In July 1977, when I was 18 years old, I graduated from Xiangtan City Third High School.
More than half a year earlier, the “Gang of Four” had been defeated, and people were saying that we fresh high school graduates could take the college entrance examination directly, and if we passed it, we could go to college directly without going to the countryside. This exciting news was spread for several months, but the boot was not thrown down until graduation. In this situation, we had to follow the custom of the Cultural Revolution and enter the process of going to the countryside.
It was a good thing that my Parents didn’t want me to follow the footsteps of my elder brother and sister and go to such a faraway place as Ling County on the Xiang-Gan border, but helped me to contact a farm in Xiacheng, which was only a few kilometers away from Home. I remember it was September 23rd, and I was officially sent to this farm.
I. Interesting Stories
The way to go to the farm is different from settling in a farmer’s house (such as my elder sister’s elder brother) or settling in a Zhiqing site, or relying on friends and relatives (such as my second sister, who went to Xiangtan Hongqi Commune and settled in my father’s friend’s house), or returning to the countryside (such as many of my classmates from the countryside).
As far as I know, Xiacheng Farm was an official farm run by Xiacheng Commune in the 1950s or 1960s, and the main farming activities were: growing rice, growing yellow cabbage, growing orange trees, and several other things. There were two farms, the main farm and the sub-farm, and the farm I worked on was the sub-farm. In the year I went to the countryside, there were more than a hundred young people in the sub-farm, including orange garden group, vegetable group, agricultural group, infrastructure group, pig farm, feed group, knitting factory and so on. I remember that the farm workers implemented the original side of the work-point distribution system, with a maximum of 10 cents of work per day, and each 10 cents of work could be allocated 1.48 yuan. Every day, every 1 cent of work was pre-issued 10 cents of line, 10 cents of work that is issued 1 yuan, and then at the end of the year, the settlement of dividends according to 1.48 yuan. I was assigned in the orange tree group, work is mainly planting orange trees, maintenance of orange trees. I did the following farm work: digging pits, planting orange trees, picking manure and fertilizing orange trees, and picking water to water them.
The economic efficiency and income of our farm is still relatively good compared with the surrounding farms and villages. For the first year, our new youths could get 6 cents per day, that is to say, the daily wage was about 90 cents. We could also get one day off a week. If you calculate 26 days a month, you can earn about 23 yuan a month. This is not a small amount of money! I remember that for the first year, the monthly salary of a skilled factory worker was 18 yuan.
Although the daily labor was hard and tedious, there were some interesting things to remember.
Tooth-feeding
One of the highlights of the dreary youth labor Life was that every day at noon, when people were tired and their stomachs were empty, the smell of Food always came from the canteen. This was very attractive to those of us who were growing up and had spent half a day working on the construction site. The usual meals were mostly lackluster, and the food was vegetarian, without any oil or meat, not worth mentioning.
The good thing is that every ten days and a half months, the farm will play “tooth sacrifice”. On the day of the festival, from the beginning of the morning work, we all think about the noon meal, looking forward to the bell ringing. The farm was also quite humane, and at about 11 o’clock on this day, the farm rang the noon break bell early. Everyone from all over the farm, carrying hoes and shovels, carrying buckets of manure and buckets of water, quickly returned to the center, back to the canteen, waiting in line to eat.
The farm usually does not issue meal coupons, with the face to get a rice bowl to eat. The day of the festival, each person is issued a meal voucher, with a voucher to eat, about the fear of people eat more than occupied, right? This rule brings us benefits, the day of the festival, there are always people who do not come, so that some of the youth can justify eating the empty amount, playing two dishes, so happy, is simply a gourmet meal! 40 years later, every Time I think of those fried meat squash, roast pork, back to the meat, hometown meat, meat fried peppers and other dishes, still mouth watering in the lips, the tongue. Really.
Growing up in the countryside.
The young man is waiting to be fed lack of meat and oil.
Fortunately, half a month of sacrifice.
I was able to eat like a wolf.
Writing the “Rooted Book”
I went to the countryside in September 1977. My thoughts were the same as those of other youths. Once I had the chance, I would leave the farm as soon as possible, and I could not possibly think of how many years I would stay in the countryside, or even stay rooted in the countryside for the rest of my life. But in that “left” environment at that time, generally did not dare to discuss this matter openly.
