The Cost of a Son by Huina Zheng

The Cost of a Son by Huina Zheng

In my hometown, a man without a son is a man who has failed.

My First Uncle once had everything.

My grandmother had seven children, three of them sons. My father is the second among the three brothers. In our Chen family, First Uncle was once the pride of the entire village.

After the Cultural Revolution ended and Gaokao, the college entrance examination was restored, he took the exam in 1978 at the age of twenty-eight. At a time when the college admission rate was only around 6%, he, a child from a remote mountain village, was admitted to a university in Guangzhou, becoming the first college student in the village’s history.

In the early 1990s, he became the richest man in the village. When other villagers still lived in mud houses, he was the first to build a two-story concrete house for my grandmother. Every time we returned to the village, people treated him with great respect. He always walked with his head held high, wearing that same confident smile.

My hometown is a Chen clan village in Guangdong Province, a Hakka community. More than a hundred years ago, a clan leader surnamed Chen fled war and brought their people from Fujian Province to this mountainous area. Over generations, the settlement grew into a village of more than four thousand people. It was poor, isolated, and deeply shaped by patriarchal values.

In the village, people take pride in how many sons they have. Even during the 1980s and 1990s, when the one-child policy was most strictly enforced, villagers did everything they could to evade it, just to have a son.

After hearing all this, a friend once said to me, “You’re an anomaly where you come from.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Because I know that, by the values of my hometown, choosing to have only one daughter in my lifetime is, in a sense, a “failure.” And I believe this is the root of my First Uncle’s tragedy, though no one in my family would agree.

“You’ve read too many books. That’s why you’ve become impractical,” my mother says. She believes that more sons mean more happiness. Without a son, what does it matter even if you’re a billionaire? I always want to argue back: if you had ten sons but lived in poverty, or no sons but were wealthy, which would you choose? But I never ask. Because I know my mother would choose sons, even if it meant becoming a beggar.

After graduating from university, First Uncle was assigned to a state-owned enterprise (I don’t remember exactly which industry, something like foreign trade). Over time, he rose to become the general manager. He married a university classmate from Guangzhou, who became an editor at a newspaper after graduation. Soon, they had a daughter, my cousin Lan. Lan and I are the same age, but she was born at the beginning of the year and I at the end, eleven months apart.

My father did not get into college. After graduating from high school, he brought my mother to Guangzhou. First Uncle used his connections to help my father secure a modest but stable job in the logistics department of a university. He also helped my mother open the only convenience shop on campus.

My mother came from a village about an hour’s walk from my father’s village. She is also Hakka and never attended school, because her parents believed that “a woman’s virtue lies in her lack of education.” Despite being illiterate, my mother, with her gentle temperament and kindness, and a calculator, ran the shop successfully. It was largely through her income that our family was able to buy an apartment in Guangzhou. Although when I was ten, the university reclaimed the shop and my mother became a full-time housewife, she had already earned enough to support herself in retirement, as long as she lived frugally.

First Uncle also helped Second Uncle establish himself in Guangzhou after he graduated from middle school.

I think my parents were deeply grateful to First Uncle, and they trusted him, the first college student our village had ever produced. So when, in 1995, the year my cousin Lan and I were eleven, he decided to resign from his state-owned enterprise and follow the trend of the time, xia hai, to “jump into the sea,” meaning to go into business and start a factory, they supported him without hesitation.

But he didn’t have enough capital, so he borrowed money from my mother. She was generous and lent him 150,000 yuan. Today, that might not sound like a large sum, but at that time, it was enormous. The average monthly income for a worker was only about 800 yuan. That 150,000 yuan was equivalent to fifteen years of a worker’s income, something like several million in today’s terms. My parents believed that once First Uncle’s factory was running smoothly, he would repay the money.

He opened a factory in the suburbs (I don’t even remember what it produced). Around the same time, he divorced First Aunt. The reason was that he had found a girl from Hunan Province, only eighteen years old then, just seven years older than Lan and me. My mother called her a huli jing, a “fox spirit,” a woman who seduces men for money.

