泥中记 *Notes from the Mud*

AI-generated translation.

Last week I ran away from home and hid out in Shanwei for a couple of quiet days. Most of the time I lay in bed reading Notes from the Mud.

A quick word of recommendation: Notes from the Mud is so good! Just follow the author’s WeChat account directly!

My atypical day

Before this, my husband was away on a business trip. At the start, everything was fine. In the mornings, before going to work, I dropped our elder son at kindergarten while Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with our baby daughter.

The first weekend, the weather was hot and humid. I couldn’t think of any outdoor place to take him to burn off energy, so I just took him to an indoor playground. Cool air, plus all the powerless contraptions kids love. Apparently every parent had the same idea — children were everywhere.

Sure enough, the weekend passed and he went to kindergarten for one day before coming down with a fever — viral flu, glued to my arms for a week. Over the next few days, our baby caught it from him, runny nose and diarrhoea. Then Grandpa, Grandma, and I caught it one by one — headache, cough, runny nose. The whole household down.

At night I slept with the baby; around midnight she woke crying, fed; around four she woke again, fed. Half-conscious until just after six. I felt her — sleeping reasonably soundly. I rolled out of bed quietly to get on a morning meeting.

A production issue had been chased by customers daily for two weeks, with no real progress; we had finally pulled all the parties together to lock in a solution. The meeting had only just started when our elder son woke up. He stood outside the door pounding on it and shouting: “Mama! Mama! Let me in! Mama! Mama! I want to see you! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!” Deafening. The noise was so loud I worried the neighbours would knock on our door. My contribution to that wrangling meeting was poor.

Grandpa and Grandma tried to take him to kindergarten; he wouldn’t be persuaded. “No! I want Mum to take me!” Fine. By the time I’d finished the meeting and dragged him to kindergarten, it was almost ten.

I went to the office to deal with the loose ends from the morning’s meeting, and before I knew it, it was past one in the afternoon. Got a quick workout in to keep myself alive. As I was sitting down to lunch, I saw missed calls from Grandma. I called back; the baby had an allergic reaction, was red all over. Should we take her to the hospital? I asked for details and said let’s observe a little longer. Truth is — I still had things to finish. I’d already given up sleep; now even work had to be squeezed in.

Three o’clock, I heard the baby’s rash had eased a little. I worked in peace for a bit and headed home. Just as I got on the road, a message from Grandpa: our son’s backpack had been swallowed by the closing doors of the metro at school pickup.

I called the metro staff, crossed half the city to retrieve the backpack. Got home almost at nine, ate, bathed our son, told him stories. Meanwhile the already-asleep baby was woken by him and started crying — soothed the baby. Our son dawdled and finally fell asleep just before eleven.

I took the baby in for the night, and the day was finally over.

Notes from the Mud

It was in such chaos that I escaped and read Notes from the Mud.

The author is Yun Siduo, who calls herself “a middle-aged woman.” She records her ordinary life: physical pain, her son’s sweet words, her teenage daughter, the deeply strained relationship with her husband, her mother’s death, her father’s illness, work burnout, finally quitting and then losing money in an investment, and — forced by economics — returning to an even more thankless job…

The contradiction between self-realisation and the pressures of childcare often makes me feel that my own life is a mess, dropping one ball to catch another, never enough hands. Reading Notes from the Mud, I kept silently exclaiming inside: I’m not the worst off! At least my body is good; I can eat, sleep, leap, bound. My parenting partner is reasonable, broad-minded (and broad-palated). My in-laws are uncomplaining, our strong backstop. My parents are still alive, in decent health. And I really love my work… You see, your happiness is always built on someone else’s pain.

Yun Siduo’s prose is sincere and moving; her descriptions of child-rearing’s “blood-and-poo-and-pee mess” hit home, while also stoking a quiet anxiety about my own future. Her honesty is shocking and heart-aching. She often says she’s small and cowardly, but in her most despairing moments she can still see beauty: the clouds in autumn, the sheets on the clothesline under the green tree, the hydrangeas blooming again in blue, the mint and rosemary swaying in wind and rain and sun.

By Romain Rolland’s standard, she’s the real heroine: still loving life after seeing through its truth.

In Shanwei I slept by day and went out at night. After dark, I’d head to Erma Road to eat black-sesame paste with scallion oil, and stroll on the seaside plaza. I saw uncles and aunties singing from giant song-sheets, kids cooking dishes in little pots on the street, and someone colouring a Labubu while facing the pitch-black sea. My heart filled with joy. Ironically: I’d run away from the trivia of life, and was healed in the end by the smoke and cooking-fires of ordinary humanity.