Maybe it was initiated by the youth who had gone down to the farm a little earlier? Or was it a request from above? In about October 1977, there was a big climax of “writing a book of roots” on our farm, creating a lot of pressure. It seemed that everyone had to write a letter of rootedness: I volunteered to stick to the countryside for the rest of my life. I remember someone came to tell me about this and mobilized me to write, the first time, I politely refused with a grunting attitude, the second three times, I seem to use the “is writing, is writing” way to cleverly stall. Until I went to college, I didn’t write this “rooted book”. Really.
The late Cultural Revolution advised to take root.
The end of the strong crossbow is the end of the momentum.
Look at those who claim to be rooted.
The ridge is long gone.
My first bucket of Gold
I worked on the Xia Cheng farm for about five months. At that time, I came home for dinner every weekend. I asked my father if I should pay a little bit of food money to my Family because I already had an income, but my father said no, so I spent the weekends at home for half a year, “gnawing”.
If you calculate according to the monthly income of 23 yuan, my bank book accumulated more than 100 yuan, plus the money given to me by the family, the bank book had about 200 yuan at that time. And I was a very frugal person, and did not spend anything.
This is the first wealth in my life, at that time I do not know how to use it, let alone learn to use this capital money to create a business, what a risk. The $200 lay in my bankbook for about several years.
Forty years later, one of my junior high and high school classmates told me that back then, I once told him, if you need any money, just tell me, I have $200 in my bank account. You can take some of it, or all of it, whatever you want to do! He said that statement has stuck with him for 40 years, even though he hasn’t borrowed a penny from me. Truly.
He went to the mountains and to the countryside for only six months.
I have saved a lot of money, more than a hundred.
Unfortunately, he was too rigid to take risks.
The first bucket of money did not break through.
Second, my road to college entrance examination
Cram school and division of subjects
The news of the resumption of the college entrance examination came in late October 1977. At that time, the news was that the 77th grade college entrance examination would be held in a month or so, and before that, the intellectual youth in the countryside and factories could attend the cram school organized by the original high school. It seems that the document said that, in principle, their units should agree to candidates taking time off for cramming. We, the generation of young intellectuals, have been looking forward to the college entrance examination for many years, and finally came, which really made me excited for a number of days, no matter how much I could get on the examination, I had to try my luck!
But to be honest, I was not sure about the college entrance examination, my brothers and sisters, who had missed the college entrance examination, could not have any college entrance examination experience and experience, and there was no one around who had taken the college entrance examination, so I had to rely on myself to fight and try my luck.
I remember that in November 1977, with the consent of the farm, I went back to my alma mater, Xiangtan City No. 3 Middle School, for about three or four weeks, and joined a cram school for the college entrance exam. In the cram school, there were both fresh graduates and former students who had graduated in the past. It seems that there are more freshmen and fewer former students. There are many people in the science class, but few people in the arts class.
There are two classes of arts and science in the cram school, and each person must first decide whether he or she is going to apply for science or arts. This was difficult for me. As I understood it at that time, in the future construction of the Four Modernizations, of course, there was a greater need for science and technology talents who could contribute directly to the Four Modernizations.
However, personally, I preferred to apply for arts because I was more interested in arts. My teachers and classmates had different opinions on this. When I went home and asked my parents, my mother made it clear that I should not apply for liberal arts, for the simple reason that most of the “rightists” who were beaten in 1957 were studying liberal arts. Of course, at the last minute, I myself followed my heart’s call and enrolled in the liberal arts class.
I had forgotten about what happened in the cram school, but recently, at my high school classmates’ gathering, one of my classmates told me that a mock college entrance exam essay I wrote in the cram school had caused a lot of controversy, the topic of the essay was called “My Ideal”, and I probably wrote that my ideal was to be a Writer, and I had the idea of becoming famous and a family. The teachers and classmates were divided into two schools of thought, one represented by my high school homeroom teacher, Mr. Zhu Mengqiu, who believed that being a writer could certainly be an ideal for young people, and that there was nothing wrong with the idea of becoming famous and a family. The other school of thought was that becoming a writer was a bourgeois ideology and should not be allowed. At that time, this was a normal exchange of ideas and it was impossible to make a definite conclusion. I’ll record it here as a highlight.
