Memoirs of a Hong Kong-born Beidahuang man (III)
Author: Choi Gang-joo
Fifth, the fate of the choice when graduating from high school
In 1955, I was admitted to the Beijing Normal University Girls' High School, which was later renamed Beijing Experimental Middle School. At that time, it was the best girls' middle school in Beijing, and some people said: "If you are admitted to the Women's Attached High School of Normal University, you are equivalent to getting a university admission letter." "None of the high school graduates in our school have been admitted to college. Most of the students came from the Red Revolutionary base areas, and later they went to Yucai Primary School and Bayi Primary School, and then they were sent to the Junior High School of Shida Girls' Affiliated Middle School, and then they were guaranteed to be sent to high school.
In 1955, it may be that in addition to the guaranteed quota, there are many empty places, so open enrollment, so the top students of each school, most of whom are people with bad "origins", are competing to sign up for the exam, and I am honored to be admitted. I don't know how many high-ranking cadres and children there are in our class, but I know that Li Min is in the same class as me, and her dress is very plain, wearing blue clothes in winter and summer. At that time, every day after school, she and I rode bicycles, and walked the same road, she rode a green pigeon brand women's car, all the way to the door of Zhongnanhai on Fuyou Street, we said goodbye to each other, but never talked too deeply.
Maybe that's a forbidden line between us and them! But at a heart-to-heart meeting, Li Min said: "I was raised by my parents in a peasant's home, and then my mother (He Zizhen) was shot seven times and sent to the Soviet Union to get bullets, so I was taken to the Soviet Union and usually lived in the International Children's Correctional Institution, which was during the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, life was very hard, and the black bread issued every day could squeeze out water." Later, when New China was founded, they showed me a photo and said it was my father, and I was very surprised, and I learned that I still had my father..." Her words narrowed the distance between us and the children of high-ranking cadres.
As I grew up in junior high school and high school, I gradually felt that children like me who were not workers and peasants "came from a family" were disliked by school teachers and classmates, looked down upon and alienated by them, let alone wanted to make political progress. I'm upset, I don't know what's wrong with me? But what kind of "family origin" I am, the police station has never defined the ingredients for our family. I wrote to my eldest brother on the Korean battlefield to pour out my distress. The eldest brother wrote back: "It seems that you still don't understand the situation of our family, in those years, our family lived by eating the ancestral property left by my grandfather."
Our grandfather's name was Cui Tingxian, he was once an official under Yan Xishan in Shanxi during the kuomintang rule, as far as I know, he served as the civil affairs minister of the Shanxi provincial government, the finance minister, the shanxi provincial parliament speaker, Hedong Daoyin, the hedong salt transport envoy, the director of the six political examinations, the mayor of Tianjin and other positions, and broke with Yan Xishan in 1935. In 1937, when the Japanese were about to invade Taiyuan, he was afraid that if he stayed, he would be forced to become a traitor, so he led his family to flee from Taiyuan to Wuhan, and the great Wuhan was going to fall and run to Guangzhou, and then Guangzhou was going to lose and fled to Hong Kong, and he died of illness in 1942.
So 'family ingredients' I fill in. When I joined the Party in 1950, it was Zhang Youyu, an underground Communist Party member who was working with my grandfather at that time, and after liberation, he was the vice mayor of Beijing Municipality, which proved to our family. Our family's old house in Shanxi also gave us money back when Zhang Youyu testified. However, our family should be counted as a bourgeois family, and since we live in this family, we must reform our thinking and eradicate all the brand of the bourgeoisie. Regarding the situation in our family, we must not hide it from the school and the organization, but we must make it clear. So for the first time I knew that my "family origin" was a "fallen bureaucracy."
One day in 1957, our homeroom teacher and Teacher Zhu, who taught us history lessons, suddenly disappeared. Later, some more teachers disappeared. Since then, there have been big "rightists" who have been named and criticized in the newspapers, including the parents or relatives of my classmates, and a tense atmosphere has emerged among the classmates. In this situation, my heart was both heavy and afraid, and I was even glad that there was no one working in society except my second brother as a worker. (The eldest brother on the Korean front doesn't count, because he hasn't been in our house all the time.)
