, then 14 years old, fell in love with him. A few years later, Ma Qian and Lazhong got married. The family lived in harmony and happiness for years. But Adan was worried about one thing. Ma Qian and Lazhong did not have a child after more than 10 years as husband and wife. The couple adopted a daughter from a Han colleague on the military farm. The stepdaughter, whose former surname was Liu, now adopted Ma as her surname. This daughter is Ma Cunlan. The family now had Han, Tibetan and Tu blood and three surnames.

Lazhong became pregnant shortly after the stepdaughter came into the family. The pregnancy was difficult. Lazhong fell ill when she was six months into pregnancy. She had to have an operation on her liver at a military hospital in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province. The baby daughter had to be taken out prematurely and put into a box for a year before she was able to come home on the farm. She is Ma Junlan.

Then Lazhong died at 33. That year, Adan was 73. Ma Qian was in his late forties. Ma Cunlan was 15 and Ma Junlan was 8.

A friend came to see Ma Qian. He mentioned that a friend of his had died of lung disease and left a widow with four young sons. The friend said he would like to be a matchmaker if Ma Qian would marry the widow with four sons. Adan and Ma Qian agreed to consider the proposal after they recovered from the death Lazhong. The friend went back home and talked to the widow Zhang Yufeng about Ma Qian. Zhang did not object. But after Ma Qian and Zhang Yufeng learned more about each other, they both hesitated. Ma Qian hesitated because of his family condition. He was 48 years old, 17 years older than the 31-year-old widow. And he had Adan and two young daughters to take care of. And the family had such a complicated ethnic background. Zhang hesitated because she thought her four sons could be a big burden.

The two met with the arrangement of the matchmaker. The two talked about their difficulties frankly and found each other sympathetic and brave enough to share a life together. They decided to come together. Zhang Yufeng and her four sons joined the family. Now it was a family of nine. Respecting the will of Zhang Yufengs late husband, the first two sons retained the surname Chen and the two younger sons adopted Ma as their surname. Now the family had five surnames and had people from three ethnic groups.

The family lived together in poverty, but in happiness.Zhang Yufeng, as daughter, wife and mother, was the pillar and core of the family. She gave love to everyone in the family. She learned the Tibetan language to communicate with Adan. She made Tibetan milk tea for her mother-in-law every morning for years and frequently carried her to watch television at a neighbors house. Adan was totally paralyzed at 85 and Zhang carried her to watch the regional sports meeting when the old woman was 86. Zhang did all the house chores, so that her husband did not need to do any after a days work at the pastureland. Ma Qian has serious arthritis. Zhang made a pair of padded pants for him to wear and massaged his legs every night. Zhang Yufeng loved the two daughters and gave them favorite treatment. She made dresses for the daughters first. Then the dresses were handed down to her sons. When children had food, the daughters came first. When a relative came to visit with some sweets and cakes, the gift first came to Adan, then to daughters, and then to the four sons.

And what she did for the family not only pulled the family together through all these years, but also touched the heart of the people around them. She has been honored for her selfless care for the family.

The children grew up taking care of their grandmother, loving their parents and each other. Ma Cunlan, the oldest of the six children, dropped out of school after she came to the family. She helped her parents with family chores. After she had sister and brothers, she took care of them. When she was to marry, her sister and brothers chipped in and bought her all the dowry and furniture. Chen Rong, the oldest boy in the family, married his sister Ma Junlan. When third brother Ma Wenhua got married, his brothers and sisters all chipped in to the wedding. The brothers and sister helped pay medical bills when Ma Junlan suffered from cancer and recovered.

Nowadays, Ma Qian and Zhang Yufeng are grandparents. The six children are all married and all have jobs. The family has pulled through hardships like a legend. The big extended family living in love and happiness is a model family known to people across Gansu Province.□