The tremendous changes that have taken place in the lives of the local people before and after the reform and opening up
Liu Shengming
In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held, shifting the focus of the Party's work to economic construction and implementing reform and opening up. Since then, China has entered a new period of socialist modernization. Over the past 40 years, China's society has been harmonious and stable, the economy has developed rapidly, and our country has become rich and strong! The Chinese nation stands tall in the east of the world with a brand-new posture, and with it the people's living standards, especially food, clothing, housing and transportation, have undergone earth-shaking changes. Food, clothing, shelter and transportation refer to the basic needs of life such as dressing, eating, housing, and walking. It comes from Sun Yat-sen's "People's Livelihood Doctrine". Food, clothing, shelter and transportation can best reflect the wealth and poverty of the country, and the progress and backwardness of society. My hometown is Zaozhuang City, Shizhong District Guangming Road Street Donglongtou Community, from childhood to school age, from primary school to middle school, from high school graduation to work, I have been living in the countryside, for everything that happens in the countryside, I see in the eyes, remember in the heart, know very well. Below I will compare and elaborate on the great changes that have taken place in dressing, eating, housing, and walking around me.
First, dress
I remember that in the years before the reform and opening up, there were very few people in the rural areas who wore new clothes, and only wore new clothes during the New Year's Festival, visiting relatives and friends, rushing to the market to shop, and attending wedding banquets. Therefore, children, especially little girls, are looking forward to the New Year, and their parents will make new clothes. Usually, adults work in the fields, and pay attention to what to wear. Winter can generally wear cotton jackets, cotton pants, family conditions are good, cotton clothes also wear autumn clothes, autumn pants or shirts, shirts; poor conditions, the upper body only wear cotton jackets, the inside does not fill clothes, called "empty core cotton jacket"; the lower body only wears cotton pants, the inside is not filled with autumn pants or single pants, called "empty core cotton pants". Some difficult households, the weather is very cold and only wear a pair of single pants, called "lantern pants". When the clothes are worn, they are reluctant to throw them away immediately, and they always have to be patched and worn again. At that time, there was a mantra in the countryside: "Three years for the new, three years for the old, three years for the sewing and repairing", that is, a piece of clothing must be worn for at least nine years.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the country was in a period of economic difficulties, when a planned economy was implemented, the level of economic development was low, the supply of commodities was seriously scarce, and the supply exceeded demand. Cotton and cloth are very tense, and cotton cloth must be bought with "cloth tickets". At that time, the superiors issued two feet six inches of "cloth tickets" per person per year, and later increased to three feet and three inches of "cloth tickets" issued to each person every year. I remember that there were rumors at the time that foreigners ridiculed Chinese as "three people wearing one pair of pants.". At that time, walking on the street at a glance, whether men and women, young and old, workers, peasants, students are blue and dark clothes, there is no flower, green, colorful clothing; at that time, never saw women wearing skirts, little girls, big girls also did not wear skirts, to say that seeing skirts is only seen in propaganda posters or movies, it can be seen that people's life color is extremely monotonous; at that time, men in the countryside in the spring, summer, autumn, generally do not wear shoes, wear "que dazi", the so-called "que dazi", Now it has not been seen for many years, is to use the chakra tire as a shoe sole, the front nail two evil flower arrangement two finger wide belt to protect the surface of the foot, the back of the nail a shoe heel (there are also no heels), tie two shoelaces, rainy and sunny days can wear, not afraid of wading, not afraid of mud, not afraid of irrigation, not sweaty feet, not cover feet, is the first choice on the feet of farmers, children are generally barefoot, who want to wear a pair of sneakers, his family must be workers or rich households, basically no leather shoes. At that time, the countryside just used chemical fertilizer, called "fat field powder", probably an imported product, the outside was wrapped in a yellow cloth bag, due to the lack of cloth, farmers would open the cloth bag to make pants to wear, at that time in the countryside was very fashionable. At that time, in the early days of the "Cultural Revolution", men and women wore a yellow hat on their heads, which was the most fashionable popular color, some also did not wear hat badges, felt very beautiful, women did not have perms (men did not), men did not wear ties (women did not); at that time, in the countryside, they were wearing patched clothes, pants were worn and patched at the buttocks called "changing the back of the stomach", the knees were worn and patched called "changing pants skin", and the pants were worn and patched at the elbows called "changing arms". The gown is worn and patched at the shoulder is called "changing the shoulder". I remember that my mother bought me a foot and a half of white cloth, made a lining collar in the tailor's shop, called "false collar" in the countryside, I wore it inside, went to school, the classmates saw it, and thought I bought a new shirt. In the summer, if anyone can wear really good clothes, it is the most fashionable.