But leaving his marriage wasn’t only about another woman. More than anything, First Uncle wanted a son. At that time, divorce was deeply shameful. First Aunt was a proud woman. She had once defied her family to marry him, a poor man from the countryside, and had always wanted to prove she had made the right choice. Instead, at the height of her pride, First Uncle humiliated her publicly, as if delivering a slap across her face. She never forgave him. Thirty years later, when he was gravely ill, she refused to let my cousin Lan visit him. After his death, she did not attend his funeral.

And Lan, who had once been the cherished only child, became, overnight, a daughter who could not carry on the family line.

I had always envied her. I had a younger brother, and from childhood my mother told me to take care of him, to always yield to him. “You’ll marry into another family, while your brother will be my only support in old age,” my mother said. I knew from very early on that I mattered less than my brother. Lan, at least, didn’t realize this until she was eleven. For the first eleven years of her life, she had her parents’ full attention and love, and a comfortable life.

In those years, First Uncle was riding high, never once considering the pain he had caused First Aunt and Lan. He had a young wife on his arm and a factory under his control, playing the role of a successful man. Soon his young wife bore him a son, and then, two years later, another son. This brought him great pride.

He believed he had finally become the man his village expected him to be.

He did not yet know what it would cost him.

He did not rush to repay my mother. Instead, with the money he earned, he began building a second house in the village, right in front of the first concrete house he had built. This time, it would be three stories tall. By then, other villagers who had made money in the city were also building two-story houses, and he wanted to outdo them.

But after the foundation and basic structure were completed, his factory began to fail. It could no longer cover its costs, and eventually it collapsed.

His grand house remained nothing more than a shell.

When he fell into poverty, just as one might expect, his young wife left him, taking their four-month-old son with her. He couldn’t care for his older son, three-year-old Ming, so he came to my mother and asked her to take care of the boy. As for himself, he returned to the village and moved back into the first concrete house he had built, living with my grandmother.

If my mother still harbored any hope that he would rise again and repay her, that hope began to crumble after she had cared for Ming for a year.

Back in the village, First Uncle lived off my grandmother, who cooked three meals a day for him.

Finally, my mother could no longer endure it. She sent Ming back to the village for my grandmother to raise. She felt she had already done more than enough. And yet, my mother was a woman who believed in propriety and righteousness. She remained polite to First Uncle, never confronting him directly. Only in front of me would she complain, grieving over the 150,000 yuan she had lent him. But she could never bring it up in front of my father. If she did, my father would cut her off angrily, accusing her of being selfish and petty. In my father’s eyes, his older brother had already suffered enough. We should understand him, support him, not kick him while he was down. After all, it was thanks to First Uncle that our family had been able to establish ourselves in Guangzhou.

Several years later, First Uncle sold the unfinished house, the mere shell, to Second Uncle. With that money, he bought social insurance for himself. From then on, he had a small monthly pension to live on.

When my mother heard this, her anger flared up again. She thought once more of the 150,000 yuan she had lent him, and her resentment toward him only deepened.

I have never discussed her father with my cousin Lan, so she doesn’t know that he borrowed 150,000 yuan from my mother. Lan blames that Hunan woman for destroying her parents’ marriage. In her mind, everything was that woman’s fault.

As the child of a single-parent family, the discrimination she faced became fully visible when she tried to get married after graduating from college.

At twenty-four, when she and her boyfriend of three years were preparing to marry, his parents learned that she came from a divorced family and immediately objected. A girl from a broken family, they believed, must be broken inside as well. They wanted their son to marry someone from a “whole” family. Even though Lan tried her best to win their approval, the relationship ended when she was twenty-five. By then, I was already married. My in-laws liked me very much. After all, I had graduated from a prestigious university and worked as an English teacher at a top secondary school.

Later, Lan found another boyfriend. He also came from a divorced family. I thought that, since they shared similar backgrounds, his mother would accept her. But after a year of dating, just when they were both certain they had found the right person, his mother firmly opposed the match. She insisted her son must marry someone from a “complete” family.

