Those vegetables I ate

One day, my parents were not home, and my grandmother, tasked with taking care of me, took me with her to play on her farm. I had no idea what to expect.

Five minutes outside the condominium we lived in, Grandma led me through a large, missing portion of a wall. Turning the corner, I saw a little island of unorganized nature overgrown with trees, bushes, and tall weeds. Not knowing anything about farming or plants, I only realized that this was not my grandmother’s farm until she led me through a small path in the forest, explaining that her piece of land was somewhere inside. On our way there, we passed some other farms, or rather extended gardens, each a small, flat piece of land where plants and vegetables of different heights and sizes grew in neat rows.

A few minutes later we arrived at a garden not too different from the others. This was my grandmother’s little piece of land. As we arrived, she eagerly began to show me her plants, quizzing me in the process.

“Guess what this is?” she pointed to one of the plants, “We ate it last night” 

I answered right only because I remembered her mentioning it last night. 

“Yes, now, look over here” she pointed to a plant in the row next to it, “what’s this?"

I had no idea. 

“This is Bocai, and look over here, these are hongshuyezi. We're going to have them for dinner today. Come, help me get some of them.”

She led me over to the plant, producing a small knife from her pocket. Kneeling down, she used one hand to hold a branch of the plant, and with the other hand cut off the leaves growing on the tip of the branch. She looked up, “Just cut the bigger ones. Don’t cut the small ones on the bottom so that they can grow more leaves. Understand?”

I nodded. She handed the knife over along and walked to a small shed she had built where some other tools were stored. There, she grabbed a plastic bag for me to put the harvested leaves in.

So, I squatted down and started harvesting. After a while, I felt a layer of dirt forming on my hand and saw the bugs squeezing their fat bodies through the soil, crawling to feast on the next leaf in sight. Disgusted, I flicked them away. Wanting to be rid of the dirt and the bugs, I stood up, wiping my hands. 

“Fill it up to the top and we’d be good,” Grandma responded as I held the bag up to her. 

I went back to work. The bag filled in slowly as ever, each tiny leaf branch occupying only a tiny gap between the amount I had already collected. 

“Not yet, a little more.” 

A few more leaves were added to the bag. 

“Just a little more. Finish that row you’re on.” 

Now angry, I ripped the plants from their roots before cutting them. 

“Hey! Don’t rip them up. Just cut the leaves so they have a chance to grow back so we can eat another round of them.”

When she turned away I violently ravaged the last few plants. After I was done, I stood up, my legs sore. After inquiring on where I should put the harvested leaves, I chucked the bag over to where she pointed before grabbing a stick and swinging it as hard as I could at the nearest tree. I repeated this process until my anger receded. Then, feeling tired, I sat down in a small chair and watched as Grandma worked the rest of the day, watering plants, bringing foul-smelling compost from a hole into a bucket, and cutting some more vegetables for lunch and dinner that day. Sometimes, I stood up to walk around and pick a few leaves, or ran around the forest chucking rocks at trees. Multiple times I asked her when we were leaving, and her only reply was, “soon.” She also offered me some more work, most of which I refused except for watering the plants, which was the only job which I could do without dealing with the dirt, bugs, or the foul-smelling compost. 

On our way home, Grandma began to lecture me. She never scolded me, only giving long speeches about the big morals of life with a joking and kindly voice, always chuckling between sentences. This time, she told of how hard the farmers worked and how every single grain of rice came from hours upon hours in the fields. She drilled into me a line from a poem which everyone knew—锄禾日当午，汗滴禾下土。谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆辛苦？

It translated to: When the noonday sun is hottest, the farmer is still out in the field hoeing weeds. His sweat falls drop by drop onto the rice plants growing in the soil. When people eat their rice, do they realize that every grain of rice is the result of the farmer’s toil?

I returned home that day annoyed and angry, thinking that both she and I had better things to do. The same plants she worked on for so long on could be bought in the supermarket minutes from home. 

A few years later, my grandmother moved back to her hometown, Yangzhou, because the land she had farmed in Shanghai had been used to build a shopping mall. It was only then that I realized the difference between her vegetables and the ones sold at supermarkets. The organic vegetables she planted, raised, and harvested had a freshness to them that was of the sun, the fields, and nature as compared to the artificial flavors of ones served in cafeterias and restaurants. Grandma had a way with plants that only came from decades upon decades of work and experience in the fields, making them grow without pesticides of any kind and using only water and compost she made from leftovers and other organic material. Indeed, it was the only hobby she had held for the more than seventy years she had been alive. To this day, she still owns several small pieces of land in Yangzhou where she, every morning and afternoon, grows and nurtures fruits and vegetables, not just for subsistence, but for the pleasure which comes from spending time with them. 

Once, returning from the U.S. to Yangzhou, I asked her how she could bear working long hours in her garden, even in the blazing summer sun and cold winter snow. Instead of making a big speech like she usually did, she simply said, “Grandma I just love doing it, so I don’t feel tired when doing it.”