In the blink of an eye, we have all reached the age of over six and seven. I am basically buried in the depths of my memory, unwilling to touch the years when I was wrapped up in the ordeal and changed my fate decades ago. By chance, I attended a meeting of my corps comrades and changed my mind, and decided to write about it before I became demented and lost my memory, because we don’t have much time left.
I was one of the first batch of graduates from the Beijing Haidian District High School to the 15th Regiment of the Second Division of the Inner Mongolia Corps in March 1969. I was the youngest of the three oldest junior high school graduates, said to be “intellectual youth”, the little cultural knowledge in my stomach is really shabby, to be honest, only a solid elementary school graduation level, plus less than a year of formal secondary school knowledge experience, “Cultural Revolution” In the “Cultural Revolution” those few months of piecemeal “resumption of classes and revolution”, at best, is only a big buzz of the wind and fire face thing.
I left six months short of my 17th birthday, wearing winter clothes and weighing 39 kg, thinking I was a “fair lady”, but in fact it was still a long way off. I just went to the seventh company, that winter was adjusted to the second company, the end of December 1973 left Inner Mongolia, where I stayed three months short of five years, has been in the Dada platoon dry farm work, as a squad leader. Digging ditches, repairing roads, stripping billets, building houses, leveling land, accumulating fertilizer, cutting wheat, playing fields, following the car, pulling bricks, watering the ground, planting rice seedlings, training, drill, night patrol, stand guard …… practiced the “18 martial arts”:.
In the winter to repair water conservancy digging ditch, after the blast to remove the frozen soil blocks to swing twenty-six pounds of sledgehammer smashed steel brazier to break open, I remember then the arm swollen into the sleeve of the cotton jacket;.
I never lost out to veterans and boys, even though I was tired of pulling my hips and dragging my legs, when I got up by starlight to prepare materials and mud and finished work by moonlight.
I carried a load of manure and fertilizer from the pig to the zero land, and I went back and forth for more than ten miles, and the soles of my feet were covered with blood blisters for several days.
I pushed a wheelbarrow full of bricks to run back to the second company from the brick kiln, the weight of the car of bricks is more than several of my weight, at first I could not press the handlebar, encountered a ditch and a bump in the cart overturned, stumbling in the careful understanding of others taught me not to overturn the trick is “the cart does not fall down all rely on the buttocks shaking”;.
I actually practiced as a small worker to be able to not only throw a shovel full of mud with the shovel on the head of a three-meter-high wall, but also to make the person standing on the wall can hold the shovel handle to catch the shovel of mud without spilling.
I was so tired that I couldn’t stand up because of the pain in my back, so I knelt down on the ground, and the stubble pierced my pants and blood flowed from my knees.
In spring, when planting rice seedlings, the surface of the muddy water of the paddy field in the morning is covered with a layer of thin ice, and the upper body wears a big cotton jacket and a belt in the waist, and the bare legs and bare feet go down into the muddy water with cold and stinging bones, and in a short time there are several bloody slashes on the legs, and it is not clear whether they are cut by ice or by grass roots, and the smell of blood invites leeches to sting on them, and it is impossible to pull them out, and the more they are pulled into the flesh, the deeper they are, and they can only copy the soles of their shoes and snap their legs and pump them hard, in order to shake the leeches into a round ball. roll out of the flesh by themselves.
In autumn, when watering the land and watching the mouth of the drains, they worked around the clock, and at night they guarded a small pony light, and it was dark two meters away, so they were cold and scared, and they fell asleep against the ridge when they were sleepy, and only woke up when the water from the drains flooded their feet and soaked their pants and feet, and their shoulders and half of their bodies were painful and numb from the damp cold for half a day before they could move.
In winter, on the snow-covered well platform like a large bun, risking the risk of slipping and falling into the well at any time, grasping with their bare hands the well rope like a frozen stick hard not bent ice-sticks, together with a bucket full of water from the well to pull up raw.
The summer heat was unbearable, and I had to go into the dense reed field to cut the green fodder under the 42 or 3 degree heat, and I had to carry the fodder to the roadside on my own shoulders with a backpack strap like a small mountain.
The mosquitoes were so big that even the long legs were two centimeters long, and they were all bloody, so I stuck them in my letter to my mother and remembered that I had to wear rubber shoes to protect my ankles.
The field road repair drinking water supply is not dry throat smoke, run out of a long way to easily find a bubble puddle, squatting down to hold hands on the drink, while drinking and pulling the bottom of the water sheep dung eggs horse dung ball, it turns out that we are with the sheep and horses to drink the life-saving water.
Lack of oil and meat meals refined me to eat well, once on the same class of comrades home sent fried soybean chili noodles mixed with salt, fragrant I ate eight steamed buns ……
These are my personal experience, no exaggeration! Twisted, repressed, bear, just to live! Which one of the soldiers of the regiment does not have this experience with tears and blood? Which one of the soldiers of the Corps is not from the wind, rain, mud, soil, crawling and struggling over? There are many girls who are tired of amenorrhea for years! Now, many years later, the proportion of rheumatism, lumbar spondylosis, heart disease in our group is much higher than the normal population, and in the past two years, we have been frequently informed of the sad news of the premature death of our comrades! Who dares to say that this has nothing to do with too many trials and tribulations suffered in youth, overworked destroyed health?
Perhaps you do not believe, or can not believe that I such a small, dry girl how to have so much energy to deal with the five years of suffering, looking back, really even I can not imagine incredible. In those days, the simple really like a fool, will not be lazy, will not be slippery, do not dare to resist, and do not know how to defend their basic rights.
I don’t want to stand at any height and pretend to eulogize that “youth without regret”; moreover, I don’t want to pull what “trials and tribulations is the experience that leads to success”; to turn over old accounts and pour out bitterness is just “self-pity”. The “old story” is just “self-pity”, which is tiresome; it is even more meaningless to make a fair judgement with anyone who is anxious to pull a white face.
