I left Beijing Railway Station on December 21, 1968, and started my journey to Richeng, Shanxi Province. On that day, at 8:00 p.m., the Central People’s Radio broadcasted Mao Zedong’s latest instruction: it was necessary for intellectual youth to go to the countryside and receive re-education from the poor peasants. So, we arrived in the countryside with the thunder of re-education. After several decades, I often wonder what kind of re-education we all received. Or were we not educated, we educated the peasants instead? This uncertainty between education and educator has torn me for a long time.
In the eyes of the peasants, we were the typical “underprivileged” in modern language, because we were weak and could not distinguish the grains. When I went to the winter, it was a time of agricultural infrastructure, the most tiring work is to carry the soil. A stretcher two baskets, a dry day. The baskets are woven bamboo, in the shape of a dustpan, with a cross of wooden strips for support. Each end of the stretcher is tied with hemp rope, rope under a wooden hook made of tree branches, rope for flexible, rigid for the hook, the advantages of this structure can be experienced in the following description.
Tandem soil looks simple, but not on the hands that will be, members of the community are two-shouldered and carry, both hands to hold the rope, walk up men’s back straight, women graceful, reminiscent of the film Li Shuang Shuang footage and the song: small stretcher, three feet three ……. Our shoulders can not rest on the stretcher, put on that slip off, the force is really not good to take. Have no choice but to pick one shoulder, the basket a front and a back, the distance is too far, the hand can not hold the rope, allowing it to sway back and forth with the body’s ups and downs. And the burden is too heavy, the shoulder pressure is skewed, so I had to hold the stretcher with both hands to reduce the pressure, look from afar like a gesture of forgiveness, which attracted a lot of laughter from the community. In a few days, the shoulder was so red and swollen that he couldn’t sleep, and it hurt a lot to press it, not to mention the stretcher. The result was that a piece of dead flesh grew on the neck, which only receded at the age of fifty. After twenty days of this, the main points were gradually mastered and both shoulders could be carried.
A winter down, the body, skills greatly improved, not only withstand the strain, taught by the folks, but also available similar to juggling moves dazzle people: stretched to the destination, wooden hooks hooked behind the basket iron ring, dumping the soil, will lift up, the momentum of the wooden hooks from the iron ring off, hanging to the cross wooden bars, turn around and then take the next trip to the soil. The whole action is done in one go, elegant and sharp, full of movement and to the beauty. There are even more folks, after the above procedures are completed, the wooden hooks quickly out of the cross support frame, the basket thrown into mid-air, the basket flip a fortnight and then use the wooden hooks to catch the basket steadily. The main point of this work is to throw the right amount of energy, too big or too small, and to be able to complete with a clear eye and quick hands. The best of this art, you can throw the basket with both hands, flip two weeks and then easily hang on the wooden hook, the difficulty is comparable to acrobats. I practiced for months for this, the results are two-handed throwing can be turned over a week, one-handed two weeks occasionally into the, two-handed two weeks is absolutely impossible, bad will hit their own head. The heavy and boring farm work into a juggling act for people to enjoy, this is also considered a creation of Chinese farmers it! It’s just a bit of bitter-sweet black humor. Nowadays, when I watch diving competitions on TV, the athletes do a forward tumble for two or three weeks, and the flipping bamboo basket flashes in front of my eyes in a trance. The good times are not in the study, but in the countryside to play basket, waste of youth, really cup.
Soon half a year passed, the real test came, that is, the wheat harvest, is the busiest time of the year. The Jinan region is the main wheat-producing area in Shanxi province, and every year in early June, the wheat is ripe and full of rolling golden waves of wheat. Haizi always writes about wheat in his poems, but he has never been a farmer to understand this feeling. The wheat is the god of the farmers’ hearts, it is their life, it is the resource they can reproduce. I saw with my own eyes one year when the rain was too heavy and the wheat could not be dried, so it was left in the storage room and became moldy, and the community members cried out in the field. The wheat cutting season is the most taboo rain, so it is also called “dragon mouth to take food”, with the Dragon King to grab food to eat.