Entering the third year of high school, students began to discuss how to achieve "red" and "professional"? Some people say: "Those who have a bad 'family origin' should first be 'red' and then 'specialized', so as not to become anti-party people like 'rightists' in the future." This view was shared by me and some of my classmates who did not have a good "family background" and who had a "rightist" family, because we were afraid that we would also become "rightists" and be criticized. Later, an article entitled "Intellectual Youth Go to the Countryside and Make Great Achievements in the Mountains" pointed out the direction for us. Therefore, we believe that after graduation, we should not go to college, but first go to the most distant frontier of the motherland and the most difficult place to exercise and transform ourselves. We searched on the map, and finally selected the northernmost part of the motherland, Heilongjiang Mohe and Xinjiang Karamay.
One day in March 1958, we went to the Cultural Palace of the Working People to see the exhibition. In Tiananmen Square, I saw several large military trucks beating gongs and drums, and the cars were full of officers and men of the People's Liberation Army wearing red flowers on their chests, only to see a long red slogan hanging on the carriage board, which read, "Go to the Mishan Mountains, Go to the Earth!" Our eyeballs were immediately captivated, and everyone stood in the square watching the passage of this convoy. These nine big words struck like a hammer on the hearts of four girls in the same dormitory, and we suddenly thought of Paul Kochagin. What a sacred and heroic word "to go to war with the earth", that is, to become a revolutionary fighter. And Mishan must be the northernmost, largest, and most desolate place in the motherland, and that is exactly where we want to go. I don't know who else in the square also said: "I heard that in Mishan we are going to build a 'Komsomolskaya City' opposite the Soviet Union." This sentence unites our hearts.
Back in the dormitory at night (I was living on campus at that time), there were four girls in the same room, and a tall girl, Xiao Ji, said: "I am about to graduate, is it going to go to college or where to go?" Make your own choices. People are going to war on the earth to build 'Komsomolskaya', what should we do? No one is allowed to follow others along with them, and they must say their reasons. Let me begin by saying that my mother was a capitalist, and in order not to be influenced by the bourgeoisie, I decided to go to the Secret Mountains to transform myself. A girl with a Henan accent, Liping, said: "My parents are both 'rightists', I want to draw a line with them, I want to go to Mishan." Xiaoyan, a soft-spoken girl, said: "My father is also a 'rightist', and I am a member of the Communist Youth League, and I want to go to Mishan to build our own 'Communist Youth City' in China." In the end, I was left alone, and I said, "My grandfather is an old official, and I want to make a clean break with the bourgeois family and go to the frontier to temper and transform myself." "That night, the four of us sat on our respective beds and raised our right hands to swear that we would strive to achieve our ideals. And decided to keep our secrets first, on the one hand, to write an application letter to Mishan, on the other hand, to create conditions for us to realize our ideals.
Since then, in order to enhance our physical strength during the end of class, the original gymnastics and basketball have been practiced and thrown solid balls. Once in physical education class was to practice the jumping box "split legs and jump" action, because I had fallen down from the jumping box, so every time I did the jump box, I was afraid, looking at the steps of running very firmly, but as soon as I ran to the jumping box, I stopped. This time, my classmates in the same room said to me, "If you can't jump over, you won't be allowed to go to the secret mountain!" Hearing this, I jumped over at once. In order to exercise my ability to bear hardships, I removed all the cotton mattresses laid on the bed and slept on a wooden bed covered with only one sheet. The four of us even discussed what we needed to bring when we were preparing to escape to the Northern Wilderness.
