Meiying - This mill must not be thrown away

In 1982, China introduced the household responsibility system, giving farmland back to families. Farmers rejoiced at finally owning their land. Meiying’s household received five acres. The village oil mill was disbanded, so Meiying resolved to farm every bit of land carefully, even the ridges between fields, which she planted with beans and sesame. She used mulberry leaves from the trees around her house to raise silkworms, selling the silk from their cocoons. She raised chickens and ducks by the pond at her doorstep, sometimes even diving into the water at night to drive ducks back to their pen so that water rats would not kill them. She could plow fields with oxen, build thatched haystacks that shed rain, a skill usually reserved for men.

Yet theft was constant in those lean years. One night, all her chickens and ducks were stolen. Sometimes her carefully stacked hay was taken, or beans drying in the sun were stolen from the threshing yard. In those impoverished times, some of the lazier families were even more destitute and resorted to stealing from neighbors. So when 85-year-old Meiying recalls these stories today, I finally understand why she still naps with one ear open, listening for sounds outside.

As China’s reform and opening deepened, rural life gradually improved, but Meiying’s drive to build prosperity only grew stronger. Using her husband’s oil-pressing experience, she opened a grain-and-oil exchange shop. She bought flour and rapeseed oil from the city and stocked them in the shop. Farmers, lacking cash, could trade their wheat or rapeseed for flour or oil at set exchange rates. It was convenient for them, and profitable for her.

Meiying is making tofu soup

Alongside this, Meiying experimented with tofu making. Villagers could also trade their soybeans for tofu, just like with flour and oil. She had already calculated how much she could earn, and by keeping her profit margins modest, she ensured steady customers. At that time, without electric grinders, tofu making was entirely manual. She bought a stone mill, soaked the beans, and fed them slowly into the mill with water while another person turned the heavy stone. Soy milk flowed into a basin, then was strained through cloth, leaving bean dregs for pig and chicken feed. The pure soy milk was then boiled, cooled, curdled, and pressed into fragrant tofu or bean sheets. Each batch also yielded a few delicate sheets of tofu skin. The process was long and exhausting, but profits were high.

Over time, Meiying realized that tofu was more lucrative than noodles, breads, or dumplings. But it was also exhausting. Still, her sharp logic prevailed: she would focus on tofu. To ensure villagers could buy fresh tofu for breakfast, she worked through the night, starting at midnight and finishing by morning. By 11 a.m., most of her tofu was sold. After careful comparison of profits, she decisively abandoned the other businesses, devoting herself entirely to tofu, and she enjoyed it.

Finally, at age 65, under pressure from her children who could no longer bear to see her work so hard, Meiying gave up tofu making.

Now, at 85, she often points to the old stone mill in the courtyard and tells her son: “This mill must not be thrown away, and it mustn’t be left outside either—it could be stolen. If one day the electricity goes out and there’s no tofu to buy, I can still use this stone mill to make it.”

END.