#Witness of the Times #My bitter and unforgettable life as a young intellectual. In 1976, I graduated from high school. Although I was 16 and a half years old, I was not old enough to be a young man. My classmates, who have reached the age of 17, have responded to the call of the party and Chairman Mao and gone to the mountains and the countryside to receive re-education for poor and lower-middle-class peasants. I wrote a letter to the leader of the Dong'an County Zhiqing Office without my parents asking to be a Zhiqing, and after receiving my letter, Director Li of the County Zhiqing Office rushed to my home to communicate with my parents. My father saw that I was determined to no longer insist that I learn carpentry, but my father said a sentence that I would never forget, he said: The road is your own choice, what to do in the future, even if it is a bubble of, I will eat it myself.
In July 1977, as the second batch of intellectuals on the agricultural, forestry and water front in Dong'an County, I came to the Linjiao Brigade of Dutang Commune to settle down in the procession of beating gongs and drums to bid farewell and greet the team. At that time, there were 12 people in our zhiqing group, 6 men and 6 women, the youngest was 17 years old, and the oldest was 19 years old. After being delegated to Zhiqing, the 77th New Zhiqing first worked and lived with the 75th and 76th Old Zhiqing, mainly farming and raising pigs. Later, the brigade opened a silkworm farm, and we new young people went to the farm to open up the land, plant mulberry, and raise silkworms. At the beginning, there was a large-scale cultivation of silkworms, and the silkworms had no leaves to eat in the middle of the way, and they saw that the silkworms were going to starve to death, at this time, the cadres of the team decided that 12 of us would rest in vain, and at night, we would go out to the mulberry base of the Iron Reed Brigade to steal mulberry leaves. That night, the sky was dark, the male Zhiqing each carried a basket, the female Zhiqing was responsible for picking, at night there were no five fingers, everyone picked by feeling, about 20 minutes later, someone on the opposite hill suddenly shouted "Catch the thief", several torches immediately chased after us, we heard the chase, picked up the basket and ran away, everyone crossed the mountain, crossed the water, ran out of two or three miles in one breath, and returned to the Zhiqing Field at two o'clock in the night. The most embarrassed was Wei Zhenghua, he came back with a pair of feet, covered in mud, a question to know that he ran into a winter field, his feet pulled out for a long time, escape is important, a pair of new liberation shoes are thrown in the field. Later, when he returned home, he was severely criticized by his father.
At that time, although the content of our labor was very fulfilling, the most terrible thing was not the fear caused by sparse population, nor the sense of instability brought about by the alienation of people, but the life was getting harder and harder, and the simplest thing was to have no food to eat, three meals a day, and often drink salt water soup. The recipes in the canteen are getting more and more grooved, day after day, month after month, only clear water salty soup, kelp radish, almost no change. Especially the radish, put in the oil-free pot dry stir-fry, put a few spoons of sea pepper ash for seasoning, one bowl for each person, eat everyone's heart as if something is stirring, it is really uncomfortable. Later, Chen Xiaojun recognized a kind of wild mushrooms that were quite delicious, and everyone went to pick them up, but after eating them back, four or five people had reactions, and after everyone was afraid to eat them, no one dared to pick up wild mushrooms anymore. Then there are the small bamboo shoots and large bamboo shoots that grow out of the mountain mangosteen forest in the spring, full of mountains and fields, inexhaustible and inexhaustible. First, use a knife to cut off the long one, peel off the layers of black and yellow plush shoot skin, and the smooth, white and shiny bamboo shoot flesh will be exposed. Pour water into the pot, cut the tip of the bamboo shoots piece by piece, and boil the water thoroughly to remove the astringency. Boiled bamboo shoots in water and fried bamboo shoots in a red pot have become home cooking in our bowls. It's unbelievable that I could have lived in such a harsh environment.
Although Zhiqing's life is bitter, it will never be forgotten and missed.
