离家出走自驾游，56岁的她成为中国女权主义偶像
A Chinese ‘Auntie’ Went on a Solo Road Trip. Now, She’s a Feminist Icon.
JOY DONG, 王月眉
2021年4月7日
She spends each night alone, curled up in a four-and-a-half by eight-foot rooftop tent, balanced on stilts above her car. She often eats her meals in parking lots. She has seen her daughter and grandchildren only once in the past six months, and her husband not at all.
她每晚独自一人睡在宽约1.4米、长约2.4米、用梯子支撑平衡的车顶帐篷中。她常常在停车场吃饭。在过去的六个月里，她和女儿还有外孙只见了一面，而完全没有见丈夫。
Su Min, a 56-year-old retiree from Henan Province in central China, has never been happier.
来自中国中部河南省的56岁退休人士苏敏从未如此快乐。
“I’ve been a wife, a mother and a grandmother,” Ms. Su said. “I came out this time to find myself.”
“我以前做妻子，做母亲，做外婆，”苏敏说。“我这一次出去，我要找我自己。”
After fulfilling her family’s expectations of dutiful Chinese womanhood, Ms. Su is embracing a new identity: fearless road-tripper and internet sensation. For six months, she has been on a solo drive across China, documenting her journey for more than 1.35 million followers across several social media platforms.
在满足了家人对中国女性应尽责任的期望之后，苏敏开始了一个新的身份：无所畏惧的公路旅行者和网络红人。六个月来，她一直在中国各地自驾游，记录她的旅程，在多个社交媒体平台上与超过135万关注者分享。
Her main appeal is not the scenic vistas she captures, though those are plentiful. It is the intimate revelations she mixes in with them, about her abusive marriage, dissatisfaction with domestic life and newfound freedom. Her blunt but vulnerable demeanor has made Ms. Su — a former factory worker with a high school education — an accidental feminist icon of a sort rarely seen in China.
她的主要吸引力并不是她拍到的风景——虽然拍了很多——而是站在风景中的她袒露自己充满屈辱的婚姻、对家庭生活的不满和新发现的自由。高中文化程度的苏敏曾是一名工人，直率而柔弱的外表使得她意外成为了某种在中国鲜见的女权主义偶像。
Older women send her messages about how painfully familiar her story feels, and greet her at each destination bearing fruit and home-cooked meals. For younger women, she is a font of advice about marriage and child-rearing. “I wish my mother could be like Auntie Su and live for herself, instead of being trapped and locked in by life,” read a comment on one of her videos.
年长的女性发来信息告诉她，她的故事是多么令人悲伤地熟悉，并在她的每个目的地用水果和家常菜向她表示问候。对于年轻女性，她给出婚姻和育儿的忠告。她的一个视频下的评论写道：“我希望我妈妈也像苏阿姨一样，为自己而活，不是被生活锁住、困住。”
Her unexpected popularity speaks to the collision of two major forces in Chinese society: the rapid spread of the internet, and a flourishing awareness of gender equality in a country where traditional gender roles are still deeply rooted, especially among older generations.
她出人意料的走红说明了中国社会两大力量的碰撞：互联网的迅速普及，以及在一个传统性别角色仍然根深蒂固的国家（老一辈当中尤甚），性别平等的意识日益增强。
“Before, I thought I was the only person in the world who wasn’t happy,” Ms. Su said in an interview from inside her beige tent. She was leaving tropical Hainan, China’s southernmost province, headed for Guilin, a city famed for its lush hills, about 500 miles away.
苏敏在米色帐篷里接受采访时说：“以前我不清楚这个状况。我好像感觉世界上就我的生活过得不太好。”她即将离开中国最南端的热带岛屿海南，并前往800公里以外、以郁郁葱葱的延绵丘陵著称的桂林市。
Only after sharing her videos online, she said, “did I realize there were so many people like me.”
她说，直到在网上分享视频后，“我才知道有这么多人像我一样。”
Before last fall, Ms. Su had rarely traveled. But she had long been enamored with the idea of driving. Growing up in Tibet, she sometimes missed the school bus home and had to walk 12 miles through the mountains, she said. Each time a truck passed by, she imagined sitting behind the wheel, safe and comfortable. But cars were rare, and having one seemed impossible.
