In early November 1968, my classmates and I went to Long County to the countryside, experienced a lifetime of unforgettable youth life. Now, the years have passed more than forty years, when the boys and girls have been to the generation of grandparents, but looking back on the time in the rural settlement, there are happy and sad, also bitter and sweet, is still a vivid memory of its events, its people vivid, is still inexhaustible bittersweet years.
Wind and snow Guanshan Road
In the early spring of 1969, Long County to Gansu Malu town of war highway construction. Commune to the brigade assigned civilian labor quota. The youths had no family to drag, and they said they would go. I and my classmate Lao Yu (now Shaanxi Automobile Gear Factory) with some curiosity, along with a few members of the community to lead the luggage food cooking mules hurriedly set out on the road. We inserted the place from the construction point Guanshan deer house ditch there are nearly 100 miles, hard by virtue of young and strong, open foot, walked nearly a full day! By the time we arrived at the Deerfang ditch, it was already dark, our legs were sore and numb, and we were so sleepy that we fell into the shack and snored loudly.
In March, the spring breeze outside the mountain, spring colors, but the mountain snow has not yet disappeared, the cold air is forced. The semi-subterranean shack can not stop the cold wind mixed with snow particles, woke up early in the morning, only to feel the head and hard and cold, the original is the nest of a few threads of warm air have become a thin layer of ice. Shortly after entering the mountains, a sky-flying goose feather snow, a flurry, so that the mountains and wild forests in silver, more than a foot of snow blocking the shack door, access is difficult. We braved the snow to work, picking apart the snow and ice, digging and transporting soil and rocks. The hot sweat from the head melted the snowflakes that fell on the collar, hat and ears, and froze into hard ice shells, each becoming a “white-browed warrior”.
Climbing the slope over the ditch every day, the amount of labor is not small, but also to collect firewood for cooking, to pick up dead wood all over the mountain. But to identify the lacquer wood, accidentally called the lacquer tree “bite”, the face all over the red spots straight itch people scratching their ears, skin broken pus flowing yellow water, ten days and a half do not heal.
Every meal is a big bowl of corn flour lumps, sprinkle some salt, put a few pieces of sauerkraut leaves, and without any oil and water. At that time, eating a bloated stomach, but not hunger. The water in the mountains is hard, fast digestion, can not pull a few carloads of soil will feel empty in the belly, head sweating, often in a state of hunger. We often ran to the nearby small outlet store to buy some crude cookies and eight cents a pack of “flock” cigarettes to satisfy hunger and boredom.
In the mountains, it was late at dawn and early at dark, and we didn’t see the sun at both ends of the workday, but we had to insist on “asking for instructions early, reporting late”, and a few of us stood in the dark mountains, looking at the dark mountains and fields around us, whether it was wind and snow, or hunger, we had to first “toast “Some, and then mechanically recite a few paragraphs of quotations, each mumbling a “fight private criticism” routine, this ritual similar to religion only to end. In retrospect, I think it was foolish and ridiculous, but it was a true reflection of those days.
During that month in the mountains, I was exposed to the elements, hunger and cold, and I really tasted what it was like to “suffer in the heart, labor in the bones, and starve in the body”. Thirty years later, when I drove to Guanshan Grassland with Yu on a flat road, passing through the deer house ditch, our thoughts flew back to the snow and wind of that year.
Encountering snakes in the way
Pack manure, a less technical and labor-saving farming job. Two manure baskets are set up on the backs of horses and mules, filled with manure, and led away, yelling up the hill and riding down the hill, very comfortable. I was very interested in this work. I remember one afternoon when I finished my work, I rode my mule on the cliffside path, looking at the red sunset shining brilliantly in the evening, I couldn’t help but sing: “The sunset is reflected on Yangcheng Lake ——“.
A sentence is not finished, the crotch of the black mule suddenly tilted his head hissing, panic can not stop backward, and repeatedly yell to no avail. I looked up towards the front and couldn’t help but suck in a breath of cold air: the small tree in front of the cliff was coiled with a one-meter-long, arm-thick flower snake, which was “giggling” and spitting letters. Mountain trail, one side of the cliff, the other side of the deep ravine, can not go around, only with the snake to take the road!
I just felt my scalp tingling, sweat hair straight up, nervous heart “thumping” straight jump, busy called behind together with the work of a half-grown boy social workers to watch the livestock, quickly jumped off the mule, from the dung basket pulled out the shovel, according to the high rise of the snake head cut. The snake twisted and slithered down the tree, crossed the road, and raised its head and spat letters to do the attack.
When I saw this, I gritted my teeth and raised the shovel and cut the snake’s neck. The snake wriggled and struggled, its tail crackling and snapping, and then wrapped itself around the shovel handle with a swish. I held my breath and held the shovel handle with both hands with all my strength and pressed down and pressed. A few minutes later, the snake wrapped around the shovel handle fell to the ground, and when I looked at the snake, it was already separated from its head. At this point I felt a cold sweat and my legs were weak.
The sun was setting and it was already dark. The young man behind me threw the head of the snake down the ravine, picked up the body of the snake with a branch, and went down the hill leisurely, saying that the skin of the snake could be sold for money. When I returned to the youth home, I told my companions about the battle with the snake, and someone suggested making a snake stew to satisfy my craving. I said, “I have already killed, and the shadow of the snake writhing in front of my eyes, there is no good appetite. That is not yet ecologically conscious, otherwise they would not put the snake to death, but would try to release it back to nature.
