Chapter 2 Chapter two

Keep the motherland in mind, look to the world - this is the slogan in big red letters pasted on both sides of Chairman Mao's portrait above the blackboard in our classroom.It proves the clear and lofty sense of mission in the ideology of our generation of middle school students. At the age of seventeen, I have just experienced three years of "natural disasters", my body is stunted, and I have not grown to 1.6 meters.Although the swelling caused by eating wild vegetables has subsided, the impression of hunger is engraved on the cerebral cortex.A head that thought she was mature was carried on her thin and thin shoulders like a slender girl.The whole of China and the whole world are contained in it.It seemed ready to burst at any moment with a burst of zeal and passion.

Chen Jiaquan leveled the world record in 100 meters - Tens of thousands of people from more than 40 states in the United States demonstrated in front of the White House to support the Vietnamese people's just struggle against the United States - learn from Ouyang Hai! - Learn from Wang Jie! ——Learn from Iron Warrior Mai Xiande! ——Learn from Comrade Jiao Yulu! ——Learn from Nguyen Van Tui, the good son of the Vietnamese people! ——Learn from the good daughter of the Vietnamese people, Sister Zhen! --Participate in a rally against the "Japan-Korea Treaty" --Participate in a rally celebrating the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam --Participate in the imitation of the clay sculpture of "Rent Collection Yard" and devoutly accept the class education of reminiscing bitterness and sweetness -- learning Supporting agriculture in Dazhai——Learning from Daqing to support labor——Learning from the army is always ready to severely attack the American imperialist aggressors who dare to invade——Learning from Li Suwen, striving to be a model for learning and using Chairman Mao’s works...

"Vietnam - China, mountains and mountains, water and water, dear comrades and brothers...!" "Beijing - Tirana, China - Albania, city of heroes, country of heroes..." "The volcano in Latin America is erupting, American imperialism is dying..." "I am a black girl, my home is in black Africa, black Africa, black Africa, the night is endless..." Or every three days, or every five days, we will have extremely solemn and sacred reasons to sing loudly. On the huge publicity boards in the city, there are oil paintings of Chairman Mao and Comrade Enver Hoxha standing side by side; oil paintings of Chairman Mao and Chairman Ho Chi Minh shaking hands cordially; Soviet modern revisionism", "Sino-Arab friendship last forever", "U.S. imperialism must be defeated, Vietnam must win", "Never forget class struggle" and other slogans.

Ruan Wenzhui and Zhenjie replaced the images of Zoya and Shula in our hearts. Together with our Republic, I closely follow the situation of the proletarian revolutionary movement and the struggle against imperialism and revisionism all over the world.I don’t mind at all that our republic only gives me a meat ticket for five taels of meat every month; The corn hawthorns and corn noodles bought home from the grain store are often worm-infested; I don’t mind finishing my homework by candlelight because I can’t buy light bulbs for a while; I don’t mind eating sour because I can’t buy flour soda for a while Steamed buns made of hard one-third white flour; do not mind that our new home was built by housewives during the Great Leap Forward under the inspiration of the slogan "One day is equal to twenty years". Silver frost, rain leakage in summer, and dampness on the wall skin.Don't mind everything. "Recalling bitterness and thinking about sweetness" has had a very successful educational effect on me.There is a large-scale clay sculpture of "The Rent Collection Courtyard" that shows Kubi, which is vivid, specific and profound.Supplemented with various other activities of "remembering bitterness and thinking about sweetness", I have absolutely no reason to complain about our republic, or doubt my happiness of being born under the red flag and growing up in New China.

