Life Starts at Sixteen
By Liu Ping
In the early autumn of 1969, I boarded a train to Inner Mongolia Production and
Construction Corp. August 28th was my sixteenth
birthday when the train arrived at the railway station of Hohhot.
The sixteenth year of age is commonly regarded as the flowery age today.
However, we sixteen-year-olds, still not adults yet, had to undergo a thorough
transformation from head to toe. Those of us, the so-called graduates of junior
middle schools in 1969, were merely graduates from primary schools. With
enforced labels of "Educated Youth", we got dragged into the nation-wide great
waves of the "Down to the Countryside" movement.
On the day I left Beijing, my mother and a few classmates went to see me off at
the Beijing Railway Station. As the train started to move, cries from both on
board and on the platform drowned
the
clamoring sounds of gongs and drums. My fellow travelers on board cried and
shouted themselves blue in the face while I was sitting quietly and frozen in a
corner seat, untouched at all by this painful parting scene. When the Great
Proletariat Cultural Revolution broke out, I, at the age of 13, had experienced
parting with my father who committed suicide. (On August 6, 1966, my father died
of political persecution.) Having gone through the "baptism" of this great
storm, I no longer shed tears easily although I was sixteen, an age when teenage
girls are prone to cry.
I. An Independent Travel at Sixteen
We got off the train at Hohhot Station. Large trucks drove us together with
our luggage to the Research Institute of Animal Husbandry. We stayed in
those "rooms" which were actually the emptied horse stables. It was hard to
imagine that those horses, targets of the research, lived in the
stables which were as good as people's
living quarters. The horse stable looked very much like an office building.
Each room was occupied by one horse, known as one horse stall. There was a
cement horse feeder in each horse stall, which was the only device
distinguishing a horse stall from a room for a human being.
Right across from the Research Institute, sits the Hohhot Plant of Chemical
Fiber which was then under construction. After our arrival at Hohhot, we
immediately participated in the construction. Our group of youths, teenage
boys and girls, assisted at the construction site by transporting sand and
stones with carts.
We stayed here for a month. In mid-October, a month after our arrival, we
received orders from high up that we should depart the plant in Hohhot and
continue our trip further north. Our destination was Wulate Front Banner,
Wulan Charbu League (an administrative division of the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region, corresponding to a prefecture).
Before the garrison was relieved, we were given three days off. Those youth
from Hohhot region could return home for reunions. I could use
these three days to visit my elder sister,
who was sent to live and work in a production brigade of Tumote Left Banner,
one hundred li
1 from Hohhot. I asked for leave from the
Company and set out on the trip by myself. This was the first independent
travel by myself in my sixteen years of life.
After a short trip on the train, I arrived at Bikeqi Railway Station. When I
disembarked the train, it was already dark. I was told by the locals that
there was no transportation to go to my sister's place, Beishizhou People's
Commune. I would have to stay overnight and wait for the next day in the
hope of getting a ride.
As a stranger in a strange place and in total darkness, I, thrown into such
a shabby town, felt lonely, helpless and desperate. Seeing that I was
standing alone at a total loss, a kind-hearted man told me that a hotel was
not too far away where I could stay overnight.
I found the hotel and checked in. What a "hotel" this was! A couple of old
and shabby single-story houses, several wooden beds together with a wooden
table were lying in the rooms. The pillows, quilts and beddings were oily,
filthy and disgusting. As the only female guest in the "hotel", I locked the
door of the room, sat stiff and dull on the side of the bed, waiting for
daybreak. After a while, I got sleepy and laid down on the side of the bed.
It felt like a very long night. I was exhausted, but could not fall asleep.
Any little sounds outside put me on high alert and I pricked up my ears. I
relaxed when the sounds disappeared. Dawn finally came! I walked out of the
"hotel" and set out on my trip to Beishizhou Commune.
It was a dirt road with fields of crops on both sides.
I walked alone with all of the surroundings in dead silence and nobody in
sight.
