In the early 1970s, there was a recommendation of workers, peasants and soldiers trainees in the enrollment of domestic universities and junior colleges, which was a special phenomenon generated during the Cultural Revolution. In retrospect, the 1966 college entrance examination was abolished nationwide, and universities and colleges were closed without enrollment. Until 1970, universities and colleges began to recruit students from factories, rural areas, military departments and grassroots departments one after another, called worker-peasant-soldier cadets.
Most of the process required the issuance of indicators from higher levels, the unit of mass discussion to recommend good performance of young people, approved by the leadership, after personal political examination, basically no cultural examinations. Even if there are some exams, they are also unofficial exams arranged by the local units themselves, which basically do not affect the admission.
But year after year, the process of recommending workers, peasants, and soldiers cadets was gradually controlled in the hands of cadres with authority, who used improper means, such as receiving gifts and bribes, trading power, to send their relatives and friends, or Family authority background, and social authority relations of young people to the university and junior college. Other ordinary young people have little chance to get the recommendation target.
In short, what I have seen and heard is that the recommendation to recruit workers, peasants and soldiers is not mainly to cultivate scientific and cultural talents, but an important ladder for young people to change their social status. Especially for the youths in the countryside and those who returned to the countryside, it was an important way to leave the countryside.
I myself experienced the sad “farce” of the recommended enrollment of workers and peasants in the fall of 1976. I personally was deliberately slandered and ruthlessly ostracized, and the damage caused to me has always remained in my mind and cannot be forgotten.
Looking at the experience now, I am still angry. In that year’s enrollment, I was just a spectator, not qualified to participate in the recommendation, but was fortunate to witness the enrollment process, to see how the college enrollment targets are monopolized by the leadership at all levels of power, to see the corruption in the process of recommending workers, peasants and soldiers students.
Where the use of relations to get their own purposes, seeking social relations to achieve personal purposes, people are often called “back door”, derived from the classical, the original meaning of the door of convenience, and later evolved to describe the social impropriety. The social ills I witnessed in my 1976 enrollment, the use of power for personal gain and the irreconcilable socio-political hierarchy, were far more scandalous and unscrupulous than I could have imagined.
Incredibly, the 1976 admissions I experienced turned out to be the last Time in Chinese history that workers, peasants and soldiers were recommended to attend universities and junior colleges.
It is important to emphasize here that it is important not to mistake the 1970s for a clean era, but on the contrary, it was during those years that impropriety was rampant. Many people disregarded the Party’s discipline and law, took the back door, embezzlement and bribery by any means, and have long been notorious in the society. These phenomena are household names and no one knows about them, and people who came from that era still have memories of them. I believe that the shocking crimes seen in the fight against corruption can be traced back to that 1970s.
The social background and the recommended admissions process at that time was like this.
In the 1970s, the country was in economic depression, businesses were not doing well, and recruitment opportunities were minimal. However, urban high school students continued to go to the countryside in large numbers for years, and rural high school students also returned to the countryside to work as farmers after graduation. Over the years, a large number of young people have been stranded in rural areas, with no other way out.
So it seems that the only opportunity to recruit workers, peasants and soldiers to the university and junior college. Everyone is eager to get the recommended indicators. The phenomenon of backdoor access is so rampant that it is blatantly obvious that young people with family backgrounds can directly get a place in school. Likewise, Khujigou commune cadres rightfully wanted to reserve good school places for their friends and relatives back in the countryside, so that their friends and relatives could change from rural to urban hukou. There was no mass discussion and no grassroots recommendation, and the quota was monopolized in the hands of the commune leaders.
By the fall of 1976, I had been in the countryside for more than two years, and was the only youth in my brigade in the factory Han who was eligible to fight for recommended enrollment. Since I often went to commune meetings, there were many people who knew me, and many acquaintances in the Khujigou school district knew that I wanted to go to college and was obviously a competitor.
However, in 1976, my brigade did not receive any targets, so I could not talk about recommendations. When I happened to go to the commune for a meeting, I heard other youths talking about the enrollment quota of Khujigou commune. An acquaintance told me that all the young people who were interested in applying for the recommendation had to go to the school district the next day to take an examination to select the young people with the best test. That night I managed to stay overnight at the commune’s guest house and went to the school district on time the next day.