The following are excerpts from Notes from the Mud.

25 March 2021 — The Power of Light

Every day, the moment I open the front door after work, I see my son with his eyes shut tight, frozen still in the middle of the living room, in a pre-set pose: half-squat, right arm raised in a question-asking gesture, left arm crossed in front of him, on his chest. Yes — exactly that pose you’re imagining.

At this moment I have to shout, full of energy: “Lend your power of light to me!” Hearing the secret password, my son’s eyes fly open, he flings himself into my arms, calling Mama, and we both return to normal humans.

…

For shared vocabulary with my son, I started paying attention to that group of red-white-and-blue-clad giants fighting monsters. I still can’t put a name to any of them, but it doesn’t stop me remembering their names.

At night, in a friend chat group, I said “I spent the whole evening talking Ultraman with my son,” and people went off-topic and started discussing Ultraman themselves. I was surprised and impressed. My friends talked about the anti-war and environmental and pro-equality consciousness of the Ace Ultraman generation; how the more recent female Ultramen were not as progressive as those of the Showa era… So from 10:30 at night to dawn I researched Ultraman. Who would have thought a middle-aged woman would lose sleep over the developmental history of Ultraman? She’s not trying to save the world; she just wants the small vanity of being able to swagger before her son.

Speaking of which: tomorrow after work I plan to surprise my son with a new password — “When you meet trouble, don’t sit and wait to die. Fusion! I Go, Here We Go, Geed!”

14 May 2021 — Poo

At 7:40 in the morning, just as we are about to leave the house, my stomach suddenly cramps.

It has been bad for days. She hesitates, afraid of being late dropping off her son, and of being late for work herself.

But she can’t hold out. If she doesn’t go to the toilet right now she’ll wet herself. She shouts loudly: “Give me two minutes, then we go.” To her son, and also to herself.

Sitting on the toilet, her digestive system and her brain both working hard at the same time, one minute passes in an instant, two minutes vanish, and she realises this won’t be done in three. So through the door she negotiates with her son: “Sweetie, let Grandma drop you off, OK? Mama’s tummy hurts so much.” She hears Grandma’s tentative voice: “Can Grandma take you?” “No, Mama.”

“Even diarrhoea can be cut off in the middle, damn it,” she thinks, holding in her body’s discomfort and feeling a little sad.

Almost at kindergarten, her son nuzzles his head on her shoulder and says: “Mama, you can go poo when you get to work.”

15 September 2021 — Mornings When I Wanted to Die

I hear my angry roar bouncing off the walls. My son stops crying. The world goes quiet. From my phone Karen Mok is softly singing This World Has So Many People.

My limbs have been numb and swollen for two months; I’d been planning to see a Chinese-medicine doctor this week, but my father is sick again. He arrives Thursday for an appointment, and will need surgery. My abdomen aches dimly. My old back injury has flared up; my back hurts badly.

I open my hand. It is still red — I had just spanked my son ten times on his bare bottom. He howled, ran to find his father, was scolded by him, and came back to me. I picked him up and put him on the toilet lid and went back to washing my face. My daughter came over to ask me to do her hair, and I did it for her at the dining table.

My daughter ran out fearing she’d be late, called a few minutes later — she’d forgotten her red scarf. I grabbed it and ran down. My son howled, wanted to follow. Grandma took the scarf and threw it down from the window; it fluttered, then snagged on a third-floor window. Their dad, waiting below, sighed at the sky and ran to the convenience shop.

My daughter called again: “Why isn’t Dad holding the scarf? Why is he running into the shop?” I jumped: “What are you calling me for?! You’re ten metres apart, why are you calling me, AH?!”

I curled by the bedside. My son came to hug my shoulders; I shrugged him off. I opened my boss’s WeChat, asked for two hours’ leave; I was too tired. The reason: “to take my child to pick up medicine.” This was the product of ten thousand back-and-forth deliberations, because Thursday afternoon I’d have to take leave again for Dad.

WeChat dings — boss replies “OK.” My son came back and hugged my shoulders again; I turned and hugged him.

He said: “Mama, I love you.”

7 September 2022 — Once Loved

…

Back then I was a very obedient girl. Whatever he said went. He didn’t even walk side by side with me on the street, let alone hold my hand, because he thought I was country and ugly, but I didn’t think any of it mattered. I thought, with my kindness and persistence, I would surely change him, move him.

If my daughter, when she grows up, does these things for a man, I will break her legs, scold her awake, and tell her: “Don’t try to redeem anyone or change anyone, especially not someone who didn’t care about you in the first place.”

