Humans of China: "My Uncle Sold Me for Two Cows and a Bag of Rice"

This article comes from Humans of China (WeChat ID: humans-of-china), which aims to document and tell the stories of the many varied people of this vast country, one individual at a time. The following account comes from a lady of the Li minority in China's Hainan province. Read the original post (with Chinese) here. 

I had a pretty tough childhood and as a little girl spent time with three different families. I was first sold at the age of 12 shortly after my face was tattooed. My uncle sold me without permission from my parents for two cows and a bag of rice. I was later then sold to another family at the age of 14 for just one cow. The second family I lived with weren’t bad and I felt as though the father really loved me. When I was 21 he fell sick and before he died he told me that when I am dead I can go find my real family and live with them again. When he died I did leave and I went back to find my parents. When I went back I saw my mum and we both started to cry. She was trying to wipe the tears away with her sleeve but she was also trying to hug me with her two arms at the same time.

Just before I was sold, my auntie tattooed my face. It was really painful and it bled but I remember I didn’t cry. It took a day and we started in the morning. Come lunch time we took a break and then in the afternoon continued. Back then every lady I knew had tattoos and my mother and auntie had a lot more then I have but my sisters didn’t. Apart from my face I also have tattoos on my hands and two snake-like shapes on my legs which I did myself when I was a little older. I don’t think my face looks good but we needed the tattoos to keep us safe. Tattoos meant that you were ugly. Back then there were a lot of bad people in Hainan who would want to steal young girls to be sold. Some also wanted to rape young girls for their own pleasure and these included Japanese soldiers.

Having tattoos didn’t always mean you were safe though. There was a lady here who also had lines tattooed on her face. She was raped, killed, and then buried by a Japanese soldier. The Japanese were here for quite some time and they were pretty scary. Their long guns had long knives on the end and their planes would often fly above us. When we saw the soldiers or heard the planes we’d run and hide.

I married at the age of 24 and that’s when I moved to the village I live in now. After marriage I wouldn’t often visit home; maybe once every couple of years. It took me about a day to walk home and I’d pack a packed lunch and at night time I’d sleep on the roadside. When I went home and saw my mother we’d both cry again. I knew she missed me a lot and I missed her too. I also had the chance to see other members of my family like my older brother who wasn’t nice to me when I was a child. It would be our job to collect firewood for us to cook with and as a little girl sometimes I wouldn’t want to go and refused. If I refused he would use some rope to tie my ankles together. He then would throw the rope over a tree branch and pull me up and would dangle me there. He would also let the rope go which meant I banged my head on the floor as the rope become loose. He would do this until I agreed to go with him and collect the wood. It was very painful. In 1958 my brother died due to lack of water and food. We were farmers which wasn’t easy and sometimes there wasn’t enough for us to eat. Me and my husband had three children and none of them have tattoos. I now live with my son and my grandchildren and apart from suffering from arthritis in my legs and ankles, I am quite happy.

READ: "Being Ugly Meant No One Would Steal Us"

Photos: Cameron Hack