My former helper

Xiaohong has always been much more than a domestic helper. For over ten years she worked with our family, and in that time we grew close as sisters, helping each other weather life’s ups and downs. After she returned to her home village to marry, we never lost touch. Several times, she even brought her little boy along to our gatherings, folding him naturally into our circle of friends.
Yesterday, Mei, my elder daughter, (the younger one is travelling in Sichuan, on her way to meet us in Lanzhou) and I arrived from London at dawn and went straight to her village outside Langfang in Hebei. We spent a joyful day and night together—chatting, laughing, sampling the exercise machines in the square, and touring the village perched on her electric tricycle. Xiaohong and I are very different in temperament, yet one thing binds us: we both love to laugh, loud and wholehearted. Yesterday we laughed our teeth off, recalling old stories. She has a mischievous way of twisting foreign words into Chinese: my former sister-in-law Sharon once became xiaren (“shrimp”), while bonjour morphed into ben zhu (“stupid pig”).
Now her life is quieter. While her husband works in Beijing during the week, she tends her garden, raising vegetables for her own table, and spends hours studying Buddhist texts and chanting. Ever since she first met my handsome younger brother in Beijing and developed an interest in Buddhism, her devotion has deepened. Over the past decade she has become a devout believer, radiating a serenity that seems to satisfy her completely. I rejoice in her contentment. And already my daughters and I are scheming ways to bring her to England one day, so we can share in her laughter once again on our side of the world.