By Shen Yilun

In one apartment in Gongfu New Village,Aunt Zhao patted her thighs with a bright smile on her face,while Old Zhou,her husband,sat beside her,saying nothing but with a beaming smile.Their previous marriages have brought together eight parents to take care of.This means that she helps eight ailing seniors when they are weak,when they’re in hospital,and when they need help cleaning because they suffer from incontinence… Most people are exhausted from doing this for one parent,but Aunt Zhao has to do for eight! She said delightedly,“I’m blessed to have the opportunity to be filial to my eight parents.”

Over 30 years ago,when the widow with a child was introduced to Old Zhou,he only smiled speechlessly.

I asked Old Zhou,“What did Grandpa and Grandma Sun say when they saw Aunt Zhao for the first time,that made you decide on whether to marry her?”

The old sheet-metal worker then loosened his tongue,and all he said was,“This woman has a good face.”

On hearing it,it was Aunt Zhao’s turn to smile quietly.She covered her flushing cheeks with her hands,like a shy little girl.

Aunt Zhao’s daughter was only four when her ex-husband died of injuries at work.Before their marriage,both Aunt Zhao and Old Zhou agreed that Grandpa and Grandma Yao,the parents of her ex-husband,would still be taken care of.In addition to his biological parents,Old Zhou was taking care of Grandpa and Grandma Sun,his neighbors.If he wanted to get married,he hoped Aunt Zhao would go to the Sun’s home as he regarded them as his parents as well.

“So it was Grandpa and Grandma Sun who said that I was a good woman,” Aunt Zhao said.“I was once told that if I were to remarry,I should find a rich man with a property and no parents.However,when I met Old Zhou,who didn’t meet any of these requirements and actually had more parents than others,I was touched by his kindness,feeling that he was the right one.”

In this way,Aunt Zhao,a factory canteen cook,and Old Zhou,a sheet-metal worker,got married,and later they had a son.The time they needed money most was in the early 1990s,when a host of factories in Shanghai closed down and the couple were laid off.The family was then forced into poverty conditions.Even cooking oil was scarce,so Aunt Zhao had to sell box lunches at a street stall.Despite the hardship,when it came to festival time,she would still cook for her eight old parents.

Inside the four large enamel bowls were meatballs and egg dumplings,thickly covered with fried smoked fish.Everything was done by Aunt Zhao overnight,in spite of her cardiac arrhythmia.She cooked for the day,without caring whether her family would have breakfast tomorrow.Aunt Zhao was so pleased when she saw her husband stagger out to the alley with all the dishes strapped to his bicycle.

Without high-heels or fashionable clothes,without pastries,ice cream,a good house or steak—in a bungalow in a city without the Bund or movies—Aunt Zhao and her family lived peacefully in their struggling days.With Old Zhou by her side and their two sweet children,she felt the days were so sweet.

Later,as their economy improved,they equipped their home with air conditioning.When Grandpa Yao suffered heat rash in summer,Old Zhou volunteered to bring him in and offered the only air-conditioned room in the home for the old man to sleep in.Then,after Grandma Sun moved into a nursing home,Aunt Zhao,who had no blood ties to her,went to see her every day.After that,the newborn son of Old Zhou and Aunt Zhao would call the Yaos “Grandpa and Grandma.” Afterwards,the family moved to the suburbs.The Suns sold their house and relocated nearby.

In fact,they see this as nothing special.To them,it’s nothing more than delivering food to the elderly on some snowy days and attending to them when they fall sick.The key is that they’ve persisted in doing it.Even on the many occasions when they had excuses like moving home or being laid-off,they would keep the promise they laid out.With the passage of more than 30 years,the eight parents are all treated equally and the couple “cannot ignore them at all.”

When Grandma Yao was ill and hospitalized,Old Zhou volunteered to keep her company at night.All the patients in the ward thought it was the son of the Yaos.Aunt Zhao said that “I went to change shifts in the morning and saw him sleeping at Grandma Yao’s bedside.At times like those,I feel I’m the happiest woman under the sun.We do not have the kind of romance that young people favor,but when I saw Old Zhou in the hospital,I felt so in love.”