Today, decades later, looking back on the past, can not only be limited to rambling about the suffering scene, whether you “long song”, or “when crying”. It’s all in the past! Time has changed. People who have experienced it, the feelings of this period is really indefinable, can not say, can not stop.
Someone said: “Our generation of youth is like a star in the historical sky”, let that star leave a little trace of it.
I had a “dream”
That year, I was in the second grade of elementary school. In a midterm exam, I scored a double hundred again. I took the two papers and lay joyfully in my father’s arms. He smiled and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I thought about it and decided it would be good to be a movie actor!
It was 1960, during the three years of hardship when there was a great lack of material goods. When I was seven or eight years old, I had a craving for food, and I saw that in movies, no matter how good or bad the people, adults or children, all the scenes where they ate were real food and drink, so I was particularly envious of the actors. Especially those bandits and landlords bad guys, the table full of cups, plates and bowls, clutching the chicken thighs and pig’s feet chewed too much!
My father did not understand my mind, and shook his head in disbelief at my answer. I looked at the ceiling and thought about it again, and said, “Let’s be a translator. There are many photos of my father’s foreign activities at home, and I often look at them. When my father works and communicates with foreigners, he always needs an interpreter, and I think the work of an interpreter is amazing. I can also eat, drink and translate at the banquet table, so the work of a translator is so much fun!
When my father heard my words, the smile on his face disappeared and his two thick eyebrows twisted into big bumps. When I saw that my father was not happy, I was so nervous that I immediately shut my mouth. The air seemed to freeze. After a while, my father said slowly: I think, you will go to Peking University to study journalism, after graduation as a journalist, this career is more suitable for you.
I do not seem to understand. But from then on I remembered: study hard, go to Peking University, study journalism, and become a journalist in the future. This was my father’s expectation for me.
In the fall of 1965, I graduated from elementary school and was admitted to Beijing No. 1 Middle School. My parents were so pleased that my father gave me a new blue-green bicycle from Japan as a reward.
Beijing No. 1 Middle School and Peking University were neighbors, literally door to door! We took the bus back to school and got off at the West Gate of Peking University. The west gate of Peking University is a classical palace-style building with ancient and glorious colors. The two vermillion painted doors are always open, covered with golden nails like the Forbidden City Summer Palace, with majestic stone lions squatting on both sides of the doors, and a blue plaque embedded with the four golden words “Peking University” hanging high, solemn and mysterious. It made me look forward to her with great anticipation and longing!
Every Sunday when I passed by the school, I would cast my longing to the gate. I even sneaked into the campus through the west gate of Peking University and made a half turn along Wei Ming Lake to get an early look at “My Classroom and Classroom” ……
But the good times did not last long, and in the spring and summer of 1966, as if overnight, the earth suddenly took off! I vaguely remember first hearing that there was “a big-character poster” on the campus of Peking University and that the great leader Chairman Mao supported and participated in this matter!
Soon the whole society was in chaos. Our primary and secondary schools were closed! I didn’t have to sneak around anymore. I went in and out of Peking University countless times, reading the big posters, listening to the impassioned speeches and debates. The campus of Peking University had undergone a radical change. Those nose bridge glasses, books under the arms of the refined college students have disappeared, those once gentle and elegant university teachers, all lowered their heads, the appearance of inferior, especially appalling is that those once highly respected old professors, a team, a string, a group, all disheveled, the civilized sweep, with high hats, hanging large signs, being criticized, being paraded, by the overwhelming They have been accused of all sorts of crimes and crimes of all sorts of strange things. Don’t look at them in the past, but they were all anti-Party, anti-socialist, reactionary, evil, feudal, capitalist, and revisionist cattle and snake gods lurking in the university campus.
The halo of Peking University slowly disappeared from my heart, and the “Department of Journalism of Peking University” drifted away from me. Tossed to March 1969, in the cold wind and snow, with the apprehension of life and death of Zhenbao Island, I said goodbye to Peking University and Beijing. This trip turned out to be my lifelong regret.
Late “take off after the dream”
From the second year of playing to the Corps, I kept hearing that someone had gone to college. “Beijing University, Department of Journalism”, like a long-lost fluorescent light, gradually flashed out from the depths of the soul. Every time I heard the news that someone had gone to a certain university, even though I was not acquainted with them, I would toss and turn and lose sleep for several nights, and the envy was accompanied by deep anxiety. During the day, I had to be strong and pretend that nothing was wrong, as a good class leader, leading a group of people to do the most difficult and tiring farm work. As time went on, my desire to go to college became stronger and stronger, but my hopes were getting slimmer and slimmer. I knew that I would never be recommended. I began to secretly think of ways.
When I returned home from a family visit in the winter of 1973, my mother found my sixth aunt, who was the head nurse at the People’s Hospital, and got me a diagnosis of “frequent premature heartbeat”. The family was in favor of my “sick retirement” and transferring back to my hometown in Xianghe, Hebei, to “save the country”. Holding this diagnosis certificate in my hand, I began to lose sleep again. When the initial planning is quite good, full of confidence. Once the real implementation, but the heart is full of hesitation and hesitation.
Originally it was “picking the bones in the eggs” to check the body for an excuse to leave the Corps, but surprisingly it really found out that the heart has frequent premature beats. I don’t know if it was the fear of an uncertain future, or the five years of intense exertion that really broke me down.
The deadline to return to the company is approaching, I feel panic and weakness, can not eat, sleep, and occasional dizziness and sweating, lying down for several days can not get up. My mother looked at my face within a few days obviously see thin, worried, afraid that my body and spirit can not stand, can not do down such an important matter, had to brace just after the thyroid gland removal surgery weak body, accompanied me back to the company to do the procedures.
