Chapter 123 'Our Five Children' Grow Up

One day in December last year, Zhou Tongshan brought his younger brothers and sisters to my house to visit me. They are the five orphans I interviewed and reported 16 years ago.Their presence made me very happy and brought back many memories and thoughts in me. Sixteen years ago, that is, in 1962, in a worker's family in Chongwen District, Beijing, five brothers and sisters became orphans due to the successive deaths of their parents.At that time, the oldest was only fifteen years old, and the youngest was only three years old.The sub-district office immediately assumed the responsibility of raising the orphans. They solemnly entrusted the aunts and aunts in the same hospital as the children and the teachers in the school to take care of their daily study and life, and all expenses were provided by the state.In January 1964, after Beijing newspapers reported the news one after another, letters, parcels, and money orders from all over the country flew to the residence of these five orphans in Beijing like snowflakes; there were more people, workers , peasants, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army... and young pioneers went to their homes to help them study, do housework, etc... At that time, I got the news, so I went to visit the sub-district offices, service stations, and other places in Chongwen District, Beijing. The compound, factory, school and kindergarten where five children live, work and study.I met the people who took care of the children living and learning, and I saw every child.In the service station, Chen Yuzhen, the head of the service station, said to me with a smile: "That day, when I came back from a meeting, I heard people in the station talking enthusiastically about the few cotton-padded clothes they had collected, saying that five of these cotton-padded clothes were gone. The cloth for the parents’ children was bought by Tian Maiqin, a cadre of the Tiyuguan Road Office in Chongwen District, and Tian Shuying, who lives in the same hospital as the orphans, brought the children and asked us to rush to make them. When it comes to orphans, each of us I have my own feelings in my heart, and the tragic situation of orphans in the old society has come to my eyes. The party and the government care about them so much, and the people in the office and the streets help them so much. How can we not contribute our strength? ?So a few of us cut and sewed and worked all night.

"Ever since I made cotton padded clothes for those children, I have always been unable to let them go. A few days before the Spring Festival, I went to their homes to have a look, and packed 14 more clothes that needed to be unpacked and mended. , I thought to myself, during the Spring Festival, the children should be neatly dressed, but the work in the station is very busy before the Spring Festival, and I took back these unpaid jobs. When I got back to the station, I told everyone that it belonged to our five children. As soon as everyone heard it, they all got busy. One person washed it, five people mended it, and it was finished and sent away quickly..." Tian Maiqin, a street cadre and street office cadre, is a tall man in his thirties with a square face and bright eyes. He told me, “Chongwen District has always been a place where working people live.Before liberation, the poor people who pulled carts, repaired shoes, and picked up rags lived here. Their lives were precarious. Zhou Yongshou, the father of five orphans, was one of them.He picks up junk during the day and sells it at night. His life is very hard.After liberation, he joined a scrap company, and with a fixed salary, his life settled down.In 1959, he was transferred to a coal factory as a coal delivery worker. The child's mother joined a paper box factory in the street, and life got better day by day.

The four younger brothers and sisters under Zhou Tongshan were all born after liberation.This hard-working couple had just tasted the sweetness of a happy family. Unfortunately, in 1961, the mother of the child suffered from cholecystitis, and in 1962, Zhou Yongshou himself died of hypertension.The five children who were suddenly orphaned felt like the sky was falling, grieving and terrified!They cried and cried helplessly, feeling that the most miserable situation in the world had fallen on their heads. "At this time, all the neighbors gathered around, comforting this one and hugging that one. Han, the manager of the coal factory where Zhou Yongshou worked, came and sent five hundred yuan for the funeral and support. While attending the funeral, I entrusted the comrades in the office to take care of these children frequently.

"At the meeting of the office, we decided that in addition to not charging rent, water and electricity, the state would also provide the children with free schooling, medical expenses, stationery, and monthly living expenses. I also lived in the same hospital as them. Tian Shuying and other neighbors discussed how to help the children arrange their lives. "Fifteen-year-old Zhou Tongshan was still in middle school at that time. He suddenly took on the burden of a family's life and felt at a loss. He thought that the burden of taking care of his younger siblings was too heavy, so it was better to drop out of school and go to work. I advised him: You have already reached the second year of junior high school. , What a pity to leave it behind. Your parents wanted to study but failed! Today, your conditions are so good, if you don’t study hard, it will be too late to regret in the future. In this way, he gave up the idea of ​​dropping out of school. Graduated from junior high school Later, he was admitted to a substation as a worker and was assigned to a factory in the eastern suburbs. Later, everyone thought that the eastern suburbs were too far away from his home and it was inconvenient to go back and forth, so they tried to transfer him to another factory in the city and assigned him a He is a model worker. Now he can go home every day, be with his siblings, and work very hard. The youngest brother, Tongyi, is also sent to the nearby Dongting Kindergarten and only returns on weekends. But there are times when he can’t pick him up. Because when the parents of other children in the kindergarten came to pick up their own children, they often picked up little Tongyi too.

