Changli's Proposal

    Changli made his proposal of marriage to me after he got a stable work position. I did not suppose to get married so early. But Lili said, "Sooner or later we have to get it settled. Besides there is the advantage in getting an urban registration for me away from the rural one. Then my employment classification in the hospital would also be changed from a jobber into a regular worker." I said, "But I am no good at household chores." Lili said, "You would not have to take care of them."  "I do not know how to do cooking," I continued. "I would take care of them all. With the microwave oven becoming popular, cooking would also be done more easily," Lili assured me. "Could the microwave oven be used to cook food?" I asked him in doubt. Then Lili continued to explain the advantages of that oven. I thought it might as well with no need of cooking meals. Beyond my expectation, we bought a microwave oven a few years later. I found it was not so useful in cooking of all kinds of foods as Lili said. I had been cheated. No! Even up to nowadays, I still like to believe in the words of Lili. Because I thought all his words might be realized. I went back home to ask Grandma, "May I get married?" Grandma was quite surprised and asked, "With whom?" "With Guo Changli," I said. Grandma kept shaking her head upon hearing that and said, "Absolutely no. He's so poor without a house, not good looking, and born in the poor year of sheep. You should not live and suffer with him through your entire lifetime."

    I knew there would be no use in arguing with Grandma on anything she disagreed. I went to tell Changli. But that put Changli in a dilemma. We had been making friends already for four years. I had got so deeply in love with him. Parting with him? I had never thought of that. I knew he was a man with good ability. He had not gained any good position yet. But I was sure he would earn a good future. He was not wealthy for the time being. But I liked men with ability. Although, several among the group of boys chasing after me were wealthy, but tragedy might result if they failed to bring me happiness. I had made up my mind to marry Changli!

    If Grandma disagreed, then I would not be able to use our permanent residence booklet for marriage registration. But I know where the booklet was kept. 'Would it hurt Grandma if I make use of it without her permission? Well! If we can really succeed in wining happiness, she might become happy.' I took out the booklet from home and got our registration in Miyun County Municipality on October 24th, 1994. We went back home and told Grandma about it. That almost made her crazy. She said, "I had been doing things all for your sake. You had been suffering misfortune since childhood. I had brought you up only by overcoming numerous difficulties. But you had married a person with rural identification. He's in possession of neither a house nor money. How are you going to live upon?" Lili said,"Grandma! I know you dislike me. Since I have married Mimi, here I promise with my life that I will be nice to Mimi." Seeing our marriage had been a fact, Grandma said, "I would not mind your own business anymore. But you can not live in our home. There is really no room left for you. You must go and find your own way out." I felt guilty and terribly  sorry for Grandma. I should never forget the cares she gave me in so many years. My parents were seriously opposed to my marriage, they even said I should have married a man with power and money. But I thought both of you   had a lot of money. But what you gave me was not happiness. Instead, what you left in my mind were deep sorrows. You haven't taken care of me at all. So you have no rights to say anything. The mother of mine said, "If you marry Changli, I would not give you a bit of money." I thought to myself, 'I had never had any extravagant hope that you can give me any money.'

Our Marriage

    Our marriage was dated at November 20th. Then we started preparations for the wedding. Grandma gave me 500 yuan. I would  use it for buying a bed. So I could think of Grandma whenever I saw the bed. Changli asked me to spend my savings for a refrigerator. I said, "We're already on the edge of starving. Where can we get the surplus food to worry about its freshness?" But Changli sad, "Weren't you have trouble with your heart in summer? You might need to drink ice water when you are not feeling well. It would be more convenient to have a refrigerator." I asked him, "What should I wear for our wedding ceremony?" "You should put on a dress in red. Let us go shopping and see what there are," Lili said. "I heard that ladies should buy a lot of dresses for their marriage. You don't have so much money for me to buy them, do you?" "Do you know why ladies buy a lot of dresses before their wedding? It is because they would not have any more chances for buying them once they get married. It is a typical tradition in the rural areas that each daughter-in-law would do a lot of chores without the need of new clothes. In addition, it is common that each daughter-in-law must be obedient to her mother-in-law and the latter might forbid the youngster to buy anymore new dresses. That is why ladies must have their clothing all purchased for their total future life when they are married," Lili further explained. But I said, "Stop  your nonsense. Aren't you afraid that I can't buy any clothes in the days to come?" Lili wondered, "What's the matter?" "Your mother might stop  me," I gave him my answer. Lili smiled and said, "In our family, you decide everything here." So I bought a red dress, a dark blue tailed skirt and a red woolen overcoat. Lili spent 120 yuan for a suit.

