Chapter 3 2. Chinese women in the age of hunger

The first three years of the 1960s were a year of famine in China and a year of hunger for the Chinese people. In these three years, the vast majority of Chinese women recalled the difficult years with palpitations.From the baby girl in the mother's arms to the old woman, almost all are not spared. We are talking about the vast majority here, thus emphasizing the existence of exceptions.Some adults knew when others were hungry, even though they hadn't been hungry themselves during those three years.Only a very small number of boys and girls did not suffer from hunger during those three years, so that when they grew up, they heard many people of the same age or the previous generation recall the hard days during the "three-year natural disaster" period, but they didn't know it and were inexplicably confused .It seems that you are not a Chinese, but a foreigner.They are very few children of high-ranking cadres.Air Force fighters back then saved their monthly biscuits and chocolates and sent them to the primary or secondary schools where they boarded.

"No wonder biscuits and chocolates were handed out in school!" It is often under such associations that they can prove that those three years were indeed spent in their own age. The so-called "three-year natural disaster", as we all know now, is not only caused by natural factors, but also caused by political factors. China and the Soviet Union broke the friendly relationship between brotherly countries, causing the Soviet Union to put on a straight face to collect debts, and China showed a strong will to repay. During those three years, cadres at the bureau level and above issued "coupons" every month, and they could buy sugar, tea, cigarettes, milk powder, etc. with the coupons.The common people could not see milk powder in those three years.What is supplied to the baby with the birth certificate is milk replacer, a kind of baby milk that is close to formula milk.The certificate must not only prove the birth of the baby, but also prove the lack of mother's milk.If you don't prove the latter point, you won't sell it.Before the Spring Festival, each family supplies a few taels of tea.Two taels of white sugar per person per month.Men who smoke have a monthly supply of one pack of low-quality cigarettes.

My mother started smoking at one point during those three years.In order to get a cigarette ticket, she first pretended to be a street cadre who could smoke and get a ticket.Cigarette tickets were a very popular gift in those days, especially when given to men who could smoke, they were very grateful and would remember it as a debt of gratitude. Later, my mother also bought two boxes per month and smoked a few sticks every day. I once asked my mother what is good about smoking, and my mother sighed and said, "Stop flustered." Back then, many people panicked not because of heart disease, but because of hunger. "Stop palpitation" is actually to "stop hunger".Mother doesn't want to tell the truth.

Cadres above the department level were also called "sugar bean cadres" in those days, because they were given half a catty of white sugar and half a catty of soybeans a month preferentially compared to ordinary people. When people from different cities in the south and the north get together, they inevitably ask each other—how many taels of sugar do you supply every month?How many taels of soybean oil?How many catties of fine grain? The grain supplied in the grain store is often moldy and infested with insects, and it is clearly the bottom grain cleaned out of the grain depot. Among the urban population, the maximum quota for male labor is 36.5 kg (porters, loggers, and coal miners enjoy this preferential treatment).

The average worker weighs 32 catties. Mental workers 30 pounds. Housewives have the same quota as middle school students and high school students - 28 and a half catties. Later, in Harbin City, the rationed food supply could no longer be guaranteed, and each person reduced the food by 3 catties per month, and replaced it with moldy dried sweet potatoes. Even moldy dried sweet potatoes are supplied as rations for urban people, which shows how far the farmers' rations have been confiscated. Many students go to school with empty stomachs, and many schools have canceled exercises between classes.It is not uncommon for students and teachers to starve and faint in class.

It is also common for male and female workers to starve and faint in the workshop, resulting in frequent casualties. The farmers in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, known as the "Land of Fish and Rice", moved to the mountainous areas in large numbers, because at that time, the grain requisition indicators for farmers in mountainous areas were lower. Farmers from the "Land of Abundance" fled to other provinces in large numbers in search of a way out. Peasants from Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia "traveled into the Central Plains" or "walked to the west exit" in large numbers.

... In fact, since 1958, hunger has spread in some provinces, and it did not end in the whole country by the end of 1963.In some provinces, relief was not seen until 1965 and 1966, and the "Cultural Revolution" began in mid-1966. In those years, the number of people who starved to death directly or indirectly from starvation, malnutrition, and wild vegetable poisoning in China must have been hard to count. It may be more than the total number of educated youths who "sent to the countryside".Of course, it is mainly the rural population who have lost even the minimum ration of rations.