在去年秋天之前，苏敏很少去旅行。但是她很早就迷上了自驾的念头。她说，她在西藏长大，有时错过了回家的校车，不得不步行约20公里的山路。每次一有卡车经过，她都会想像自己坐在方向盘前，既安全又舒适。但是汽车很稀有，拥有一辆似乎是不可能的。
At 18, she moved to Henan and worked in a fertilizer factory. Five years later, she married her husband. They had met only a few times — not uncommon at the time — but she thought marriage might be a way out of the endless chores she shouldered at home.
18岁时，她搬到了河南，在一家化肥厂工作。五年后，她嫁给了丈夫。他们婚前只见过几次面——这在当时并不罕见——但是她以为结婚可能是摆脱她在家里承担的无尽家务的一种方式。
Instead, she said, she found herself laden with even more housework, as well as verbal and physical abuse. Her husband would disappear for long stretches and then hit her if she asked where he had been, she said; once, he beat her with a broom.
然而正相反，她说，她发现自己要负担更多的家务劳动，还有打骂。她的丈夫会消失很久，如果她问他去了哪里就会被打。有一次，他用扫帚殴打她。
Still, Ms. Su said, she never considered leaving, worried about a social stigma that is still pervasive in much of China.
苏敏说，尽管如此，她从未考虑过离婚，担心遭到社会歧视，这种歧视在中国仍然很普遍。
She resigned herself to her life at home. Her daughter gave birth to twins in 2017, and Ms. Su was in charge of watching them — a task that she was happy to do, but that kept her tied to her home. Though age had cooled her husband’s temper, they barely spoke. When they did, they argued.
她屈服于家庭生活。她的女儿在2017年生下了双胞胎，苏敏负责看护孩子们——虽然她很乐意这样做，但这让她被绑在了家里。尽管她丈夫的脾气因年龄增长而和缓，但他们几乎不说话。一说话就吵架。
She sought solace in novels about time-travel and romantic Korean soap operas but still felt deeply lonely. During especially heated arguments with her husband, she would faint, she said. A doctor eventually told her she had depression.
她在穿越小说和浪漫的韩国肥皂剧中寻求慰藉，但仍然感到非常孤独。她说，在与丈夫特别激烈的争吵中，她会晕倒。后来，一名医生告诉她，她患上了抑郁症。
Then, in late 2019, she came across a video online of someone introducing their camping gear while on a solo road trip. She remembered her childhood dream of driving — the freedom and comfort it had represented.
然后，在2019年末，她在网上观看了一段视频，视频中的人在自驾游中介绍了他们的露营装备。她想起了童年时代的梦想——开车曾代表着自由和舒适。
Over the following months, she devoured every video she could find about road trips. She took copious notes: which apps they used to find campsites, which tricks they had for saving money. (Showers at public bathhouses, she learned, could be bought in bulk).
在接下来的几个月中，她看了所有能找到的关于公路旅行的视频。她还做了大量笔记：用哪些应用程序来查找露营地，有什么样的省钱技巧。（她了解到，公共浴室的淋浴时间可以以低价储值购买）。
Soon, she made up her mind: Once her grandsons entered preschool, she would embark on a trip of her own. She had bought a small white Volkswagen hatchback several years earlier, with her savings and a monthly pension of around $300.
很快，她下定了决心：一旦外孙子们进了幼儿园，她就开始自己的旅程。几年前，她用积蓄和每月2000多元的退休金买了一辆白色大众两厢掀背车。
Her family was resistant. Ms. Su reassured her daughter that she would be safe. She ignored her husband, who she said mocked her.
家人对此持反对态度。苏敏让女儿放心，她会平安的。她的丈夫嘲笑她，她不理睬。
On Sep. 24, she fixed her tent to the top of the car, packed a mini-fridge and rice cooker, and set off from her home in the city of Zhengzhou.
9月24日，她将帐篷固定在车顶，带了一个迷你冰箱和电饭煲，从郑州的家中出发。
She posted video updates as she drove, and in October, one of them went viral on Douyin, the Chinese TikTok. In it, she described how oppressed she had felt by housework and her husband.
她在旅途中发布视频更新。去年10月，在中国版本的TikTok——抖音上，其中一个视频迅速走红。在视频中，她描述了家务劳动和丈夫给她带来的压迫感。
“Why do I want to take a road trip?” she sighed. “Life at home is truly too upsetting.”
