Chapter 71
Not daring to let the fans say anything "outrageous" around his family's altar, Jiang Xiaoman quickly grabbed Yuntai and ran to the kitchen.
"Let me show you the dishes on the table today. On a special day, we usually have sixteen or eighteen dishes. My family has sixteen dishes, including four cold dishes: vegetarian shredded vegetables, cold jellyfish salad, preserved egg and tofu, and cold braised beef salad."
"There are many hot dishes. This is taro with braised pork belly. The taro was grown by my dad himself. It's soft and sticky, and it's especially delicious! There's also konjac tofu with braised duck. Didn't I promise you yesterday that I would take you to see my konjac? You don't need to climb the mountain anymore. Come and see, there's a huge pile of it here, all of it is konjac that we dug up!"
As she spoke, Jiang Xiaoman turned the camera around, and sure enough, there were four large baskets full of konjac roots on the floor in the corner of the kitchen. These were all unprocessed and would be prepared in the afternoon after lunch.
"Konjac tofu tastes good with everything, but every household here grows it, so everyone is tired of eating it. That's why I only made one dish with konjac today."
"This is braised chicken thigh with dried bamboo shoots. Let me explain first, it's not that I'm stingy, but I'm using frozen chicken thigh instead of my home-raised chicken. It's just that there's more frozen chicken thigh here, and people here like to eat dishes with lots of meat."
"This small pot contains braised beef with vermicelli. The vermicelli is made from sweet potatoes grown at home. But beef is too expensive, so we usually can't afford to buy it for ourselves. Next time my dad catches a rabbit, I'll cook rabbit meat with vermicelli for you guys to see."
"This is our local mixed meatball soup. There are three kinds of meatballs in it. My family makes radish meatballs, bamboo shoot and pork meatballs, and tofu meatballs."
"The method is also very simple. First, cook the meatballs in broth. Then, pour soaked and chopped vermicelli, dried daylily, and white fungus into the bottom of the bowl. Since salt has already been added when the meatballs are made, this dish does not need to be salted. Just sprinkle some chopped green onions on top when it is done."
"The last dish is the sweet soup that's a must for entertaining guests. My family hasn't built a new house in decades, so my dad was very happy and he was especially willing to spend money this time. This sweet soup alone contains lily bulbs, white fungus, lotus seeds, longan, osmanthus sugar, and handmade glutinous rice balls. It looks delicious, right?"
Of course it's delicious!
The fans' mouths watered at the sight of the tempting sweet soup in the video, and they couldn't resist ordering it through a food delivery app...
This blogger, known as "Rural Xiaoman Brother," doesn't have any food-related tags and only eats home-style dishes, yet they all look so tempting!
After showing the fans around the kitchen, Jiang Xiaoman turned the camera to a bamboo and wooden rack in the corner of the living room. This rack was similar to the wooden racks used for raising silkworms, but here it was used to dry tea leaves. At this moment, however, the large bamboo trays were not filled with tea leaves, but with various kinds of tea snacks.
"Look, here are the tea snacks we serve at banquets. In our rural area, the tea snacks for large banquets are mainly divided into two types. One type is hot, such as tea eggs, sweet eggs in syrup, and osmanthus glutinous rice balls, which are all cooked and eaten on the spot."
"The other kind is what's displayed here. On top are roasted plain peanuts, below are homemade white sugar cat ear peanuts and brown sugar peanuts, and here are dried bamboo shoot peanuts and dried plum vegetable peanuts that I made yesterday. These can be eaten as tea snacks or served as appetizers with drinks. There are also some spiced sunflower seeds and walnut-flavored peanuts, all of which I bought from the county town."
After walking around the living room, I came out to find that the men had already finished eating, the women were busy clearing away the dishes and leftovers, and the men were sitting in small groups under the eaves chatting and smoking.
Seeing this, netizens immediately felt uncomfortable.
"Am I seeing things? The people cooking in the kitchen are all women, and now the men aren't helping after they've finished eating. They expect the women to clean up? Don't they have hands?"
"Upstairs, are you from the countryside? Isn't this how it is in the countryside? Men are treated like kings at home, they don't do anything, okay?"
"I'm so angry! Couldn't Xiaoman have let them clean it up themselves? They're not short of hands!"
"I'm already furious. Rural women are so pitiful! When they're working hard to cook, no man comes to lend a hand. Everyone's inside playing cards. But when it's time to eat, they all sit down and eat, and then they just throw down their dishes and squat there chatting and drinking tea without helping to clean up."