The trip was about thirty li from Bikeqi Railway Station to Nanshizhou
Village of Beishizhou Commune. Having walked from dawn to sunrise, my two
legs got heavier and heavier. I ran into some fellow travelers but did not
see any carts passing by.
I finished this thirty-li trip in one stretch, not knowing how many hours I
had walked. When I walked into this strange village following the guidance
of the locals, I felt I was returning home. Although it was my first time
here and it was not my home, everything here including the houses, plants,
fields seemed familiar and intimate to me. That was because my sister lived
here and it was her home.
Naturally it became mine as well. I was finally home after the long and
arduous journey.
My sister left Beijing in 1968 just a step ahead of me. I have not seen her
for over a year. I was so excited at the thought of seeing her in minutes
and in such a small village on the Gobi Desert thousands of li from Beijing
that my heart was beating out of my throat. The first thing I would share
with her was the painful and difficult journey from Hohhot to here.
Guided by a local, I finally found the living quarters of the rusticated
youth. I saw the friends and classmates of my sister who were sent down here
in one batch. But my sister wasn't here! My sister's friend Xiaoye came to
inform me that my sister had been infected with acute hepatitis and was
hospitalized at Hohhot Municipal Hospital of Infectious Diseases. What a
surprising head-on blow! Having travelled with tremendous hardship for the
last two days, I finally arrived at my sister's village, only to find out
that she was at my starting point, Hohhot! The intoxicating happy scene that
I imagined
about how we would hug each
other and jump, dance and sing with joy was shattered into pieces! Worries,
anxieties, disappointment and grievance, all sorts of feelings welled up in
my heart! Despite my trembling legs after the thirty li trip on foot, I
wished I could turn around right away and rush back to the railway station!
Initially I was planning to spend as much time as possible with my sister.
However, the unanticipated events already cost me two days!
My sister's classmates and friends tried their best to comfort me and
persuade me not to worry. They asked me to stay overnight here because it
was impossible to catch a train back to Hohhot even if I returned to the
station immediately.
In the evening, my sister's classmate took me to visit the home of Qiao
Cunju. Grandpa Qiao received me like a special guest and cooked me sweet
pancakes, which was the best local delicacy only reserved for highest
honored guests or special local festivals.
The locals here saved the rationed sugar and oil and kept them for special
occasions. The pancakes were delicious, but I could not quite tell the taste
as my heart was heavily preoccupied. In his simple, honest, and kind way,
Grandpa Qiao showed me his sincerest welcome and hospitality, which soothed
my miserable and dreary mind in his small but warm house.
Amidst the gentle autumn rain, I stayed overnight in the Nanshizhou Village.
The next morning saw me return to Bikeqi Station with Xiaoye on her bicycle.
The dirt road after rain became muddy. Although the mudguard was removed
from the bicycle, the wheels repeatedly got stuck with mud. We had to stop
many times on the way to remove the mud with our fingers. We had to carry
the bicycle on our shoulders where it was extremely muddy. We took turns
riding the bicycle. I could not say whether we rode the bicycle, or the
bicycle rode us.
After an exhausting and messy journey, I finally managed to catch the
Hohhot-bound train.
As the train began to move, Xiaoye waved to me at the platform. I felt bad
that she had to repeat the same battle with mud on her way back. "Goodbye!
My friend! Your selfless help at times of need will forever be remembered!"
I was murmuring to myself.
After getting off the train, I rushed to the hospital. When I finally saw my
pale, sick and frail sister in her bed, I was heart-broken!
We finally got to see each other! But we must break up again soon! I had to
part with her in no time because I had to return to our Company in a couple
of hours. The garrison was scheduled to leave Hohhot for our new
destination.
I was to go. My heart was as heavy as it could be. We would soon be in a
different corner of the world after this short meeting. No one knew when our
next meeting would be. During those precarious times, nobody could ever
predict his tomorrow; nobody could ever control his own destiny. Everybody
was like a leaf floating wherever the revolutionary storm takes it.