My cousin’s second relationship lasted less than two years. By then, she was already twenty-seven. In our world, twenty-five is a threshold. Once a woman passes that age, it becomes much harder to find a “good” husband. My cousin grew increasingly anxious. In those years, every time I saw her, her focus was always on finding a husband.

Although my mother had many grievances about the money First Uncle never repaid, she always restrained herself and never spoke ill of him to his face. But that day, after hearing about Lan’s difficult romantic history, she said nothing. My mother simply lit a cigarette.

Through the smoke, she let out a long sigh. After a while, she said, “It’s all your First Uncle’s fault. This is the karma he brought upon himself.”

It was one of the few moments when I felt my mother was being fair. But if I continued, saying, “If he hadn’t been so obsessed with having a son—”

My mother would cut me off without hesitation. “What do you know? How can a man not have a son? This isn’t his fault.”

Lan finally married at twenty-nine. Her husband was a colleague from her company, a man from Jiangsu Province. Perhaps people there were less prejudiced against children from divorced families, or perhaps his family was simply more open-minded. We were all happy for her. The following year, only two months apart, we both gave birth to daughters.

Although I married early, my husband and I were not financially stable at first. We focused on working and saving, and only after we bought a home and our situation improved did we feel ready to have a child.

Then, in 2015, when I was thirty-one, China implemented the two-child policy. My mother-in-law kept urging us to have another child, hoping for a grandson, but my husband and I were unmoved. Lan, on the other hand, wanted a second child. I never discussed this with Lan, never asked whether she wanted a son, or simply another child, so her daughter would not grow up as lonely as she once had, with no sibling to share things with. But on her WeChat Moments, I saw that she had gone to the Nanhai Temple, famous for granting prayers for children. In the end, her wish was not fulfilled.

Around that time, I heard that First Uncle’s eldest son, Ming, had jumped from a factory building and killed himself, just before the Spring Festival. Unlike First Uncle, who had been a top student, Ming dropped out of school after middle school. Because it was suicide, which was considered inauspicious in our customs, there was no funeral. His death was treated like a shame that could not be spoken of.

After that, we never spoke of Ming again, as if he had never existed. My only memory of him is of a boy who loved snacks. Once, when my mother took us to the supermarket, he proudly pulled a few candies from his pocket when we got home. At the bulk candy section, he had slipped them into his pocket when no one was looking. My mother believed that “if you steal a needle at three, you’ll steal gold at thirty.” She concluded from this that Ming would grow up to be useless, perhaps even end up in prison. After Ming’s death, when she brought this up again, my mother sighed. “It’s all your First Uncle’s fault. Without proper guidance from parents, how could a child turn out well?”

I wanted to remind her that First Uncle’s younger son had been admitted to a top university, that the younger son had turned out well. But then I thought of how that son never contacted his father and I kept quiet.

By then, my grandmother had already passed away. In the large concrete house, only First Uncle remained. He rarely left the house. His back had begun to stoop slightly. Even when he smiled, there was a kind of cautious restraint in it.

To comfort his older brother, my father insisted on returning to the village during the Spring Festival. Even after a fierce argument with my mother, who opposed the trip, he went alone to keep his brother company.

Last year, First Uncle fell ill and was hospitalized. My father went back to the village to take care of him for a month, until he was discharged. My father said that First Uncle smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day, rarely left the house, and didn’t get enough exercise. That was why First Uncle’s health had declined. He urged his older brother to go out and walk more, but First Uncle wouldn’t listen.

I suppose I understand. If I were First Uncle, I wouldn’t go out either. He had once been the pride of the village, and now he had fallen so low. The village is small, and villagers’ main pastime is gossip, always picking at your weakest point. Take Second Uncle, for example. He has only one daughter. Every time he and Second Aunt return to the village, people ask why they don’t have a son, then proudly list how many sons or grandsons they themselves have. So even though they have a fully built and furnished three-story house there, they spend less than a month a year living in it.

It was also around that time that First Uncle made his will, leaving both the two-story concrete house he had built and the old mud house passed down from my grandfather to my father. My mother was still dissatisfied. She complained to my father, “He didn’t even specify in the will that he borrowed 150,000 yuan from me, that these houses are meant to repay the debt. People will think we’re taking advantage of him.” Because of that one sentence, my father didn’t speak to her for two weeks.