What farmers wore when they went to the city in the 70s
After the reform and opening up, with the emancipation of people's minds, material life has also been continuously improved, people's clothing and clothing have gradually become colorful, the clothes on the market are dazzling, everything is available, the variety of colors is diverse, and the price varies from high to low, and the price of a piece of clothing is high, thousands of yuan, tens of thousands of yuan, or even higher; the low price is tens of yuan, more than ten yuan, or even lower. It can meet the needs of different consumers, but the vast majority of consumers still pursue brand-name clothing. There are some well-dressed women in the city, and the clothes at home take up more space, and they clean up every few times and give outdated clothes to relatives in the countryside to wear.
Modern clothing is of high grade and variety
Nowadays, clothing is not only a tool for people to withstand the cold, but also an indispensable way for people to show their demeanor, style, and value, show their personality and show their style. People are no longer a problem in dressing, let alone wearing shoes. Walking on the street now, men wear suits and shoes, dresses and ties, personable; women's fashionable dresses, colorful, style. However, there are also clothes with holes to expose the skin and bare knees, that is, "beggar clothes", which is a social trend pursued by some young people, which can be described as "playing with tattered jeans and creating street hipsters".
Second, eat
In the early 1950s, china's grain was scarce. Three years of natural disasters have made things worse, and the people's lives have been unsustainable. The townspeople eat and supply grain, 27 catties per person per month, which is simply not enough to eat, and people live a life of frugality; peasants rely on collectives to eat, production teams organize agricultural production and product distribution, grain in the field, the production team selects the best patriotic grain first, and then leaves enough seeds, and the rest is distributed to the peasant households, that is, the basic rations, and if there is not enough grain to eat, they will supplement it with bran vegetables. In the event of drought and floods, the peasants' lives will be even more difficult.
Before the reform and opening up, the rural areas were a collective economy, there were no individual industrial and commercial households, and whoever wanted to sneakily do some small business and do some small business and peddlers was called "speculation and backwards", which was the "tail of capitalism", and it must be cut off immediately. Without individual industrial and commercial households, the market is not prosperous, and food is very monotonous. General foods such as fritters, twist flowers, and steamed buns are not found in the cities and rural areas. At that time, it was a large collective, the planned economy was implemented, and the means of subsistence were all supplied by tickets, and in my memory there were "oil tickets", "meat tickets", "sugar tickets", "wine tickets", "pastry tickets", "egg tickets", "bean product tickets", "tea tickets", "food stamps" and so on. The "Food Stamps" are also divided into national general grain stamps and local grain stamps in various provinces, and we use the "Shandong Provincial Food Stamps", which cannot be used in Jiangsu and Anhui. If you go to other provinces, you must think of replacing the "Shandong Provincial Food Stamps" with the "National General Food Stamps of the Ministry of Grain of the People's Republic of China". Otherwise, you're going hungry outside.
In the 70s, farmers ate very simply
At that time, people's nutrition was seriously insufficient, and adults and children were yellow and hungry. The most common food for farmers is sweet potatoes and dried sweet potatoes, which local farmers generally call "taro" and "dried taro". Because planting sweet potatoes is more productive than planting grain crops, in order to meet the living needs of the vast number of farmers, the production team planted sweet potatoes in a large area. Sweet potato leaf people can also be hungry, and sweet potato seedlings can also be fed to livestock. The first thirty or forty centimeters long part of the sweet potato seedling is relatively tender, and the farmer will pinch it off, cut it finely and dry it, called the "taro cage", and then take it out in the winter and mix it with bean noodles to eat, or mix it with bean noodles to form a nest and steam it. The so-called nest, also known as the nest head, is the steamed bun with eyes below (not white-faced). Sweet potatoes are really full of treasures, and tens of thousands of farmers rely on it to feed them. Fresh sweet potatoes are cellared with cellars or well cellars, but they cannot be put in for a few months, and they are easy to grow black spots and rot, so they are cut into sweet potato slices to dry, and eat dried sweet potato pancakes in winter. Some of them want to mix a little grain a little for good grinding or good branding. The freshly baked pancakes are delicious and will eat more. Wang Moumou in my village, I called him the second brother, the second sister-in-law of his family is not willing to eat new pancakes, to put them in the long hair and eat them again, so that you can save pancakes. It's unbelievable to say that now, but that was the case at the time.
