Fun memories of Huarong's internship
Author: Xu Guanghui
The first half of 1975 was the last semester of 40 students in the first class of crop cultivation majors of our Yueyang Regional Agricultural School. According to the school's arrangement, before graduation, it is necessary to go to the rural grassroots level for several months of internship, in Huarong County. I was assigned to the eighth production team of the Xingnan Brigade of the moat commune at that time, and there are still many people and things that cannot be forgotten.
I am a rural person, and there is nothing unaccustomed to going to the countryside. I haven't been to Huarong before and it's quite fresh. Huarong is a lake area, the land is flat, the countryside is unfamiliar, the ditches are longitudinal, and it is much more open and atmospheric than the Miluo River in my hometown. Most of the villagers' houses are mud bricks and tiles, lined up in a long line, unlike the housing yards in our hometown, which are built in front of each other and staggered with each other. My occupant's surname is Xiao, and I have a descendant who is similar in age, and I sleep with him, play together, do things more together, and have a very good relationship.
After I am stationed in the team, I must first understand the basic situation of the production team. The production captain was an enthusiastic person, so he took a special time to introduce me. He first introduced the basic situation of the team, how many households, how many people, how many fields, how much land, how much income, how many collective assets, and so on, and then explained them house by house. When I came out of the miluo countryside at that time, I had never seen the world, and I couldn't understand the special features of Huarong dialect, and when I heard the captain say: What is the name of a "girl" in that family, and what is the name of a "girl" in that family, I feel very strange. Because I take "aunt" for granted as "orphan", I also write down "orphan" in the book. Listening to it, I wondered, there can't be so many "orphans". Through communication, I learned that when the Huarong people called a woman a girl, they specifically referred to the lover, which was equivalent to our Miluo's "guest". Girls who are not married can only be called "sisters" or "iron maidens", no wonder I hear the clouds in the fog.
When I was interning in Xingnan, I was an actor for the first time. At that time, Jiang Qing, the "standard-bearer of literature and art," set up a branch in XiaojinZhuang, Baodi County, Tianjin, a small village famous for being able to sing model plays and engage in poetry competitions, which was a typical example of national promotion. Because the whole country must learn from Xiao Jin Zhuang to hold a poetry contest, the Xingnan Brigade is not far behind and decides to organize a peasant poetry contest. In order to ensure the success of the event, the brigade held a special meeting and asked each production team to produce several programs. After the captain accepted the task, he found me: "Xiao Xu, then you have to write a program to ensure that the task is completed and that you do not lag behind other production teams." I actually did not dare to accept the task, but the captain did not let go, I came to the internship, and there was no way to do anything, I could only harden my scalp, just in response to the words of "the ignorant are fearless" and "the newborn calf is not afraid of the tiger".
I conceived of a program called "Family Poetry Competition", to the effect that a host was set up, who first introduced the team's learning and poetry competition, and then launched a so-called poetry competition family, whose family members have three generations and five people, namely father, mother, son, daughter-in-law, and a grandson who is in elementary school. After introducing the characters, they said how the family loves to learn, and each one can compose poetry, and then asked their whole family to play poetry on the spot. I discussed this idea with the captain, and the captain said he wanted it. He said, each of you writes a poem, and then all the actors come together to read a poem collectively, which should be quite good. In fact, poetry is a very exquisite style, writing skills not only require starting, inheriting, turning, combining, and becoming self-contained, that is, the specific words and sentences must also talk about flatness, talk about battle, talk about part of speech, talk about structure, talk about consistency, talk about how to be right, how to stick, how to have poetry eyes, I will not write poetry until now, I can't write good poetry. At that time, the so-called poems had some equal battles, and where there were any artistic poetry eyes, but the number of words was equal, and the rhymes were roughly similar, which were more smooth to read, sounded more smooth to the ear, and in the end they were all political slogans in disguise, some new false words, big words, empty words, and of course, some interesting words.
After the script was written, the captain was very satisfied with it and chose someone to be an actor among the members. During the casting process, everyone unanimously recommended me to play my son. I am not born to be an actor. When I was in my hometown, I joined the Communist Youth League organization in 1971, and then successively served as the deputy secretary of the brigade league branch and a member of the public society committee. My second brother-in-law is the best actor in the whole brigade, that Yang Zirong sang far and wide, "fight the tiger up the mountain" that singing section, posture, action makes people very envious. I was one of the organizers of the event at that time and wanted to be an actor. My second brother-in-law said: "You can still talk, singing is not that material, don't sell ugly." "Since then, I have been afraid of going to power, and I dare not come to power. The difference this time is that the program ideas are their own, those so-called poems are also written by themselves, and there is no difficult action, pushing is really impossible to get rid of, can only be happily staged. I remember that when the brigade was performing, the six of us cooperated very tacitly, in addition to the host's words more, other people's lines were not very much, and they were all memorized, plus I was a foreigner, a little fresh taste, the audience liked it, won a warm applause, and was also rated as an excellent program in the brigade department. After the performance, the members always joked with the actress who played with me, saying that we were a couple.