This Spring Festival, First Uncle became critically ill again and was hospitalized. He called my father and asked him to come back and see him. On the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, my father drove back with my brother. My mother was already deeply unhappy about it.

That day, we were having a meal at Second Uncle’s house with my cousin Lan and her family. When the conversation turned to First Uncle, my mother kept a smile on her face, only saying that my father was no longer young and shouldn’t always be the one taking care of him.

Lan bit her lower lip and said, “It’s just that my mom refuses to let me bring my dad home.”

“No, you can’t blame First Aunt,” I blurted out.

“That’s true. It’s not her fault,” Second Uncle added.

Lan said she had to work and take care of her daughter, and couldn’t go back to the village to look after her father. Hiring a caregiver would cost 300 yuan a day, far more than she could afford.

Second Aunt suggested sending First Uncle to a nursing home in Guangzhou. It would be easier for us to visit, and the cost wouldn’t be too high. We all agreed it was a good idea.

On the fifth day of the Chinese New Year, my father and my brother returned to Guangzhou. The next day, First Uncle called again, and my father drove back once more.

My mother exploded. “Your brother isn’t without children. Why should he keep dragging you into this? It’s not like he only has one brother!”

My father ignored her.

My mother kept complaining, telling my father to suggest the nursing home, but First Uncle refused.

“Why does he get to be so willful?” she said.

In the middle of their argument, in a fit of rage, my mother blocked my father on WeChat. My brother and I became messengers between them.

The cold war ended a week later because First Uncle died. My father took charge of arranging the funeral. Lan also took leave and returned to the village on the very day he passed away. The funeral was scheduled for four days later, on a Monday. We went back on Sunday.

But in the village, I did not see First Uncle’s younger son. In fact, I had never seen him before. Because the funeral rites required a son to perform them, my brother took on that role. In that moment, First Uncle became, in a sense, my brother’s second father. From then on, every Qingming Festival, when my brother sweeps the graves of our ancestors, he must also visit First Uncle’s grave.

The night before the funeral, as we burned paper money for him, my cousin Lan cried. It was the only time I had ever seen her shed tears for First Uncle. She cried for less than five minutes before I gently stopped her.

We walked out of the two-story concrete house. By now, most of the village had four- or five-story houses. That house looked small, worn, almost invisible. Beside it stood the old mud house.

My brother came over and pointed at it. “Mom and Dad are thinking of tearing this down and building a new house here.”

“How much would that cost?” I asked.

“Five or six hundred thousand.”

My heart sank. I worried they might ask me for money. Legally, the house belonged to my father and would eventually go to my brother, but not to me. And my brother had no money.

“Spending that much to build a house you’ll live in only a few days a year?” I wasn’t really asking them; I was answering myself. To me, it made no sense.

“For appearances,” my brother said. “Dad says every time he comes back, people say he’s the only one in the village who hasn’t built a new house. He can’t face them.”

My brother then turned to Lan and pointed at the two-story concrete house. “After all, First Uncle used to be the richest man in the village.”

Lan forced a smile. “Yes. It’s all that woman’s fault.”

I wanted to say, no. It wasn’t the Hunan woman’s fault. It wasn’t just him, either. It was that deep, bone-rooted obsession with having a son. If First Uncle hadn’t held on to that obsession, if he hadn’t divorced, hadn’t left his state job but worked until retirement, he would now be living a comfortable middle-class life with a stable pension. And Lan wouldn’t have spent her life carrying the pain and insecurity of growing up without a father.

I don’t know if First Uncle ever regretted it.

In a place like this, who would believe that daughters are equal to sons?

My mother still sighs and says that because I have only one daughter, I will regret it when I grow old.

I’m no longer angry. I no longer try to argue with her, to make her understand my choices.

I just smile, and hang up the phone.

I love my daughter.

And she has never felt that her existence is a mistake.

That is enough.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Huina Zheng 2026

Image Source: Wan San Yip from Unsplash.com