Late into the evening during a recent trip to Ningxia Hui autonomous region, I couldn’t stop thinking of Hai Yan, a “Wonder Woman” I had met at a factory in Minning, operating in support of poverty relief efforts.
宁夏回族自治区的采访刚刚结束，入夜，我不禁回想起白天在闽宁镇一家车间遇到的“神奇女侠”——海燕。她在当地参与着脱贫工作。
Her Cinderella-like transformation, which I had learned about in the course of a video shoot, left me feeling so inspired that I gushed about her to my husband in our usual nighttime video call, even though it was nearly 11 pm and I had to get up early the next morning.
最早我是从一个视频中了解到这名奇女子的。她“丑小鸭变白天鹅”式的蜕变让我备受鼓舞，甚至晚上跟丈夫视频通话时，明知道明天要早起，我还是没忍住跟他滔滔不绝地聊海燕，一聊就聊到深夜11点。
As a child, Hai grew up in an arid, mountainous village deemed one of the most inhospitable places in the world for living. Photos of her at the age of 5 or 6, rosy-cheeked and dressed in a festive red down jacket, seemed to belie the hardships of her youth. She never finished primary school, dropping out to start working, along with her older sister, to support the family after their mother had become disabled and confined to a wheelchair. Eventually she and the family migrated to Minning, moving into a Hui community with neat rows of one-story brick homes and willow trees, but even then her life trajectory diverged little from that of the typical local woman.
海燕在干旱山区长大，村子所在的地区被认为是世界上最荒芜的居住带之一。我看过几张海燕五六岁时的照片，脸蛋红扑扑的，身穿红色羽绒服，喜庆的色彩似乎掩盖了当时生活的艰辛。海燕的妈妈在她小学时身患残疾，海燕跟她姐姐不得不辍学工作，养家糊口。后来她们全家人搬到了闽宁镇原隆村。虽然住进了砖瓦房，但海燕起初的“移民”生活和别的女人几乎没什么不同。
“Before I joined the plant, I was just a housewife and didn’t really have a lot of thoughts about my life,” she shared with me.
海燕当时对我说：“进工厂前，我只是一个家庭主妇，对生活没抱什么想法。”
Initially, when Hai entered the factory as it first opened in September 2019, she was an average worker at the plant, sorting and packaging local specialty foods such as the region’s celebrated goji berries. But when COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, a shift in strategy at the factory suddenly paved the way for her debut in the spotlight. The management decided to train the workers, of whom 99 percent are young women, to do livestreaming to promote products online.
海燕于2019年9月加入工厂，最开始只是一名普通工人，负责枸杞和其他当地特色食品的分拣和包装。2020年突如其来的疫情使车间不得不转变发展策略，车间管理层决定培训年轻女工学习线上直播和产品推广，海燕就这样被推到了“聚光灯”下。
Those “diamonds in the rough” among the employee roster soon revealed their true luster during the training session. And once it was over, the six most outgoing and lively of the bunch, including Hai, were tapped to form a star team of livestreamers known as “Qiaoxifuer”, or talented wives.
培训如同大浪淘沙，花名册上的员工各各闪耀出迷人的光彩。培训结束后，包括海燕在内的几名女性脱颖而出，组成了“巧媳妇”直播团队。
For Hai, becoming a “Qiaoxifuer” has truly been a dream. She makes more through commissions, depending on the success of her livestreams, and now brings home the biggest salary in the household, one far exceeding her husband's earnings as a construction worker. Wearing a chic black boater hat with a glittery band of rhinestones, she spoke with joy of the freedom that comes from being able to spend her own money. And with a sparkle in her eye, she shared her future goal: to one day start her own online business promoting local specialty products while empowering other women just like her, perhaps creating more real-life fairytales in the process.
对海燕而言，成为“巧媳妇”的一员是她梦寐以求的事情，通过直播她能赚到更多的钱，海燕现在的工资比她丈夫在工地挣得要多出许多。海燕头上戴着顶别致的黑色船帽，上面镶嵌着一排闪闪发光的水钻。她讲话时语气欢快，脸上洋溢着能自由支配收入的喜悦之情。提及未来目标时，她的眼睛也闪烁着光芒，海燕说，总有一天，她要自己创业做线上推广，直播带货当地特色产品，不断为像她这样的女性提供机会，谱写属于她们自己的蜕变童话。
I was particularly touched by how Hai’s rise to household breadwinner had also changed the family’s traditional preference for boys. “Now they really like girls,” she said with a proud grin -- surely for her young daughters, one in kindergarten and the other in elementary school, growing up surrounded by loved ones who now value women and might hope for them to follow in their mother’s footsteps.
海燕的经历也改变了当地重男轻女的传统，这一点尤其让我感动。谈到这里，海燕想到自己的两个女儿：“他们现在可喜欢女孩儿了。”她的女儿一个在上幼儿园，一个在读小学。想到她们会在看重女性的环境下健康成长，海燕脸上露出自豪的笑容。当地人也许是希望孩子们长大后能像她们的母亲一样优秀。
Hai may be the wonder of her family, but she was also one to me — an unforgettable example of how the internet has powered not only poverty relief but also extraordinary new ambitions, especially for women.
海燕不仅是她家庭的奇迹，与我而言也是。她的经历令我难以忘怀，同时也再次证明，互联网不仅能为脱贫工作注入动力，还能帮助女性树立新抱负。
听友249989375
……