When I walked into the classroom, there was a room full of young people who had come to take the test, and the director of the school district was already sitting at the podium. I found a seat at the back of the classroom on the right side. When the test began, the director announced the rules and then read the questions in order, and the candidates below were free to raise their hands. However, your name must be called before you can stand up to answer. The classroom is obviously very tense.
I had to straighten my body and tilt my head slightly sideways to listen carefully to hear. We noticed that two or three boys were often called up and had the correct answers. I raised my hand several times, but was only called once, to answer a simple physics question on “friction”. I got it right. The “test” lasted for over an hour.
After the “exam,” the frenzy of enrollment in the commune was overwhelming. I don’t know how many places the commune received and to which schools. I asked around no one knows, and people who know the inside story will not say. I only heard that the county sent to the commune a few better indicators are to the railroad, health college. These places were given to the two or three young people who were called up to answer questions.
It turns out that in order to shut people’s mouths, the Kuchigou Commune School District has designed a so-called “test”. The young people who wanted to sign up and returned to their hometowns all gathered in a large classroom in the school district to “take the test”. However, afterwards I met several young people who complained that they didn’t know about the test, and in fact I hadn’t been notified.
Not long after the “test”, rumors spread that Xiao Lu of the Factory Han Brigade couldn’t answer the questions on the test and got the answers wrong. The rumor spread so fast that it reached my village, and an old villager told me about it, so I learned about it. After hearing this slander out of nothing, I was very angry, but I immediately understood what was going on. First pushing someone into the well, then smashing a stone, could exclude me from enrollment.
I didn’t want to bother defending myself because it had been revealed that the school district had given the two or three youths private tutoring in advance, arranging for them to raise their hands to answer which questions during the “test” and “show” them off in the exam room. This way they can justifiably get the enrollment targets they want, and we all get cheated.
Out of curiosity, I walked to the school district office to ask, I learned that the commune sent to my factory Han brigade enrollment indicators is Baotou City teacher training (secondary school) sports professional preparation places. In other words, which was admitted to the teacher’s physical Education program candidates to give up this place, Xiaolv can top up. Everyone understands that this is just an “empty number”. They first deprived me of my enrollment, then made up a non-existent quota to stall and shut me up.
I was furious! I immediately went to the commune to find the deputy commune secretary in charge of Culture and education. She said bluntly, “So-and-so, one of the young men who is often named to answer questions in the examination room, is my nephew, and he is a young man who has returned to his hometown. What about boys who are not recommended to study and stay in the countryside? I can’t answer that the young man who returned to his hometown is just as pathetic. The young man looked honest. This is a social problem, and none of us can solve it.
I have always been sympathetic to young people who have returned to their hometowns, they share the same fate as our youth. Rural Parents pay for their children’s education for 12 years, the family lost a laborer for nothing, and as a result, their children still go back to the countryside to work again, there is no other way out. In the critical time of enrollment, “eight immortals crossed the sea to show their talents”. In the 1970s, it was common to rely on connections and go through the back door, which was the only way to find a way out in a society where there was no way out.
There was no hope in the commune, I simply ran to the Guyang County Board of Education. Who knows that the county found that the phenomenon of admission through the back door is even more eye-opening. In contrast, the commune received a few secondary school places are simply “leftovers”. The county’s college indicators are: Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages, Harbin Institute of Technology (branch), Beijing Institute of Technology, Inner Mongolia Normal University foreign language department, and so on. All of them were occupied by the children of cadres with the word “long”. I felt anxious for several days and got nothing.
Guyang County Board of Education entrance every day crowded with young people, mostly desperate, ran to the county to find opportunities. People are talking and exchanging news. No one knows exactly what indicators the county has and what schools are enrolled. All enrollment seemed to be completely blocked and only a few school names were heard.
When I was wondering, I heard people in the Guyang County Board of Education talking about a mysterious “central” chief’s daughter, who came from Beijing to join the team and got a place in the Beijing Institute of Technology.
Once in other occasions, I happened to meet the young woman, thin and small, naturally a proud look, open the mouth is “my father”. It was said that her father had transferred the information about the teaming to Guyang County through his relationship, and I was not sure whether she had gone to the countryside in Guyang or not, and the college place was directly allocated to her in Guyang County.