I had to go. My tears blurred my eyes as I was walking out of the hospital.
On the road alone returning to my military unit, I cried impassionedly and
forcefully although I hardly shed tears easily these days. I cried at the
scene where I saw my sister; I cried at my sister getting so sick yet with
no one on her side; I cried at the hard time that I underwent these three
days; and I cried at the misfortunes falling on our heads these years, one
after another!
After crying out loud along the way, I dried my tears as I approached our
camping site. At that moment, I felt that I had gone through another battle
of hardship and bitterness. Fearless now, I felt that I was ready to
confront all future disasters no matter what they are.
Having returned, I saw my fellow comrades were all set and ready to go. I
was absent for three days and hadn't packed anything yet. People helped me
pack up my suitcase and I rolled up my beddings and other things in a rush.
In no time, a call for assembly to depart was sounded.
I was once again aboard a train. A fellow member handed me a letter, which
was delivered to the Company on the day when I left Hohhot for Tumote Banner
to visit my sister. Nobody knew why it was not given to me until today. This
was the very letter from my sister in which she informed me that she was
hospitalized at the Hohhot Hospital for Infectious Diseases. At the end, she
said: "Burn the letter when you finish reading
and wash your hands thoroughly." My sister
was worried that I might get infected with hepatitis. How could I burn the
letter which still carried my sister's scent? I carefully placed it in my
dear diary book. Let it accompany me on my new march.
Not receiving this letter which shouldn't have been late, I lost the three
precious days that I could otherwise have spent keeping my ailing sister
company. This delayed letter also led me to experience an unusual
independent travel at the age of sixteen.
II. Food Is the Paramount Necessity of the People 2
Our final destination was a former Laogai
3 farm located
in Wulate Banner. Those prisoners were transferred elsewhere after our
arrival. This farm thus became the farm of our Production and Construction
Corp to continue agricultural development. From then on, I started my hard
life of "face to the yellow earth and back to
the sky". Carrying out my tasks in the teeth of wind and rain, I spent the
most precious youthful years on this boundless land of yellow earth.
Browsing through the old photo albums, I picked out several small black and
white photos taken during the time while I was at the Corp. I was fat like a
fully-blown balloon. How would I not be fat? I once ate at one meal six
large, steamed buns of corn. When I brag about my appetite during those
days, people have a difficult time matching my words with the person in
front of themÑa woman of less than one hundred pounds. But I was
truly fat at that time. Rather than being fat, it is more accurate to say I
was swollen all over, dropsy caused by malnutrition.
Throughout the year, heavy, intense, and hard physical labor exhausted our
energy and strength. In return, the compensation we got was steamed bread in
a variety of colors as they were made with corn flour, sweet potato flour,
and other unknown grains. With a
shortage of oil, salt and other seasonings, we were served radishes,
potatoes and cabbages boiled in water for most of our meals. Our bodies were
severely impaired physically and our stomachs became bottomless pits. We
always felt hungry no matter how much we ate. In a short while after our
meals, our stomachs felt empty again and we waited anxiously for the next
meal.
During festivals or special holidays, we had upgraded meals. We were offered
white flour dumplings with pork fillings. On these occasions, we were like
eating "the last supper". We filled our stomachs to the point of bursting as
if we could die with no regret after this fulfilling meal. Hunger is the
most horrible monster. Thinking about what it was like to starve back then,
I cannot help but tremble with fear
even today.
One winter, my company built a vegetable cellar with mud bricks to store
cabbages, carrots and potatoes for the winter. Because this cellar was
considered the treasure for our Company of several hundred people, watch
shifts were scheduled day and night. Unexpectedly, Xiao Hu and I were
assigned this desirable position of watchers. Our daily routine was nothing
more than turning those vegetables on the shelves around to prevent rotting.
It was indeed a large cellar, with a walkway in the middle with smaller
cellars on both sides. There was a total of a dozen smaller cellars. To
prevent theft, we carried our quilts and bedding into the cellar. One
smaller cellar became our temporary room. What made this cellar different
from others was it had a small window.