From a primary school student to a middle school student, it seems that there are endless sports waiting for me to participate in, and there are dead or living heroes, models, advanced figures, and advanced figures who can never finish learning, asking me to learn one after another.I never get tired of it.I think the true meaning of life is all reflected in me. From the first grade to the sixth grade of elementary school, I only participated in the sports that I will never forget three times: the big iron and steel smelting campaign-I donated a small iron pot at home to the school, so that my mother could only use a big one in the future. The pot cooks and stir-fries.Realize the communism movement - my classmates and I formed a propaganda group to publicize that unmanned ticket vending on buses and in pilot stores is the first step to realize communism.Criticize education by catching those who get out of the car without consciously putting money in the cash box or swaggering out of the store with their items.I hate those people.It is entirely because their consciousness is too low, which hinders communism, so that communism cannot be realized for a long time.Before long those pilot buses and pilot shops were canceled altogether.Because although our citizens are happy that there is no one selling tickets on the bus, and they are happy to "take what they need" from the store, it is difficult to form a good habit of putting their own money into the cash box when no one is watching.Although we spare no effort to publicize that this good habit can bring them into the ideal kingdom of communism, most of them still refuse to realize it.A good chance at communism was over.My classmates and I were sad and disappointed and wept angrily.Pupa-digging campaign - it was a battle in the "People's War" against the "Four Pests".All the students in the school lined up to beat gongs and drums, sang the song "Eliminate the Four Pests", and marched out of the campus in a mighty manner. With the class as the lineup, they surrounded public toilets one by one and started the "War of Annihilation".The slogan proposed was loud and combative - "Dig out a chrysalis, which is equivalent to digging out a hidden class enemy." This is a great slogan.Because it contains a flexible formula.If you find a typo in your homework and correct it, it is tantamount to discovering a class enemy and eliminating it.Or it is equivalent to eliminating an American devil and supporting the liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people.Later, when I went to work in the countryside in junior high school, it evolved into getting rid of a weed, which was equivalent to getting rid of a class enemy.Conversely, if a seedling is hoeed, it is naturally equivalent to killing a comrade in arms by going off on the battlefield.I remember very clearly that during a labor trip to the countryside, a myopic female student in our class went down with a hoe and knocked down a piece of seedling.The students held her criticism meeting, and she explained for herself in a dull manner: "I didn't mean it, I was not concentrating..." The students were all annoyed when they heard it, and they all chattered: "Why are you not concentrating?" ? You have killed a platoon of comrades!" "You are committing a crime! Your hoe is covered with the blood of your comrades!"...As a result, she didn't eat for two days in a row, holding the withered bones she had removed. The seedlings of the old man, crying like rain: "I didn't mean it, I'm sorry to you, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry to you..."

Behaviors based on this way of thinking were innumerable in the later "Cultural Revolution".Thinking about it now, I believe that it is a generation that can be "brought" into almost a model.If you don’t believe me, the country will be closed again, and all babies born in 1987 or 1988 will be given "specialized" education. You can use any doctrine as the content of education, and no doctrine will be "cultivated" after twenty years. What a generation of faithful believers! Ashamed, for a middle school student like me who is very concerned about national and world affairs, I actually got the information about the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" from Uncle Lu who collected junk.

"Hey, look, it's going to be done again!" That day, Uncle Lu stepped into the threshold of my house carelessly and said such a sentence without thinking. Mother, my two brothers and one sister and I are eating around the small kang table.As usual on the table is a bowl of hawthorn seeds for each person, a pot of freshly steamed corn bread, a plate of pickles, a plate of sauce, and a few green onions. The mother held the bowl, looked up at Uncle Lu, and asked unresponsively: "Do you want to clean?" A few days ago, the psychiatric hospital sent me a list of my brother's medical expenses—more than three hundred yuan. My mother couldn't afford the money. She was worried for days, frowning, anxious, and her lips were blistered.

As for me, on the one hand, with the eyes of a middle school student, I followed the Vietnamese people’s just war to resist the United States and save the nation and the hard struggle of the Lankao people to rebuild their homeland after the death of Comrade Jiao Yulu. At the intersection of earning money for the family, he hesitated.I knew my mother had no enthusiasm for the sanitation campaign that the neighborhood committee conducts every spring. "Old sister-in-law, let me tell you that Chairman Mao is going to engage in sports again! All major events in the world must be divided if they are united for a long time, and they must be united if they are divided for a long time." Uncle Lu spoke eloquently and his tone was very solemn, like a great politician.

