Zhiqing: Stories From China's Special Generation

by Kang Xuepei Kang (Editor)

Overview

Zhiqing: Stories from China’s Special Generation presents the recollections of fourteen men and women who were “sent down” to the countryside during China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Teenagers or young adults at the time, the authors left school to heed Mao’s call for China’s “educated youth” (zhiqing) to go to the poorest provinces and distant borders, where they worked with the local people in villages or on military farms and construction teams. From the Great Northern Wilderness to Hainan Island, their true-to-life stories illustrate the harsh realities of rural existence and Cultural Revolution politics while focusing on personal joys and miseries. While not meant as a political statement, these stories serve as a powerful testimony to the experience of an entire Chinese generation.

“It was my distinct pleasure to have served as in-house editor of Kang Xuepei’s In the Countryside, which was initially her masters of arts thesis at SHSU. It was hard to imagine the horrors that these Chinese youth had to go through during that period of Mao’s experiment in social engineering and more amazing to realize that most of them came through it all without intense bitterness toward those who thrust them into such perilous and uncomfortable circumstances. In this book you will find a sampling of the experiences of zhiqing from many perspectives written in strikingly fine prose.”—Paul Ruffin, director, Texas Review Press
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937875701
Publisher:	Texas Review Press
Publication date:	11/10/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	438,185
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

KANG XUEPEI, a zhiqing from 1969–1974 in Jia Shan County, Anhui province, had a book, In The Countryside, published by Texas Review Press. Living in Houston, she is self-employed. LI WEI, a resident of Houston, was a zhiqing from 1968–1975 in Shanxi and Hebei provinces. She has been an instructor at Lone Star College since 1992. QIN YANG, a zhiqing from 1974–1978 in Guangyuan County, Sichuan province, currently works in Houston at Air Liquide America Corporation as chief chemist. ZENG JIANJUN, a zhiqing from 1968–1973 in Beidahuang in Northeastern China, has been a research scientist with the University of Houston since 2007.

Read an Excerpt

Zhiqing

Stories from China's Special Generation

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By Kang Xuepei

Texas Review Press

Copyright © 2014 Houston Zhiqing Writing Club
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937875-70-1

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CHAPTER 1

Unloading Boats

Zeng Jianjun (edited by D.A. Smith)

During the five years I spent on Suibin Military Farm in Beidahuang, I toiled at different types of farm work, but few jobs were as formidable as unloading boats, which was back-breaking, sometimes dangerous, and also, now looking back, harmful to health in the long run. Due to its high latitude and extreme weather conditions, Beidahuang, or the Great Northern Wilderness, as its name implies, was sparsely populated before 1967. That situation changed when hundreds of thousands of zhiqing were sent there to cultivate the barren soil and protect the country's borders—the demands for essential supplies like cement for housing and road construction, and coal for cooking, brick-making, and heating grew considerably. Our farm was located in a marshy area close to the confluence of the Songhua and Heilong rivers. The special location of our farm made it inaccessible by road or rail. In the short warm season from late May to early September when the rivers were not frozen, Suibin Port was busy with the coming and going of boats. When a boat arrived, we zhiqing youth, aged from fifteen to twenty-three, would be summoned to join the local workers and demobilized soldiers to unload it. This used to happen between four and eight times a year, and on each occasion we were required to unload about three hundred tons of cargo.

The first boat I helped unload was a coal boat. Roused from sleep by sharp whistles around four o'clock, I groped sleepily in the dark for my clothes hanging on the wooden rack above our kang. I had to act fast because our four-yard-long kang was too narrow for all seven girls sleeping on it to sit up and get dressed at the same time. Putting on a long-sleeved shirt, I rushed out of the dorm, a former cow shed, to wash my face with water brought up from the well. Then I hurried over the muddy trail to the brigade canteen for breakfast that consisted of a dome-shaped loaf of steamed bread and a full bowl of squash soup. A hearty breakfast was vital, the vice-director of our brigade, Old Zhao, told us, in case our next meal was delayed. Before dawn, we were all squatting on flatbed trailers, heading for the banks of the Songhua River. It took three hours of bumping over rough dirt tracks before we sighted Suibin Port, where six weeks previously I had first set foot on Beidahuang soil.

As beginners, we zhiqing girls were mostly assigned to the group working in the hold. This job demanded less skill and strength, and was less risky, too. Our task was to fill gunny sacks with chunks of coal, as well as coal dust, and lift the sack onto the shoulders of someone in the porter group. The porters—mostly senior workers and zhiqing boys—would then climb the wooden ladder through the hatchway up onto the deck, walk across the so-called "mountain jump" connecting the deck to the river bank, and finally empty their sacks at the designated storage site. Depending on the water flow from the river, the size of the boat and the location of the storage area, each trip from cabin to storage area might take from two to four minutes.

