In 1961, Grandma Qinglian, who worked as a chemistry professor, decided to go to an economically poor region of northwestern China to teach young scholars chemistry. Due to a lack of safety protection, Grandma Qinglian suffered from cancer caused by radiation. She passed away when my father was 18 years old. My grandpa, a literature professor, wrote beautiful poems to express grief over his wife. Under the Down to the Countryside Movement, cultural workers were forced to become farmers, hence grandma was forced to abandon poetry and plant corn.

Old rules continued to dominate society. But for Grandpa, grief was fading away and being supplanted by honors to help the poor. In 1971, he carried Grandma Yulian’s photograph and returned to the northwestern region of China, where he taught literature following the path of his beloved wife.

Grandpa told me this story when I visited him in the winter of 2021. In this photo, I photographed Grandpa showing me his marriage photo with Grandma Yulian. I found that Grandpa, who lives in an economically poor region of China, shares a similar mindset to those living in the coastal region. He told me, “I taught literature to people here so their children can have the freedom to read books on engineering, economics, and chemistry.” The silent wind of time has continued to blow. Grandpa’s story brought me a strange feeling of honor and courage, which only a hundred stories can reveal.