At the age of fourteen, I entered the second grade of middle school. Likewise, I had grown a year and was 167 centimetres tall, but my food ration had not grown, and I was still 27.5 kilograms, still hungry, or at best, half-full.
What does that number mean? In today’s perspective, it’s a bit strange that a junior high school teenager could eat nearly 30 pounds of grain a month. This amount of food, in today’s world, is almost enough to feed a family of three for a month.
However, we students are in the growth and development period, at that time and the natural disasters, all kinds of living materials are extremely scarce, a little “oil” in the stomach is not. Therefore, if these rations are not controlled, it is enough for them to eat for ten days. So it became a top priority for every family to plan carefully, or else it would not be surprising to see them eating in advance.
In those days, it seemed as if there was no such thing as fullness, only the feeling of being full, so to speak, which meant drinking porridge, but in no time at all, hunger was overwhelming.
“Double bag students”
As far as I can remember, there was a student surnamed Wei in my class who carried two school bags to school every day. One bag contained stationery and books, and the other bag contained sweet potatoes that were cooked at home. At that time, sweet potatoes were also supplied with food stamps at a certain percentage, and the sweet potatoes he brought with him were actually lunch, but he always took out two for every next class. Although we talked about and laughed at him, but watching him eat with great relish, and also from time to time to make a “flapping” sound, we can not help but gluttony and salivation.
After all, we were just like him, we didn’t have enough food to eat. Although he was only about 160 centimeters tall, he was known in his class for his huge appetite, so his classmates gave him the English name “David” (David the Big Stomach). Not only did he not mind his nickname, but he even looked smug about it. He even challenged the class to a contest: who in those days would put out food for such a task?
Finally, we had the opportunity to take on the challenge. During the autumn harvest, our school organized a field trip to the countryside, and one evening after work, our class ate dinner on the drying field. We saw David holding a big bowl of rice porridge in his right hand, with five fingers stretched out on his left hand, one for each nest, and one for the middle, calling out in public, “Whoever dares to fight, come forward!”
Look at his style, the whole class was in no doubt. Then I saw “Fe” (the chemical symbol for iron, a nickname of his classmates) walk over, pick up a bowl of porridge, stretch out his big hand like a bushel, and stick it in the drawer, a finger in a nest, and a middle one in between.
Then I heard Xiaolei say: “I’m afraid it’s hard enough, David woke up early in the morning to open his eyes to eat eight taels, lunch to eat a catty six taels, and at night to eat a catty four taels, a day to eat three catty eight taels, this game is definitely David’s win.”
The villagers did not go home to eat, surrounded by a circle to watch the fun. In the end, “David” ate seven nests and a bowl of congee, and came out on top. In the end, “David” ate seven nests and a bowl of congee, and was the winner.
“Although he is not tall, he is “strong as an ox”. A sack of sweet potatoes, at least 200 pounds, do not need the help of others, they can carry up, never heard him say tired.
The reason why “David” is in a position to eat so much, because his family has rural relatives, self-retained land planted corn, sweet potatoes and other often to his home, students are very envious of him.
Misfortune comes from the mouth.
Almost all of our physical education classes are scheduled in the morning or the last class in the afternoon, and this is the time when we are the hungriest of all, not having eaten too much to begin with, and by this time we are already famished. Just as Marshal Chen Yi described in his “Guerrilla Words of Gannan”, “the day is about to be noon, and the hungry intestines are ringing like drums”. All the students were listless and dispirited.
This day’s gym class was a double-bar exercise, and the teacher first talked about the main points, and after demonstrating the exercise, let each of us take turns doing the same thing on the double-bar. Most of the students in the class passed, except for three who failed, so the teacher asked each of them to do it again.
One of the students was too short and had a hard time on the bars, another was too timid, and as soon as the teacher put him on the bars, he was shaking with shock. There was another student who just refused to do it. The teacher asked him, “You’re the only one left, why don’t you do it”? He said, “Teacher, it’s not a technical problem, but a physical problem, I don’t have the strength to do it.”