Nervously watching my step, I made my way down the ladder through the hatchway. The upper end of the ladder was hooked onto the wooden frame of the hatch, and the lower end of it stood out at an angle of roughly sixty degrees, some nine to twelve feet down. It took a few seconds for my eyes to get used to the darkness in the hold. A thread of the sunlight from the hatchway enabled me to see the glow of candles glittering and swaying in small niches on the wall. I grabbed a heavy shovel leaning against the wall, while two other girls held open an empty sack. We filled our first sack, which weighed just over one hundred pounds. Then, with a deep breath and a count of "one, two, three!" we heaved the sack onto a waiting porter's shoulders, which were bare or protected only by a piece of cloth.

As we worked, the coal dust swirled through the air and entered our nostrils to take a tour of our lungs. Our clothes and faces were soon painted black by a mixture of sweat and coal dust to the point where one could be recognized only by rolling white eyeballs or shining rows of teeth. The suffocating atmosphere inside the hold was made worse by the summer sun beating down on the steel deck above. Choking on coal dust was almost unbearable, and coughing worsened my thirst. I had a fleeting image of us as charred Peking roast ducks hanging in a huge rotating oven. Fortunately, the work lasted for only five hours. Waving farewell to the boat, which sounded its horn as it pulled away from the shore, we were very relieved to wash our blackened hands and faces in cool river water. We all celebrated our survival of this seemingly impossible task by eating four or five fist-sized, bean-stuffed dumplings. Furthermore, we had an hour free to visit the only photo shop in town, a tiny mud hut, to have our first photo taken after being sent down to the countryside.

Then we were assigned to unload a boat loaded with forty-kilo bags of fertilizer and a boat loaded with cement—promised to be a lot cleaner and tidier than bagging bulk coal. This assumption soon proved false, however, as some of the bags were torn and fertilizer or cement dust spilled onto the cabin floor. Collecting and bagging the loose powder from the floor filled the entire hold with flying dust and an evil smell. Filth was inevitable: we were rolled into white "lantern balls" while unloading the fertilizer, and dust-dyed into "gray mice" when unloading the cement. I silently prayed to be shifted to the porter group so I could go up on deck.

When I eventually graduated to the porter group, I realized how much skill was required. With a half-full coal sack on my shoulders, I tried hard to maintain my balance without using my hands for support. I put my left foot on the first rung of the creaking wooden ladder, and by kicking my right leg very hard I moved my center of gravity onto my left foot. In this fashion, I climbed the ladder, one rung at a time, until I reached the hatchway, which was barely wide enough to allow one sack to pass through. Old Zhao had given me a hint: starting at the fourth rung, I should aim the sack, rather than my head, at the sunlit aperture of the hatchway. Following this practical advice, I shouldered my first coal sack safely onto the deck. The bright sunlight blinded me for a while, but when I could see, I couldn't help but cry out in joy at the refreshing view of the river and the exhilarating touch of the breeze.

Unfortunately, on my next trip, I was too excited by the thought of being on deck again to remember Old Zhao's words. I stuck my head up through the hatchway and suddenly felt as if I were jumping on the moon—the weight on my shoulders was gone! Looking down through the hatchway, I realized that the sack, which I had shouldered upside-down, had got stuck in the hatchway, and was pouring down black rain on Ada, the girl behind me who was already on the first rung of the ladder. She wasn't hurt, but when she finally emerged through the hatchway, those on deck could not help laughing at her resemblance to a popular black-headed demon figure from Beijing opera.

Not until my first loaded trip across that breath-taking "mountain jump" did I realize that a view of the river was not always an unqualified pleasure. The mountain jump was a plank bridge, 120 to 200 feet long, that hung nine to twelve feet above the surging river. The planks, laid end to end on temporary wooden support frames, were eighteen feet long by one foot wide, meaning that the bridge itself was only one foot wide. There were two mountain jumps, one for unladen traffic going onto the boat and the other for shorebound porters carrying loads. Having had gymnastics training at school, I was not at all afraid of walking on this huge balance beam. However, because I had to bow my head deeply under the weight of the heavy sack on my shoulders, all I could see was the yellowish board under my moving feet and the greenish-blue water below, its course perpendicular to mine. The illusion of moving laterally on a swiftly drifting canopy made me struggle for balance.

After carrying a load from ship to shore several times, I got used to the crossing, only to confront another not-so-trivial inconvenience: my weight was less than that of fellow male porters. When I walked in front of or behind a male porter on the same board, the board would bounce along with his pace! Consequently, my body and the sack on my shoulders would be shaken up and down by the board vibrating at different rhythms. Several times when this happened, I had to stop walking to regain a sense of harmony with the other porters' movements. Slamming on the brakes like this was dangerous: it could cause people behind to collide with me and we might all fall down into the water. After a dozen loaded trips on the balance beam, I was finally able to match my pace with the vibrating rhythm of the board and my fellow porters' different weights and paces.