It was a cold winter month when water was dripping into ice. We got off the train in Liu Zhao, it was already late, tomorrow morning there will be a car to the fifteenth regiment, can only live in the fifteenth regiment of Wuyuan County transfer station. I had heard of this transfer station, but just did not have the opportunity to stay. It happens that there is no room, so I had to be in the side of the corner of the depot to aggravate the night. Outside the window, the north wind howling snow, indoor breath are condensed in the eyebrows into frost. We mother and daughter crowded in a nest, the coat hat scarf quilt and all can use, wrapped up tightly still can not stop shivering.
I was 21 years old, snuggled up in my mother’s arms, and suddenly had a heartwarming feeling. At that time, I hadn’t heard the song “Only Mother is Good”. But I could feel that my mother’s embrace was so warm and safe that I felt I hadn’t grown up yet and I didn’t want to.
The next day, I got on a long-distance bus, bumping around in the snow and ice, and I can’t remember how long it took to get off the bus at the 15th regiment headquarters. There were still a few miles from the second company, and we walked along the country road, which had been crushed by cars and horses and trampled by people, and was frozen hard, three steps a slip and five steps a slip, until we finally returned to the company in the afternoon.
I handed in my hospital certificate and application for transfer to the rural area.
The next few days were spent waiting in anxiety.
My mother accompanied me to stay in the company, just to experience the regiment life. First of all, the black and sticky steamed buns were hard for her to swallow. The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are getting into. The first two days there were also brought from Beijing burrito pickles, quickly eaten up. My mother was worried about the sticky steamed buns, which were really hard to swallow. Qian Tongwen, the head of the first canteen cooking team, was like a savior, carrying a bowl of noodle soup to my mother, and a circle of people gathered around her to persuade her to eat it while it was still hot.
I know very well that such a bowl of noodle soup is not just anyone can enjoy, either you have a high fever, or you run belly diarrhea gastrointestinal disease, the company health officer gave you a sick note to allow you to rest, and special permission to eat the sick meal, the sick rice strips to the cooking class, after these procedures to come to a bowl! Everyone stared at the oil stars and scallions floating on top, and smelled the aroma of sesame oil choking the nose, and everyone was greedy and gulping.
I am the head of the class, I have to hold the head of the class frame to hide far away, let alone their own mother’s noodle soup. The mother held the soup bowl in her hand, looking around at a young face, hesitating to place chopsticks. “Eat it, eat it, or it will get cold ……” I saw tears playing in my mother’s eyes ……
From then on, my mother unforgettable bowl of hot soup noodles, years later as soon as the Corps mentioned the past, will not forget a cooking squad leader named Qian Tongwen, will not forget the bowl of noodle soup floating with the aroma of choking pot of sesame oil.
My mother went around the corners of the company. The boys’ dormitory area, the girls’ dormitory area, the family living area, the infirmary, the company headquarters, the commissary, the mess hall, the auditorium (canteen), the pig, the sheep, the horse, the toilets, the boiling water room, the vegetable cellar, the east well, the west well, and even the ten or so compost heaps piled in front of the pig she went around.
My mother was a cadre, an “old political athlete” with a lot of knowledge, and she didn’t say a word in those days in the company. When I returned to Beijing, she told me: I knew that your life was hard, but I never thought it would be this hard. I used to think that the hardship was only at the level of our cadre school in Henan, but who would have thought that it would be far worse than the cadre school, and that you would have to do such heavy physical work. Mother couldn’t help but leave tears.
Something unexpected happened.
The reason was that I applied for a “transfer to the army due to illness”! –If I had applied to return to Beijing because of illness, it would have been very simple, “where to go” was a matter of course, and the regiment had the right to approve it; but “transferring to the army because of illness” had to be reported to the division for special approval. My mother and I looked at each other. Yes, why didn’t we apply to go back to Beijing if we were sick, but to transfer to the brigade?
At that time, my brain was really missing a string! I can’t believe that I should “push the boat” and change my mind to go back to Beijing, but I insisted on leaving the Corps to join the team in the countryside. Thinking about it now is ridiculously stupid – a patient leaving the Corps to go to the countryside to join the army is like “coughing without getting well and adding gas”! After a few days of delay, my mother and I went to Hohhot with the intention of “making or breaking the boat” and asked someone to help us make connections.
A former subordinate of the mother of a very good friend of mine, who knew the officer of the Political Department of the Corps Command, asked the officer to find the officer in charge of the Second Division’s sick and retired youth, and only then did he approve my application for “transfer to the brigade due to illness”. Ten days later, with my non-agricultural account and urban residents’ food and oil relations in my pocket, I finally stepped on the train back to Beijing. It was like a dream! Can I really not go back here anymore? I couldn’t believe it: my “dream journey” had really taken off!
The lonely and lonely geese
My father’s hometown was in the rural area of Xianghe County, Hebei Province. He left his hometown at the age of 16 or 17 to apprentice in a dim sum store in Tianjin, but he could not stand the mistreatment of his boss and left to join the Eighth Route Army to fight the Japanese and start the revolution. During the land reform, his grandmother was treated as a member of the military, so she lived in the best tiled house of the landlord’s family in the village. Grandma had two sons, the oldest joined the revolution on a different path than his father, and worked for the Communist Party at the local level until 1966, when the Cultural Revolution began. The storm of “criticism and criticism, overturned to the ground, and then stepped on millions of feet” was a storm that stepped aside. My uncle was physically and mentally traumatized and was unable to resume his work until his death in the fall of 1974.
From Beijing to our hometown, less than 200 kilometers, the traffic was quite convenient. In front of the village was the national highway, and the bus from the Ma-ring coach station to Baodi passed by, and there was a round trip each way every day, so you could wave to stop and get on and off. Five years ago, I moved out from Beijing to become a soldier of the Inner Mongolia Corps with a town resident account and food and oil relations. Five years later, when I returned with my Inner Mongolian agricultural workers’ hukou and food and oil relations, I was shocked to find that something had gone wrong: the place where the hukou and food and oil relations were settled was clearly written: Xianghe County, Hebei Province, and I realized how serious it was to lose my status as a Beijinger. I didn’t have the courage to go to the household registration, so I carried it in my arms and locked it in the drawer, taking it out from time to time and putting it back in with disappointment. I had to live from day to day, with a big stone weighing heavily on my heart.