“为什么我要自驾游呢，”她叹了口气。“在家里吧，确实闹心。”
Millions watched the video, sharing it with hashtags like “runaway wife.”
数百万人观看了该视频，并以“出逃”等标签分享。
Ms. Su continued across the country, visiting historical Xi’an, mountainous Sichuan and the old town of Lijiang — covering more than 8,500 miles so far. She saved on highway tolls by taking country routes. At night, she unfolded her tent atop her car like an accordion, feeling safer up high. Before setting out again each morning, she draped her wet towel on a clothesline strung across the back seat.
苏敏继续周游全国，参观了历史悠久的西安、四川山区和丽江古城，迄今行程已超过13680公里。她走乡村的道路，省下高速公路费。到了晚上，她把车顶帐篷像手风琴一样展开，在高高的车顶上感觉更加安全。每天早晨再次出发之前，她将湿毛巾挂在后座上方的晾衣绳上。
In her videos, she marveled at her newfound freedom. She could drive as fast as she wanted, brake as hard as she liked. At each stop, she made new friends, she said. Wrapping dumplings on camera in a Hainan parking lot in February, she laughed when tourists passing by asked who was traveling with her.
在视频中，她惊叹于自己新发现的自由。她可以按照自己想要的速度开车，想怎么踩刹车就怎么踩。她说，她在每个地点都结识了新朋友。2月，她在海南的一个停车场对着镜头包饺子，路过的游客问谁陪她旅行时，她笑了。
“I love eating hot peppers, but my family doesn’t like them, so I had to make myself not eat peppers,” she said in an interview. “Now after coming out, I can eat peppers every day.”
“我爱吃辣椒，家里人都不爱吃，我就要强迫自己不吃辣椒，”她在接受采访时说。“但是出来以后我不用强迫。我爱吃辣椒我就天天吃，都没有人管我。”
She has sometimes encountered hostility. Once, she said, a man asked how she could air her family’s private affairs and said he would beat her if they ever met in person.
有时，她也会遇到他人的敌意。她说，有一次，一个男人问，她怎么能把家里的私事公之于众，并说一旦见到她就会打她。
She replied, “Good thing I haven’t met you.”
她回复说：“辛亏我没有遇到你。”
Ms. Su’s daughter, Du Xiaoyang, who visited her in Hainan last month, said her mother was a new person.
苏敏的女儿杜晓阳上个月去海南探望了她。她说母亲变成了一个全新的人。
“Anything she wants to do, she just does, whereas before she seemed afraid of everything,” Ms. Du said.
杜晓阳说：“现在要是她要做什么事情就是雷厉风行，说做就做。她以前可能就是畏首畏尾。”
In March, Net-a-Porter, the luxury shopping website, even featured Ms. Su in an advertisement for International Women’s Day.
3月，奢侈品购物网站Net-a-Porter甚至请苏敏为国际妇女节拍了广告。
Still, Ms. Su blushes when asked about her new fame. She also says she is not yet qualified to claim the mantle of feminist. “It took me so many years to realize that I had to live for myself.”
当被问到新获得的名气时，苏敏还是脸红了。她还说，她还没有资格宣称自己是女权主义者。“到老百年才知道自己要活出自我的样子。”
She paused: “It’s something I’m waking up to, not something that I just am.”
她停顿了一下说：“女性主义者，我现在在觉醒，而不是我现在就是。”
There are limits to what she is willing to change. Though she is determined to move out if her husband continues to treat her badly, she says she doesn’t want a divorce, knowing that her daughter would feel obliged to care for him if she left.
她愿意做出的改变是有限度的。尽管她决定如果丈夫继续对她不好，她就搬出去，但她说她不希望离婚，因为她知道如果离开，她女儿就会感觉有义务照顾他。
But she tries not to dwell upon that eventual homecoming. First, she plans to cover all of China. That could take a few years.
但是她尽力不去想最终要回家的事。首先，她计划走遍整个中国。那可能要花几年时间。
“Now that I’ve finally come out, now that I want to leave behind that life, I need time to let it melt away,” she said. “There are many things that, as time passes, may have an outcome you never imagined.”
“既然出来了，既然想摆脱那种生活，就要有一定的时间先去化淡你以前的生活，”她说。“随着时间的流逝，有些东西可能会有你想不到的结果。”