In addition to cabbages, potatoes and carrots,
there were several slabs of frozen pork
and lamb in the cellar as well.
One day, one of the starving watchers initiated a wonderful idea. When the
whole company went into deep and sound sleep after midnight, we shut the
front door of the cellar. We cut a piece of pork and took a cabbage from the
shelf. Together with the seasonings and white flour that we got through
exchange with the locals using our clothing and other stuff, we began to
make the white flour pork dumplings that we dreamed of everyday. With our
capable hands, we managed to transform the "spiritual dumplings" in our
minds into real and physical dumplings, fat, hot, lovely and delicious.
Although it was well after midnight and we were tired after a day's work,
the aroma of dumplings drove away our sleepiness. The mouthwatering and
soul-stirring dumplings were probably the most memorable in our lives. The
fact that we were pilfering "forbidden fruits" gave our night snack
a rich aftertaste. In order to clean up
the mess thoroughly and not to leave any traces, we opened all of the cellar
doors after our meal to dismiss the aroma of the dumplings into the morning
mist.
For this beautiful night snack, we planned and prepared for the whole day
and night. Recalling numerous meals of dumplings throughout my life, this
night snack stood out as the most memorable and naturally the most
delicious!
As we lived with a shortage of food, we were always in a semi-starving
state. After we got off work, we would search every corner where possible
edibles could be found. Some male members used daily necessities such as
clothing, hats, pants, blankets and washbasins to exchange for food with the
locals, at incredibly low prices.
A set of brand-new jackets and pants or a woolen blanket could be exchanged
for a few eggs. The locals were so poverty-stricken that they hardly had
anything for exchange. Some men exchanged their washbasins for food.
Consequently, they had to use their lunch box as their wash basin. Their
lunch boxes served both for food and multiple utility purposes. Hunger
reduced them into a state of barbarians. Their female counterparts couldn't
be like them as we were born with a strong sense of hygiene.
Summer came. The wide span of ripe and attractive watermelon fields became
the target of the male members' greedy eyes. In order to prevent them from
stealing melons in groups late at night the vegetable squad assigned two
members to the fields as melon watchers.
Little Shen and I were on the night shift. We came to the fields as soon as
darkness fell. The wide fields in summer released all of the scorching heat
accumulated during the day and it was cool and comfortable with the evening
breeze. Instead of working in the fields under the burning sun during the
day, we worked as melon watchers at night resembling taking a stroll in
Beijing's parks, cool, relaxed, joyful and carefree like living immortals.
We patrolled the melon fields and did not find anything suspicious. It was
getting totally dark. Far away from our camp, we were the only people on
this wide and wild span of fields. Little Shen leaned towards me and asked:
"Are you scared? I am feeling a little." Facing the pitch-dark surrounding,
the feeling of living immortals was long gone. Behind the pitch-dark
façade, demons, ghosts and monsters of every description seemed to be
hiding and ready to assault us anytime. Although I was
nervous and frightened with my hair
standing, I tried my best to stay calm and console Xiao Shen as hard as I
could.
Finally, the day broke and we returned to our dorms. At that time, everybody
in our squad had already had their breakfast and were going to work. Upon
seeing us, some made fun of us: "Are you scared? I am feeling a little." It
turned out that numerous thieves were hiding in the fields under the curtain
of the dark sky. When we patrolled the melon fields on field ridges, these
thieves were hiding right below our feet. In the dark and quiet night, our
conversations could be heard clearly. These thieves brought with them gunny
bags and they filled them with melons in haste. All of these were done under
our nose! Not only did they steal melons, they also eavesdropped on our
conversation as well. As they
spread the
content of our conversation in the company, the image of us being timid and
negligent in our duties truly ashamed both of us for days!
An ancient saying goes: "When the granaries are full, they will know
propriety and moderation; when their clothing and food is adequate, they
will know honor and shame."
4 We couldn't care less but to
fill our stomach during the time of acute shortage of material life.