I remember that the cram school was full of talented people. But in reality, not many of them went on to university. At that time, people did not attach much importance to the success or failure of the exams, because they thought that they could take the exam again if they did not pass it this time, and that it would be good to maintain the status quo in factories and rural areas even if they did not go to university. But in fact, most of those who did not pass the exam the first time gave up the college entrance exam later, and those who maintained the status quo in factories and rural areas had a bad fate later. This is an afterthought. Really.
Back to school to make up for it.
The subject is divided into literature and science.
Study in January, the
The lifelong benefits.
Examination experience
I vaguely remember that the entrance examination for the Class of ’77 was scheduled in December 1977, but I found out that it was held from December 11th to 13th. It seems that my examination room was located in Xiangtan City No. 3 Middle School, which is probably why I played normally, right? This is because this school is my alma mater, which I just left half a year ago.
At that time, there were four arts exams: politics, language, mathematics, history and geography. I don’t remember the content of the other subject exams, but only the language subject, I still remember some of them, one is the test of pinyin at the beginning, about “Our purpose must be achieved,” “Our purpose must be able to be achieved.” I was an elementary school student in the class of 1966, because of the so-called “educational revolution”, from our class, have not learned pinyin, so in this topic, I wrestled for a long time, changed many times, and finally may have changed the right. After coming out, in the toilet, two candidates discussed that he filled in, “We will definitely not be eliminated”, and I didn’t feel a shock and joy inside, feeling that I should have got the answer right.
The essay question was, “I have something in my heart to say to the party”. What exactly did I write? I don’t remember what I wrote, but I guess I reasoned that it was about working hard and studying harder to achieve the Four Modernizations.
I also remember one thing, at that time, the discipline in our examination room was very strict, no one could extend the examination time, there could not be any cross talk and peeking at each other, this kind of strict way, for those of us who studied in middle school during the Cultural Revolution, it was really uncommon, and it was an invisible pressure for every candidate. The exams, the invigilator because I can see my answer, stay behind me for a longer time, may reflect the teacher’s love and cherish talent, right?
In that year, there were more than 100 young people in my farm, and about 20 to 30 of them applied for the college entrance exam, but not many of them got in. I remember that only a few of them were Mei Yuhang and Fan Juanjuan.
In recent decades, I have been asking about the situation of the farms where I used to work. Farmers who know the situation told me that after the youth left the farm, the farm practically existed in name only in the 1980s. Now, the site of the former main farm has been expropriated because the Xiangtan Municipal Government has moved eastward to the Yue Tang District, and now Wanda Square and the Xiangtan Municipal Government Office Building have been built. The sub-farm has been divided into fields to households, and there is only one sign left. Really.
When the college entrance exams four gong.
The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you want to do.
It seems that the questions are simple and less demanding.
How many people can pass successfully?
Filling out the application
Because I was dreaming of literature, I applied for the Chinese department at that time. I remember that the Hunan Daily published several full-page catalogs of schools and majors that I could apply to that year. Referring to this directory, my first choice was the Chinese Department of Wuhan University, my second choice was the Chinese Department of Hunan Normal College, and my third choice was the Chinese Department of Xiangtan University in my hometown, and I was allowed to fill in only one major for each choice. From the schools and majors I applied, it shows two problems, one is my estimation of myself, is to take a provincial school should be okay, but I want to apply for the first-class universities like Peking University and Tsinghua, I think there is still a certain gap. The second is that from the situation of the three volunteers, at that time, my heart was not distracted to apply for the Chinese Department, only want to be a writer. Really.
I only dreamed of literature.
After learning Chinese, I became a literary person.
But it is a pity that I was admitted first.
The writer’s dream was broken and obeyed.
The twists and turns of the acceptance letter
After the college entrance examination, I quickly returned to Xia Cheng farm, and honestly became a farmer, every day conscientiously picking dung and digging pits, not daring to have the slightest slack and negligence. Because I always think, can be admitted or a big unknown, the farm gave you time to cram and test, is already very forgiving, they should have a grateful heart, know how to return. Secondly, I thought that if I could not pass the exam, I would continue to work on the farm, and the performance of farming was an important factor in whether I could be recruited.