The winter leisure in the countryside is really “leisure”, unlike the Corps, which still arranges all kinds of work. Many of my classmates are in Beijing “cat winter”, I also “idle” at home did not leave. Previously, when I came back for family leave, I was too busy to stay at home all day. This time is idle at home and not go out. Neither go out to play with people, and do not see anyone, always feel short of people three. My father solemnly talked to me: read more, don’t waste time, find you a teacher to learn something useful.
The teacher was an English translator who had just returned from the military horse farm and graduated from the Institute of International Relations. A book, a semiconductor radio, and a sister six years older than me came into my lonely life after I left the Corps. In today’s fashionable vocabulary, I stayed at home, studying foreign languages day and night to fill my empty mind.
It was an ordinary afternoon when there was a knock on the door. My mother, who was about to leave for work, asked if the guest was a comrade from my second company and turned around to call me loudly. I hadn’t been outside the compound for months. The two of us followed each other to the Temple of the Moon Park and looked at each other in silence. I looked around and suddenly realized: spring flowers are blooming, spring is here! I calmly said: I have to go to the countryside to join the army, the future is uncertain. When we parted, we shook hands solemnly and wished each other success. The next morning, I ran to the coach station in the horse circle with my luggage and my net.
The first thing to do was to “connect with the organization”. I handed over my file and my household registration to the Xianghe County Youth Affairs Office. I was greeted by a female cadre in her forties. Her cold face and cold words are still fresh in my mind: “Your commercial food entitlement will be gone, just like the peasants.” I foolishly asked, “What about my meals?” “Get your ration from your brigade, once a month, and deduct work points, not enough work points to pay cash.” At that time, I just felt a scoop of cold water pouring down on my head. Just like that, I lost my eligibility to eat commercial food again and became a genuine old farmer in rural Hebei.
My father had been away from home for more than 30 years and was the highest “official” in the village. So the fact that I had returned to farming was explosive news in the village! In less than half a day, everyone knew about it. Outside our home, the gate, the fence wall on the head of the wall from time to time, people poking around. The first thing I did was to get to know my aunt and grandfather, my aunt and grandfather, my grandfather and grandma, my second uncle and my third mother, my fourth uncle and my fifth aunt, my sixth aunt and my seventh uncle, and the ones who were lower than me, the ones who called me fourth aunt and grandmother, the ones who called me fourth cousin and grandmother, the ones who called me fourth aunt, the ones who called me fourth cousin, and the ones who came out of the same village with five suits and eight cousins, the ones who couldn’t rank, the ones who came to the door in twos and threes, one after the other. I came, a steady stream. They all care about me and pity me. There were even those who were on the spot to procure a match!
Grandmother leaned on her walking stick to poke the ground “Duk Duk Duk” ring: “My granddaughter is responding to the call of the Great Leader Chairman Mao to come back, not to make mistakes and be relegated back! I did not expect this show, do not like everyone like pitying pets tsk tsk tsk, deep in the soul is the self-esteem was touched. Like a timid little cat, I huddled quietly at my grandmother’s bedside table, too lazy to speak and greet them all. It was not until the chief of the brigade’s militia company, a powerful figure in the village, made his grand entrance. He was my uncle’s godson, a demobilized soldier and a member of the Party, and let me call him my cousin; my cousin’s sister-in-law was the director of the village women’s federation and also a brigade cadre. The two of them know my embarrassing situation, immediately patted the board for me to relieve the siege: we two said it, no one will be allowed to bother you at home!
Grandma’s house is located in the middle of the village a little to the south of the east, green brick and tile, four to the circumference of the right, lofty and tall, overlooking the village. I lived with my grandmother and my three sisters (my eldest sister was working in Beijing and my second sister was married) in the west room of the main house, while my aunt and uncle, brother and sister-in-law lived in the south and north rooms of the west wing respectively. I officially returned to the big family, which is more accurate to say. I was a special member of the family that my grandmother loved the most and was taken care of by the whole family.
When it was dark, people dispersed and the lights went out, I lay down next to my grandmother. Grandma stroked my head with her thin, bony hand and sighed softly, “Don’t think blindly, the days will not be too difficult, there is food and drink and still afraid of what. Although I could not see my grandmother’s face clearly in the darkness, I could feel her tears.
This stung my heart: I remember my father telling me that he had not heard from his family for three years after joining the army, and my grandmother was persistent in her search. Whenever the army passed by, my grandmother always chased them to the entrance of the village, and when she saw an officer, she asked, “Sir, do you have a XXX (my father’s name) here? This is not a made-up movie storyline, but a real story that happened between my father and his mother.
The grandmother did not shed a tear during the three years of searching for her son in the war years of the military. Today, this gray-haired old man, who is already in his nineties, is weeping in secret over the situation of her granddaughter, whom she regards as the apple of her eye, and the way out.
I lay on the bed, my eyes wide open, staring at the beams of the room without the slightest hint of sleep. The night in the countryside was purely black and quiet, except for the barking of the dogs near and far, I could only hear the even snoring of my grandmother and my third sister, and the crisp “click click click click click click” of the second hand of the half-steel watch on my wrist hitting my eardrums heavily. The boiling life of the Corps, the familiar faces of my comrades flashed before my eyes; the coldness of the poor countryside, the ramblings of unfamiliar relatives in strange accents also flashed before my eyes. …… The alternating rotation of this walking light made me dizzy and overwhelmed! The curtain of life has not yet been fully opened, I was timid! I was anxious about my lonely situation ……
The peasants’ work and rest strictly follow the time of day, sunrise and sunset, and the four seasons are revolving. The birds are chirping and the roosters from near and far are starting to raise and lower their voices. Like all hard-working and simple families of farmers, the diligent brothers and sisters-in-law started their day’s work at the earliest. The honest brother sulked to pick water and sweep, while the sister-in-law lit the fire and cooked.
