China Overseas Chinese Network, April 25 Topic: Huang Yulan, a relative of overseas Chinese: I "grew up" with Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm
In early April this year, the armed company of Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm in Wanning, Hainan Province, held a gathering of comrades-in-arms. Huang Yulan, a relative of overseas Chinese, took one group photo after another with her former comrades-in-arms.
Huang Yulan was born and raised in Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm, and from 1971 to 1977, she successively served as the deputy squad leader, squad leader and deputy platoon leader of the women's volleyball team in the armed company of Xinglong Overseas Chinese Farm.
Group photo of the original women's volleyball team. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
For as long as she can remember, Huang Yulan has rarely seen her mother.
"My mother gets up at 4 a.m. every morning to go to work on the farm. The moon came out at night, and I slept with my brother and sister and didn't see her come back. I only see her when I'm sick. She rushed back from where she was working and carried me to the hospital. ”
Huang Yulan's mother, Sister Yang Lian, and father, Huang Gangrong, went to Malaysia to earn a living before the founding of New China.
When he first arrived in Malaysia, Huang Gangrong traveled to many places and did a lot of work. With a certain amount of savings, Wong bought a plot of land in Sabah and planted bananas and other crops. The family lived a self-sufficient life with their diligent hands.
A group photo of Huang Hurong's family before returning to China. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
In 1952, Huang Yulan's grandmother wanted to return to her roots. After Huang Gangrong and Sister Yang Lian sold their family property in Malaysia, they returned to their homeland with their family.
However, Huang Gangrong's money from selling his property was cheated out by his former friends, and the family had to start over. Hearing that Hainan can grow crops, Huang Hurong, who started his business by farming, brought seeds of crops such as lemongrass and bananas, as well as a batch of wasteland tools such as axes and saws, to Wanning Xinglong, Hainan.
At that time, the prosperity was still a period of collective land reclamation and individual production. The expatriates cut grass, prepared timber, built thatched huts, and cleared the land.
"My mom was still carrying me in her belly. The people from the next village would give them something. Huang Yulan said.
A photo of Huang Yulan's family when she was born. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Huang Yulan said that at first, her parents lived in a thatched hut with beds made of bamboo and sun-dried straw. During the same period, several families took the family as a unit, leaving early and returning late every day to reclaim the wasteland and plant crops. At that time, Xinglong was still a high-incidence area of malaria, and Huang Yulan's family survived.
In September 1952, the Xinglong Overseas Chinese Collective Farm was established, and Huang Yulan's parents and several other families were merged into it to work together.
Huang Yulan said that there is a local Sun River, and they live in the east of the river, where they work, and they have to walk a long way every day, and they have to rely on the aborigines of Xinglong Town to row a boat to reach the other side. Due to the economic conditions at that time, the local returned overseas Chinese could only build up the original stones of the Sun River bed and build a simple bridge with wooden planks.
If there is no field, it will be expanded, and if there is no bridge, it will be built...... With a wave of momentum, the returned overseas Chinese have built their homes in the barren land.
In 1969, Huang Yulan's father, Huang Gangrong, died. "My parents were very warm, and when a child was sick, my father would give the family the herbs he had brought back from Malaysia. When my father died, many people came to his funeral. ”
After a long period of hard work by the returned overseas Chinese, the barren land that used to be overgrown with weeds and mosquitoes has become a prosperous market town. With the development of the farm economy, the bridge has also been gradually "transformed" from a simple bridge to a landscape bridge today. Huang Yulan said that she "grew up" with the farm, and under the joint construction of the returned overseas Chinese, the prosperity has developed "impressively".
"Xinglong has now become a charming town, which is completely different from the past. The first generation of old people who built farms have left one after another. My eldest sister is 87 years old this year. Huang Yulan said that looking at Xinglong's current development, she is very emotional, and she hopes that more people will pay attention to the stories of the older generation and let that memory survive.
(Source: China Overseas Chinese Network WeChat public account; ID: qiaowangzhongguo; author: Liu Yang)