In May 1958, the school invited The mother of the Soviet hero Zoya and Shula, the wife of Ostrovsky, the author of the novel "How Steel is Made", and the heroic pilot Zhang Jihui, who destroyed the Ace Fighter of the United States on the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, to tell us about their heroic deeds. However, what made my blood boil the most was the speech of the model worker of the Shijingshan Iron and Steel Factory in Beijing. At the time of the "Great Leap Forward", "Great Steel Smelting", and "Communist Wind" in 1958, he said: "Students, communism is about to be realized, and we workers have decided to give up all Sundays and holidays and work overtime to add bricks and tiles to communism, so that when communism is realized, we can stretch out our hands and proudly say, 'Communism also has my contribution.'" Students, what would you say? "Yeah, what can I say then?" Can I say that because I was still sitting in a comfortable classroom reading, I didn't catch up with the construction of communism? This speech undoubtedly poured another pot of oil on the fiery fire of our passion to go to the Northern Wilderness.
I told Conan about our decision to go to the Northern Wilderness, and I thought that his model of learning paul would definitely support and appreciate our decision, but he said, "Bullshit! Your task now is to study well and get into college, and to study science and technology well in order to contribute to communism. I said, "But communism is about to come true." He said: "You don't have science and technology, what can you contribute?" ...... I did not convince him, but on the way home, the Hungarian poet Petofi's poem suddenly flashed through my mind: "Life is precious, love is more expensive, if it is for freedom, both can be thrown away." ”......
However, a series of unexpected things happened continuously, first more and more students asked to go to Mishan, and our letter requesting to go to Mishan was rejected, because there were too many people going, and the food and housing needed for food were not enough, and we were discouraged. A few days later, I suddenly received a letter from Beidahuang, which turned out to be a letter from a distant relative of our family, whom I call my cousin -- he said that he had transferred from the army to Qingshan Farm, and that the commander of their general field was Gao Xueren, the commander of the former First Railway Division, and he was particularly courageous; the commander of his sub-field was ren Pengfei, the commander of the original regiment.
As if I had been given a lifesaver, I happily told the girl in the same room the news. I said, "Let's write a letter to the farm manager and ask him to help us with this." "But somehow they didn't agree to write, maybe because all three of them were members of the Communist Youth League, two of them were still from high-level cadres, and I was nothing, they looked down on me."
So I wrote a letter to the director of the high field in my personal name, saying: "The Northern Wilderness is precisely because I want to go, and if it is built well, I will not go." "I asked my cousin to beg him, and if he didn't agree, it was like a pillar standing there and not moving until he said yes. Unexpectedly, this letter I sent to The Director of GaoChang was actually published in the "Agricultural Reclamation Daily" at that time, and later reprinted in the abstract of the "China Youth Daily" and added an editor's review. For a time, letters from Heilongjiang and several frontier provinces were sent to our school like snowflakes, and the people of Beidahuang welcomed me and said that they wanted to learn from me. My head was even hotter like a pot.
One day in early June, Principal Hu Zhitao suddenly called a meeting of the third year of high school, she said: "Students, we often say that the needs of the motherland are our volunteers, and now the motherland needs you to study hard and prepare for the university entrance examination." This year, the number of university enrollment places in Beijing has increased a lot, and I hope that you will not fail to live up to the expectations of the motherland. The principal held a parent-teacher meeting for the third grade, she said: "This year, more than 100 new middle schools have been built in Beijing, and if some students really have difficulties at home and do not want to go to college, the school can introduce them to these middle schools to become teachers." ”
My mother, who came back from the parent-teacher conference, said to me, "You don't want to go to Beidahuang, your principal said that you can stay in Beijing as a teacher." "Everything, the needs of the motherland is the first, this is the most basic truth that we have learned from the party's education for many years, we must settle down to study well and prepare for the college entrance examination." Then I was suddenly happy again, because I could be with Conan again. Conan studied at Beijing Normal University, so I applied for all six volunteers for the college entrance examination, and even just in case I even filled in Baoding Normal College. I am confident that I will be able to pass the examination, because I was once a recipient of the Beijing Municipal Medal of Excellence in Learning, and it is impossible for the students of our Normal University Women's Secondary School not to pass the examination. I fantasized about being with Conan side by side. In order to show my loyalty to the party, in my personal autobiography I wrote for the first time at graduation: "I was born in Hong Kong in 1939, my grandfather Cui Tingxian was a fallen bureaucrat, he was the civil administrator of Shanxi during the Kuomintang period..."
