Spring Festival is a leisure station for people from all walks of life who have worked hard all year, a time for family reunion and happy gathering, and a time to review and judge the harvest and achievements made in various aspects over the year.
However, more than thirty years ago, during the period of collectivization, especially during the years of the Cultural Revolution, it was not too much to say that the majority of rural peasants spent the Spring Festival in a state of discomfort.
My hometown in rural Jinan is the township of grain and cotton, the production team in those years is not enough food rations, dividends are small and can not be timely cash, food no food, money no money, the Spring Festival can be how to spend ah?
The village of those fine water will be home to live in the clever woman, usually cooking coarse and fine with coarse food, and then mixed with vegetables generation, soup soup water, barely able to save a little white flour, the Spring Festival use. Individual housewives who usually do not know how to live, on the first day of the New Year, the whole family can eat a white dumpling, it is not easy.
The custom of Spring Festival in rural Jinan is to cook sesame flowers in every household to entertain relatives and friends during the festival. But during the years of the Cultural Revolution, there was not much white flour to cook sesame, and there was a shortage of cooking oil. The production team planted cotton, the cotton seed oil ginned out of the seed cotton, almost all of which was handed over to the state, and at the end of the year, each member could only get two or three taels of cotton seed oil. Two or three taels of cooking oil to eat a year, now it sounds like a nightmare. On weekdays, households rarely use oil for cooking, and do cabbage, radish and other cold dishes, basically only put some salt and vinegar, no half oil stars. Members of the community to eat steamed buns, take a green onion or dipped in some red pepper noodles, as a dish.
Cooking sesame flowers, need to spend a lot of oil, at least, a long sesame flower, to be able to float up in the boiling pot of oil. Families with large populations are a little better, like my family, my sister was married, only three people, from the production team back to the cooking oil, want to cook sesame, even a frying pan can not support up. People are poor to find poor ways. In order to entertain guests and to prevent our own children from seeing other people eating twist, my mother engaged in “mutual aid” with three or two neighbors to cook twist. Each family brought an equal amount of oil, pooled in a large pot, and then each family then take the same white flour to make twist, this cooked, and then to that family cook. When all the sesame flowers were cooked, the remaining cooked oil in the pot was separated equally.
I often followed my mother to cook sesame, the adults were busy rolling sesame, I was responsible for pulling the bellows, listening to the “sizzling” sound in the frying pan, smelling the aroma of golden sesame, the belly of the craving to crawl out. There was a time when it was rumored that someone had invented the trick of cooking sesame in oil with water. Housewives rushed to follow suit. As a result, the pot of oil mixed with water on the stove, the fire for half a day still does not open the pot, it was difficult to wait until the pot of oil boiled, but in fact the water mixed into the oil boiled dry, is a self-deceptive recipe.
I went to elementary school, junior high school to high school, the teacher taught, printed in textbooks, including extra-curricular books and extra-curricular education, are clear socialist system is good, capitalist system is bad; old society working people by the landlord’s exploitation and oppression, as cattle and horses, eating chaff and food; new society poor peasants turned over to become masters, the days of sesame blossom. “The enemy is in chaos day by day, we are getting better day by day”.
The school also held an educational session on “remembering the hardships and thinking of the sweetness”, inviting the old poor peasants in the village to complain about the evils of the landlords, hoping that we would cherish our happy life today. A public teacher in our junior high school, Mr. Zhang, told the story of how his family could not afford to pay the rent in the old society, and on New Year’s Eve, the landlord of the village took away a wooden basket from his family.
However, I was in the production team with the community members to repair the earth. Those old farmers, whom I respectfully called “uncle”, many of whom are well known as poor farmers, gossiped and almost unanimously “reminisced” about the old days, full of ardent yearning and sorrowful regret. In contrast to the current living conditions, they shook their heads repeatedly, showing contempt and disdain.
They said: before the liberation, including the early years of liberation, every family freely sow their own land, the wind and rain in the year, the harvest of wheat can not eat, excess to sell at the market; planted cotton, in addition to leaving a part of their own spinning and weaving cotton, the remaining all sold; cotton ginning out of the cotton seed oil, the family filled a large vat, the whole family open belly to eat can not be finished. Once in the waxing moon, every family in the village set up a frying pan to cook sesame, through the lanes, everywhere diffused a strong fragrance of oil.