Looking at her sitting across from me, I thought to myself, “I belong to two different classes from you. The truth is this, unknowingly, youths of the same age are divided into three, six, nine, the fate of the big difference is unimaginable.
At this moment, in contrast, my situation and that of the chief’s daughter were like the difference between heaven and hell. However, what was particularly difficult for me to understand was that people in this small, remote town looked up to Beijing and talked about the chief’s daughter with great pleasure, with infinite admiration and envy, and even a kind of awe, and told a mythical story of the “chief”, “mystifying” the chief’s daughter. “, to her with a ring after ring of light.
People not only acquiesced to the fact that she went through the back door and enjoyed privileges, but also accepted this fact with full servility. It is evident that the nature of yielding to the powerful is deeply rooted in the culture and seeped into the bones. People simply do not understand that they deserve the same power and opportunities.
While the recommended enrollment was mysteriously going on, many youths still gathered outside the school board, exchanging news in twos and threes. Some people crowded into the school board’s admissions office, sometimes being thrown out by the staff, and they stayed at the door to watch, and I got caught up in it.
One morning, a young man came and stood by the desk in the office. Someone next to me whispered, “That is the youth who got the index of Shanghai Foreign Language Institute. He added that his father was the county’s organization minister. It seems that the organization minister’s son and the daughter of the head of the central government, a look like no one else, as a matter of course.
Not long after, a middle-aged man came out of the office, and after a few words with the young man, and the staff went to the office, it looks like in the formalities. Someone in the crowd said that person is the organization minister. The young man next to me said again that the one who came to the Shanghai Foreign Academy with an indicator major was studying Albany. I was surprised, turned around and asked gently, how do you know? He said, I went to the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages admissions teacher, he lived in the county guest house.
Guyang County is very small, there is only a dirt road main street, the important authorities can be found along the road. I really admire them so well-informed, but to no avail, they, like me, could only watch from the sidelines.
Then, a few of us simply walked to the street outside the gate of the Education Bureau to talk. It turns out that the youth also want to go to college and can not get the indicators, angry, he found the admissions staff residence, see the Shanghai Foreign Academy admissions teacher. Shanghai Foreign Academy admissions teacher is also very indignant, complaining that the candidate can not even speak Mandarin during the interview. But he was only responsible for interviewing the recommended students, there was no other way. The Shanghai teacher said that he himself had a brother in the countryside and had no access to college.
Coincidentally, as we were talking, a man of medium height walked through the crowd and passed by us. The young man next to me gestured that he was the Shanghai admissions teacher and said hello to him. The teacher, carrying a bag, looked up in response, said he had to catch a bus back to Shanghai, and then hurried away. I watched his back, not feeling anything, almost numb.
One day after that, I caught a glimpse of a young woman standing in front of the guest house across the street, and a middle-aged man who looked like an admissions teacher was politely escorting her out of the guest house door. The young woman had a dejected look and a sad face. I know her, is our Khujigou commune returned to the countryside youth, family live in the commune next to the small team. She usually likes to write something for the county cultural center. I once met her at a mass literary and artistic creation class in Baotou. Later, I said hello to her. She said she went to the guest house to find an admissions teacher at Inner Mongolia University and that she wanted to study Chinese, but there was no hope.
I remember someone asked her before, “What does your father do? I knew that her father was an ordinary old farmer in the village, who was old enough to keep watch in the commune. At that time, she looked embarrassed, squeaked with a strong smile, and said in reply that she was still fighting, and so on. I have long turned around and pretended not to hear. At that time I felt a little disgusted, why be so vain, your father is at least not a class four element. Now that I heard her say that, I feel quite sympathetic, thinking, alas, the only difference between you and the two young people who got the college target is that your father is not a “long”.
I remember very clearly that in those days, people would ask “What does your father do? So I didn’t dare to talk to people easily. Two years ago, there was a legend on the Internet that someone opened his mouth and said, “My father is XX. This is a “refresher” for me, very familiar. People complain about the “father”, it seems to be the inherited culture. The key to the future of young people is what their parents do, without the power of the parents, children will not have a good way out, before, and now, and will do so in the future.