The task that demanded the most skill and endurance was unloading lumber, such as roof beams, rafters, purlins, and wallboards. Each bundle we carried contained several pieces, each of them ten to eighteen feet long and two to six inches wide. When I was in the middle of the balance beam, wind gusts would often push the untied bundle from one side, forcing the loose pieces apart. I had to adjust the position of the bundle on my shoulders to avoid losing my balance. Some fellow porters, even the boys, had to give up the struggle by dropping the bundle into the water. I never had such embarrassing accidents, thanks to being able to make adjustments in time. However, the edges and corners of beadboard often tore the skin of my shoulders, staining my shirt or shoulderpad with small traces of blood.

Regardless of all the hardship involved in the task of unloading boats, my confidence grew quickly. Stepping on the bouncing boards, my arms swinging freely, I even dreamed that I might become an "iron girl," like Ada and a dozen other girls in my brigade. The name "iron girl" had been given to the girls of Dazhai Village, in Shanxi, Province's Xiyang County. They performed physically challenging labor as bravely as men did. During the Cultural Revolution, the Iron Girl Team became national role models for girls, supporting the popular slogan that "Women hold up half the sky, and anything men can achieve, women can also achieve." Unfortunately, my small secret desire soon evaporated when I faced my toughest task yet: a seventeen-hour marathon work shift unloading a coal boat, that tested me both physically and mentally.

Summer had arrived, and with it the harvest, which was always a busy time. Brigade members worked in two shifts from three o'clock in the morning until midnight. Some of us operated the machines that harvested the golden sea of ripened winter wheat, while others were busy on the threshing ground where a three-inch thick layer of grain dried in the sun. The unpredictable weather lent an even greater sense of urgency to bringing in the harvest. If there were not enough people on duty to look after the grain, a thirty- minute thunderstorm could soak all the grain on the drying courts, turning a worthy harvest into irreparable waste, and tremendous manpower would be required to collect ripened wheat knocked flat and wet in the field. Because so many people were assigned to the harvest, the brigade had to send a smaller porter team than usual to unload boats. As our tractor approached Suibin Port one morning, everybody was surprised at the size of the boat waiting for us at the riverbank. Old Zhao tried to negotiate with the port authority for a one-day extension, but was firmly told that the boat had to leave early the next morning.

The sun, diligent as ever, traveled quickly from east to west, and at dusk the ship was still only half-empty. Our lunch had been five hours before and supper was still hours away, given the muddy trails facing the tractor, which had gone all the way back to the brigade canteen to fetch dumplings. Even over the moaning river, I could hear my stomach growl, as everyone silently concentrated on walking the mountain jump. Next to the coal storage area I found two buckets of cool boiled water and a couple of bowls decorated with blue flowers, so after each trip I emptied my sack and gulped half a bowl of water to comfort my complaining stomach. I had not felt the need to use the restroom since lunchtime, since all the water I drank turned to sweat. When our meal finally arrived, long after dark, I could eat only one cold dumpling before feeling full, probably due to too much water still in my stomach.

The gray day darkened into night. The crescent moon played hide and seek in the clouds. When the moon emerged, I, with the help of my thick-lensed glasses, struggled to get my bearings by the dim light. When the moon was hidden, I felt my way along the boards with my feet, and when the sky turned completely dark, I could only follow the figure in front of me by listening to their heavy breathing and footsteps. At that moment, I truly experienced the mood of an ancient Chinese saying: "a blind person riding a blind horse, before a deep pond at midnight."

Gusts of wind chilled my skin through my sweat-soaked shirt, and my body and legs trembled as I walked along the seemingly endless bouncing boards. My stomach and back aching badly, I was forced to lean against the cold cabin wall to catch my breath before another exhausting climb up the ladder with a new sack on my shoulders. The moon was entirely obscured by clouds, leaving me in the dark so, as I climbed through the hatchway and put my left foot on the deck, I did not see the layer of coal dust that nobody had had time to clean up. My left foot slipped on the loose coal and I collapsed beneath the sack, hitting my right leg hard against the frame of the hatch. Feeling nauseous and dizzy, I was too stunned to get out from under the sack of coal. I heard someone step past me from the hatchway, but only on the return trip did anyone stop to haul the sack off my back.

Sitting against the side of the boat, I rolled up my trouser leg to reveal a bleeding cut below my right knee. I sobbed silently, knowing that my display of weakness would go unnoticed in the dark, and let the tears roll down my face—it would be harmful to wipe them away with my coal-black hands. Suddenly I was filled with despair: "Is this the so-called 'Glorious Labor' I had been taught about since my first class in school?" Seeing other workers' shoulder pads which still maintained the white color flickering past like ghosts, I was filled with self-pity: "How long can my body last, doing this kind of work? Do I have to spend the rest of my life this way?" I wiped bloody coal dust from my wound with the corner of my shoulder pad to let fresh blood seep out, since my mother once told me that fresh blood would clean a wound and prevent infection.