III. We Were Still Young Back Then
The hard life and harsh physical labor did not kill our youthful vitality.
Just like a blade of grass, we grew and survived indomitably on that expanse
of impoverished yellow soil. We were merely sixteen or seventeen years old.
When we got off work in those days, we were tired as hell. But a little rest
immediately revitalized us. We played
around everywhere we could find fun. What were the places for our leisure?
There were no playgrounds, ballrooms, theaters, televisions or computers. We
did not even have electric light bulbs. Surrounding our campus were expanses
of fields. But we always managed to find those places where we could seek
our pleasure.
A couple of li from our campus dormitories was a wild untilled land where a
thirty-meter-high iron frame tower stood lonely (The tower might have been
for future power lines). Several of us came here after work. Somebody
proposed to climb up and challenged: "Who dares to climb up?" "I do." I took
the challenge with full confidence. Fearing neither heaven nor earth, I have
a lot of nerve, and I often mingled with a group of boys competing for this
and that.
In primary school, I climbed up the ten-meter-high diving platform and
jumped in the blink of an eye. Others who climbed up the diving platform
were so scared that they went down on stairs. From childhood, I always sang
a then-popular Albanian revolutionary song: "I am truly bold, and fear
nothing on earth because I am a member of Young Pioneers." Encouraged by
this song, I in my childhood, hustling and bustling, I did numerous things
which even adults would never imagine risking.
I started climbing, ten meters, then twenty meters. I trembled with terror
when I looked down. I closed my eyes subconsciously and started to ask
myself: shall I give up and go down? I should never draw back as numerous
eyes down there were staring at me! I stopped looking down and I pressed on
without letup until I got to the tip of the tower.
There was a small area at the top of the tower where I could take a
foothold. Now I could look down. Wow! The houses, the fields and my fellow
comrades became so tiny that they seemed to be from Guilliver's Travels. My
fellow comrades down there jumped in joy for my "heroic undertaking"! I felt
like being a hero looking down from high. The scene, whenever I recall,
still makes me excited and gives me thrills. Encouraged by my example,
several others followed suit and joined me at the top of the tower. To
commemorate our "undertaking", we brought with us small knives on our next
trip here. We carved our heroes' names on the top of the tower. Our heroic
undertaking alarmed the political instructor of our company. He climbed to
the top of the tower himself and recorded all of the heroes' names. At a
company assembly, he sharply criticized all of us who risked our own lives
showing off "individual heroism".
The scolding ashamed all the "heroes" and we felt so embarrassed. The
company director told us sincerely and earnestly: "If any of you fell down,
how would I explain to your parents?" "The mother always worries about her
son when he travels." At that time, who among us would be thinking about our
loved ones who prayed and wished for our peace, safety and health day and
night in distance of thousands of li away. It is only after we became
parents ourselves, that we could fully realize all parents under heaven care
for their children to an extent that is almost pathetic.
The games that we played at that time were not rich and colorful but were
plentiful in variety and diversity!
There was a pond on the side of the road leading to our campus. The pond was
used before to farm ducks. In the summer, the pond naturally became our
swimming pool. We hardly cared how much ducks' droppings remained in the
pond.
The pond was located next to the main road used by us and the locals as
well. Sometimes, the locals passed by the pond and saw us playing in the
water in swimming suits exposing our arms and legs. Out of curiosity, they
would circle around the pond and watch us as if watching monkeys and bears
in the zoo. We became their targets of watching. Probably they had never
seen, throughout generations, girls playing in water with their bodies
exposed. Being watched didn't bother us and we played on our own. Sometimes
we laughed at their naïve expression due to ignorance.
On the side of the pond, a long wooden board was buried. The board extended
to the center of the pond very much like a diving board. The water in the
pond came up to our chest. On my first time here, I stepped onto the board
and warmed myself up by stretching my legs and arms.
From the board I dived into the water without knowing how deep the pond was.