I deeply inhaled the fresh spring air with a strong sense of coolness, slipped in and out, had nothing to do, and was in a much better mood than last night. The dull bellows rang out, the smoke rose, and the smoke from the wood fire mixed with the aroma of sticky cakes and porridge filled the air. After a few knives clanged against the counter, chopsticks, large bowls, porridge pots, and colanders of sticky biscuits were quickly placed on the small dining table on the floor of the wing.
One plate of chopped green onions in yellow, white and green, one plate of Grandma’s own bean paste, yellow and fragrant, and one plate of a small, black and red pile, I didn’t know what it was. I put up my nose and smelled it, and figured out that it was the “old” soy bean curd that gave Grandma added nutrition, and there were even one or two drops of sesame oil on the small onions. Grandma smiled and pointed to the small plate with her chopsticks, urging me to eat. I announced in a loud voice that I would be eating at the dining table in the wing with my brother and sister-in-law. Grandma asked me why? It’s better to work with more people, and it’s better to eat with more people! Grandma opened her toothless mouth and smiled.
The county youth office was quite responsible, and I heard that they followed the procedures and quickly sent a notice to my commune, which in turn verbally notified our brigade (village level): my treatment was: for every day I worked, no matter what I did, I was credited with 8 points (10 points for one worker) at the highest level of male labor; every month I received 40 pounds of raw grain (i.e. corn kernels, wheat kernels and mixed beans) rations, and the value of 40 pounds of raw grain was deducted. The value of the work points. Because I did not save points, I deducted my third sister’s work points.
The family has added a strong laborer for nothing, and there is 40 pounds of grain income every month. That’s a lot of money for a farmer’s family! My aunt was happy to turn the white potato feet that were wrapped and released, going in and out of the house, busy for me, either asking if I was thirsty for a bowl of water, or pinching the corners of my clothes to ask if I wanted an extra coat.
There is one thing that I still haven’t figured out: whether the standard of my labor pay was mixed with my uncle’s influence or the influence of my cousin who was the brigade militia company commander’s power. At that time, there were no arrangements for young people to go to the countryside in several villages belonging to our commune, and I was the only one. Later, I heard that there were some Tianjin youths in Weizhuang village, which was about ten miles away from our village and belonged to the border of Baodi, Tianjin. At that time, I was headlong into the dead end of being recommended for college, and I refused all information except for college admissions.
Every day, all of us laborers had to gather at the production team (squad) headquarters and were assigned work by the production leader. I received a workbook the size of a grade book for elementary school students and brought it to the team headquarters in the morning. The production captain slowly and methodically inquired about the needs of various farming jobs and the progress of yesterday’s work, and assigned everyone today’s work accordingly; the team accountant there methodically registered everyone’s work points for yesterday. The young and strong male laborers were credited with 8 points per day, the young and strong female laborers were credited with 6 points per day, and in turn there were 5 points, 4 points, and only 2 points for the lowest ability to work one day. The specific to each person can enjoy a few points of treatment, such as the wealthy anti-bad four types of elements of the scoring standards, I am not sure. 10 points fold a work, work value of the high and low with the year and the village’s own side of the economic income level of the year, to the end of the settlement, grain, dividends, farmers can see the money.
Like our home area, at that time a work value in about 20 cents, it is said that the highest can reach 70 to 80 cents. But where is the village that can have such a high value of work, no one can say, maybe it is just a legend. I secretly calculated, according to a work 20 cents, I can earn more than 10 cents a day, a month of full attendance without a day off, you can earn four or five dollars! Even after deducting two or three pieces of food per month, there are nearly two pieces of “net income”, a year of work, in addition to the 40 pounds per month that received the month, a total of 480 pounds of food for the year, but also more than 20 yuan of dividends. It’s no wonder that the ama was so happy and welcoming to my arrival.
Spring has arrived, the weather has turned warm, the season is unforgiving, farmers have consciously entered the busy state of spring plowing. The work was distributed in the open field of the yard. When my third sister took me into the yard for the first time, the people in the yard stood up spontaneously, and they were eager to pay “attention” to this strong female laborer who earned eight points. Even the rich, the rich, the bad, the bad, the four types of elements who usually dare not breathe and only dare to bow their eyebrows, all stand on tiptoe from the back of the crowd to pick the shoulders of the people in the front row, stretching their necks to look, in order to get a glimpse of my face, and then turn around and whisper. This is unique in the history of the village! That’s how I started my life as a farmer.
I felt like a cloaked Mu Guiying, pulling out all the stops to start a big job. In the revolutionary opera “The Red Lantern”, Li Yuhe had a classic line: “With this bowl of wine, I can handle any kind of banquet! With five years of experience in the Dada class, I can handle any kind of farm work. I did not come late, did not leave early, did not spare effort, did not slack off, did not make a show, did not pretend. Within a month, my performance won the approval of everyone. People in front of and behind the folks are talking: look inconspicuous, I did not expect this girl really quite capable.
In a few months from spring to autumn, I did all the farm work that female laborers can do: pounding manure, seedlings (corn seedlings, grain seedlings, cotton seedlings), weeding, chasing fertilizer (chemical fertilizer, farm fertilizer, ammonia), pulling wheat, playing field, breaking sticks, cutting grain, picking cotton ……
Chicken speaks to duck, out of place
The toil of farm work and the hardships of rural life were not a test for me. Only loneliness tortured my mind.
The head of our village immediately west is a small river, spring thawed, trickling clear and gentle. A few large rocks divided the river into three or four small forks. The horizontal is not a line, vertical is not a trip of a dozen willow trees, some crooked neck, some drooping head, some slanting to explore the body, and some only half of the survival, accompanied by small and large stone eggs, stone blocks, stone plates, forming a large and small, deep and shallow, the sun shade staggered between several small ponds. With the warm weather, a few heavy rains, the river steeply widened. Here became a half-grown boy’s boys playground, they ran around bare-assed jumping up and down, folding their heads and pounding the water playing and catching fish and shrimp; girls and daughters-in-law washing clothes, bathing and washing their hair to cool off, laughing and joking, whispering about the parents of the East and the West, and chewing on their wives.