Wow! What a beautiful picture of the countryside they painted, how tempting. I was confused. If I don’t believe this story, however, it is not just one or two old farmers who hold this story, but the collective memory of the previous generation. If I believe this, it completely overturned the concept that had already formed in my mind. The old farmers were not highly educated and had a lot of experience, so they talked about the sky and the earth, and sometimes had a lot of extreme “unrestrained” and extreme “reactionary” words, but they did not have to worry about being exposed and criticized. In the popular words of the time, “Being a peasant has reached the bottom of the social ditch (the lowest level), can we still be expelled?”
When I got home, I asked my parents to confirm whether what the uncles and uncles said was true or not. My mother said, they are not bad at all, but you do not dare to go out and talk nonsense, let others hear, it will drag your father.
As I said before, my father was wrongly classified as a “historical counter-revolutionary”.
“Rich or poor, kill the pig for the New Year.” At that time, during the Spring Festival, there were a few families in the village who killed pigs, but very few. Often my father cut two or three pounds of pork and bought two cabbages, and the production team’s share of radishes and carrots were stored in the family’s vegetable cellar, so the year could be dealt with. The pork bought, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day dumplings with a little, the rest of the cooked meat, entertaining relatives. From the first day of the New Year to the 15th day of the New Year, each family will set a date to entertain their new son-in-law and daughter-in-law and the seven aunts and eight uncles, commonly known as “going to relatives”.
Most families serve their relatives a hot pot meal, and for those with few relatives, one hot pot is cooked; for those with many relatives, two or three hot pots are cooked. The production of hot pot is relatively simple, filling the hot pot with cabbage, potatoes, tofu, vermicelli, balls, etc., and spreading a thin layer of pork on the surface, and boiling it with charcoal or firewood to make it hot and fragrant. In those days, it was a rare delicacy to eat such a hot pot and white flour steamed buns!
One year, on the third day of the first month, I went to town to visit my relatives and saw a male member of the community selling a cooked pig’s head. When I asked, I found out that the pig’s head was purchased before the Spring Festival to be used as a tribute to the gods on the first day of the Lunar New Year. Now after worshipping the gods, the family can not eat, and then to the town to sell. As the saying goes: “I’d rather be poor for a year, not poor for a festival”. At that time, the rural community members of the Spring Festival so embarrassed, the usual days can be imagined.
“The new three years, the old three years, sewing and mending another year. New Year’s Day is about wearing new clothes, the population is large, heavy family, there is no money to buy so many new clothes, housewives will be old clothes to wash and wash, as new clothes to wear. Women in their hometowns love to spin and weave while participating in collective labor, and most of the peasants wear their own sewn cloth clothes. Only those who worked outside and some brigade cadres could afford to wear clothes made of foreign cloth.
My family’s population was small, and within the scope of the national policy, my parents worked early and late to make some sweet potato flour and persimmon cakes, and sold them to the brigade supply and marketing agency to earn some cash, so they were slightly better off. My mother was known as a clever woman in the village and was very good at cutting and sewing clothes, and she made many clothes for others throughout the year for free. She used her own sewing machine to buy one or two new cotton clothes for my father and me, but the cotton inside was still old cotton. She herself still wore the old clothes, at most pulling cheap foreign cloth from the supply agency, sewing on a single jacket, over the old cotton clothes. Whenever I saw my father and I walking down the lane in new clothes and being complimented by people, my mother was happier than she was in new clothes.
Around the Spring Festival, it is a tradition to worship the gods. The God of Zao, the God of the Land, the God of Wealth, the God of Heaven and Earth, all have to contribute offerings, burn incense and kowtow. “At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the “Four Olds” were broken and feudal superstitions were eradicated, and worship of the gods was a feudal remnant.
However, behind the scenes, the simple and kind-hearted people were still worshipping the gods in secret, praying to the gods to bless the coming year with good harvests and bless the family with peace and happiness. In the early morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, when the sky was still dark, my mother placed boiled pork, sesame flowers, and white flour steamed buns on the table in front of the idol, and I followed my mother to kneel in front of the deity and respectfully burned incense and kowtowed. At this moment, my mother knelt in front of the idol and prayed silently and sorrowfully: “God! God! Please open your eyes, bless our family from disasters, peace and quiet ……”
Afterwards, my father quietly went to the gods alone and bowed before them. The reason is that my father wears a “historical counter-revolutionary” hat, and will be rectified anytime and anywhere. The problem of my father, but also affect my sister and I political progress, affect the recommendation of my high school, affect my sister’s private teachers to convert.