In those years, many middle-aged mothers in the city quickly turned gray and became obviously old. As wives, they must ensure that their husbands do not starve.Once the husbands starved, the family lost its basic income.As mothers, they must ensure that their children are kept half-fed, because this is their minimum responsibility.If there are parents-in-law, if she is a filial daughter-in-law, how can she bear to watch the old man starve? But the rations for each family member are rationed.It is difficult for clever women to cook without rice, and they often only eat less than their quota.

If there is abundant non-staple food, the above ration will not cause people to starve.But in those years, there was almost no non-staple food in any sense, and even vegetables were provided by tickets. In the first few years of the 1960s, the vast majority of mothers in Chinese cities, that is, middle-aged mothers, are generally worth commenting on the perseverance of motherhood and the sense of family responsibility that does not spare themselves.If they could get by without eating, many of them would not eat a bite of food at all; Ban Yue cut off a piece of meat from his body to make soup for the whole family.Apart from the above two points, it is really difficult for them to comment on the style and features that reflect the spirit of the times.

So in the age of aggressive hunger, can they show other kinds of femininity? Most of the older girls who joined the workforce in those years consciously postponed their marriage age.One is that because marriage has become a very unrealistic thing, most young men were not in the mood to get married in those years.Hungry and flustered all day long, how can I have the idea of ​​getting married?As soon as the thought flashed, he dismissed it on his own.And the lads' negativity played right into the big girls' arms.In fact, they are unwilling to marry out of the house during the difficult years.Once married, the wages are taken away.Their meager wages are becoming more and more important to their family.After all, on the black market, it is still possible to buy food or food stamps at a high price.Their wages are equal to more than ten catties of grain!There is a big difference between a family having more than ten catties of grain and less grain every month.What's more, because they have joined the work, the monthly ration is three and a half catties higher than that of their mothers, and six or seven catties or even ten catties higher than that of their younger brothers and sisters. If they eat less at each meal, shouldn't the family eat more?