    On the 20th, his second sister rented a white car Jieda to take me. Grandma cried when I was leaving. I said, "We wouldn't live at Miyun from now on. I would come back tomorrow." But Grandma said, "As usual mother will cry at the marriage of her daughter. But your own mother might not cry even if she has come." When we arrived at Lili's home, the sound of firecrackers broke out before I stepped out from the sedan. All the relatives of Lili's family were present. I used to like firing firecrackers myself when I was a kid. But Lili reminded me to be careful. "You are a bride and everybody would be staring at you. Up keep your dignity! There had never been any bride firing firecrackers for her own wedding."

    When summer came, we bought a gas burner and placed it in the courtyard for cooking. It was all right on the days without rain. But on rainy days we would run into difficulty. We had to use an umbrella for keeping off the rainfall. Sometimes Lili's actions were too slow. I had to urge him. I said, "If you don't get faster, the rain would have got the pan full of water." In summer, especially in the afternoons, the sunlight shone directly on our room. The asbestos-cement roof got penetrated by the rays of the sun. Sleeping in the room was like being cooked in a food steamer. The heat caused my heartbeats to be accelerated. Lili tried his way out to pour some water onto the roof with a basin. I did not understand and asked him about his reason in doing it. Lili said, "Just feel the water coming down from the roof." I found the water were all hot. Lili explained, "This use of water could be similar to raining. You can go into the room and see." I found it really became much better inside the room. Li Haocheng also took to copy what Lili was doing and poured water onto his roof. But by mistake, the water could not be poured over the rooftop and instead ran down to the courtyard. That caused the people sitting in the shade to scatter in evading the water drops. I laughed to the edge of tears coming out of my eyes. Li Haocheng did not give up and thought 'I can do just as you could. It's only an accident for me to have failed last time.' He took another basin of water and tried again. But his water still could not reach his rooftop and came down again into the courtyard. That made the people to leave the courtyard. Lili explained to him, "It's because your roof is much higher than mine. So it was difficult for you to pour the water high enough.

    Gradually I got accustomed to our life. But I was afraid of moving out again. It was very common for people living in rented houses, since the house owners always rented their houses to those who offered the higher rentals. Even healthy people were afraid of moving, not to say for the blind people like us. In my memory, it was before a Spring Festival when we were going to visit our elder's homes.   The room owner told us to move out as soon as possible on the 29th of the last month on the Chinese lunar calendar just before the spring festival.  The owner took us to see several owners with spared rooms. But their rentals were higher than what we could afford. Finally I managed to find a cheaper room. When Lili came back from his work he was told of the news. He went to beg the owner for his permission of our moving after the Spring Festival. The owner consented him to move before the fifth day in the Lunar New Year. Then Lili said to me, "We can not go back to my home for this Spring Festival. Let's go to your Grandma's home for the festival." I said, "But Grandma is going back to her former home." Lili said, "Then we should spend the festival at our own home." I remembered on the night before the Spring Festival or the so-called New Year's eve of the Chinese lunar calendar. Every family should have been watching TV and enjoyed the feast of reunion. In our room we had no other appliances beside the refrigerator. That was the situation we met with during our first Spring Festival after our wedding. I used to like the happiness of having a crowd to enjoy the festival together. But that time I had an unspeakable uncomfortable feeling in my heart. We had to sit facing each other. Suddenly Lili said, "Mimi, let us divorce."

    I was shocked by his words. Lili had loved me dearly. How could he get such an idea? He continued "I remember that I had promised Grandma to bring you happiness before our wedding. But I've failed about it since our marriage. On the contrary I had brought you so much trouble. On account of my inability, I might not be able to own a house of our own. Probably you might have to live in a rented room in your whole life. That meant we would never be able to settle down and live." I said, "Lili! Don't be so pessimistic. May be we could be able to safe enough money to have our house later."

    Actually I was not sure at all. For the blind people like us, buying a private house seemed to be a fantastic story told in THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Lili was silent. He then sang the song HOME OF A SNAIL for me. In that lonesome eve of Spring Festival that I still remembered, he sang, "Among the thickly dotted skyscraping buildings, nowhere was found for a home of mine. Wondering on the   crowded streets where people go and come. With the heavy shell on my back, high up I climbed with force, but never catch the rising price. Give me a shack, just home for a snail, not a large shelter against rainstorm. A tiny shack, a minute home, a cosy home for the snail alone." Lili had his tears dropping as he was singing. That was the first time I saw his tears coming down. I knew he was aching in his heart. He had been longing to provide an easy life for me. But it was beyond his ability at that time. I had a full understanding of a man's inner feelings then and there. Ever since his making of friendship with me, he had been constantly abasing himself. The more he liked me the more sorrow he fell into. I had tried to enlighten him many times in helping him to see that beautiful future could be created by two of us together. Of course I could not foresee our future. But I was deeply in love with him so I would not have blames on anything with regrets.