Every day at noon, three sisters pulled me to the river. I like to sit alone at a distance, quietly watching, no way to join them. Holding my semiconductor radio and English books, or dazed, or as if no one was there. I recall the summer green long eyes of the Uga River, memories of lying on the sandy land on the banks of the Uga River looking up at the blue sky, we burned a hug of hay, and then buried small potatoes and peas pods fava bean pods into the ashes, the afterglow dissipated, picking out the dried goods at the bottom of the ash, blow blow pat, those burnt potatoes burnt peas burnt fava beans ah, that called a fragrant …… three sisters they I was greeted from afar: Come over quickly, your box (semiconductor radio) yakking what to listen to! Are you crazy?
The characteristics of rural work is lazy, so I am very uncomfortable. Take the “back break” for example. There is a break in between the morning and afternoon work, which they call “waist break”. Originally it was a short break to smoke a bag of cigarettes, drink water, go to the toilet, the results have become the men smoke a cigarette and sleep in the shade, the women take out the soles of shoes sock pads children’s pants and coats fly needle and thread, and even more, a slip of smoke disappeared until almost back to work! At first I did not understand, “waist rest” how endlessly? After I understood it, I put on my backpack every morning when I left for work, and put a few books in my backpack. Once the “back break” arrived, I also found a quiet place to lie down or sit, open the book bag. I know that behind the ears are biting, pointing and poking, not touching the needle and thread of the girl who will dare to marry.
In order to enjoy the solitude, I learned to spin, that is, we see from the film, historical photos, Yan’an production period, the kind of hand-cranked spinning wheel manual spinning. Sitting cross-legged in front of the spinning wheel, the left hand shaking the spinning wheel, the right hand pinching a small cotton strip child, the left hand began to shake, the right hand to hang the cotton strip on the line lump gently pulled outward, the left hand shaking speed to be uniform, not fast and slow, the right thumb index finger pinch the cotton strip to not loose not tight, pull outward force also to be uniform, with the right strength, the spinning wheel on the “buzzing” sound up. The left hand shakes, the right hand pulls, the cotton strip pulled into a thin stream of cotton thread, until the right arm is completely straight no more spare, and then gently send the line to the spinning wheel at the bottom of the spool, and the thin, white cotton thread is wound in the spool.
I especially like spinning: left and right hand “shake, pull, send” action, accompanied by the spinning wheel light “buzzing” sound, if the spinning wheel wooden shaft is still a little short of oil, will also be a rhythmic soft “creak creak “sound, that can really be called “beautiful harmony”! I was enthralled by it. Every three or four days, the spun threads were handed over to the brigade and converted into work points by weight.
There was a “big cloth factory” in the village, and the thread was used to weave cloth, which was a side business in our village. Most of the people who watched the machine in the factory were girls and young daughters-in-law. They can be indoors all year round, compared to the wind and sun to work on the ground, apparently much easier and cleaner, each of them are fine skin and flesh, so they feel that they are city workers, superior.
It is said that the dozens of looms in the factory, or my father was responsible for the introduction of Japanese vinylon sets of equipment in the early 1960s, know the leadership of a cotton spinning mill in Tong County, they renewed and eliminated the old equipment. Anyway, I don’t envy those big cloth factory workers, I enjoy spinning at home more, I enjoy that “alone and quiet”.
The third sister has long been eager to see the work of the cloth machine, but no opportunity. This came down to the spirit, flung to me: let old uncle (referring to my father) to talk to the factory director, we both go to the big cloth factory it, as a worker more leisurely. I said: you want to go you can find my father to talk to the factory director. The third sister dry eyes to understand why.
One day my cousin suddenly brought me a message: the county opera troupe to recruit new members, he gave me the application. I listened to it, the two monks are confused! What does it matter to me if the troupe is recruiting new members? My cousin smilingly pointed to my moon piano, said: the county training for three months, the public management of food and housing, no money, and every day also recorded full attendance points. If not for your identity as a youth, where to find such a good thing to go? It turns out that my cousin’s comrade is the leader of the county cultural center, and I got the “backdoor shortcut” by going through the connections. The next day, I took my cousin’s “second class” (the back seat of a bicycle, called the second class), to the county to report to.
The training course is located in the county’s Temple of Literature, Xianghe County’s Temple of Literature is not new to me. My mother’s old family is the county’s famous big family, I grew up in my grandmother’s house in the deep courtyard, at that time every year into the Beijing back to the parents of limited time, until the age of seven years old in elementary school, only to stay with their parents for a long time to live in Beijing. At that time, I often visited the Temple of Literature, and the “Confucius Festival” was a must once a year.
We, the dozens of trainees, lived in the east and west rooms in front of the Dacheng Hall on the left and right, respectively. The female dormitory is the east wing, four large bunk. In the end is the county cultural center sponsored by the students to implement a strict military closed management, after blowing the whistle to get up, first practice for an hour, after breakfast and after a small lunch break, all practice, after dinner there is a collective political study for two hours, the content is required to read newspapers, study Chairman Mao’s quotations and “Old Three Psalms” or something.
This three-month training course, said training, in fact, is based on each person’s expertise, into the singing, accompaniment, dance three groups, each self-practice, during the period no one taught anything new, three months after the selection of talent. I do not have a good voice and singing skills, can not enter the singing group, nor a pretty face and good body, can not enter the dance group, can only be “bald as a monk” material in the accompaniment group to mix food and drink.
The people who came from the Corps are not afraid of the strict military management, but I enjoy this state of life. One hour of practice before breakfast, I basically just run and do exercises to exercise; morning and afternoon chunks of time, I used to read books and listen to the radio English. I have neither the talent to sing nor the desire to stay in the troupe, so why force myself to make things difficult for myself? Three months of off-the-job learning time is precious, the opportunity is hard to come by, grasp to do their own thing on the line.
