Daughter of Good Fortune: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Peasant Memoir

by Chen Huiqin

  On September 30, 1972, Father did not get out of bed at all. That was the only day in which he did not leave his bed. Before this, I would help him get up in the morning. I would get him water and he would wash his face and rinse his mouth. He would then lie down on a makeshift bed in a cool, breezy spot in our house during the day. That morning, he had become very weak. I sat at his bedside. He told me that something inside his stomach was exploding. I used my hands to stroke his stomach area. I wished I could take away some of his pain.

  By late afternoon, Father said that he was feeling hot and asked me to help take off a knitted wool vest he was wearing. I did so. Right after that, he gasped for air and passed away.

  I realized that the last request Father had made in his life was not due to feeling hot, but because he knew that after he passed away, the knitted vest would have to be cut open in order to be removed. Once a knitted piece of clothing was cut, the wool thread was no longer useful. In the last moment of his life, Father thought of saving the wool thread of the vest he was wearing.

  Again, the world had fallen apart for me. I cried and screamed, “Diedie, Diedie” and passed out.

  This was still during the Cultural Revolution and all traditional funeral practices were forbidden. Father had performed many funeral services for others in his earlier life. Yet the one for him was void of any formal rituals and of incense and spirit money—the most basic funeral ritual items.

  Father’s life was cut short by the cancer. After Father passed away, I wished that his ghost would haunt the rebel leader in the soy-sauce/chemical fertilizer factory and make him suffer.

  My father had been in charge of the family finances. Before he passed away, he took out all the bank deposit certificates and gave them to me. Altogether it was more than seven hundred yuan, a lot of money at the time.

  NOTES

  1 See chapter 2 for more information on the Ji brothers. According to Jiading Xianzhi, during the Movement to Cleanse the Class Ranks, 430 people were accused of being Jifei agents and thirteen people in the county died as a result of the accusations. Jiading Xianzhi [Annals of Jiading County] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992), 625.

  2 The sexagenary cycle derives from Heavenly Stems, which are associated with yin and yang and Five Elements, and Earthly Branches, which are connected with the Chinese zodiac. Since the first Heavenly Stem is jia and the first Earthly Branch is zi, the cycle is known as a jiazi. A jiazi is also popularly known to be a full lifespan.

  8

  Reaching beyond Peasant Life

  WHEN my husband was condemned as a counterrevolutionary, I was the warehouse keeper of our production team. Ever since the establishment of the high-stage cooperative in our village, I had been in that position. After my husband was condemned, I became worried that this position made me more vulnerable to unreasonable charges. Somebody could deliberately sabotage the warehouse and put the blame on me because I was now the dependent of a counterrevolutionary and had the motivation to harm collective property. So I talked to the team leader and begged him to replace me with someone else. At first he refused, saying that he trusted me. A little bit later, he was told by the brigade that I should be replaced. I was really thankful when I was relieved of the responsibility.

  The person who replaced me as warehouse keeper ran into problems, and she resigned. The same thing happened to the second one. They complained about the non-stop responsibilities, on the one hand, such as having to open the warehouse when somebody needed to get pig-feed grain during off-work hours. On the other hand, villagers complained about the warehouse keeper’s failure to take care of harvested crops whenever there were instances of rotten grain because it had not been dried properly in sunny weather.

  When the warehouse was under my care, I also ran into such problems. Yet I dealt with the problems differently. First, I did not complain about the responsibility of having to work during off-work hours. I was nice to the people who needed to get the pig-feed grain they deserved. Second, I tried my best to take advantage of sunny weather to dry harvested grain. There were still instances of rotten grain, but most people showed their understanding. If a few complained, I did not react emotionally. I understood that harvested grain was the result of collective sweat and it hurt to see the stores become rotten.

  When the Jifei event was over, the team leader begged me to take over the warehouse again. The warehouse keeper at the time was reacting strongly to complaints and most people were not happy with her. I thanked the team leader for his trust but told him that I did not want to do it. I said to the team leader that now that I no longer had my mother’s help, I was needed at home and did not have the time and energy to do a good job as the warehouse keeper. I also said that I had served already and that there were many capable people in the team who could do the job.

  The team leader then called a meeting of all adults in the production team. At the meeting, he asked people to nominate a warehouse keeper. Many people nominated me. I thanked them and explained why I could not accept the nomination. The team leader then asked for an open vote at the meeting. He said, “All those who want Linshe to be the warehouse keeper, raise your hand.” Everybody present at the meeting raised his/her hand. Taking care of the warehouse thus became my responsibility again. I served in the position until the Family Responsibility System was introduced to our production team. Under the Family Responsibility System, the warehouse was no longer necessary, because each family took care of its own harvested crops.

  One year after I took over the warehouse-keeping job again, I encountered a serious problem. That year, our production team was required to send a certain number of able-bodied people to a river-widening project sponsored by the commune. Normally, such a project was popular because it was in a slack season and an opportunity for people to earn work-points. This particular time, however, the team leader had difficulty finding enough volunteers for the project. This was in the latter part of the 1970s, and many younger people were working in local industries. Workers for a public project usually brought along their bedding and a cook and stayed at the project. Those who could do so were usually unmarried or did not have children to look after at home.