Because I work with the members of the team every day, the relationship is naturally harmonious. Once, because the trainees had a concentrated activity, I left the team for two days, and when I returned, I went to the fields to participate in labor. At that time, the grass had begun to pump, and everyone was shoveling turf and fertilizer. I went to work with a hoe on my shoulder, and when people were still far away, they shouted, "Little a little come, a little bit come quickly." "When I walked over, they came around and asked me, what is wrong with this piece of grass?" How to cure it? I didn't know, I could only go down to the field to check, and it turned out that some of the leaves were withered, but there were no spots, sclerotia and other things, and I felt that it should not be caused by diseases and insect pests. When I look at the surrounding environment, I can't find anything unusual for a while. I looked at the surrounding environment over and over again, and found that the field next to the seedlings was particularly clean, the soil surface was very fresh, much cleaner than other places, and I realized that it was probably burned here, and some of the rice leaves were burned. So I said, "It's not a disease, it's burning fire and ashes that have forced the leaves to dry up." "As soon as my words came out, the members laughed and said that you are a very good technician, a bit of real kung fu." Yesterday, there was indeed fire and ashes burning here, and it was the fire that forced the grass leaves next to it to dry up. Today we have discussed in advance that we will come to test you, and I know that you will win the test at once.
When I was interning in Xingnan, I also encountered a "ghost" incident. One night, I was going to the fourth team for an incident. The eighth team and the fourth team should be three or four kilometers apart, and when they went early, they didn't pay much attention to the scenery on the road. I came back late, the moon was hazy, there was a light breeze, there was the sound of frogs in my ears, it was very quiet. Halfway to the back of the village of Maebuba, there was a cemetery, and there was a shed in the field not far from the cemetery. I inadvertently looked at the shed and found a man hanging from the top of the shed, dangling like a crane. Under the circumstances, I was in a cold sweat, my legs were weak, and I was so frightened that I lifted my feet and did not move. Although I did not have much courage, I was educated in atheism, and I thought that there was no ghost in my heart. But at that time, since he touched the ghost, stretching his head was death, and shrinking his head was also death, so he numbed his courage to stare at the ghost and slowly walked over. It turned out that the production team had built a dung shed in the field, and the roof of the shed was supported by three trees. The bundle of straw at the top may have collapsed due to wind and rain, and a rope was hanging and dangling, like a "hanging neck ghost". After figuring out the situation, my heart quickly calmed down, and I was able to complete a ghost hunting story.
In the days of Xingnan, there was also a veterinarian surnamed Xiao that I can't forget, who was probably a few years older than me. Master Xiao actually rarely works on the team, and he doesn't know how he likes me. One day shortly before leaving, he came to me and said he was going to tell me about the chicken. I was having fun at the time, so I agreed. I ran with the master for two days, and under the guidance of the master, I probably killed a dozen or twenty chickens, and I felt that I basically grasped the essentials and could do it. When I was leaving Xingnan, the master gave me a set of tools for killing chickens, but the craftsmanship was not refined, and there was not much time to practice and study, and then it gradually faded into oblivion, and the tools did not know where to go.
When I left Xingnan Village in early August of that year, the team committee of the eighth team gave me a large notebook, and the title page wrote a sentence: "To: a good young man of the Mao Zedong era- Xu Guanghui, in August 1975" and also stamped the official seal of the eighth production team of the Xingnan Brigade of the moat commune. I have kept this notebook for decades, which is an eternal memorial to the Xingnan Eighth Team. After leaving the Xingnan Eighth Team, I was assigned to work in Miluo, and I wrote letters first, and then I lost contact. In the early years of this century, I went to Huarong relatively more, and I had the idea of going to the Xingnan Eighth Team to see.
Once I went to Wanyu Town and the County Agricultural Science Institute to inspect the implementation of scientific and technological projects, and I made a special trip to Xingnan. After arriving there, I found that the brigade headquarters had been demolished, and the villagers of the original eighth team no longer lived in the place where they used to be, and everything was a matter of things and people. A gate was built next to the original site of the brigade headquarters. I stood at the gate and looked around, and I was so lost that I went down into the field and walked around, which was a relief to the feeling of missing this land. Life is a trip without a return trip, and everyone should cherish every encounter, only in this way can we leave no regrets. I came out of the country for almost 50 years. When I was a child, I played well with the village, the same house, the same school, and the friends who grew up with me, especially the married girls, many of whom I have never seen again. As for those who are older than me, some of them are no longer alive. People should cherish every love affair and cherish the present, this is not something that everyone can understand, but everyone is like this.
About the Author
Xu Guanghui, born a poor peasant, grew up on the Miluo River and is now a retiree. When he was in office, he buried his head in the processing of official documents and wrote popular science articles, all of which were carving insects and small skills, and could not be called works. After retirement, I still play with words, which is really self-amusement. Thanks for reading, thank you.
Image: Author