I soon succeeded in establishing myself as the central figure in the four bunkhouses, at least I am also “non-disengaged cadres” origin, have five years of “cadres” experience it, two hours of political study in the evening are arranged by my control, for me, as much as I can “I can do whatever I want. I teach singing, tell stories, tell current news, tell what I know about foreign countries such as the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Japan, tell anecdotes about our construction corps and so on and so forth.
Every night, our bunk room was full of excitement, reading books and newspapers, singing for half an hour at a time, sometimes bursting into screaming laughter, and often not being able to turn off the lights on time. With these simple, childish, cute little rural girls, my worries were far away. They liked me and listened to me because I had seen a lot; I also liked them and felt better leaders than my past class of soldiers!
The unsatisfactory loneliness and isolation still follow me: in this large temple compound, every room corner, every big tree shade, everyone is hard work, everyone is grasping practice. Little Changbao misses his mother, Bao father misses his wife, Ah Qing sister-in-law Diao De a wise fight, Guo Jianguang praise Sha grandmother, singing, reading, doing and playing, hand, eye, body and step, every move and every style are not ambiguous; flute Erhu Jinghu Panhu size three strings accompanied by Yangqin accordion blowing, playing and singing, sometimes interfering with each other more cooperation; there are a lot of light body like a swallow young girls and boys folded heel to play the gesture, split horizontal waist, high table under the flip, jumping and playing spin; and a few babbling practice. And then there are a few babble practice, Mimi climbing high notes, through the brain full of serious efforts, only I am a conspicuous “other”!
The moon piano is just my decoration, sometimes the whole day without a pluck. I only prefer my books and foreign gibberish that no one else understands. My cousin may have learned about my performance through his comrades and called me, telling me to take the time to improve myself. I never hid my lack of seriousness and care in front of and behind people. They are puzzled: the future can sing on stage the county troupe can not attract you, then you still want to do what?
Time flew by and three months passed quickly. Selection of talent reporting performance in the county party committee’s auditorium. From the gap in the side curtain, I saw the first three rows of large wooden row chairs sitting two dozens of people. Our accompaniment group presented an instrumental ensemble – the theme song of the movie “Green Pine Ridge”, “Running Ahead Along the Socialist Avenue”.
“Long whip ~, that a ah flap ~, snapping sound ~, hey hey hey hey hey hey hey ~, a hang that big car, out of the village na hey hey hey hey hey ~. Break through the fog, cross the beam, along the socialist road, run ahead, hey ~ ~”
After saying goodbye to the cute little girls and multi-talented boys, I took my cousin’s second class and went back to the village. A brief exchange with my cousin on the way.
Cousin: what do you think about not getting into the theater?
I: I didn’t get in, so I didn’t get in. I really don’t know how to sing, and I really don’t like to sing.
Cousin: I heard that you don’t work hard at all, and you listen to foreign languages that no one understands all day long with your opera box?
Me: Who said that? Who says you can’t understand? I can understand.
Cousin: understand and what does it matter? That can be eaten as food or as work credits against the money spent?
Me: And quench your thirst, more useful than money! What’s the matter?
Cousin:?
The first thing I did was to pass by the river as I drove into the village. The people who were laughing and joking stopped, and my aunts and uncles greeted each other. “Yo~! The actors from the drama troupe are back today!” “Hey~! Don’t forget us when you’re on stage!” I sat on the back seat of my bicycle with my face twisted to the side of my back.
Solitude isn’t exactly enjoyable
Autumn has arrived.
The sky is so blue and high, and the geese are flying south, sometimes in a line, and soon afterwards in a line. I remember a beautiful text I learned in the lower elementary school: “Autumn has come, the leaves are yellow, the weather is cool, and a flock of geese is flying south.” By studying this text, I know that the geese flying south are a group, and there is care and mutual help among them. They fly in formation, the first is to help each other to lend strength, in addition to another important role, is to help each other to help. If anyone is injured or sick, and therefore falls out of line, there must be another goose with him. Isn’t it true that they are lined up in the formation of herringbone and monogram just to tell the head goose who has fallen out of line and who has stayed behind to accompany it? I looked up at the geese flying far away and envied them. I silently thought: there was one less in the group of geese, and the one who fell in line was me with a broken wing.
I don’t know why, but for a few days in a row, I always thought of “fate is playing tricks on people” in my mind. Maybe it’s true that the creation teases me, come to the countryside for several months, in addition to life compared to the Corps of laborious tension has improved, I can not feel happy. Sometimes I really don’t understand, in the end, this solitary life has a head or no head ah? Why should I choose to fight alone? Can there be a future?
The farmers have the most comfortable season of the year. Break sticks, cut grain, cut beans, cut sorghum, plan white potatoes, plan peanuts, plan ballast, pull Panicum straw, pull bean straw, pull potato seedlings ……, these kinds of farm work in the construction corps is not done. For me, are not considered to have technical work, I will learn, a dry can do a good job. After the autumn harvest, the next step is the autumn planting. Clear the ground, turn the ground, monopolize, apply the base fertilizer, sow the seeds …… Autumn harvest and autumn planting is the most important part of the farmers’ annual farm work, one is the harvest period of the fruits of the year’s work, and then it is about the next harvest period. Here the degree of mechanization is not high, the vast majority of work to be completed by human labor.
I finally fell ill after more than 20 consecutive days of intense exertion. The last straw that broke my camel’s back was fleas, which are much lighter than straw! I was particularly tired after the autumn harvest and then the autumn planting, probably because I was bitten by ants or some unknown insects and got a few red bumps. Later, a dog bounced into my clothes, and I was bitten on my waist, back, and legs one after another with a few big hard bunches. At first, I didn’t care too much. When working too tired, with a sweaty lie in the shade to rest is a common thing. Suddenly one day in the middle of the night itching all over my body tortured me to toss and turn pancakes. Grandma was shocked to see under the lamp: I was covered with red bumps, even in the scalp are hard and large bags in a row! Before dawn, the fever started again.