"Don't talk nonsense, people should think that you are creating political rumors and disturbing people's hearts!" His mother kindly warned him. "Hey, old sister-in-law, I am a person who made a mistake and was fired from public office. Do I still dare to create political rumors? I received a roll of newspapers today, and one of them was "Beijing Daily", which published a large-page critical article! May 7 Didn’t the movement in 2010 start from the newspapers first?” "Oh..." My mother sighed a long time, and replied absent-mindedly: "It is going to be done again, and that is something Chairman Mao and his old man should worry about. He thinks it should be done, so let him do it..." As soon as the subject changed, he asked, "He, Uncle Lu, can you borrow some money for me? Your eldest nephew's hospital expenses..."

"This..." Uncle Lu pondered for a moment, and comforted him, "I'll help you find a way, find a way. Don't worry, there must be a way for the car to reach the mountain... I think Sanjia Village is doomed!" "Another disaster in the countryside?" Mother sighed again, and said in a tone of concern for the country and the people: "There are so many big cadres in the central government, and no one has suggested to Chairman Mao and his old man, don't engage in sports, first It's a disaster!" "It's not the countryside but another place was hit by a disaster. The Sanjia village I'm talking about is Wu Nanxing's village..." Uncle Lu's spittle spattered my face, and I was embarrassed to wipe it off.