The day before the college entrance examination, we had a holiday, and all four people in the same room left the dormitory to go home, and went straight to the examination room the next morning. I applied for the science and engineering department, and I did not see Xiaoyan and Liping who applied for the liberal arts in the examination room. After coming out, I heard from my classmates that the two of them had not taken the exam. I suddenly understood in my heart that I was about to run away, a feeling of being deceived came to my heart, why didn't they even tell me beforehand when they fled? We swore an oath together! I felt a sense of shame in being looked down upon. Because although their parents are rightists, they are the children of high-ranking cadres and members of the Communist Youth League, but what about me?
Hearing that the principal had received the letter they had left behind, he ignored the exam the next day and held a class meeting that afternoon to discuss the punishment of the two fleeing students. Although I was very angry at their distrust, I still spoke up to defend them, saying that their motives were good and that they were training and reforming themselves. However, the regimental branch still believed that they were unorganized, undisciplined, and disobeyed the needs of the state, and fled without authorization, and decided to give them the punishment of "warning within the regiment". In fact, I think this is done for us to see, to see which of you still dares to run away without taking the college entrance examination? I am not a member of the group, I am not afraid, and I am ready to go to university according to the needs of my motherland.
When the day of the list came, I went to the gate every day to wait for the postman to send me a college admission letter, one day, two days, three days....Sometimes I didn't even dare to eat, and I stood at the gate all the time, afraid of missing the postman. The date of the list was early, but I still did not receive the acceptance letter. I didn't know how to tell Conan that I hadn't been admitted to college, and my pride was suddenly shattered, and it turned out that I was a poor student who couldn't even get into college. I went to Xiao Ji's house to look for her, and she didn't receive the notice. I said, "What's going on?" Why? She said: "I heard that 17 of the 48 students in our class were not admitted, and all of them had 'rightists' or 'born' in the family." ”
Although I was very angry when I listened, I was more ashamed of myself and regretted why I took the college entrance examination instead of running away. So I said, "Let's go to the Northern Wilderness together!" "No!" She said, "My mom didn't agree, she looked at me very tightly these days and didn't let me leave the house at all." So I decided to go on my own, but I could have gone to the battle position like Paul, but I was forced to take this road helplessly. At the same time, I also betrayed the feelings of knowing and loving Conan for eight years, which caused the misfortune of his decades of family life, and I suffered a lifetime of inexplicable pain.
Two university acceptance letters from Choi. Because she had already arrived in the Northern Wilderness, she gave up. Courtesy of the author.
Before leaving, Conan and I said goodbye in Wangfujing Street, and I didn't tell him that I hadn't been admitted to college, and I was afraid that he would look down on me and think that my academic performance was not good, so I just said, "I still decided to go to Beidahuang." He knew he couldn't keep me, so he took out two yuan and said, "Go to Xinhua Bookstore and buy a copy of "Song of Youth" yourself, count the gifts I gave you." "I believe he still wants me to be like Lin Daojing, striding forward on the road of revolution. The next day, Lao Jia, a colleague who happened to be a doctor in Beijing, also wanted to go back to the Northern Wilderness, so I walked with him all the way.
At the Beijing railway station, my mother, sister, sister, and brother all went to drop me off, but my expectant eyes were not on them, but I kept looking for Conan's figure, but I didn't see him until the train started. I believed he must be staring at me somewhere, because we had been in love for eight years! The train was moving north, and that was my first step towards life. (To be continued)
Author: Choi Hong-chu, female, born in Hong Kong in July 1939. After graduating from the Girls' High School of Beijing Normal University in September 1958, he voluntarily came to Heilongjiang Reclamation District and served as a farmer, chicken breeder and deputy platoon leader in the second team of the fourth branch of the 856 Farm. After being admitted to the Department of Agronomy of Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural Reclamation University, he graduated in 1965 and was assigned to Friendship Farm as an agricultural technician in the production team. In 1973, he was transferred to the Hongxinglong Research Institute and engaged in wheat breeding.
Source: Love Black Land