"Suddenly remembered that 'Warm Beds for Older Rural Single Men' project, hilarious! Why can't older rural single men find wives? This live stream solved the mystery!"
Jiang Xiaoman never expected that her original intention of starting a live stream to show everyone how a housewarming banquet is held in the countryside would start, but before the live stream even ended, the comments section was already filled with arguments, and the issue of "difficulty for older single men in rural areas to get married" had become a hot topic in recent years.
As more and more netizens came to criticize the men in their village, Jiang Xiaoman broke out in a cold sweat.
However, the live stream cannot be stopped immediately at this point.
He also felt that the men in the village were sometimes a bit lazy, but that was the custom passed down through generations in Langshan, especially on occasions like weddings and funerals. Whether they were lazy at home or just wanted to save face, the men basically kept their hands behind their backs and did nothing, as if that was the only way to show their noble status as the "head of the household"...
However, at this moment, looking at the increasingly heated comments on the screen, Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but start to doubt whether these so-called "customs passed down from ancestors" that they were used to could really be accepted by modern society.
They, Langshan, will eventually have to go out and integrate into this rapidly developing era. If they continue to cling to these outdated customs and traditions, not only will netizens feel uncomfortable, but even he himself, after receiving a university education, finds it hard to accept when he comes back.
Why can't men do housework?
However, the live stream is still ongoing, and the netizens who came after hearing the news have already started arguing in the chat section, which is definitely not going to work.
Jiang Xiaoman decisively set up the gimbal in the living room and asked a few of the older children to help watch it. He then made an excuse to pee and quickly ran to find Jiang Baichuan!
As the principal of Langshan Primary School, Uncle Baichuan held considerable "authority" in the village; in other words, many villagers were willing to listen to Jiang Baichuan.
Hearing that the netizens watching the live stream were criticizing the men who came to the banquet for not doing any work, Jiang Baichuan was stunned for a moment, then put down his teacup with a wry smile: "I told you long ago that just posting a few slogans is useless! Let's go find Uncle Youtian."
Villager Jiang Youtian was squatting on the ground smoking with Jiang Youliang. Hearing that many people online were criticizing the men in their village for only eating and not working, he paused for a moment, then habitually thought of saying, "Isn't everyone like that?"
It only dawned on me then that I, the village chief, had recently been displaying slogans and using loudspeakers to advocate for "gender equality," arguing that men should also do housework and take care of children...
"Ahem~ Baichuan, and Xiaoman, you are both cultured people. In your opinion, what should we do about this?" Jiang Youtian asked the two cultured people with a guilty look on his face.
"What else can we do? There are so many chores in the kitchen. Women can do them, so why can't men?" Jiang Baichuan pointed to himself, laughing and crying at the same time. "What nonsense about men not being able to cook? I've been cooking for students at school for years. Raising pigs and chickens, chopping wood and cooking—I did it all. Uncle Tian, do you see anyone in the village looking down on me because I cook?"
"Yes! That makes sense!" Jiang Youtian suddenly realized, slapping his thigh. "Baichuan, what do you suggest we do now? I'll listen to you! If those brats dare to disobey, they can forget about getting the grain seed subsidy next year!"
"Hey, Uncle, please don't say that into my phone later. It's against policy, and you might lose your job as village chief," Jiang Xiaoman warned him with a dark expression.
The idea that village officials use their positions for personal revenge or abuse their power for personal gain is enough to trigger a scandal, and yet he still wants to continue using his account.
Although he knew that the most direct and effective way to deal with these lazybones was actually to threaten them into canceling their subsidies...
Jiang Baichuan thought for a moment and gave Jiang Youtian an idea: "Isn't this simple? Xiaoman's family is having guests today, and there's so much to do in the kitchen, can't you help out?"
"Also, I remember that Brother Youliang's family was busy building a house this year, and they haven't even weeded the tea garden yet, right?"
"Since netizens think that men don't do any work, let them see that we rural people also do farm work every day. It's just that men and women have different roles."
Jiang Baichuan is right. The most urgent task is to eliminate the negative impact of the internet on Langshan Village. As for how to gradually change these outdated customs and practices that are not friendly to women, this is not something that can be solved in a day or two.
"This...this isn't quite right, is it? If word gets out, it'll sound like my family isn't genuinely hosting a banquet, but rather hiring people to do the work." Jiang Youliang looked uneasy. He'd lived for decades, and this was the first time he'd ever heard of going to someone's banquet, giving a gift, and then having to do free work for the host.