As soon as he said that, the whole class burst out laughing, because we didn’t understand the meaning of the word “technical” and couldn’t figure out where he had learned it. Suddenly the teacher shouted, “Stop laughing,” and went up to the student and reprimanded him harshly, “Your thinking is very problematic. Tell your parents to come to school in the morning”. The gymnasium was silent, and I really didn’t understand why the teacher was so angry.
The next day, the head teacher came to our class and gave us a situation education, telling us that the current food shortage was only a temporary phenomenon, and that he hoped the students would treat it correctly, overcome the difficulties, study hard, and refrain from complaining and saying strange things.
Some students sat under the wall, sunbathing and chatting, while others played chess and ping-pong, and some went back to the classroom to do their homework.
I got my wish.
Entering the second year of middle school, it’s not far to the end of middle school. During winter break, my classmate Kon, who lives in the same courtyard as me, was doing homework and chatting with me. His mother died when he was very young, and she bit him on the foot before she died, and the scar on his foot is still there today. This was probably the last thing his mother loved about her son, and she made sure he never forgot her.
From a young age, Kang was very sensible, his father went to work every day, and he was the only one at home. He could do everything from cooking to washing and housekeeping. He cooks cornmeal porridge every day and saves food for his father. He said, “My dad is very tired and hard at work, he has to eat enough to get by.” It’s so touching, he’s like a little adult.
One of the things that impressed me most was that one morning, the two of us were playing in the courtyard of the dormitory, and before we knew it, we walked to the back door of the staff canteen, and there was a big bamboo basket at the door with some rotten cabbage leaves in it, and Kang walked over to it and opened those cabbage leaves with his hands, revealing some fish with heads and tails underneath, and he looked for a big cabbage leaf and put some fish heads and tails on it. I asked him what he wanted this for. He said, “Go back and clean it, put some oil, salt and vinegar in it and steam it, it’s quite tasty.”
I looked at him with wide eyes and said to myself, “This can be eaten too? When I got back to his house, I saw that he was very handy, and in a few moments he was steaming in a pot, and after a while the smell actually drifted all over the house, and then he cooked some cornmeal porridge. I said, “You’re great, just like a chef.” He said, “I just want to cook some corn flour porridge. He said, “I just want to be a chef. I won’t go to high school after I graduate from junior high, but I’ll go to a technical school and cook delicious food for my dad after I become a chef.” He said emotionally, and I listened intently.
A year later we graduated from middle school, I went to high school and he went to a technical school for cooks. Three more years later I graduated from high school and he graduated from a technical school. Two years after the Cultural Revolution I went to the corps, he went to the train station to see me off, he was so fat that I could hardly recognize him! By the time I returned from the production corps in 1973, he was the manager of a hotel.
“Repeatedly defeated,”
Due to malnutrition, many people were swollen, and to solve this problem, the leaders decided to issue nutrition coupons to the cadres, with one coupon you could receive a piece of soybean noodle hair cake.
The vouchers were printed on a simple strip of white paper about two centimeters wide, with a triangular pattern printed on it. The cadres were reluctant to eat the nutrition coupons after receiving them, and gave them to their children, who took them to the cafeteria to get hair cakes to eat, which left an opportunity to take advantage of them.
The children drew many nutrition vouchers with ballpoint pens, imitating them so well that they were impossible to tell if they were real or fake unless they looked closely. Then they go to get their soybean noodle hair cakes at night when the cafeteria lights are dim. Every day at dinner, there was always a group of children, each with a piece of soybean noodle hair cake in their hands, sitting around the table in the cafeteria, eating, chatting and laughing.
However, the good times didn’t last long. After only three or four days, the canteen manager noticed the problem and stopped using the vouchers, and they were never issued again.
After this incident, the canteen was very vigilant, and all the children’s food, the cooks were very careful to check the food tickets to make sure they were not fake. They found that the enameled rice basin in the canteen had a flat bottom, so they put rice soup on the bottom of the basin and put the rice basin into the dish where the rice tickets were collected when they were playing, so that they could get a few rice tickets on the bottom of the basin and eat more.