18 October 2022 — Allergic

…

I went to find a free Zeta Ultraman movie for him. I clicked into some random site, and a pair of giant breasts popped up, jiggling around. I scrambled to close it but couldn’t find the close button, so that pile of pale flesh wobbled in front of my son and me for a few seconds.

After I closed it, my son rubbed his hands across his chest, and asked: “Mama, is that person uncomfortable? Why is she using her hands like that?” I was stunned: “Maybe — maybe — she has a skin allergy, like you.”

7 December 2022 — Detached

Last night I prepared the dough for fried youtiao and the materials for douhua (tofu pudding). At six this morning I got up to fry the youtiao. Although I felt like I was sleepwalking, in my sleepwalk I still fried the youtiao and made the douhua. Seeing the three of them at the table eating, I felt the relief of having completed a task.

My son called out loudly: “Mama, the douhua is better than the bought one. You’re amazing.”

“Yeah right,” I thought; “it’s too salty. Amazing my arse.”

But I still answered with a smile: “Thanks, sweetie. Mama is very happy!”

Body and mind feel detached. Every day the body has to march on, a machine, completing its tasks: cook, do chores, pick up the kids, supervise homework. Mind, on the other hand, has flown out the open window in my heart, and refuses to come home.

The further the better.

11 October 2023 — A Box of Face Masks

…

Tonight I’m going to enjoy this 40-yuan-a-sheet face mask properly, and properly moisturise this old face of mine.

I asked my daughter, doing homework: “Want one?” My daughter laughed: “I can just use that blue one.” Oh, right, there’s also a box from last year’s 11-11 sale, untouched.

My son grumbled: “Why don’t you ask me if I want a face mask? You only ask Jiejie.”

I laughed: “How could I forget you. Mama will do a parent-and-child face mask with you. I’ll wear the mother-mask; you’ll wear the son-mask.”

So twenty minutes later, my son was peacefully asleep with the plastic backing of the mask stuck to his face. This morning when I woke up, my face after the mask looked exactly the same as it had — pasty and tired.

17 October 2023 — Praise Fierce as Poison

I don’t like cooking, but I have to. I’ve made oil-splash noodles two days in a row.

My daughter and son both lavish praise: “Mama, so good.” My son even exaggerates: “Mama, did you put poison in this? It’s that good!” Yes — when he wants to say something is delicious, he uses the word poison. I guess he wanted to use some other word. I didn’t correct him.

I just smiled. I accepted this praise as fierce as poison.

I started thinking about what to make for the next meal.

5 March 2024 — Greatly Satisfied

I caught a cold too, while both children were still ill. With a thick skin, I asked for more leave, ignoring the avalanche of phone calls and WeChat. The whole day I was foggy, made one breakfast (the simplest noodle-bit soup, because every joint of my body ached). At lunch I was passed out asleep, no idea what the children ate — leftovers from the morning, probably. Around three or four in the afternoon, my son said he was hungry. I got up and rummaged through the fridge and kitchen, threw a random assortment of ingredients into a pot, boiled them, ladled out a big bowl and put it in front of him.

In that bowl: yellow-millet tangyuan; white tangyuan with black sesame; fish tofu, Japanese tofu, a handful of buckwheat noodles; two poached eggs; a fistful of greens. How to put it — the kind of dish you don’t want to even look at.

I dove back into bed. I heard my six-year-old son say between bites: “Mama, today’s food has greatly satisfied me. So delicious. Even a hard-to-please person like me is very satisfied. Thank you.”

I laughed out loud. Both amused and heartbroken.

14 April 2024 — A Spinning Top’s Longing

I’m frying scallion pancakes in the narrow kitchen, while my phone behind me reads, in an emotionless AI voice, an essay by Kim Aeran.

I’ve spun like a top all day, all my energy gone. I look at my fingers — slightly swollen. I rub on some hand cream; now as I type a faint scent hovers around me, and my mood lifts a little.

The weather forecast was right: it rained all afternoon. I suddenly remembered the homeless man who sleeps in the long corridor downstairs. His bedding will be soaked. Where will he sleep tonight?

I so wish I had a quiet space. I don’t want to be interrupted, as I write this diary, by my daughter asking the difference between wonderful and beautiful, or whether Mesopotamia was suited for irrigation, or by my son running over to ask “how many hours are in a year” or to bring his daily oral-arithmetic worksheet for me to check.

Next time I’m going to do a premeditated runaway from home. Even just one whole day.

No one knows how much I long for an independent space and relatively free time.

I long for it more than I once longed for love.