"Either get scolded or work! If you don't believe me, I'll call them over and ask them whether they want to get scolded or work." Jiang Youtian didn't care about anything else. After all, he was the village chief. If Langshan Village's reputation on the internet was ruined, how could he save face?
Uncle Yutian truly lives up to his reputation as the village chief; he has a firm grasp on the Achilles' heel of these men in the village!
Upon hearing that netizens were criticizing them for only eating and not doing any work, the thin-skinned ones couldn't stand it anymore and offered to lend a hand in the kitchen.
"What are you doing in the kitchen? If you're a man, do what a man should do!" Jiang Baichuan waved his hand. He was used to directing the kids in labor classes at school, and now, looking at this group of grown men, his principal spirit couldn't help but ignite. He took over the reins and began assigning tasks—
"You guys, go with Brother Youliang to get hoes and woven bags, and weed the tea garden! Also, gather some pig feed while you're at it."
“You guys, go along the road and cut down some grassy patches, and while you’re at it, cut some firewood for Uncle Youliang’s family.”
"The rest of you, come with me. Let's go dig up more konjac today. Forget about helping the kitchen cook konjac; don't you all eat the cooked konjac? Make more! I'll take some to school for the kids to try!"
Jiang Xiaoman listened and nodded repeatedly. Actually, he was also annoyed by the village men who would always say things like "help the women with the work," as if the women were just born to work themselves to death for the family, while they, by doing something for the family, acted as if they were doing a favor.
No wonder fewer and fewer girls are willing to marry back to the mountains these days. If it were him, he wouldn't want to marry back and serve that kind of man either.
Chapter 72
However, now is not a good time to criticize. Seeing that Jiang Baichuan had made clear arrangements for everyone, Jiang Xiaoman quickly ran back to the living room to get her phone, which was broadcasting live. As she walked, she explained to the live stream.
They used the same argument as Jiang Baichuan: it's not that men in the mountains don't work, it's just that men and women have different roles.
"If you don't believe me, I'll take you to see for yourselves. After we finished tea, everyone went to help with the work."
Even after midday, it's still very hot in the mountains this season, especially in the grassy areas, where it's stuffy, hot, and teeming with mosquitoes. Weeding in the fields is hard work, let alone chopping firewood.
Seeing these lazybones who had just been "acting like bullies" now sweating profusely, netizens finally felt relieved.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Jiang Xiaoman followed the group back to the vicinity of her old house with her mobile phone. Her father had planted a lot of konjac in this area, and konjac has an amazing reproductive capacity. After more than ten years, lush konjac trees can be seen almost everywhere in this area!
The best season for harvesting konjac is actually autumn, but there aren't so many restrictions in the mountains. If you see a large one, just dig it up and cook it yourself. Anyway, there's no need to save seeds. After digging up the konjac, keep the tuber to eat, and dig out the sprouts on the top. Let them dry slightly, coat them with wood ash, and then plant them. The konjac sprouts will quickly take root and sprout, and a new plant will grow.
Jiang Baichuan was an expert at growing konjac—after all, besides the few acres of potatoes, growing konjac was a stable source of income for the school every year. He picked out the mature konjac plants and directed everyone to dig them up; in less than half a day, they had dug up several hundred kilograms of konjac.
Jiang Youliang is a really contradictory person. He can't stand seeing land go to waste, so he grows konjac very diligently, but he rarely eats it himself because he finds it too troublesome! However, konjac tofu is actually very delicious in stews and stir-fries, and now that he sees someone helping him, he almost wishes they would dig up all the edible konjac in his house!
Even though the konjac tubers haven't grown big enough yet this season, there's enough to eat.
"Let me show you, this is the konjac I grow! Isn't it spectacular? It's almost grown into a forest, haha~ Once my guesthouse is renovated, everyone is welcome to come to Langshan for a vacation and experience digging for konjac!" Jiang Xiaoman tried her best to liven up the atmosphere in the live stream, shifting the topic from "lazy rural men who don't work" to "how fun summers are in Langshan"—
"Besides konjac, in the summer we also make something called 'Guanyin Tofu'. Look, it's this 'tofu wood'. We pick the leaves off the tree, put them in a big basin, add water and knead them until they're soft, then we rub out the gelatinous substance inside. After filtering out the leaf residue, we pour in the water from the sedimentation of wood ash and stir to solidify it. The resulting tofu is grass green, which looks especially beautiful!"