At that time, farmers could not eat soybean oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, and sometimes they could eat cottonseed oil, but it was not delicious. Farmers also rarely eat meat, to buy meat in the butcher shop is supplied by "meat tickets", at that time lean meat can not be sold, people are buying fat meat, buying fat meat is not to eat meat, but to refine meat oil, the main edible oil of farmers is the meat oil refined with fat meat. In order to let the meat oil stay longer and not deteriorate, it is necessary to add some salt when refining the oil, so that it can be eaten for a long time without deterioration. At that time, the pork was seven cents and three pounds, and the eggs were first three cents a pound, then grew to five cents a pound, and then according to the pound, six cents more than one pound. Farmers feed chickens to lay eggs, generally reluctant to eat, to exchange it for money to buy salt to eat, salt is indispensable, because pickled pickles are the main dish.
Now the table is very rich
After the reform and opening up, the people's living standards have undergone earth-shaking changes. From small markets, large markets, supermarkets, specialty stores, grocery stores, to Western-style catering shops; from breakfast, stalls, snack shops, large hotels, to luxury hotels, etc., it can meet the different requirements of diners of different grades, different tastes, different tastes and different hobbies. All kinds of traditional foods, all kinds of pastries, all kinds of side foods can be bought in the market; all kinds of grains, all kinds of vegetables and fresh fruits, all kinds of chicken, fish, meat and eggs are available in the market. Now the general family meal is also fried 2-4 dishes, people no longer worry about not eating enough. General families, the whole family patronizes the big hotel for dinner, it is common; ordinary residents, guests at home, invited into the hotel to drink and chat, is more accustomed, which was not before the reform and opening up. Nowadays, people pay attention to the combination of thickness and thickness, nutritional balance, and green food is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Some people, especially children, are worried about overnutrition; others, especially women, are concerned about how to lose weight.
Third, the housing
Before the reform and opening up, the living conditions in rural areas were relatively poor. In the 1950s and 1960s, rural houses were built with mud walls, or adobe walls, or rotten stones. Build a house with stone to lay the foundation, above which is an earthen wall, the house is made of mud mud wall, and there will be many cracks when the mud is dry, and you can feel the cool breeze in winter. If the family conditions are good or the daughter-in-law is married to make a new house, the house should be painted with white lime water. The roof is generally covered with straw, pressed mud, and topped with shàn (wheat grass). At that time, when I went to the countryside to see, they were all old houses with old walls, and when they entered the houses, they were all black. Because in the winter, the fire in the house is used for heating, so the walls are blackened. The outside of the earthen wall is afraid of rain, and some people use straw to scratch (remove the sorghum grains of sorghum ears) to glue the wall from bottom to top, layer by layer with mud. Some elderly people are afraid of the cold in winter, so they live in the ground house. The so-called ground house is to dig a rectangular earth pit sixty or seventy centimeters deep on the ground, which is built into a small roof with a ridge, the eaves are close to the ground, the door of the house can enter the sun to the south, regenerate the fire for heating, because people can keep warm in the ground, impermeable, winter is much warmer than the ground. In the 1970s, there were many houses built with rotten stone walls. The so-called rotten stone wall is to use different sizes of stone to build the wall, use rotten wheat as a foreign tendon and (huó) mud as a binder, and use sand ash (lime sand and together) in good condition, which is much stronger than the earthen wall.