  That year, to fulfill the quota given to our team, the team leader asked me and three other women to work at the project. The four of us all had children and a house to take care of. Unlike the others, who slept in local people’s guest halls, we came home every night. The project was in the Waigang direction and it took us about forty-five minutes to walk there in the morning and another forty-five minutes to walk home after the day’s work.

  Before I accepted the job at the commune project, I told the team leader that the surplus grain in the warehouse had not been dried enough. I said a few more sunny days were needed to dry it. The team leader and his associates said that the project would take only a couple of weeks and that a couple of weeks would not create a problem.

  While I was away working at the project, it rained a lot. The rain created much dampness on the cement floor inside the warehouse. After the project was over, I immediately went to the warehouse and put my hands into the grain pile. I felt it was warm inside the pile. When I shoveled to the bottom of the pile, I saw that dampness had ruined a thick layer of the grain. I wept and was ready to take the responsibility. But the team leaders comforted me and said that the problem was not due to my negligence. At that time, such incidents had to be reported to the brigade or the commune authorities and those who were responsible would be criticized. But the team leaders did not report this incident to the authorities. They simply threw the rotten grain into the team’s ponds as food for fish.

  SHEZHEN

  When my husband was shut up, my children, particularly Shezhen and Shezhu, who were going to school at the time, were confused. Slogans of “Down with Chen Xianxi” were painted and hung everywhere—on the walls of public buildings such as pig farms, bridges, brigade and commune offices, schools, and stores. Everywhere my children went or look
ed, that was what they saw. They had become “son and daughters of a counterrevolutionary.” While other schoolchildren wore armbands indicating they were Red Guards or Little Red Guards, my children were rejected by such organizations.

  Shezhen went to school intermittently while working in the fields for work-points. One day in the autumn of 1969, she returned home from school very excited. She told me that on her way home through Zhuqiao Town, she had seen sewing machines on sale in a store. She was told that in order to buy the machine, we had to get a letter from the brigade authorities. We also had to use “industrial coupons” for the machine. We had enough industrial coupons for the machine from our rations and from selling pigs. I went to the brigade authorities for the letter. A brigade leader asked me why we needed such a machine and I replied that my elder daughter wanted to learn to sew. He was not happy and asked further why my daughter did not concentrate on schoolwork and instead wanted such an expensive machine. He even lectured me on how to raise a child properly. He said, “Kids are unreasonable. You should not buy what a kid asked you to buy.” I waited in the office patiently. He grudgingly wrote the letter and stamped it with the official brigade seal. I walked out with tears in my eyes. I knew he had treated me this way because of my husband’s status.

  My father and I carried the sewing machine home on a shoulder pole. We did not know anything about the machine. Shezhen read the instructions and started to sew on old cloth. The machine had a foot pedal. When Shezhen first pedaled the machine, it jammed quite often. She had to learn to coordinate her legs and hands.

  One day around the Chinese New Year of 1970, Shezhen tried to take care of a jam by taking off the tiny screw on the bobbin case. The tiny screw dropped from her hand and disappeared. It was so small that we could not find it, even though the whole family helped to look for it. The machine was in our bedroom, where the floor was made of wood planks. We suspected that the screw could have slipped through the cracks and fallen under the wood floor. We took off one plank of the wood floor where Shezhen had dropped the screw, but did not find it there.

  I took Shezhen to a tailor in our village. He worked in a tailor shop in urban Jiading, but was home for the holidays. I thought he might have extra screws to share with us or that he could tell us where to buy one. Surprisingly, he told us that there was no replacement for the screw and that the machine was useless without it. Shezhen cried hard, for we had paid more than 160 yuan for the machine and it had not done anything useful.

  I wondered about what the tailor said. Why would manufacturers not sell replacement screws? It did not sound right. The next day, we went to Zhouqiao Comprehensive Store in Jiading Town. A shop assistant took out a tray of bobbin case screws. Each screw cost three cents. We were so happy that we bought several in case we dropped one again. Shezhen learned to use the machine quickly. She sewed shoe soles at first. Then I cut simple patterns of short underwear and she sewed them together.

  Shezhen graduated from middle school in 1970. There was no high school at the time, so she became a full-time peasant. Working in the fields had proven to be very challenging for her. She did not complain and tried hard. She sweated profusely. In summertime, sweat could soak her clothes entirely, leaving no dry spot. She also attracted bugs like a magnet. In early morning and evening when we worked in the fields, she was bitten so badly that her face was swollen with bug bites. She was also afraid of snakes and leeches. I remember the first time she found a leech hanging on one of her legs. She jumped out of the rice paddy and cried out loudly. Some villagers still remember this incident today. They say, “How could this kid who was frightened by a leech be so daring as to live and work in a foreign country?”