He made many wooden boxes, with a long hole on top of them, and put the rice tickets directly into them.
Come to think of it, how could a little brat fight an old man?
unforgettable spring trip
This was my first spring trip since I was in middle school, and it was arguably the most unforgettable spring trip of my life.
The reason for this trip was not to go to any fun park, nor because it had any special meaning, but because each student had to solve the problem of their own lunch, which was definitely a big problem at that time. In those days, almost every meal was gruel, and we couldn’t bring gruel for the spring trip. Bringing dry food would solve the problem of food stamps, but each person had so much ration, where to find food stamps?
The good news is that we won’t go on a spring trip until a week from now, so saving two taels a day from now on will be enough. The first two days were fine, save four two, to the third day of hunger, not only did not save, but also the day before yesterday to save eat two two. At that time determined to save two taels tomorrow, fortunately no gym class that day, save two taels, so tossed, and finally to the spring trip day to save four taels.
At that time four-two food stamps would not help at all. If you eat porridge, four two sure to be able to stomach full, but four two in the outside store is to buy two fire, three mouthfuls of food to the stomach is like falling into the bottomless pit. The students were so hungry that they had no interest in playing, but just sat around chatting and playing chess.
Half of a Wotou
I put my backpack on and came down from upstairs, pushing my bike to get ready for school. Then I saw my sister walking back with her backpack on her back, crying and wailing. I asked her, “Why are you crying, why aren’t you going to school?” She sobbed and said, “I just ate half of my nest and had it taken away from me”. I said, “Don’t you cry. Wait here and I’ll get you another one at home.”
I ran upstairs to get a nest egg and sat her on my bike and I rode her to school and she ate that nest egg in the back seat. She said that the man who robbed her of half a nest was an old man with long hair and dirty, tattered clothes, like a barker (beggar). I said to her on the way, “Eat at home later before you go to school”.
In those days, it was not uncommon for children to be robbed with food in their hands, and even for some adults to be robbed with food in their hands. Even though it was only half a nest, it was only one or two stamps at most, but at that time it was enough to feed the hungry. It’s not a big deal to get robbed of food, but it’s a big deal to scare the kids.
After that half a nest was robbed, my sister didn’t dare to go to school by herself. I had no choice but to get up half an hour early every day, eat breakfast at home, and then take her to school on my bicycle.
“Running to the countryside,”
That work in the countryside was a great inspiration to the students. The work we did was to dig up sweet potatoes. After we finished work in the evening, many of us went to the field with hoes and sacks to pick up sweet potatoes, and you can’t believe how many we found. Since discovering this secret, a few of my good friends have been meeting up with each other on Saturday afternoons to ride bicycles after school and go to the nearby countryside to pick up sweet potatoes.
I don’t know if it was because we didn’t have the knack or the tools, or because the farmers were too clean, or because the land had already been picked, but I only picked up a few, which was not much.
It was getting dark and we were hungry, so we found some tree tricks and weeds, borrowed matches from the other potato pickers, and lit a fire to roast the sweet potatoes.
We were tired and hungry and did not have much to show for it, but we were very happy, and it gave us great pleasure. We buried the fire in the ground and rode our bicycles, singing “Back from the firing range,” as if we had been on a delightful “field trip,” singing and laughing.
When we arrived at school on Monday morning, we showed off to our classmates that we were going to pick sweet potatoes. The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are looking for. It was just a few days during the sweet potato harvest, so our “field trip” ended.
It was a very wonderful and fun-filled teenage years, however, along with it also sadness, confusion and frustration. The wacky “pranks” performed by innocent classmates and playmates seemed to defy their age, leaving a whiff of memory in their hearts. This memory has gradually faded away, fading away. Nevertheless, if you want to forget it, you can’t!
Trust, there will be no such confusion now!
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