In these days, I was disciplined every day and did not dare to have any unpredictable thoughts or unpredictable actions. Of course, like all candidates, I was waiting silently for the news of admission to the college entrance examination all the time, and my anxiety and anxious waiting should be a true reflection of my mood at that time!
Because my family has an acquaintance in the regional admissions office, my second sister and I were able to know some of the situation earlier, and by February, the score line of the college entrance examination had come out, about 220 or 218 points in the arts and science admissions. We also knew in advance that my score was 276 and my second sister’s score was 271, both of them exceeded the score line and would definitely be accepted. But what school and what program were they accepted into? At that time, I didn’t know. At that time, after learning about the situation, I was working and spending my days as if I was expecting to get an acceptance letter every day. At that time, our family had internal information that could not be disclosed to the outside world, and of course, we were afraid of changes, so we went to work every day as usual and did not dare to leak any information. That kind of day, really bad.
By mid-February, almost all the accepted candidates had received their notification letters, but my second sister (who works at Xianggang) and I had not yet received them. It was really too strange! The family became anxious, one day, specially sent my second brother to the city district admissions office to understand the situation, the original district admissions list has a full page missing, I happen to be in it, after contacting the provincial admissions office, sent this list, which was sent to me to replace the admissions letter. My second sister’s letter, in the case of the workshop, was locked in the desk drawer by the workshop staff, until the call was made to find the party. What a good thing! Really.
Ten years have not done the thorn around things.
There are many complicated links.
If there is a mistake in the work.
If there is a mistake in the work, I want to see the good things.
Receiving the good news and wearing the red flower
In February 1978, the news that my second sister and I were both admitted to the university (she was admitted to Shanghai No.1 Medical College, majoring in pharmaceuticals) spread unnoticed in a short period of time, quickly spreading to dozens of miles around, causing a sensation in Xianggang, especially in Xiangji. For this reason, Xiangtan Electric Machinery Factory specially organized the relevant personnel, with the good news, with big red flowers, banging gongs and drums to send the good news to my house, this kind of action of sending good news, how many years have not appeared! It caused the neighbors to look around, and envious eyes, everyone said, the Wang family is really great, two exams at once, a family out of two college students. At that time, this is really a big joy. Really.
The Wang family siblings entered the examination together.
They were both on the gold list.
Suddenly, I heard the good news from the people before me.
The red flowers reflecting the dimple were beautiful.
Acceptance and reporting to school
After I received the notice, I was happy and ran around, but on the other hand, I was also dissatisfied, because my three choices were all for the Chinese department, but the one I accepted was the unknown political theory major of Hunan University. Politics is a natural aversion and concern for those of us who have experienced various political movements such as the Cultural Revolution. Politics is considered to be an indefinable issue in China, and to study it as a major? And it was not among the schools and majors announced for application before the college entrance examination. What is this all about? It was natural for the mind to not make sense.
Later on, after reporting to the school, I learned that Hunan University, which belongs to the Ministry of First Machinery, decided to enroll this political science teacher class only after all the institutions had confirmed the enrollment of the major to register, and in order to recruit more excellent candidates, the province agreed to the early admission of this teacher class. As a result, all the candidates in our class later did not meet the candidates’ volunteers, and almost all of them were transferred to this class from the candidates who volunteered in literature and journalism. Therefore, the work of stabilizing professional thinking after admission was done for a long time and the task was very difficult. This is an afterthought. Of course, despite the many grievances, I did not give up reading this major, but reluctantly obeyed the assignment!
I remember that it was in early March that I picked up the quilt and luggage prepared at home and reported to Hunan University at the foot of Yuelu Mountain. Why do you remember the time so well? Because I clearly remember that on the evening of the report, when I was walking in the Oriental Red Square, there was the news of the opening of the National People’s Congress on the national radio program of the Central People’s Broadcasting Station at 8:00 pm.
My new period had begun. My college journey had begun. What an exciting thing it was, what a time of expectation. What a.
The years of ignorance and the rise of the Cultural Revolution.
High school graduation had not yet stopped.
The revolution was merciless and abolished the college entrance examination.
The poor young people went to the countryside.
Although there was a helmsman to help the group go
I don’t see any rain after a long drought.
I am glad to see a bright master above me.
The examination is resumed and the pearl list is titled.
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