"What star? Isn't the Communist Party against superstition? They still talk about astrology?" Mother was more and more confused by Uncle Lu's explanation, and she looked at Uncle Lu blankly, thinking he was drunk again. Uncle Lu was indeed drinking, but I could see that he was not drunk. "You didn't understand after listening to it for a long time! Wu Nanxing is a person who wrote a book called "Yanshan Evening Chat". The newspaper criticized it as a book that promotes bourgeois ideology!..." Uncle Lu tried hard to make me uneducated. My mother knew and believed that a serious political movement was about to begin. "Evening Chats in Yanshan was not written by Wu Nanxing, but by Deng Tuo." I corrected Uncle Lu's words. I have read "Evening Chats in Yanshan". I have also read "Notes from Three Family Village".These two collections of miscellaneous essays, following the publication of Qin Mu's "Yi Hai Picking Shells", have been highly valued by junior high school and high school students who love literature, and they are eagerly circulated.It has become an ironic phrase among many of my classmates.But I didn't know at the time that Deng Tuo was the head of the Propaganda Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, nor did I know that "Wu Nanxing" was the pseudonym of Deng Tuo, Wu Han, and Liao Mosha.I always thought Deng Tuo and "Wu Nanxing" were two writers. "What are you talking about, a child!" Uncle Lu reprimanded me because I pointed out his mistakes. I didn't argue with him, I didn't eat, I put down the cornbread in my hand, left home, went to his house, and found the "Beijing Daily" in a pile of old newspapers that made Uncle Lu make a prophecy to my mother. ". Sure enough, the banner title of the first edition was "Criticism on "Notes from Sanjia Village" and "Evening Talks at Yanshan"", and the large article with a lot of words took up three pages! That newspaper was dated April 16th. I was eagerly browsing through the article, when Uncle Lu left my house at some point and stood in front of Uncle Jiang’s window, saying loudly: “Brother Jiang, I have read the April 16th edition of the Beijing Daily.” Is it?" "I don't even subscribe to the Harbin Evening News, where can I read the Beijing Daily?" Uncle Jiang's answer came from Uncle Jiang's house. "I have a copy, you can look at it later!" "Don't look, I don't have that much time to spare!" "Brother Ma, is Brother Ma at home?" Uncle Lu moved to the window of Ma's house again. "What's the matter? You're yelling all over the house?" In front of the window of Ma's house, Uncle Ma's tall and thin body appeared. "You big intellectual, you must be someone who cares about politics, right? Have you read the April 16th issue of the Beijing Daily?" "I've seen it." Uncle Ma remained calm. "What advice do you have? Is there another political movement going on?" Uncle Lu finally found someone who might have a common language, and sat on the window sill of Ma's house. Uncle Ma also pleased him a lot: "No comment, I'm a person who doesn't talk about politics." Uncle Lu tactfully jumped down from the window sill of Ma's house. Uncle Zhang walked out of the house and said jokingly, "Why did you Erye Lu become so concerned about politics?" Uncle Lu hehe said: "This question is so unlevel! You don't care about politics if you collect the rags? My second master, thanks to Chairman Mao and his old man, can still hang out in our socialist family after losing his public office. It’s too heartless not to care about politics while eating, isn’t it?” Uncle Zhang continued to tease: "Don't pretend to be positive, if there is another sport, maybe you will be taken along for a whole day!" "Fuck me?" Uncle Lu's voice became even louder: "Even if my second master Lu is not a legitimate working class now, he hasn't been expelled from the proletarian ranks, right? At least everyone has to admit that I am still a rogue proletarian ! As long as I still stick to the side of the proletariat, Chairman Mao and his elders will never have the heart to deal with me!" "Okay! That makes sense!" Uncle Zhang laughed. Aunt Lu walked from the house to the window of Ma's house, grabbed Uncle Lu's arm and pulled him back, saying, "Go back! Go back! After taking a few mouthfuls of horse urine, we just went here and there. Idle, isn't it annoying?" Uncle Lu was about to come back after being dragged away. Seeing that I was still holding the copy of "Beijing Daily" in a daze, he muttered regretfully: "You are the only one who cares about politics in the whole hospital! Fortunately, our hospital is still a 'four good' hospital!" Uncle Jiang followed and said, "Come on! Talk about politics and keep your mouth shut, as if you are a member of the Politburo! You no longer get drunk and use kitchen knives and axes, and you are the biggest highlight of politics! Chess, today I put my heart and soul into killing a few games with you, I don't believe that I can't win a game with you!" "Win me? Brother Jiang, you're still very tender!" Uncle Lu's spirits lifted, and the center of excitement shifted immediately. So they played chess. After a while, the ensemble of clarinet and trumpet came from the Ma family: the episode in the movie "Guest on the Iceberg" - "Why Are Flowers So Red". And my mother, who is full of worries in her heart, is already sitting in the yard with the women of the aunt's generation, looking to them for comfort and sympathy. I still hold that copy of "Beijing Daily", sitting in the pile of old newspapers in Lu's house and thinking: Is this critical article in the newspaper really a signal?Is a serious political movement really on the horizon?I don't believe in the prophecy of Uncle Lu, who collects rags.The newspaper on April 16th, that day is already April 21st, hasn't anything happened in these few days? "Why Are Flowers So Red" was played over and over again.It was the best piece played by Uncle Ma and Uncle Dou. As for the two "writers" Deng Tuo and Wu Han, I secretly feel sorry for them.In comparison, I knew the name Wu Han earlier.Because I have also read "Stories of Spring and Autumn" and "Stories of Warring States" written by him.Judging from that article, the criticisms against them are well-founded and difficult to refute.My two favorite books turned out to be books promoting the bourgeois world outlook and way of life!My regret is not only for their mistakes, but also for my own being cheated. "Jiang! You have no solution to death!" Suddenly, Uncle Lu shouted with joy of victory. The evening breeze of spring blows.The old elm tree in the yard swayed gently with fat and tender elms.The moon rose inadvertently.Sprinkle the moonlight like water generously on our compound.The men, women and children in the yard, who have been bored all winter, seem to be particularly reluctant to stay at home on this beautiful night. The two chess fans started a new game, and Uncle Zhang came to the side at some point, yelling and making random moves. Mother's uncomfortable laughter came from among the women. I haven't heard my mother laugh for a long time. Even Uncle Sun, who is usually not so gregarious, stepped out of the house and said to himself: "It's so lively in the courtyard tonight!" After speaking, he turned and entered the house.After a while, I moved a chair and came out again, sitting at the door of my house, holding a semiconductor in my hand, wearing earplugs, and I don't know what program to listen to alone. My two younger brothers, one younger sister and other children in the yard gathered outside the window of Ma's house, listening to the clarinet and trumpet ensemble. The melody of "Why Are Flowers So Red" echoed in the courtyard. At that time, I never imagined that that night was the last harmonious, friendly, peaceful and happy night spent by all the families in our hospital. That unforgettable night is still in my memory...