This memory suddenly touched the softest part of my heart. I started to miss my loving parents, my aging grandmother, my younger sister and my younger brother, little Linlin, living in five different places a thousand miles away from me. How did Linlin feel about being home alone? Had he managed to return to school? A myriad of other thoughts crossed my mind: yearnings for my comfortable school dorm and classrooms, my childhood dreams of becoming a college student and a teacher.... Were these dreams still alive? When and where would I be allowed to pursue those wonderful dreams? These questions reverberated through my mind again and again as I sobbed soundlessly.

A swaying gas lamp approached from the mountain jump, bringing me back to reality. A couple of figures started cleaning up the coal dust scattered on the deck. I gradually regained enough strength to stand, and using a fresh-smelling handkerchief hidden deep in my trouser pocket, I quickly wiped away tears. I knew there would be a long way to go from now to then, and from here to there, given the current situation; all I could do was spend each day, starting that very day, making my own best efforts for a better tomorrow. Summoning my courage, I bound up my wounded leg with the handkerchief and, with a fresh sack on my shoulders, I joined the row of other sacks moving slowly and silently in the dark.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Zhiqing by Kang Xuepei. Copyright © 2014 Houston Zhiqing Writing Club. Excerpted by permission of Texas Review Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Kang Xuepei,
Introduction,
Preface,
Zeng Jianjun,
Unloading Boats,
Zeng Jianjun,
Bathing in the River,
Qin Yang,
A Snake Catcher's Story,
Zhang Xiuying,
Seven Souls Lost in the Heilong River,
Li Wei,
Lessons in Class Struggle,
Xu Zhenkang,
Our Daughter Born in the Great Northern Wildness,
Ji Jiahuang,
My First Day in Yang Village,
Ji Jihuang,
In the Reed Marsh,
Li Xingyan,
Dawn,
Zeng Jianjun,
Caught in a Blizzard,
Zhang Tianrun,
A Belt's Story,
Shen Yi,
Dog Scare,
Qin Yang,
Labor and Pay,
Ji Chunqun,
Xishuangbanna Anecdotes—Leeches,
Li Wei,
Choosing the Destination of a Lifetime,
Kang Xuepei,
Life in the Countryside,
Xu Zhenkang,
To Slaughter a Pig,
Li Wei,
Mao Buttons,
Liang Xiaowei,
Island of My Dreams,
Zeng Jianjun,
A Trip Home,
Duan Mincheng,
Fish Shadows and Lasting Love,
Kang Xuepei,
The Force of Circumstance,
Author Biographies,

What People are Saying About This

Sibyl James

"To read these stories is to be transported back to China's vast experiment in social engineering: the Cultural Revolution, as seen through the eyes of the generation of educated youth whose lives were deeply touched by their years in the countryside where they were to work for the Motherland and learn from the peasants. These stories tell in vivid detail of the hardships and challenges they faced. And yet, in spite of all, there is humor here, as well as compassion, strength and wisdom."
—Sibyl James, author of China Beats and In China with Harpo and Karl 

Tani Barlow

"Young and often unwilling revolutionaries, the zhiqing proved to be resilient, thoughtful, articulate adults. More than any simple history of the Cultural Revolution period these stories convey historical experience with no blinking or apology."
—Tani Barlow, Rice University: T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Asian Studies, Director, Chao Center for Asian Studies 

Evans Chan

"The zhiqing generation, marked by suffering during the crazed Cultural Revolution, set their hopes for a better and freer China on the new zhiqing PRC leadership. These are the riveting personal and insightful accounts about the zhiqing generation which shed light on China's new leaders who were among them. An absorbing and instructive book."
—Evans Chan, film director of Datong: The Great Society, author of Kang Youwei in Sweden 

Margaret Slocomb

"These fascinating zhiqing stories relate the personal, intimate responses of some of these young people to their bewildering new reality. Through sheer determination and good humor, some coped and gained important life skills, while others were crushed by loneliness and despair. Half a century later, some zhiqing survivors resent their "wasted" years, while others are still weighing up the cost and benefit."
—Margaret Slocomb, Australian author of An Economic History of Cambodia in the Twentieth Century 

Paul Ruffin

"It is hard to imagine the horrors that these Chinese youth faced during that period of Mao's experiment in social engineering and more amazing to realize that most of them came through it all without intense bitterness toward those who trust them into such perilous and uncomfortable circumstances. In this book you will find a sampling of the experiences of zhiquing from many perspectives written in strikingly fine prose."
—Paul Ruffin, Director of Texas Review Press, 2009 Texas Poet Laureate