Back in the fall of 1976, during those days I was in Guyang, I heard people talk about how there was still an English major indicator for the foreign language department of the Inner Mongolia Teachers’ College, and I didn’t know who had taken it away. I inquired curiously several times, but even the Education Bureau said they didn’t know and that they might not want to talk about it. I left Guyang with this mystery. It was not until I enrolled in the foreign language department of Inner Mongolia Teachers’ College in March 1978 that I suddenly remembered this matter.
Once I asked a girl I knew well if there was a student from Guyang in the class of ’76, and someone pointed out a big, tall boy who had been in the army and was in the class on the right side of the hallway. I had heard that the students in that class were less basic. He happened to be reading English in the hallway with a book, and I turned my head and walked away, never thinking about it again.
In the fall of 1974, I happened to go to the countryside and passed by the Khujigou Commune to go through the procedures. In the office, I met the daughter of the commune secretary, who was recommended to the Beijing Foreign Language Institute, and she showed me the admission form.
During her two years in the countryside, she worked as a teacher in the school district, joined the Party, did not work, and got the recommendation index of the Foreign Language Institute as usual, so she really took a flat road to the colorful. Unexpectedly, she was then denounced. Later, I heard that the secretary’s daughter’s index was cancelled and I got schizophrenia. Exactly who denounced, is unknown. Some people legend, must also be a bit powerful, ordinary farmers do not dare to offend the commune secretary. For many years, I often thought of her and deeply sympathized.
Not long ago, I talked to a returning Zhiqing from the village of Factory Han on WeChat, only to learn that she still lives in Guyang County, her parents have died and her husband treats her badly. She has to curse every day, and I am afraid she will never be able to vent her inner grievances and heal the trauma she has suffered. She became a victim of the competition to recommend workers, peasants and soldiers cadets.
I remember that morning, I and a group of hopeless youths came back to the Education Bureau as usual, still reluctant, crowded at the gate, waiting with bated breath for some miracle, such as: a place has been vacated. I was standing in this crowd, and I looked back without thinking, and I saw this picture in front of me: the cold wind of late autumn blew everyone’s nose red, and the morning sun was miserable, reflecting a young face, obviously showing worry and anxiety.
I suddenly realized what a pathetic and humble position we twenty-somethings were in! We lost the opportunity to study in our teens, were sent to the countryside to repair the earth, work all year round can not support themselves, aspire to go to university to enter the factory can not be. We are irrelevant to anyone except to our parents. Without the power of the family, without social relations to rely on, we are isolated and helpless, reduced to the bottom of society. Like me, carrying the burden of a bad family background and having to atone for a lifetime for a crime my father did not commit. What future or not, anyone can kick me a little and kick me down deeper into the abyss at any time.
Witnessing the extreme injustice in enrollment, I once again appreciated the shame of being marginalized. We ordinary youths, guarding the entrance of the Education Bureau, were like a bunch of desperate stray puppies, hoping for a handout that would never come.
I immediately turned around and left the Education Bureau and left Guyang County to go back to the village of Factory Han. A series of days of running around made a wretched, no little sharpness. In fact, nothing, in fact, Guyang County, which college secondary school indicators, no one knows.
The 1976 enrollment passed me by with great regret. I understand that this is inevitable, inevitable.
The winter in rural Inner Mongolia is not much work in the field, until the next year after the beginning of spring to the ground. I took a leave of absence from the team to go back to the south to visit my family. I had to go back to find books and use the winter time to study at Home, and after the Gang of Four was crushed in October 1976, I heard some rumors that there might be a college examination in the future. I could not rely on my parents, but only on my own ability. I was determined to study hard, believing that I could compete with my real ability, so that one day when the country needed knowledge, I would be a useful person.
In the spring of 1977, before I returned to Inner Mongolia, my parents and I went to the peach garden in the northern suburbs of Changshu, where there was an endless peach forest with new buds and pink flowers. My parents and I took some pictures and wished me a future in 1977 like the peach blossoms that were about to bloom. But I was the only one who knew in my heart what a harsh reality I was facing.
Happily, the examination system was restored in the winter of 1977, and I was given the same right to take the college entrance examination. The irony is that four of the five youths from the Khujiagou Commune who were admitted to college and returned to their hometowns were eligible for the recommended admissions in 1976 and were not recommended. in March 1978, China’s college and university education reform finally ushered in spring.
Write Briarcliff NY
November 23, 2018
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