Registered Permanent Residence

    Lili had said that he would get a state identity in the hospital and enjoy the welfare of housing allotment once he was registered as an urban resident. I went to our local police station at Hepingli to ask the policeman in charge of residence registration for residence merging. The police told me that my merging of residence with a rural resident like Changli should be done after five years of marriage. I explained our difficulty and let him know that Changli might be upgraded to a formal worker and able to enjoy the housing allotment if he was approved with the urban residence. But the policeman said, "As the handicapped you should be satisfied as long as you  could get enough food for survival. Let alone the hope of housing allotment!"

    Those words seriously hurt my feelings. I could not imagine that so-called "People's Police" could utter such words that deeply hurt the self-esteem of the handicapped people. I made up my mind silently while standing in front of the police station, 'I will strive to live better than you and let you see that handicapped people can do much more than barely getting their food for survival.'

    However doing is more difficult than mere thinking. Lili had already lost many opportunities because of his rural identity and missed twice for quarters allotment. Then we had really waited for five years of marriage before I went to find the policeman who was the same one receiving me five years ago. I went with full confidence that Lili could be turned into an urban resident at last, but he told me that the policy had been modified, "You are required for ten years of your marriage before the merge of residence." Those words of him came like a bolt from the blue to me. "How difficult were those five years of waiting!" I asked him why? He said, "Nowadays many young people married handicapped people just in the aim of transferring their residence to Beijing. So the policy has been revised for the waiting period to ten years. I argued, "We are blind people. There could not be problems like marriage fraud." He said, "Who can guarantee your husband would not divorce you after his residence transfer is made." In spite of all my explanations and begging made, I received from him but biting sarcasm. I came out again from the police station with tears dropping. Where can we find our way out? Must those people with rural residence work merely for field plowing? Aren't those with rural residence human being?

    A friend of ours told us, "If you try to settle your problem through strictly following the state policy alone, you would absolutely meet with failure." So we started to beg for help wherever we could. But the policemen we met were nearly all alike. They were greedy just the same. Some even claimed to be familiar with the one at the Hepingli police station. They claimed to be able to transfer Lili's residence easily. So we started to give them money on that purpose. But they only received money without getting our trouble solved. When we got more anxious and asked them about the result. They just told us, "Arrangements had already been made with the policeman in charge of your residence. You can go and complete the procedure." We went to see the policeman in charge and mentioned the person who told us to come. But he   denied his acquaintance with the one we mentioned. In addition, the policeman   even told us there would be no use for us no matter whom we approached. Thus we came to realize we got cheated.

    The begging for help was repeated many times. Some fellows promised to help us on the exchange for my free tuning of their pianos and Lili's free massage. But days passed with no news of the residence transfer. While considerable amounts of our money earned with our sweat and toil were spent on those futile efforts, I got gradually to lose the last bit of trust on those so-called policemen in charge of residence. They had not squeezed lesser money from us in the slightest consideration for handicapped people. We tried our efforts in that way again and again. Yet Lili's residence transfer never saw any progress.

    Since the opening of Renwei Piano Tuning Service Center founded by the Beijing Disabled Persons' Federation in 1999,  we enjoyed the attentions of leading personnel of the federation. In many occasions they asked us if we had any difficulty. Although I had already lost my confidence for the transfer of Lili's residence, I still made my trial and told Chairman Lui Zhengming of the board about our difficulty. Yet beyond my contemplation, Chairman Lui only said, "Those transfers are difficult indeed, but I will make a trial." I thought this time I did not offer any money for doing the transfer. It might be just promise in words only. But it happened again beyond my expectation, I received a note from Director Shao Shoumian telling me to go and finish the procedure of transfer at our police station. The Director added, "I've visited the Bureau of Public Security for your business everyday over a month and it has been   settled against much difficulty." I took that note to the police station at Hepingli again. I met the same fellow in charge of residence again. But this time that fellow seemed to have been reformed. He received me with hospitality. I gave him all necessary documents and asked him how long I should wait for getting our certificate. He said it would need seven working days. "Should I phone you for inquiry?" I added. "You don't have to phone for it any more. I will get you things done for sure. You had made all powerful efforts just short of appealing to President Jiang Zemin!" I thought, 'If I could have a chance of meeting with Jiang Zemin, I will lodge an accusation against you in his presence. Those fellows like you, fed on salaries supplied by the people but ignorant to needs of the people, are casting shame on people's policemen. Fellows like you spoil the reputation of the people's policemen.' We got the moving permission seven days later and finally had Lili's transfer of residence in Beijing finished. Then we had our residence merged successfully.