Old houses in the countryside in the 70s have earthen walls
In the 1980s after the reform and opening up, rural housing construction was more exquisite, to go to the mountain or ridge to open stones to build houses, the wall should be according to the row (xíng), that is, the same thickness of the stone in a row, with white sand ash as a binder, and then use white ash to hook the outer wall seams. The roof is made of straw tied into straw, the straw handle is pressed on top of the mud, and then the wheat straw or yellow thatch is topped. With the deepening of reform and opening up, by the 1990s, rural housing construction was more exquisite, and the stone walls were all built according to the row (xíng), or brick walls, using cement mortar as an adhesive, and cement to hook the outer wall seams. Tile-roofed or flat-roofed houses covered with cement slabs. After that, it is more advanced, the vast majority of rural buildings are two-story buildings, the wall is a brick-concrete structure, the upper and lower cement ring beams plus seismic columns, and the roof is all reinforced cement integral casting, which is said to be able to resist eight-magnitude earthquakes.
I remember very clearly that in the fifties and sixties, there was a proverb in the countryside that envied the good life of the city workers: "Upstairs and downstairs, electric lights and telephones." "This is simply the goal of life in the lofty ideal of communism. Looking back now, it is a piece of cake, insignificant, not worth mentioning. After reform and opening up, China's construction and development are like horses and wings - a thousand miles a day. The original Donglongtou Village has now become the Donglongtou community; the original rural peasants have now become urban residents; they used to rely on farming to eat, and now they have no land to plant and eat as usual; they used to live in grass houses and dark houses, and now they live in buildings and buildings; they used to marry their daughters-in-law to build their own houses, and now they have to buy buildings in the city. People's living standards are like sesame blossoms – they are getting higher and higher. At present, the government is carrying out large-scale transformation of shantytowns, and the appearance of the city and the living conditions of residents will be greatly improved. In order to give home to the homeless, the Government has also built a number of affordable ones for low-income families to live in. Today, buying houses in the suburban countryside has become a major fashion for farmers, especially for their sons to marry, and many people buy houses in the city. More than ten years ago, the house price of Zaozhuang was about 3,000 yuan a square meter, and now it has reached more than 10,000 yuan, although the house price remains high, but it is still in short supply. The magnitude of the change in housing conditions is conceivable. Today, people have more choices of living standards, there are high-rise residential communities, there are garden-style communities, there are open communities, there are also closed communities, and even single-door single-family villa communities. With the deepening of reform and opening up, people's living standards continue to improve, and people also pay more and more attention to the improvement of taste. Subsequently, housing decoration has become a hot spot, and the high-end decoration with diverse styles has enriched our vision and made our life more colorful. While pursuing a wide house, people also pursue the superiority of the living environment location, such as choosing a house in the school district to facilitate children's schooling, choosing a house near the commercial area to facilitate shopping, choosing a room near the East Lake to open the window to see the lake scenery, etc., as well as the pursuit of a variety of supporting facilities, requiring a comfortable stay, living happily, living tastefully, and so on.
High-rise houses came into being
Due to the improvement of people's living conditions, high-rise houses in Zaozhuang Urban Area came into being, urban construction expanded, streets widened and extended, and Zaozhuang taste improved. Especially in the new urban area, high-rise buildings cover the sky, in previous years it was still barren mountains, but now it is a modern new city rising from the ground, soaring upwards, which is breathtaking. At present, the living conditions of the people in urban and rural areas are no longer what they used to be, and they are changing with each passing day.
Fourth, the road
In the 1960s and 1970s, the road condition of Zaozhuang was very poor, and only zaozhuang, the main road of Yicheng, was like that. At that time, the urban area of Zaozhuang was still very small, from the triangle garden to the south to the old Zaozhuang No. 3 Middle School, there were no factories and enterprises on both sides of this road. The current Lixin community was originally a kiln temple village, which was renamed Lixin Village during the "Cultural Revolution". Ludong is the new joint steel plant launched in 1958 during the great steel smelting, that is, at the current Zaozhuang City Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and then to the south there is a coking pool, and there is nothing else. The main road is lined with rows of large poplar trees, and further out is the ditch. From the old Zaozhuang No. 3 Middle School to the south to TheAtabu, in addition to the South Longtou Village and the North Longtou Village on the side of the road, the west side of the road is the ditch, the west side of the ditch is the railway, the east side of the road is also the ditch, and the east side of the ditch is an endless cropland. Zaozhuang - the main road of Yicheng is a sand road, but also the best road in Zaozhuang, once the car passes, the dust is flying, pedestrians can't open their eyes, the sun is gray, and the rain is close to the car and splashes a pants of mud. In addition, Zaozhuang is a coal city, and there is a layer of black pulverized coal on the road. Wear white clothes in the summer, and you have to wash them every day whenever you go out. At that time, there was a joke: "Zaozhuang Coal City is full of ashes." Most of the roads in Zaozhuang City are coal trucks, including unicycles, ground row cars, walking tractors, four-wheel tractors and Jiefang brand cars. For Dora to run fast, jiefang brand cars, there is also a drag bucket behind, each car of coal is filled with points, and the coal is scattered all the way as soon as the car is turned upside down. There are people sweeping coal on the roads in the city every day, and they can sweep a lot of coal a day, and these coals can be kept for home burning or sold for money. Suburban roads or roads between villages are even worse, all dirt roads, and when it rains, it will be muddy.