When I was done with the worship, I lit a pile of cypress branches in the center of the yard and “crackled” a string of firecrackers. At this moment, every household, the sound of firecrackers, from sparse, to fierce and dense, the whole village immersed in a happy celebration, filled with the smoke of firecrackers. When the day dawned, every household would quickly remove the offering table in front of the gods, sweep the ashes and cannon chips from the yard, making the appearance of not honoring the gods. Even those cadres of the brigade with high revolutionary consciousness, who usually have class struggle slogans in their mouths, will worship the gods at home during the Spring Festival. The “Cultural Revolution”, the relentless class struggle, forced everyone to learn to be “two-faced” and to tell lies, which continues to this day, and this is the greatest sorrow of the nation!
The traditional custom of the peasants to celebrate the Spring Festival is to have a social fire. Each lane organizes its own fireworks team, including gong and drum teams, Yangge teams, stilt-walking teams, lion jugglers, pavilion lifters, etc. The lanes compete with each other, the gongs and drums are loud, and firecrackers are fired. At noon, the social fires of each lane go out in great numbers, walk around the streets, and then converge under the stage for a performance competition, often until the 15th day of the first month. Our village is a large village of more than 4,000 people, the fires have a long-standing reputation, and people from eight villages in ten miles will come to see the fun.
The “Cultural Revolution” began, the traditional fireworks also painted with a strong revolutionary color. The innocent and lovely dolls were replaced by the ugly masks of Liu Shaoqi and Wang Guangmei. The long stilt walkers were dressed up as Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, Bo Yibo and other “hundred ugly pictures” with crooked eyebrows and slanted eyes. “Peach Garden”, “The West Wing” and other pavilion shape, are “four old”, changed into “Red Lantern” “Shajiabang” and other revolutionary model plays. After two years of fuss, the economy did not go up, the people were disillusioned, gradually lost interest, the fireworks disappeared.
The Spring Festival, as usual, every household should clean the house, buy furniture. Because there was no money, it was impossible to buy furniture. One year in the waxing moon, my mother went to the market in the village, and after buying the necessary food and clothing supplies, she spent 40 to 50 cents to buy three new New Year paintings to decorate the house and add joy.
Three brightly colored New Year paintings, one is “We are the successors of communism”, the picture of three pioneers playing the pioneer flag, raising their hands in salute; the second is “Great Leader Chairman Mao received the Red Guards”, Chairman Mao dressed in green military uniform, wearing a bright “Red Guard” armband on the left sleeve, full of red face, glowing, to the The third shows Vietnamese soldiers and civilians shooting down enemy planes invading North Vietnam and capturing alive an American pilot who tried to parachute out of the country. I was so excited to help my mother put the New Year’s pictures on the front wall of the east wing with a peg, and the room was suddenly filled with glory.
At that time, my sister came home from school. My sister was a high school graduate before the Cultural Revolution, but she lost her chance to go to college because of her father’s history and failed the political examination, so she went back to her village school to work as a private teacher and lived and ate at the school. I pointed to the New Year’s paintings on the wall and happily told my sister, “Sister, look, mom bought the New Year’s paintings!” My sister’s eyes lit up and she stood in front of the edge of the bed to admire the New Year paintings, saying, “Yes! It’s great!”
As she looked at them, she suddenly frowned and asked nervously, “Mom, when did you put up this New Year’s painting?”
“I just put it up, what’s wrong?”
“Did outsiders see it?”
“No outsiders came, just put up ……”
“Hurry up! Quickly! Quickly take down the New Year’s picture! Take it down!” My sister couldn’t take off her shoes, she jumped onto the bed in a panic and started to uncover the New Year’s paintings.
“What’s wrong with you ……?” Mother was puzzled.
“This painting is quite good ah?” I also felt strange.
My sister pointed to the three New Year paintings on the wall of the kang, lowered her voice and said, “Look, these three paintings, the one on the right, “We are the successors of communism”, there is nothing wrong with it. The middle one, “The Great Leader Chairman Mao Receives the Red Guards”, has Chairman Mao’s face to the left. And this one on the left, the picture of several cannon muzzles extending diagonally upward, is not pointing to …… who’s face?”
My sister said while gesturing, after her description, immediately put my mother and I stunned.
“My God, lend me ten guts, how dare I?!” Mother’s eyes were about to burst into tears.
“Mom, you certainly will not. But, if outsiders see this, the association frame, on the line, then our family jumped into the yellow river can not wash ah!
Three times, the three New Year paintings were uncovered by my sister.