  In 1971, Zhuqiao Commune opened a clothes-making factory. The factory was housed in a confiscated house in Wangjialong. The old house had been renovated and an extension was added to the original house. The new factory was looking for people who had sewing machines or sewing experience. I talked to Shezhen about the factory. When she said that she was interested, I asked the team leader to consider Shezhen as a candidate, and she was recruited into the factory.

  At the time, I had not thought that Shezhen would have any opportunity other than working in the fields. The trade of tailoring at least would keep her away from the harsh labor in the fields. After she entered the factory, I talked to an experienced tailor who was working in the same factory. He agreed to accept Shezhen as his apprentice. I bought some meat and cookies and Shezhen presented them as gifts to recognize this experienced tailor as her master.

  Her work at the clothes-making factory earned work-points. Just as in the production team, her working hours were recorded. Apprentices were assigned lower values for their working hours than those of experienced tailors. They were then paid accordingly at the end of the year. What Shezhen earned from the factory helped to keep us in the black.

  In the clothes-making factory, Shezhen worked on an assembly line, with each person making only a part of a piece of clothing. In her spare time Shezhen learned from her master how to sew together a shirt or a pair of pants. Since the factory had electric sewing machines, she did not have to bring her own machine to work. Her master cut cloth into patterns for her and she sewed them together. Very soon, she was able to sew together the most complicated clothes such as a man’s Zhongshan jacket.

  Shezhen had Sundays off from the factory. On her days off, she followed her master and worked in private homes. At that time, people in our area still depended on homemade cloth for their clothing. Once a year, families asked tailors to their homes and had their clothes made that way. At the customer’s house, while Shezhen’s master measured and cut, she sewed on the machine he carried to the house on his bike. The customer family provided lunch, afternoon snacks, and supper for Shezhen and her master. In addition, the family they worked for paid each of them two yuan for a day of service.

  During the Cultural Revolution, young people from urban areas were sent out to the countryside and two girls from Jiading Town came to our hamlet. In 1973, one of these girls went to the Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute. At that time, those who attended colleges had to be recommended by ordinary people in various walks of life, so college students were called “worker-peasant-soldier students.”

  In 1974, recommendations for colleges were taken again and the clothes factory recommended Shezhen. When she filled out the application form, we told her to put in Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute simply because her friend was there. Because Shezhen was a country girl and had never lived away from home, we thought it would be better for her to go to a place where she already knew somebody. For her choice of a major, her father said that the English language was used by many countries. So although her friend majored in Spanish, Shezhen put English down as her preferred major.

  Shezhen took a written test at Zhuqiao Commune headquarters. Then she was called to urban Jiading for an interview. Her father accompanied her to the interview, which was conducted by teachers from Shanghai Foreign Languages Institute. In August, a letter informing Shezhen of her enrollment by the Institute was mailed to our home.

  After Shezhen got the letter, she decided to make some shoes for herself. I helped her to prepare materials for the shoe soles. She sewed the shoe tops on the sewing machine, now that she was very good at using it. She learned to make “hundred-layer” shoe soles, which were the best kind but the most time-consuming. We used homemade paste to stick a few pieces of cloth together. When the cloth was dry, we cut it into pieces according to the pattern of her shoe sole. Then she used the sewing machine to sew pure white cloth onto each layer of the hardened cloth. These layers were then stacked up and stitched together into thick soles. While ordinary hand-stitched shoe soles did not show layers, the shoe soles she made clearly showed the layers, many of them. So they were called shoes with “hundred-layer” soles. The two pairs Shezhen made, with my help, were indeed very pretty. Onto the “hundred-layer” shoe soles she sewed pure black Venetian cloth, manufactured
particularly as shoe-top material. Shezhen wore the shoes she made with her own hands in college.

  My husband asked somebody from Chengdong Commune to drive Shezhen and her bedding to the Institute and he went with her. Shezhen became the first college student in our family. I thought of my father then, wishing that he had lived to see Shezhen go to college. When Father heard that colleges were recruiting students again, he had said to Shezhen, “You should go to college, instead of being a tailor for life.” Father believed in Shezhen’s potential as a student and wanted her to get as much education as possible.

  In college, the government provided Shezhen with grain coupons and a stipend. She was able to save money from the stipend to pay her bus fare for weekend visits home. But Shezhen told me that after evening studies and before she went to bed, she was always hungry. Sometimes she and her roommates would go out to a small convenience store and buy the cheapest food, such as pickled turnip, to eat. After I heard this, I thought of ways to prepare her some snack food.

  I had raw rice ground to powder at the brigade processing facilities and then I roasted the rice powder on our brick stove over a low fire. I had to be patient because rice powder burned easily. I also roasted sesame seeds harvested on our family plot. I had to find a way to crush the roasted seeds. I thought of the brigade herbal pharmacy, which had a hand grinder that ground dry herbs into powder. The man in charge of the pharmacy learned to be a Daoist priest from the same master as my father did. Because of that relationship, I addressed him as uncle. I explained to him what I needed to do. He gladly helped me clean the grinder, and I used it to grind the roasted sesame seeds.