Xiao Ni...

When I first arrived in Shanghai, I had only a few weeks to find a home, negotiate a satisfactory rental arrangement and get the home ready for Monique’s arrival. The undertaking was an interesting and challenging one, but one which was well-aided by some cool technology now available (electronically posted pictures, Skype, etc.), and not a small amount of providence.

After looking at 20-30 different options, including high-rise apartments, attached townhouses, and stand-alone villas, one home that was particularly nice was a villa in a small compound some distance from where most foreigners live. Although it was far from other westerners, it was quite convenient to both my office, and our church. Compared to all the other places I had looked at, which were in consistently bad condition, I was surprised at the quality of care the home had received, and asked the rental agent what made this home different. I learned that the landlord was from Taiwan, and actually owned 3 homes in the same compound. She employed a full time “Ayi” (pronounced “Eye-eee”) to look after the homes that were vacant, with strict direction that everything was to be kept at move-in ready condition at all times. Not a bad strategy. It worked for me.

I looked at the home several times, each time checking up on questions posed by Monique, or taking pictures of specific things that Mo wanted to know more about. Each time I returned, I noted that the Ayi was always there, scurrying around the house making sure to correct anything that might seem out of place. She was very responsible and seemed humble and reliable. At one point it dawned on me that by renting this last vacant home (the others in the neighborhood owned by the landlord were already rented), the Ayi would most likely be out of work. Although there was only Mo and I, it seemed that if we hired this woman as OUR Ayi, it would keep her employed and would also help us out a little around the house. I asked if she would be willing to stay on with us, and she indicated she would. We agreed on a price (her starting rate was incredibly low, so I felt foolish trying to negotiate lower) and determined that 3 hours a day for two days a week is all that we would really need. At the time this seemed like a very spur-of-the-moment decision, but in retrospect it was one of the best decisions we’ve made since arriving.

The Ayi’s name is Xiao Ni (like the word “shout” without the “t”, followed by the word “knee”). Xiao Ni is 50 years old, thin as a rail but fit as a fiddle – not an ounce of fat on the woman. She is from Anhui Province, a notoriously poor province about 10 hours west of the Shanghai area. It is clear that despite her diligent work effort, Xiao Ni is (and always has been) extremely poor. She is the 5^th of 9 children. Her parents are still alive, still eeking out their own living by farming in Anhui at age 85. For Xiao Ni nothing is wasted, and she is grateful for work. She will not accept hand-outs, but willingly takes on any and all means of additional income or other means to get by.

She is a workhorse that can outwork most men I know – including me. We have grown to love her and admire the way in which she overcomes difficult challenges in her life. She is responsible, thorough, and always happy. Despite her inability to speak English, and Mo’s inability to speak Chinese – these two women have become friends, often taking off together on their respective electric scooters to go buy plants at the local farmer’s market, or other places. It is a treat to see them giggle and try to communicate.

When I was originally looking at the house I noticed a vegetable garden in one of the corners of the yard. Eventually I realized this vegetable garden was one of the way’s Xiao Ni made ends meet. She grew her own vegetables in the yard of this previously vacant house. Trying to avoid a situation where she would have to ask me if she could keep growing things, I asked her if she would be willing to grow vegetables that we might occasionally eat. I could see the worry dissipate from her face as she willingly agreed.

We also learned that Xiao Ni fished and netted crawdads from the small dock that lines the river behind our home. Often just as the sun comes up we hear the creak of the front gate, then look down from our bedroom window to see Xiao Ni in her traditional bamboo leaf hat gathering in the long rectangular net trap. There is seldom very much of a catch, but I guess it is enough to get by each day. One day Xiao Ni proudly came to the door with a large bucket of 30-40 crawling half-shrimp, half lobsters each about 3 inches long. (See picture) Although cooking for us is not one of her responsibilities, she burst her way into the house, informing us she was making us crawdads for dinner. She stood at the sink for over two hours, painstakingly hand-cleaning every crawdad. She then fried them up in a garlic hot sauce for us. Although we had been wary of what we may have to “choke down”, we enjoyed a yummy dinner and Xiao Ni found a small way to show her gratitude to us.

As is sometimes the custom in China, husbands and wives go where ever they need to and do whatever they need to in order to make ends meet. Although we’ve met Xiao Ni’s husband and only son once or twice, the husband is usually away somewhere working some sort of manual labor. Currently he is back in Anhui helping his brother build buildings of some sort. They have been apart for months and cannot afford to visit one another.

These things concern us. This is a wonderful woman. The phrase “there, but for the grace of God, go I” has echoed in my mind a thousand times. The disparity between her life and ours is gigantic. It takes so little effort on our part to make such a HUGE impact on her life. How could we not find a way to try a little harder to help her out? Occasionally we’ve tried to just give her some extra money, but she is too proud and honorable to take it, so we often make up extra work that “needs to be done” above and beyond her regular duties. Although even the small amount of time she helps around our house is really not needed, still we asked her to come more frequently. Sometimes we receive gifts of food that, frankly, we know we won’t like. Rather than waste these by tossing them, we give them to Xiao Ni. She is always so grateful when we give these “gifts” to her. She may think we specifically went out and got these for her, and we never do anything to change that assumption. Because it encourages her to accept these little food items, in the grand cosmic circle of life, we chalk up this little white lie as “ok”.

We don’t really know where Xiao Ni has been living, but she recently asked if she could “borrow” some water. When I inquired what was going on, we learned that whatever her living situation was, it is now changing. Apparently she had found a temporary place to sleep, but it had no electricity or water. I envisioned her sleeping behind a wall somewhere. While it has been warm, fall is upon us and it is just a matter of time until it is too cold to live “just anywhere”. We’ve been blessed with the means to live in a home that has one more bedroom than we need, so we’ve asked Xiao Ni if she would be “willing” to live in our home to help ensure the house looks lived in enough to keep intruders away. She consented, and moved in with us today. We had dinner together tonight for the first time as a “family” and, acting as interpreter, I was able to share some of Xiao Ni’s unusual background with Monique. Once again, the connection between these two amazing women was heartwarming.

You know, it’s hard to understand how life’s lottery works. How one person or family is so blessed and another has so little. Oddly, we frequently want so much more than we already have, whereas Xiao Ni seems so satisfied with … almost nothing. We feel honored to have Xiao Ni staying with us, and can only hope that each of you someday has a chance to meet this amazing woman. To us, she is a walking lesson on how to live life.