Shendi , this name was never meant to be hers.
In Chinese, it means ：this daughter exists only to make way for the son her family still hopes for.
Like bait cast into the water, she was meant to be forgotten once the “big fish” arrived.
From childhood, Shendi carried that fate.
Not seen as an independent person, but only as the “summoning” of a younger brother.
By second grade, she had already left school. So she never learned Mandarin—only the thick mountain dialect that even I sometimes struggle to understand.
When I visit her, Feng often has to translate.
she needs no translation.
And she needs no brother.
It is all her.
Every neat row in the courtyard, every patch of earth, is cared for by her rough but steady hands.
Her husband works away as a carpenter. And in the village, membership in the co-op usually goes to the man of the house.
A woman named “Shendi” has never had a home of her own.
Only her husband’s home or her parents’ home.
But this time, our cooperative wrote down her name.
And the dividends were given to her.
Because it is her labor, her land, her resilience
that holds this household together.
And when volunteers arrive from around the world, it is this woman—who had little chance for schooling—who meets them face to face.
Today, the wooden Nuo Opera masks, a wooden folk masks from this region, in our products list are carved by professional local craftsmen in Enshi.
But one day, we hope the co-op’s profits can send Shendi to learn woodcarving herself.
So that she will not only be a carpenter’s wife, but a true artisan in her own right.
Carving not just the hardships of life, but carving beauty, carving expression—her own.
Her name may have once meant she was the sacrifice.
But here, in the village and the soil, we hope she finds her rise.
Like a seed that refuses to wither—taking root, sprouting, and growing into her own strength.