Those years were the years when the marriage rate in Chinese cities was the lowest.It is not surprising that there are many older girls who are still not considering marriage at the age of twenty-four or five.Compared to the early to mid 1950s, they were close to old girls.Hunger played a bigger role in delaying marriage than propaganda calls. But in the countryside it's just the opposite. In order to save the family, the eldest girl is either willing to sacrifice herself to sell herself, or is secretly sold by her helpless parents.Because they have no wages, the land is barren, and work points are meaningless, only they can get some food in exchange.In addition, the traditional patriarchal feudal ideology of Chinese farmers is still very serious. Selling their daughters means at least one less "free food" for the family.The focus of life-saving is tilted towards the son.Of course, there are also parents with good wishes and extremely realistic considerations—letting a man take away her daughter, as long as he can feed her, is better than starving to death at home.The eldest girl was taken away in vain, and then the second and third girls were also taken away helplessly.Only the son, if he dies, he has to die with himself.Because as long as the son is kept, as long as the son does not die, there will be a day when the family can be passed on. I once described a man named Zhang Shao in a reportage.When he was young, he stayed in the United States and the United Kingdom, and was honored as a doctor of medicine in the United States and a lifelong fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine in the United Kingdom.After he returned to China, he was sentenced in 1954 for being treated unfairly.After serving his sentence, he returned to a certain village in Henan where he was originally from. From 1961 to 1962, he "married" away three daughters.Of course it is not for sale, and no one in the local villages buys it.It would be nice if a man is willing to take it away in the name of marrying a wife.The third daughter was just 15 years old when she was taken away.In the 1960s, 15 was a girl. Girls and half-grown girls in the city, that is, junior high school students and high school students, do not suffer such a tragic fate compared with girls and half-grown girls in the countryside. It seems that they are lucky in the difficult years. But many of them, at the age when their bodies were developing, stopped growing due to extreme nutritional deficiencies.If we mix today's sixth graders with junior ones and second graders in the first three years of the 1960s, and turn them all backwards, it may be difficult to tell which are today's sixth graders. , Which are the former junior high school and junior high school students.If we mix high school students in the first three years of the 1960s with today's junior high school students, it will be more obvious that the latter is far better developed than the former.The worry in goodness is the phenomenon of overnutrition. Many junior high school students and high school students in the 1960s were permanently short after their physical development ended at an age that should not have terminated.Excluding individual genetic factors, the common cause is three years of starvation. As soon as the 1960s entered, the age ratio of urban female population in China changed significantly.In the past, there were more housewives, but later there were more students.In the past, whatever happened in the streets and alleys, even if it was just a hawker selling colored thread, all the young and middle-aged mothers hurriedly gathered in the street.Later, if it happens to be when the students are out of school, it is often many female students who are attracted. In the 1950s, girls who were often held in the arms of their mothers or often held by their left and right hands grew up and went to school in a blink of an eye, and, as they grew up, their mothers gave They gave birth to little brothers and little sisters. In the early 1950s, there were only six or seven middle schools in Harbin, including high schools.In the early 1960s, the number of middle schools in Harbin had increased to more than 70.It is self-evident how many new generations have been born in the city in the past ten years. In the past, after 7 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the women's eyes greeted and saw off their husbands who went to and from get off work, and then they greeted and saw off their sons and daughters who went to and from school.Crowds of elementary and middle school students pass by the street, and the scene is often quite spectacular. School girls in the 1960s had very different ideas about going to school in their heads than did school girls in the 1950s.They are no longer satisfied that their future selves are merely illiterate.They have begun to understand that the level of education is not only related to their future marriage and life quality, but also enough to directly reverse their own destiny. The ambition of the vast majority of junior high school girls is to enter high school.Not long after they entered middle school, they began to know which middle schools in the city were key middle schools, and the educational level of the middle school they attended generally belonged to.In the classroom, the teachers often tell the students with great pride, how many of the students in the previous class and the last few classes in this class and school have passed the key high school.The girls among the students who made the teacher proud to talk about them gradually became role models in their hearts. In the 1950s, employment or study was not a major choice for the vast majority of middle school girls, and they often obeyed their parents.If their parents find a job for them, even as waiters in a small shop, they often stop their studies without much regret or pain in their hearts.You may even feel that it is good to start working early and get married early.Thus in the 1950s it was common for girls to drop out of middle school. But their thinking in the 1960s has changed.Suspending their studies is definitely a forced thing for them, and they will cry, plead, and protest because of their reluctance.They feel aggrieved by being waiters in small shops.They are confident that if they continue to go to school, their fate will probably be different. In the 1960s, middle school girls who dropped out of school under the persecution of their parents committed suicide in the city, and there were also cases of schizophrenia due to depression all day long after entering the work.Needless to say, they were both daughters of families living in extreme poverty. In the early 1960s, although most Chinese were suffering from hunger, China's industry was developing as usual.The development of industry has formed new industries, and the new industries seem to classify the differences in the fate of people.A young woman who works in a small store, small grain store, or small restaurant sees other young women wearing work clothes with the logo of a big factory that the world yearns for, and the inferiority and envy she feels in her heart is indescribable.And such a large factory cannot recruit middle school girls who dropped out of school. The ambition of the vast majority of high school girls is of course to go to university or junior college.This is especially true for girls in key high schools, who are familiar with famous universities across the country. "Three six one eighteen, Tsinghua University, Peking University and Harbin Institute of Technology." This is a popular saying among junior and high school students in Harbin since the early 1960s, representing them and their learning ideals. "3618" refers to the No. 3 Middle School, No. 6 Middle School, No. 1 Middle School and No. 18 Middle School of the four