Looking at my mother and me who were in shock, my sister thought for a while and said, “Let’s put this one, “The Great Leader Chairman Mao Receives the Red Guards” in the middle, and the other two, I’ll switch the position.” Sure enough, the three New Year paintings were rearranged by my sister, with the Great Leader having three pioneers in front of him, and the New Year painting of the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians on the right, with the cannon pointing to the right sky.
Originally, the home was set up happily, a false alarm, the family of three like pouring a scoop of cold water on the head.
I secretly admire my sister for her political vision and sensitivity, but at the same time, I deeply blame myself: I was only happy, why didn’t I notice the political problems?
“Ugh! If I had known this, I would not have bought it, and I could have saved a few cents.” Mother was chagrined.
“Mom, it’s not your fault.” My sister reassured my mother, “Because of my father’s problem, whatever we do in our family, we have to be more careful and watch out!”
She also instructed my mother and I said, “Just now this incident, do not mention it again, Dad knows, the heart will be sad.”
Mother let out a long sigh: Your father and I are blind, so we always want you two to study more, but without education, we don’t know anything.
These three New Year paintings were posted on the wall of my house for a long time, and I could see them all day and night, and they still linger in my mind. When I was revising this article, I deliberately searched the Internet and found two of them, but unfortunately I couldn’t find the third one and chose a similar one. I couldn’t help but feel a lot of emotions when I examined the New Year painting.
My sister’s “sensitive association” is not superfluous. In those days, even if a poor peasant inadvertently shouted a wrong revolutionary slogan, inadvertently wrote a wrong word of Chairman Mao’s quotation, inadvertently broke the plaster statue of Chairman Mao, regardless of red and white, he would immediately be branded as an “active counter-revolutionary”, criticized and struggled, and sentenced to prison.
An old man in our village, a “black five elements”, usually likes to sing a Pu opera. One day during the summer harvest, passing by the village entrance, he sang a “Red Lantern” Li Yuhe denounced the traitor Wang Lianju’s singing: “The enemy used you as a dog, but the shame as glory ……” did not expect, in the village entrance to check the community members to pick up the ears of wheat privately The “red sentry” junior, to the brigade cadres reported that the old landlord deliberately used the play, insinuating that cursing the “red sentry” is “watchdog”. That night, the brigade security unit called a meeting of the “black five elements”, the old man was severely criticized and reprimanded.
The class struggle every year, every month, every day, so that everyone has become a “bird of prey”!
New Year’s Eve, poor, poor, let the people poor a leisurely and comfortable also justified. However, the wave of agricultural learning Dazhai is higher than one wave, my hometown flat spreading the land, but also to repair the “Dazhai field”. Autumn crops were harvested, winter wheat was sown, and winter was supposed to be the season for farmers to “catastrophize”. However, every year, the higher-ups ask the community members to “work hard in the winter, the old look for a new one”.
In some years, the “handful” of our Yuncheng District Revolutionary Committee was even more “extreme left”. The regional newspaper published an editorial with a loud slogan: “Work until the twenty-ninth day of the lunar month in one breath, and leave work after eating dumplings on the first day of the first month. Whoops! Forcing the members tied to the collective land to such an extent is considered “groundbreaking” in all dynasties and generations? The problem is that the peasants spend time and effort like this, but still do not have enough to eat, no money to spend, lack of food and clothing on a regular basis, the New Year’s Eve is also in dire straits!
The earliest effect of the reform and opening-up policy led by Mr. Deng Xiaoping was the implementation of the joint production contract responsibility system in rural areas. In my family’s case, during the “big pot of rice”, my parents and I, the three laborers, worked hard for a year without food and clothing. After the land was decentralized, I went to college, and my parents worked hard on the contracted land, producing wheat that could not be eaten and cotton that could be sold for a lot of money. Once in the waxing moon, every household in the village cooked sesame flowers, and the fragrance of oil flowed through the streets and alleys. The old farmers recalled the rural “single farming” scene, can be reproduced. What a heavy price we have paid for this big detour, from the country to the people!
A few years ago, there was a song “Come home often”, “Dad prepared a table of meals, mom prepared a bunch of complaints”. The lyricist is quite lifelike, close to the reality, popular nationwide. When I think back to the Spring Festival of the Cultural Revolution when we ate “big pot rice”, “Dad couldn’t afford to prepare a table of food, and Mom didn’t dare to complain”. In contrast to the past and the present, any normal thinking person should think about it with their hands on their chests, which should miss the years of lack of food and clothing? Or should we cherish the big fish and meat on the Spring Festival table today?
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