Quotes from the sickle handle
There is nothing more painful and tiring than the summer harvest. The sun is blazing, the heat and thirst are unbearable, and we have to go over several mountains to cut the wheat. At the end of the day, despite the sweat, you still have to carry a few bundles of wheat back to the wheat farm. When I think of the summer harvest, I feel scared. At that time, there was no combine harvester in the countryside, and even if there was, it was useless in the steep hillside, so people had to harvest bit by bit with a sickle.
The most admirable thing was the person who could make the walking sickle. The walking sickle is equipped with two or three feet long blade, two hands holding the rope buckle, straight back, one step a flip, cut down a piece, the action is like a rhythmic, rhythmic beautiful dance.
Every summer harvest, it is the opportunity to make the men who walk the sickle to show off their skills and make a big splash, earning ten percent of the male members of the community may not be everyone, the youth is beyond their reach. We can only humbly seek advice and learn from scratch how to use the blade sickle, sharpen the sickle, how to Òn the wheat rope, bundle the wheat individual, how to prevent the sickle from hurting the hands and feet.
One day of cutting wheat, wheat awnings prick the arms red and swollen, the sun sweat long dripping, stinging all over the body and pain and itch, I really want to head into the river pond and never come ashore. Therefore, I like to work in the wheat field, like many young people, to work hard, sweat, smooth, or rely on some cultural ink to argue with the wheat customers to measure the acres, clear the money to settle the bill, rather than the waist and leg pain to cut wheat.
At that time, the most discussed topic was “the fundamental way out of agriculture lies in mechanization”, longing for a brighter future when even wheat cutting in the mountains could be done with combine harvesters. In order to encourage myself to overcome the difficulties, overcome the stage fright of the bitter summer, and establish the concept of winning the battle from the spirit, as many people usually did in those days, I engraved a quotation from Chairman Mao on the handle of the sickle: “Determined, not afraid of sacrifice, overcome all difficulties, go for victory.” Some students also engraved famous phrases such as “Dare to go up to the moon, can go down to the five oceans to catch a turtle” and “Not to the Great Wall is not a good man”.
With such spirit and will, we survived the summer harvest, learned all kinds of farming work during the “three summers”, and even learned the painful experience of the wheat man. I and all of us religiously used these ideas to support ourselves in the hardships of life to grow strength and confidence. This almost Q-style spiritual triumph was perhaps a childish sign and the most primitive practice of the philosophical proposition of “spirit into matter” in that era.
Some years later, when I listened to the philosophy teacher in the university classroom, I always saw the sweat-stained and blurred quotations on the sickle handle before my eyes.
The love of the youth
After the summer harvest in 1969, the production team started to build houses for the intellectual youth. Before the autumn harvest, five adobe houses stood in the poor village, looking somewhat imposing, but we inevitably had a bit of sorrow and confusion in our hearts, is this how to “settle down” in the countryside? The heart is filled with reluctance and helplessness. The day we moved into the new house from the snail’s house for more than half a year, we were particularly excited, and ran to the county to cut a few pounds of meat, wrapped a dumpling, each of us ate with joy. That night and drank more strong tea, it is difficult to sleep, talk about sex, the sky and the sea chatting until almost dawn. At that time can really be described as “teenagers do not know the taste of sorrow” ah!
Although the future was confused and there was no bottom in my heart, I was able to live a decent life in front of me: I had built up a courtyard wall, and it was a world of its own; I had a few borders of green vegetables, and it was a life of four seasons; I had a convention, and it was a life of discipline. Old Peng (a professor of Xi’an Institute of Technology) left the poem of the great man “The clouds and water of the four seas are tossing and the wind and thunder of the five continents are stirring” on the door plate with his good clerical script, which can still be traced vaguely after several years.
The boys and girls took turns cooking, and every holiday and anniversary of the visit to the countryside, the food was also improved once. When ten people worked together to make dumplings, two or three rollers were always unable to supply them, “Pi-er! Pi-er!” The sound of urging mixed in the lively laughter, dispel the day’s work and the heart of the cloud, the small courtyard overflowing with a peaceful and warm atmosphere. Dazhang (Baoji bed sheet factory) fried noodles with a unique idea, no noodles sauce will be replaced by soy sauce batter, the entrance is also unique flavor.
If the light left boys, cooking is even simpler; stir a pot of thick noodles, to be boiled in the pot of water, reach out from the pot a grasp, a squeeze, down to the pot, and then float a few leaves, sprinkle two salt, turned into a tenderness and top full of “turtle jumping cliff”, we are like wolves still eat tasty!
I remember when I don’t know who brought back a puppy from there, the group liked it very much, often amused and tempered. This little creature is also very interesting, all the people dressed as youth into the courtyard, it wagged its head and tail, running behind, but as long as the commune cadres and village farmers into the courtyard door, it barked more than barking, grimacing teeth upward pounce. Therefore, the production leader always shouted before entering the courtyard: “Watch the dog! Keep an eye on the dog!” Only after we stabilized the dog did he cautiously enter. The peasants in the village laughed, “The dogs of the intellectual youth have layers in their eyes!” A few years later, when the last two peasants left the county, the dog ran after the car for a while.
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