In the 1970s, the countryside picked up the bride by wheelbarrow
People travel in an easy way. Long roads can be used by car, short roads are on both feet, and households with bicycles in a village are rare, and there are also a small number of workers' families with bicycles. At that time, the Xing national defense brand bicycle was produced by the public-private partnership Qingdao Bicycle Factory, which was divided into heavy and ordinary types, commonly known as "big national defense" and "small national defense", and by 1967 it was changed to the production of Golden Deer brand bicycles. Some rural wives pick up the bride with a wheelbarrow, and if they pick up the bride with a "permanent brand" bicycle, it is very beautiful. In the seventies and eighties, bicycles were a high-end means of transportation, and I remember walking with my parents as a teenager, and the ten or twenty miles were all on foot.
After the reform and opening up, the road in Zaozhuang has also developed rapidly, and the slogan put forward by the government is: "If you want to be rich, first build the road." This sentence was first put forward in 1982 by Xu Qibin, the county magistrate of Meishan County, Sichuan Province, when widening and transforming the construction of the whole county, and in the same year, when the Ministry of Communications held a national on-site meeting in Meishan County, it promoted the slogan of "if you want to be rich, first build the road", and was recognized by the Secretariat of the Central Committee, which played a good role in promoting the development of road traffic in China. The conditions of urban roads, suburban roads and rural roads in our city have gradually improved greatly. By the 1990s, rural bicycles were more common, bicycles were divided into large wheels and small wheels, the big wheels were Golden Deer brand bicycles, the small wheels had Flying Pigeon brand bicycles produced in Tianjin, the permanent brand bicycles produced in Shanghai, and the best was the Phoenix brand bicycles produced in Shanghai, which were selected as representatives of China's light industry products and became an official gift from the Chinese government to foreign VIPs. When the former president of the people' republic of China, the premier of the State Council and other national leaders visited abroad, they all gave the Phoenix brand bicycle as a national gift to foreign leaders. By the beginning of the 21st century, Zaozhuang began to have electric vehicles, and it developed rapidly and gradually became popular. Motorcycles are also developing rapidly, and there are gradually private cars, and bicycles have faded from people's sight. If someone is still riding a bicycle, there are no more than two situations, one is that the elderly will not ride an electric car, and the other is to get on a bicycle to exercise.
Private cars have skyrocketed in recent years
Reform and opening up, today, the development of roads and highways in Zaozhuang Urban Area is really too big, all are asphalt roads, wide and flat, fast lanes, slow lanes, BRT lanes, non-motorized lanes, sidewalks are clear. No dust on sunny days, fresher on rainy days. In particular, in recent years, the government has vigorously created a sanitary city, and the streets everywhere are clean and clean, and the appearance is new; now the roads in the rural areas are also unprecedented changes, the roads are connected to villages and villages, all hardened, and the travel conditions of the urban and rural people are the best in China's history. There are almost every family in the private car town, and there are more than one car and two cars, my family has three children, and three small families have cars. Some colleagues said: "On weekends, the children go home to eat, and my car can build a small car class." "Nowadays, urban and rural residents travel, there are electric vehicles, motorcycles, private cars, buses, BRT rapid buses in the short road, and trains, high-speed rail, ships, and planes on the long road, which is really convenient."
In short, in the past 40 years of reform and opening up, our country has undergone historic changes, and the living standards of the Chinese people have also undergone historic changes. With the leadership of the Communist Party of China, we are full of confidence in China's development and China's future. As citizens of the People's Republic of China, we are proud and proud! We exalt and shout long live the great Communist Party of China! Long live the Great People's Republic of China! banzai! Hooray!