key middle schools in Harbin. Middle school students are admitted to one of these four middle schools, which means that they are only one step away from stepping into a national famous university. My elder brother was a junior high school student in Harbin No. 19 Middle School. After graduation, he was recommended to No. 1 Middle School. The big girls in the front street and the back street all looked at him differently. In 1963, when I was promoted to middle school and my elder brother was admitted to university, there was a sensation in the front and back streets. Even the director of the police station and the cadres of the commune came home to congratulate me.Since the founding of New China, there have been no college students in the thousands of households in our residential community.Before my brother went to a university in another city, the matchmakers who pre-selected his marriage continued all day long.Many older girls and their parents thought that my brother would be an engineer in the future, and they would like to get married early, and they would be willing to wait four or five years. In the early 1960s, people in cities began to admire knowledge and education.Since people's income levels are almost the same, knowledge and education are the only differences that are valued.Just as there are so many college students and master’s students today, even showing a surplus that society cannot digest, so when young people’s knowledge and education are no longer surprising, income has become the only difference that is valued. In the 1960s, the eagerness of students to learn and the advocacy of knowledge and academic qualifications by people in the city, especially girls, became common practice.If they expect that it will be difficult for them to become intellectual women with advanced degrees, then being the wife of an intellectual man with advanced degrees is what they consider lifelong happiness. This social trend of thinking that advocates knowledge and academic qualifications is especially reflected in the female trend of thought in the early 1960s.Although the hungry black wings enveloped the land of China, although their bodies were thinned by starvation, they were not "starved" to death. The cells in their minds produced various new ideas every day. The big girls of the 1960s—they were not so happy to be considered big girls anymore, and people began to call them "young women" in accordance with their consciousness—whether they were students or in the working class, they still is demure. But compared with the 1950s, they have been quiet on the outside and on the inside.Yes, they are no longer demure, empty-headed and simple-minded like the big girls in the 1950s. After 1963, the hungry black wings gradually receded from the city, and people could eat their stomachs again.The standards for young women to choose a mate began to form quietly after they were full. "Blue uniforms, white coats, gun barrels, and helmsman" were popular catchphrases among young women back then.If there is no hope of marrying a man with a college education, this is the next best thing for them to choose a mate. "Blue uniforms" refer to public security officers.In many aspects of society, men who "execute the dictatorship of the proletariat" are given three points of comity, so they have a high status in the hearts of young women. "White coat" refers to a doctor.It is troublesome for Chinese people to see a doctor, and sometimes it is even a matter that makes every day unresponsible and the land does not work.Marrying a doctor, or simply a man who works in a hospital, will benefit the whole family including relatives and friends. "Gun barrel" refers to active duty soldiers above the platoon leader.The monthly salary of officers is higher.Becoming a family member of a soldier not only has a secure and honorable life, but also receives some preferential treatment.But marrying a soldier does not satisfy their wishes, that is, they will endure the anguish of living apart for a long time after marriage.And accompanying the army not only requires the approval of the army, but also may leave the city.Leaving the city is something they are reluctant to do.Therefore, although the "gun barrel" ranks the most important position in the country, it can only condescend to the third place in their hearts. "Ruler" means the driver.Whether you drive a truck or drive a car for officials, in short, you and your family can enjoy some convenience. It seems that, in the final analysis, the awakening of women's self-awareness is not determined by any other conditions and factors, but firstly determined by the development of industry.The development of industry brought a wide range of urban employment opportunities.A wide range of employment opportunities has increased the income of many families.Families with increased incomes can afford to pay for their children's education.However, the more general cultural education has different processes and stages of changing the consciousness of men and women—it makes men start to care about things other than themselves, and it makes women start to think about things related to themselves.It's like unfolding a painting in front of men's eyes, so that men know that the world is much wider than they understand; and unfolding a painting in women's minds, so that women know that women's destiny is much richer than they think.That painting originally existed in the woman's mind, but it was coiled and bound, and could not be unrolled only by the spell of the times.Only very special women can unfold it with their own awakening ahead of the acquiescence of the times. They are women with rebellious spirit in any era. Many young daughter-in-laws in the mid-to-late 1950s were not only mothers in the first few years of the 1960s, but may have already been mothers of two or three children.At that time, family planning had not yet been implemented.Some of their mothers, within ten years, especially within three years when hunger threatens every family, have been staggered by old age and died prematurely... They can be regarded as the second generation of the Republic Mothers, they gave birth to the second sons and daughters of the Republic. Since they are educated mothers themselves, their expectations for their children are much higher than what their mothers had expected of them when they were young.They are often amazed that their preschool children can write some of the words they have been taught.And their mothers, back then, were always smiling because of their pretty faces and small mouths... Although many girls in the Republic have eaten milk substitutes when they were young, their intelligence is developed earlier than the first generation, and the age of accepting culture is younger than the first generation. They have already cultivated their interest in learning before school age.Even their school age is one or two years earlier than the first generation. However, the black wings of hunger had just been withdrawn, and the Chinese had just been able to eat for two years. In 1966, the "Cultural Revolution" broke out. It is not an exaggeration to use the word "explosion" to describe the "Cultural Revolution".Although it has gone through careful and long-term planning by the leaders, it still came too suddenly for the vast majority of Chinese people.Especially for Chinese junior and senior high school students, it suddenly makes them ignorant for a while. In April, "dark clouds overwhelmed the city and the city was about to be destroyed", and in May, it swept across the country. In June, it was announced that "classes would be suspended to cause a revolution". The studies of junior and senior high school students all over China end in that month.Physical development like their parents, terminated in three years of starvation...