I've always admired journalists, because it seems to me that journalists are usually brave, they are always digging up the truth for people, and it takes a lot of courage and a lot of willpower.
Liu Xiaoqian is a journalist who deserves our respect. Born in 1988 in Jinjiang, Quanzhou, Fujian Province, Liu Xiaoqian mastered four foreign languages and graduated from the Communication University of China. After graduation, Liu Xiaoqian entered CCTV and became a foreign correspondent.
From May 1 to 3, 2014, Liu Xiaoqian reported on CCTV on the production and trade of drugs by armed drug traffickers in Brazil's slums, in which Liu Xiaoqian remained calm and calm when he talked closely with the outlaws. After this report, Liu Xiaoqian "became famous in World War I".
Liu Xiaoqian has been to Cuba nine times for interviews, and in just a few years, he has witnessed the great changes in Cuba. He recorded what he saw, heard, thought and thought in Cuba and compiled it into the book "Hurricane Sweeping Through the Cane Fields" to help readers better understand Cuba.
01 The Founding Father of Cuba - Castro
Fidel Castro was born into a wealthy family and good family conditions helped him to successfully enter the University of Havana to study law.
During his university years, Castro was an active young man who embraced Marxist-Leninist thought. In the 1950s, under castro's leadership, the Cuban Revolution triumphed, transforming Cuba into a socialist country, and Castro became the first supreme leader of Cuba, known as the "Father of the Nation of Cuba".
The accomplished Castro is very good at communicating with people, and for a great man like him, speeches should be a very common thing, but in 1985, in an interview with Bohemia magazine, Castro admitted that he would still be afraid of the stage a moment before the speech.
Perhaps, in the eyes of ordinary people, great people should be superhuman, they have their own light, fearlessness, and all the advantages in one, but in fact, great people are also mortals, they will also be afraid, timid, lost, confused... They may just work harder than the average person.
02 President hoards cigars
When Castro first came to power, Cuba and the United States had good relations. In 1959, Castro was invited to visit the United States and was treated arrogantly by the United States, and since then, Kaguba's relations with the United States have gradually deteriorated.
In 1961, Castro asked the U.S. side to reduce the number of employees of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba to 11 people, which directly led to the U.S. side announcing the severance of diplomatic relations with Cuba.
In 1962, after secretly stockpiling 1,200 Cuban cigars, US President John F. Kennedy announced the imposition of an "embargo decree" against Cuba, intending to destroy cuba's economic lifeline and plunge Cuban society into an existential crisis.
It seems that as the president of a big country, even if the state affairs are entangled, Kennedy does not forget to consider his own interests, from which we can see Kennedy's love for Cuban cigars.
03 The history of Cuban cigar ups and downs
Cuba's province of Binar del Río has fertile soil rich in iron oxides, which is very conducive to the growth of cigar plants, and most of the best cigar leaves in Cuba are produced here.
For more than 300 years after the arrival of European fleets in the Americas, Cuban cigars swept European high society.
In the second half of the 17th century, cigar factories in Spain blossomed everywhere, and people used boats to transport dried cigar leaves from Cuba to Spain. It was not until the end of the 18th century that people began to understand that rolled cigars were more resistant to the bumps of long journeys than cigar leaves, so the cigar factory was moved to Cuba.
In 1817, Spain officially allowed Cuba free trade. In just two years after that, cuba's cigar factories increased dramatically. By the middle of the 19th century, cuba's cigar plantations had grown to more than 9,000, and cigarette factories and workshops combined had reached 1,300.
In 1962, after the United States embargoed Cuba, the Cuban cigar industry was hit hard, and Americans could only buy cigars at high prices through the black market, and cigars appeared on occasions that needed to be celebrated most.
On December 17, 2014, the night of the announcement that Cuban America had broken the ice, Obama was photographed by paparazzi with Cuban cigars, and American smokers were blessed.
epilogue
The wheels of the times are rolling forward, and different countries have different encounters. "Hurricane Sweeping Through the Cane Fields" is a documentary record created by CCTV reporter Liu Xiaoqian based on his own personal experience, through reading this book, you will have a more intuitive understanding of Cuba