Family

Steeled by suffering

By Raymond Zhou, Huo Yan and Huang Feifei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-04 10:44

Han Suyun with her husband and daughter.

Han Sunyun(left) poses with Zhang Kaili, the actress who portrays Han in the 1996 moive, A Military Wife.

"Strong women tend to have an unhappy family life. Well, that's at least what I learned from magazine stories," says Han Suyun.

In the eyes of many outsiders, Han, 48, is such a "strong woman". She is so celebrated for her stamina and determination that a feature film was made about her, using both her and her husband's real names. Starring Zhang Kaili, it's called A Military Wife. The 1996 movie was recently aired on Nanning TV and Zhang, in an on-air interview, conveyed her "greetings and good wishes" to Han Suyun, the character she played more than a dozen years ago.

Han works as a clerk at the municipal finance bureau of Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. She lives a stone's throw away from the bureau's grand office building. It's a three-bedroom apartment on the first floor, elevated from the often damp ground by a short flight of stairs. "I got this unit as a special favor because they know I have difficulty climbing stairs."

Han has a self-effacement about her. Whenever she is asked about the great things she has done and the suffering she endured, she often shifts the topic to how much help and generosity others have showered upon her.

"My colleagues went to help me carry stuff. The other day, the bureau chief saw me driving my electric tricycle for a visit to the doctor. He said I should simply ask for an executive car. I would never want to bother them. But the thought was heart-warming," she revealed.

Han may be China's best-known military wife, the kind extolled in the patriotic song who "deserves half the medal" of the officer husband. Actually, before she became a military wife, she was an extraordinary fiance.

In 1983, when her future husband Ni Xiaowu joined the army and was stationed to a border area, Han decided to move in with his family. And what a family it was - a grandmother who was bedridden, parents whose health was not the best, an older brother working in a far-away mine with a wife enfeebled by frequent miscarriages, an almost blind younger brother, and twin sisters who were still in school.

The family had a three-quarter-hectare plot for farming that Han took on to support the family of nine.

Was it love or a sense of responsibility that sustained her?

Han Suyun says she always puts her family members before herself.

"The press assigned me a lot of lofty virtues, but it was a natural thing to do. We were living in the same village, and his family needed a helping hand," Han explains.

She helped out for almost a decade, hiding the hardship from her fiane and later husband. Ni, meanwhile, received medals, which would not have been possible without her silent sacrifices.

In 1989, Han was struck down by necrosis of the femoral bone. It was not correctly diagnosed until several years later. Media reports attributed the illness to her long-time toil.

But she plays it down: "Many women worked as much as I did, and they were not hit by this disease. Yes, I had to go plow the land before my baby was one month old. But the main reason was the dosage of hormones some ignorant doctors gave me in my early years. One doctor fed me some powder and my face was swollen for four months. Now I suspect it had a lot of hormones in it."

The family scraped together every penny for treatment. A doctor in Guangzhou learned of her story and the hospital offered her free care. "I didn't know whether it was a genuine offer or had some hidden agenda behind it. I was very worried on my first trip to Guangzhou," Han recalls.

It turned out to be a sincere offer. During the nine months she was treated, the local press wrote about her. Guangzhou readers were so moved they showered her with donations.

"I have deep feelings for Guangzhou. Even the dress I wore during my meeting with President Jiang Zemin was donated by a Guangzhou resident." Han points to an enlarged photo on the living-room wall. "You can see it did not quite fit me."

The reports and donations snowballed into a major campaign. Her quiet heroism was broadcast across the land. Her name became synonymous with a military wife.

"No matter how big the honor, whenever I come back home, I always remember I'm a wife," Han says, without a whiff of pomposity that often goes with such a flood of recognition and tribute. She does not have an assistant in the office, nor a maid at home. (After her husband retired from the army, they settled down in Nanning.)

Ni helps out with cleaning the rooms, but Han takes care of the laundry. Whoever comes home first does the cooking. "I do not have many hobbies, except playing cards. My colleagues love to play with me. And my only luxury is the occasional shopping for clothes." Han wears a pink blouse with a pair of black pants, nothing fancy. It's obvious even her "luxury" is not really luxurious in the current environment.

"All the assets we had when we got married were a bed and an electric stove. Nothing more. Now life is comfortable. But we do not have more happiness than before, do we? When I think of the old days, I have fond memories. We were poor, but we had so much joy," Han reminisces.

The living room is just like that of a typical urban family, except for the placards and photos, which are a reminder of all the glory that has come her way. "I keep a low profile. I don't like to go out and give speeches."

Han believes that in order to keep her family harmonious she has to put her family members before herself. "The reason many 'strong women' fail at home is because they do not think of the needs of their husbands. Both family and career are important. One should not take the place of the other."

Even though she does most of the family's shopping, big purchases are always the result of consultations with Ni. "And he helps me whenever I have to attend an official function. I do not have much education. So he is the brain behind me."

Ni also had the final say about their daughter's selection of major - architectural engineering. The 20-year-old is a sophomore in Nanning and comes home on weekends. "Many of her classmates do not know her family background because we do not want her to rest on our laurels."

Surprisingly, Han as a mother, is very open about the youngster scolding her mom for being old-fashioned. "We have to keep up with the times and there's a lot we can learn from the young generation," Han rationalizes.

The first things she wants for her daughter are "good health" and "self-dependence". She knows there's not much technical knowledge she can impart, but hard work will never be out of date. Han's job involves the distribution of blank invoices and she has mastered the necessary computer skills for it.

When she goes on an assignment as a "celebrity", it means the workload for her day job is accumulated so that after she returns she has to make up for the days lost.

Han's virtues as a military wife have been well documented, but her easy-going nature and down-to-earth disposition, crucial to the way she deals with fame, are also part of the moral values of Chinese society.

She does not articulate them, but she has espoused them in her daily activities just as 26 years ago she decided to be part of a military family. Whatever comes her way, she makes the best of it, be it back-breaking travails, debilitating illness, or flowers and applause.