Grandmother anxious on crutches trembling personally ran to the health clinic, invited the barefoot doctor to see me. The doctor looked carefully at the hard bumps on my body, looked at my eyelids, took my temperature and said to my grandmother: “Don’t be afraid, she has a serious allergic reaction to the big bumps all over her body. I wanted to vomit, but couldn’t, and my stomach fell, but couldn’t.
After consideration, the doctor diagnosed that it was due to overexertion, hot sweat and wind, internal heat and external sensation, and skin allergy caused by fleas. The doctor gave desensitizing medicine and fever-reducing medicine and said: “There is no other way, but to take medicine and sleep, and slowly simmer. You can boil some millet porridge to eat, and if the itching is unbearable, you can cool the millet soup and apply it as medicine. The actual warmth of millet taste sweet and salty, into the spleen, stomach and kidney meridian, nourishing Yin and eliminate fire, and hypnotic effect ……
I started to drift off to sleep after taking desensitizing tablets, but it was hard to tolerate the severe headache, stiff joints, and hard bumps on my body that still itched and hurt, making it difficult to be quiet. I couldn’t open my eyes because of the dizziness, and I couldn’t eat anything. Even when I took a few sips of water, I had to throw up until I vomited yellow-green bile. I couldn’t drink the millet porridge, and the rice soup didn’t work. I don’t know how long it took, but in a daze, I heard a conversation between my grandmother and my aunt.
Auntie: Is it a “bump in the road”?
Grandma: I think so. Try to call.
Grandma put a mirror flat on Grandma’s small bed table and found a large copper coin, Grandma took it, chanted the words under her breath and threw the large copper coin at the mirror again and again. The large copper coin when Lang Lang crisp hit the mirror. Suddenly, the coin stood up straight on the mirror! Big Mom grabbed a large copper coin, spit and scolded, quickly out of the north room, and soon came back, said to Grandma: I threw it into the stove pit fire burned, now throw it into the water tank, a prospective drowning it. Grandma breathed a huge sigh of relief, turned around and touched my head, and gently said to herself: Okay, okay, this time it’s okay. In the drowsiness, I finally slept solidly.
When I woke up, my head didn’t hurt anymore, and the hard bumps all over my body were soft and calmed down, said my third sister, I slept for three days and two nights, except for a little water, no rice. I just felt heavy-headed, walking like I was stepping on cotton, my legs were limp and wobbly. Grandma took my hand and told me that I should never work so hard and foolishly again, what should I do if I was exhausted?
Later I asked three sisters, they take the copper mirror what it?
Three sisters mysteriously said: you bumped into the “bumpers”, it was grandmother and my mother to snatch you back!
From whose hands snatched back?
Third sister said a name, I do not know.
Third sister said: of course you do not know, he has been dead for decades!
What?! I look stunned!!!
Third sister said: did not hear my mother spit on him and cursed him? He won’t come back.
My scalp exploded with fear, my back was chilled, my sweat hairs contracted, and I got goose bumps. Is this the real-life version of the ghost stories I heard as a child? Really let me bump into? I looked in the mirror and saw a disheveled face full of waxy, bitter face that seemed to be laughing at itself: the countryside is a wide world, where there can be a big story!
Dreams are hard to fulfill
Until now, I’m still regretting one thing.
After picking cotton and entering the winter, my grandmother urged me to go back to Beijing to spend the winter, because it was too cold at home, don’t freeze. I do not want to go back to Beijing “cat winter” – afraid that in case of enrollment opportunities I am not in, this year’s hard work will be in vain, my grandmother forced my cousin to give me an idea (uncle has died in the fall due to illness). My cousin said: I heard my godfather talking about finding the old secretary of our commune in the commune to find something for my fourth sister to do, I’ll ask. A few days later, my cousin excitedly told me: I could go to the commune as a telephone operator.
In this way, I left my grandmother and left my home. I didn’t realize that this was my grandmother’s last winter in this world. I had lost the opportunity to accompany my grandmother to the end of her life.
After working as a telephone operator in the commune for eight months, I was picked to work as a temporary worker in the county foreign trade bureau for more than a year, mainly to assist the bureau leaders in coordinating the business of exporting agricultural and sideline products and handicrafts with the regional foreign trade bureau.
In November 1976, I was recruited into the Xianghe County Flower Silk Factory as a blue-burning worker.
In the winter of 1977, the college entrance examination, which had been interrupted for ten years, was resumed, and I took the entrance examination together with millions of young people. There was no Beijing University in Xianghe County, so I enrolled in Zhangjiakou Normal College, the only school that had a foreign language program. Then it was a long wait in anticipation. I don’t remember how long it took, but the admissions office of the County Bureau of Education and Culture called to inform me that it was time for a political review. I was asked if I could take them to Beijing to my parents’ workplace for outward transfer. I said: not only can, but also is particularly able!
With two cadres from the Bureau of Education and Culture all the way through, completed the outward transfer. Continue to wait and wait for the acceptance letter. I was completely confident.
The long winter passed. Another year when the spring is in full bloom. Colleges and universities all over the world started one after another. But I never received an acceptance letter. Later I learned that: there is a and I have the same name and surname long ago reported to school, is also Zhangjiakou teacher training college, English major. That is a male.
Things have come to this point, but my mood is unusually calm, unusually light.
In June 1979, I left the Xianghe County Silk Factory and returned to Beijing after a full decade of absence.
A quote from Lin Yutang floated in my mind.
Dreams, no matter how vague, always lurk in the bottom of our hearts, so that our minds are never at peace until these dreams become a fact.
The journalism department of Beijing University is a dream that I have longed for since I was a child.
I owe myself a dream that I have not fulfilled.
It is hard to fulfill in this life.
Memory 289
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