My head touched the muddy bottom of the pond feeling just like doing a
forward roll on a soft mat at a physical education class. When I raised my
head out of water, my fellow friends on the side burst into laughter. I had
dived into the mud which had plastered over my head and face making me look
like a mud fish.
I made numerous spectacles of myself in all kinds of games that we played.
But sometimes I was bold enough to engage myself helping others.
At that time, our only water source was from a well. We used buckets to get
water and they dropped into the well from time to time. Then we had to find
a long rope with an iron hook to get the bucket. However, buckets were not
always floating on the water. They sometimes sank to the bottom of the well.
It was not easy to hook it up when that happened. Once, our dorm's bucket
dropped in the well and sank.
All efforts to hook it up failed. This was the only tool we had to fetch
water for our daily drinking and use. Everyone got worried. Standing on the
raised platform around the well, I, aroused by my individual heroism, came
up with an idea to go down into the well to get the bucket. I could swim as
well as dive, therefore, it didn't seem like a big deal. I tied a long rope
to my waist for safety considerations. The other end was controlled by my
fellow friends at the top of the well. And then, I started sliding down bit
by bit along the well wall. It was about five to six meters from the surface
of the water to the well platform. I was already short of breath when I
touched the water surface. I rested a bit and then dived into the water
bursting with energy. Kicking around with my two legs, I dived under water
just like I did in the swimming pool. Back in Beijing, I once dived to the
bottom of the five-meter-deep swimming pool to fetch a small piece of rock
thrown into the water by my friends. However, diving in the well proved to
be totally different from the swimming pool!
The harder I tried to dive down, the more I was pushed up by the gushing
well water. That might be the very reason why well water is inexhaustible
and always gushes from the underground. I tried all I could to dive down but
to no avail. My friends lost their patience and pulled me out of the well
with the rope. I laid down on the platform, drenched and bedraggled.
Shivering and trembling, I was so exhausted that I could hardly speak a
word. My friends carried me back to the dorm room. The action ended with a
total failure!
IV. I Have No Menstruation Leave to Speak of
Throughout the year, we were never free from heavy and intense physical
labor. Even in winter season when there was hardly anything to do in the
fields,
we were assigned to cut weeds on
ice in Wuliangsu Lake.
Day after day; year after year, I was so tired that I seemed to have stopped
growing from age sixteen upon my joining the Production and Construction
Corp. Seeing my roommates having monthly periods, I had mixed feelings. I
felt lucky that I did not have to worry about this troublesome monthly
issue. At the same time, I also envied them as they could take a few days
off. I had full attendance every month as I missed my period month after
month. I went to see the doctor and she told me that I might be late in
maturing physically. Another year passed, and I kept my full attendance
record. I went to see the doctor again. The doctor said I might be
unaccustomed to the climate and environment of the new place. Yes.
Un-acclimatization was the very cause. Early in April, we were assigned to
transplant rice seedlings in icy-freezing water with bare feet. The ice
water, the frozen soil under our feet sent shock waves through our body like
needles. Although we wore thick overcoats,
we couldn't help shivering in the extreme cold. At harvest, the yield of
rice couldn't even cover the amount required for seedling. The beautiful
dream of "Jiangnan on the Gobi Desert" was but an illusion due to ignorance
and failure to follow laws of nature and scientific rules. Our efforts, our
sweat and blood were irrevocably wasted. Four years passed by, I was twenty
years old. I went to see the doctor again. He said nothing this time and
started to inject progesterone. With this, I started to have periods. Each
time progesterone was injected, I had periods. Once it stopped, so did my
periods. At that time, I was so
naïve that I believed I was
luckier than others to be free from this once-a-month "trouble". In
addition, I saved the then very precious feminine pads because the supply
was carried all the way from Beijing back to Inner Mongolia on our annual
homecoming vacations.