Last week, Wang Guilan, a medical worker in the factory, took Tongyi home with her child.She bathed Tongyi, cut his hair, washed his clothes, made dumplings for him, and then sent them back to kindergarten together. "Aunt Tian and Aunt Tian Shuying, who live in the same hospital with these five children, have had friendship with the children's parents Zhou Yongshou and his wife for more than 20 years. She told me about the changes in Zhou Yongshou's family before and after liberation: "Zhou Yongshou was a hard-working child. He picked up trash since he was a teenager. At that time, he couldn't take care of the next meal. Zhou Tongshan's upper sister and the lower sister all died of pneumonia because of rashes and couldn't afford the medicine. I often tell my children that you really can’t imagine the hardships of the old society. You don’t even know the hardships of your parents in the past, let alone other things. There used to be an old man in our yard who was single. One person, we got up early one day, and we found him crawling in the snow at the door, dead. Someone came from the patrol cabinet, but we didn’t know where he was buried. Do you think we had no sympathy at that time? At that time, here was In a world where individuals cannibalize people, if you can’t take care of your own life, can you still take care of others? If your parents died before liberation, you five brothers and sisters, you don’t know where you are now!” She talked about Zhou Tongshan’s inability to arrange Life, spending money on random shopping, she said to Tong Shan: "You are the big brother, especially you must learn well, think about the hardships your parents have suffered, and think about the sweetness of today, how happy you are to live in this society, You are not an orphan without your parents. Now you have to think carefully about what you do and what money you spend." She said: "That little boy is smart and naughty. He often quarrels with the children on the street. , I didn’t concentrate on my studies, I also talked about it when I saw it, and sometimes they cried. But after a while, they came again and said, "Auntie, don't be angry, your words are right, we will definitely listen to them." .' Speaking of these children, they are really good, willing to learn, little Tongqing has learned how to make noodles and cook, little Tong will gradually help his brothers and sisters, and Tong Shan can mend clothes and sew socks by himself gone."

There are relatives everywhere. We came to the home of five children. The houses faced north and south, and the warm sunlight penetrated through the large glass windows.The bedding on the bed was tidy, photos and New Year pictures were hung on the wall, and books were piled on the table. The little fellow who is usually very lively and mischievous came, but now he was shy.The enthusiastic little Tong He, however, held our hands tightly all the time, showed us many gifts they received, and insisted on keeping us for dinner.When she knew she couldn't keep us, she reluctantly joined her brothers and sisters and sent us to the door, smiling and shouting, beckoning us to come often!

The first time I saw Zhou Tongshan was in the reception room of his factory.This smiling young man couldn't help but thank Comrade Yang, the factory party committee sitting next to us, and said how he cared about everything about his life and study.He also talked about how the comrades in the group who studied with him often came to his house to help him with some housework.He especially likes Master Sun Quande who is only ten years older than him. In his own words: "Our relationship is very good!" Tongqing's teacher, Zhang Shaohua, the fifth grade head teacher of Wenchanggong Primary School, has cared for her since the death of Tongqing's mother.Because Xiao Tongqing had to take care of her sick father, Teacher Zhang specially arranged for her to go home and take care of her father during the fourth class.The teacher also arranged a very good study group, went to her home to help her study, buy vegetables, and cook.

Comrade Cui Chengjing, the teacher of Xiaotong, is a very careful educator.When he was teaching a Chinese lesson "Memories of an Orphan", he called his colleagues aside in advance and told him how orphans in the old and new societies were different.Under the care of the party and the government, orphans and children with parents will grow up equally happily. He also educates the classmates who come with them to do more to help and care for them.Once there was a party in the class, and a little classmate kept an apple he had been given and quietly stuffed it into the arms of the classmate.Tonglai is an active child, he often loses concentration in class, and his homework is sloppy. In this regard, Teacher Cui is very strict with him, and also warns him not to waste books and notebooks, saying that a penny of the country , are all obtained by the people's labor and cannot be wasted casually.

Comrade Li Heping, a 20-year-old young teacher, is Xiao Tonghe's teacher. She is afraid that Tonghe will not be able to do her homework when she goes home, so she keeps Tonghe in school for self-study after school every day, and sends her home at night.When the weather was cold, she didn't forget to buy a mask and facial oil for Xiao Tonghe.The old school worker at the gate, among the children who came in, kept an eye out to see if Xiao Tonghe had arrived. He didn't see her for a day, as if he had a disease in his heart. Little Tongyi has more dimples on his smiling face than his older brothers and sisters.When the teacher of Dongting Kindergarten gently lifted the quilt and showed us the resting little face of Tongyi, he opened a pair of big eyes and smiled at us.

Kindergarten teachers have taken the burden of taking care of the little ones from the shoulders of their brothers and sisters. This is a burden of cultivating socialist successors!I wrote about these feelings when they grew up, in the report "Our Five Children" published in the magazine in June 1964. In the past few years, I have interviewed them several times. They all came to see me. In May 1964, they wrote a letter to Chairman Mao, reporting on their life and studies.Not long after, Chairman Mao asked the General Office of the Central Committee to reply, encouraging them to cherish their happy childhood, study hard, exercise well, and prepare to serve socialist construction in the future.On the evening of August 17 of this year, Premier Zhou entrusted his wife, Comrade Deng Yingchao, to send a car to take the five brothers and sisters to the Great Hall of the People, where they attended a banquet welcoming foreign friends and foreign children with the head of the Central Committee.At the end of the banquet, Comrade Deng Yingchao came to them again and told them solemnly, "Chairman Mao cares about you very much, and the Prime Minister sends you his greetings. I hope you will not disappoint the expectations of the people of the whole country, study hard and work hard."

These five orphans grew up under such care.Now the elder brother Tong Shan is the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Beijing Power Supply Bureau, the older sister Tong Qing is a technician at the Beijing Crane Machinery Factory, the younger sister Tong He is the French translator of the Beijing Science and Technology Bureau, and the younger brother Tong Yi graduated from high school last year and went to Tong County, a suburb of Beijing. Jumping in line, the youngest came to work as a platoon leader in the People's Liberation Army. The motherland is advancing, socialism is advancing, and "our five children" are also growing.