"When eating it, you can slice it and make a cold salad with chili oil, garlic water, salt, and vinegar. If you like houttuynia cordata, you can also dig some up and put it in. It's especially delicious! If you like it sweet, you can refrigerate it and then add honey or brown sugar water. It's also delicious as an ice bowl."
"In a while, when the jelly fruits in the mountains are ready to be picked, I'll take everyone to pick them and make jelly. It's delicious, but it's a bit of a hassle to make. After picking the fruit, you have to cut it open, dry it, peel off the outer skin, and only the seeds can be used to make jelly. Making jelly is very stress-relieving, it's almost like playing with playdough."
“There are lots of jelly fruits in the mountains here. When I was a child, my dad and I would go to the mountains to pick jelly fruits every weekend, carrying baskets and woven bags on our backs. These things could sell for two yuan a pound at the market!”
It's impossible to dig up hundreds of kilograms of konjac and turn them all into konjac tofu.
Jiang Youliang waved his hand and said, "Everyone who came to eat today, why don't you each take two big konjacs home!"
The rest will be made into konjac tofu, which will be perfect for entertaining guests in the next couple of days, so nothing will go to waste.
Seeing the men digging konjac, weeding the tea garden, and chopping and carrying firewood, sweating profusely, the comments section finally quieted down. However, a few comments still said that Jiang Xiaoman and the others were just putting on a show for the camera, and that after the live stream ended, all those tasks would be done by the women.
Jiang Xiaoman dared not explain, because it would be useless to explain, since what the netizens said was right, this is indeed their custom here, sigh!
Didn't you see how big Jiang Caiyun's belly is? Does she still have to bring her eldest daughter to class?
Although her husband also works in the fields, he just lies around doing nothing when he gets home. Even if he's just idly playing on his phone at home, he won't lend a hand to help take care of the children.
In their view, housework and childcare are women's responsibilities, while men are only responsible for farming and working to earn money. They never consider how difficult it is for their wives to raise children and do all the housework alone...
Thinking of this, Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but secretly admire Tang Xinlan.
I heard that Lan Jie's village used to be similar to this place, where the men treated their women like cattle. Later, Tang Xinlan led the women in the village to start an e-commerce business. The women were able to earn money on their own and stood up for themselves. Now, in many households in Shangtang Village, I heard that the women are in charge. They no longer treat their wives like cattle. They dare to be hands-off managers and live off their wives like before. The women really don't mind getting divorced and living alone.
When will their place be like Shangtang Village?
Jiang Xiaoman sighed inwardly, picked up a broom, and began to clean.
Those who came to the village for the feast all went home with their children after dinner. Only a few helpers remained, and they had to prepare the ingredients needed for the last day of the feast. Seeing them busy in the kitchen, Jiang Xiaoman took a broom and dustpan and swept up cigarette butts, melon seed shells, fruit peels and everything else inside and outside the house.
Seeing the aunts and sisters-in-law who came to help, covered in dust and sweat, Jiang Xiaoman felt a little guilty.
After thinking for a moment, I went to the bathroom, turned on the water heater, and heated water so they could take turns taking a hot shower.
Few families in the mountains have electric water heaters like his, mainly because they are reluctant to pay the electricity bill. They usually boil some water themselves and use a large bathtub to bathe and wash their hair.
After taking a nice, hot shower in Jiang Xiaoman's bathroom, her sisters-in-law were all very happy, and on the way back, they inevitably started talking about Jiang's bathroom again.
It's so convenient and clean!
Unfortunately, I heard that renovating a bathroom like that, with pipes, tiles, shower, toilet... the whole set costs several thousand yuan, almost a year's savings for the whole family. They all have children who need to go to school, how could they bear to spend such a large sum of money to renovate a bathroom?
After three days of hectic activity, Jiang Xiaoman finally finished preparing for her family's housewarming party.
After seeing off the last group of villagers who came to help, and putting away the remaining food at home, Jiang Youliang and his son closed the door and slept from 8 p.m. until almost 10 a.m. the next morning!
Perhaps she had slept for too long. When she woke up and saw the snow-white walls, Jiang Xiaoman was in a daze for a moment before she remembered, "Oh, they've moved to a new house."
"Xiaoman, get up and have breakfast! After we finish eating, we'll tear down that shed over there!" Jiang Youliang got up earlier than his son and had already cooked a big pot of sweet potato porridge.
After eating rich, meaty foods for three days in a row, I started my day with a light sweet potato porridge and some pickled vegetables, and my stomach felt much better.