At four or five o’clock in the morning, the production captain shouted from the kiln: “It’s time to work, it’s time to work! Rub the eyes that are not yet open, wipe a casual face, take the sickle, ignorantly go to the ground. Cutting wheat is not only a tiring job, but also a crafty one. Hand-held scythe to several rows of wheat into the other hand, this step is easy to hurt the hand, and then the scythe flush root to cut the wheat, this step is easy to hurt the legs, and then the wheat yard on the ground. If you cut fast, the secret is to have large skeins of wheat, because the wheat is planted in branches, those with strong hands can swing the sickle, clutching four or five rows of wheat ears in their hands, and then branch and cut, a few swish a piece of wheat will fall to the ground. I have seen a member of the community in a plot of four to five hundred meters long, bending over to cut from one end of the ground to the other in one breath, the gesture is like a diver swimming in the sea, the stubble after cutting the same height, the bare land can not see the scattered ears of wheat. Chinese farmers are the best in the world in terms of hard work and endurance.
Our turn to cut, a trip to the ground do not know how many times to rest, easy to cut to the ground, throw away the sickle lying on his back, that waist is back to their own body. Finally, the wheat was bundled, forked onto the wagon and sent into the yard, and it was already two o’clock the next morning. I got up around five o’clock and repeated the process of the previous day. I slept only three hours a day. Those who do not experience the heavy work of farming during the wheat harvest cannot know what it is like. After that, there is drying, milling, shedding, raising the field and storage, which needs to be completed in about half a month. If the weather is good and it doesn’t rain for a while, a good harvest will be in hand.
The second year we were there (1969), God was extraordinarily generous, it rained when it should, but not when it shouldn’t. That year’s harvest was unprecedented for many years, the wheat plants were twice as thick as usual, and it was quite hard to cut them. The old folks were all smiling at us: this is the blessing you bring! One day after the wheat harvest, I saw a grandfather of the fourth team squatting in the yard, holding two buns in his hands, his face covered with sad clouds. Ask him what is wrong, but he will hand over the right hand white bun, asked me: where is this from? And will pass the left hand sorghum bun: this is where it comes from? See I do not understand, so I answered: white bun is their own seeds, black bun is Chairman Mao gave. At that time scared me a cold sweat, know that he is on the purchase and sale of return policy dissatisfaction. Jinan is a wheat-producing area, every year after the wheat harvest will need to turn over most of the wheat to the treasury, leaving not enough to eat, the state then re-sold sorghum as compensation. The sorghum flour bun is coarse and hard, eat more can not poop, no wonder the old folks complained full of belly.
I inserted the small village on the map is very good to find, the Yellow River along the Shaanxi-Jinjiang Grand Canyon from north to south all the way forward to the southernmost tip of Shanxi to the east, a turn, straight to the East China Sea. My village is located at that turning point. North of Pinglu County, south and Henan Lingbao County across the river. The location is remote, the so-called mountain high emperor is far away, and the old folks talk without taboos, straight to the point. These are not heard in Beijing and not seen in books, so they are very willing to chat with them, especially the older ones. From this point of view, they are educators and we are educated, but the content of education is not expected by the authorities.
The topic we were most interested in was what life was like for the peasants before liberation. When we asked those poor peasants, we were shocked by the answers we got. After we figured it out, we were relieved to know that there was still so much land, but the population had doubled (nearly 300 people at the time of liberation, but now nearly 600), so how come they were not getting poorer? Secondly, how did the landlords exploit the peasants? The poor old peasants who worked as long-time workers were disdainful: How dare he? If they don’t eat well, the wheat will be left in the ground, so he can collect a martyr! It turns out that the working man is more powerful than the hired man. I do not understand: then there is no Huang Shiren? The old folks shook their heads: several lives in a village, have become relatives miles, landlords and what can be? It’s all human!
Years later I had several house renovation, because of the face of kindness and soft-heartedness, a lot of losses, a lot of fooled, remembering the old poor peasants education years ago, I know that this is not false! In fact, these are human nature, for no reason to make a class, but is a cloud of fog, the simple made complex, put into the actual life of the test, how can not be right. In a word, there are honest landlords and dishonest ones; so are the peasants. In other words, the vast rural areas have always been mainly autonomous, and this principle of autonomy is an ethical society supported by the patriarchal system, which has maintained the calm and stability of the countryside for thousands of years. However, in recent decades, with the change of regime and the infiltration of ideology, the ethical society that used to maintain the balance has been replaced by a class society, resulting in many absurdities that violate human decency, of which the above is just a very simple and common example.
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