However, I am a woman and could never escape the inevitable physical and
biological phenomena every woman faces. After I returned to Beijing and
away from the so-called
"un-acclimatization", I started to have my regular monthly period. Every
time when it came, I was thrown into extreme abdominal pain with all my
internal organs turned upside down. Every time I went through a process of
hovering between life and death! In the early days, I celebrated myself for
being free from this monthly trouble, now I had to pay it back with doubling
pain and trouble. Every month was the same year after year! I ended up with
this incurable gynecological disease. Up till this day when I am over forty,
it still tortures me every month. I could wish nothing more than menopause
to end this lingering pain brought by those days that had tormented me for
over two decades. A person's life, with both ends taken away, only has the
most precious twenty years in between.
V. Retroactively Admitted As a Member of the Communist Youth League
The years of hard labor transformed us tremendously. Indeed, we are no
longer what we were several years ago.
There was a doggerel then: "Year one city folk, year two a hillbilly, year
three a field mouse". This doggerel originated and was adapted from the
following saying: "Year one village folk, year two urbanized, year three
turning their backs on their own mom and dad." We transformed from city
folks to country bumpkins, and vice versa. Would this transformation reduce
urban-rural disparities? Back then, we never quite understood why we had to
become field mice. Here, I am using this saying to poke fun at myself.
I had been living and working in the Production and Construction Corps for
five years between 1969 and 1974. Because my dad committed suicide to escape
persecution during the Cultural Revolution, I was thus labeled as "children
who could be educated and transformed". Ever since the first day of my
father's death, I carried a heavy cross on my back. No matter when and where
I was,
I could not afford to neglect or
fall behind others even by a tiny bit. My assumption was I would never be
transformed into a normal person without making such efforts. At work, I
gave my utmost effort and never goofed off. I always had full attendance
throughout the years since I didn't qualify for any menstruation leave. I
was always ready to help even risking my life, such as jumping into the well
to retrieve a bucket. After getting off work, I frequently lit a small oil
lamp made from an ink bottle and studied Chairman Mao's works. While some of
us asked parents for snacks and food, I saved up my monthly allowances of a
meager five to six yuan and sent it home. I remembered what our political
director once said: "Some people complain about our life with its shortage
of nutrients such as vitamins. I think what they are in shortage of is the
proletariat spirit of hard work and plain living." I always equated
proletariat revolution to asceticism.
As a result of my good behavior, I was awarded consecutive years as a "Five
Good Soldier", an exception for so-called "educatable and transformable
children". Those small award certificates were the embodiments of my
previous youth!
At the beginning of 1974, which was the fifth year here at the Corps, my
mother initiated the procedures for me "to return due to difficult
circumstances". When I was to leave the corps and return to Beijing, the
Corps' Communist Youth League brought up the issue of my joining the
organization. In terms of my behavior and work, I was outstanding and
flawless to be measured by the standards of a member of the league. However,
there had not been any official conclusion on my father's death, neither
could my family's status be defined. This issue made things difficult for
the Youth League at the Corps, as political screening of the family status
on admitting membership to the league was very strict at the time. It might
be exaggerating to say that the screening would trace over three
generations,
but father's status was a
must, to say the least. Considering my excellent record of accomplishments
for the last five years, the Corps Youth League, out of compassion, finally
decided to break the rule to execute the complicated procedures and submit
their approval to the upper branch.
After I returned to Beijing, I was officially recognized and admitted as a
full and glorious member of the Chinese Communist Youth League. The
notification was mailed to me in Beijing. Consequently, I was unable to
attend even a single meeting of the league while I was at the corps.
Just like every other youth, I was eager to become a member of the Communist
Youth League. I paid the price of my youth, sweat and blood, for this goal
of life. But I was denied access to its door for a long time. When this
honorable title was finally granted, I was already twenty-two years old. As
a matter of fact, I was near the age when members are to retire from the
league. This belated honorable title could not serve as proof of my own
worth. To me, it felt like
a meaningless
crown bestowed to a beggar. I had completely lost my passion and enthusiasm
by the time it came to me. The honor carried no weight.
Five years the most precious, youthful years of my life. Five years Ð
the most painful but also the most joyful time of my life journey. No
language can describe and state its impact on my whole life.