WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.680 --> 00:00:06.490 align:center line:-1Interviewer: Hi. Thank you for accepting my interview. Please first tell me when you were born. 2 00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:11.500 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: You don’t need to say the exact year; just the decade will do. 3 00:00:11.510 --> 00:00:13.300 align:center line:-1 I was born in the 1950s. 4 00:00:13.310 --> 00:00:24.390 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Could you tell me where you lived between 1966 and 1976? 5 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:28.040 align:center line:-1 I was in Shandong Province. 6 00:00:28.050 --> 00:00:36.690 align:center line:-1 Originally, it was called Ye County, and now it is Laizhou City, a county-level city of Yantai City. 7 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:44.490 align:center line:-1 I lived in Dongsong Village in Ye County. 8 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:47.590 align:center line:-1 [The characters in the name are] “dong,” [东] as in “east” and “song,” [宋] as in “Song Dynasty.” 9 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:58.590 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Thank you. Since you were born in the 1950s, you should have many memories of the Cultural Revolution. 10 00:00:58.600 --> 00:01:14.490 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: If I limit you to about ten minutes, in other words, during the first ten minutes of the interview, what do you most want to share with us? 11 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:20.390 align:center line:-1 I lived in a remote village in Shandong Province, one of the most grassroots level places. 12 00:01:20.400 --> 00:01:26.090 align:center line:-1 Also, I myself was born into an impoverished peasant family. 13 00:01:26.100 --> 00:01:38.890 align:center line:-1 I experienced the Cultural Revolution from when I was in elementary school – around the fifth grade – up through junior high school and into the second year of high school. 14 00:01:38.900 --> 00:01:50.490 align:center line:-1 When I was in high school, in 1972, Deng Xiaoping started the “right-deviationist reversal-of-verdicts trend”—the so-called “right-deviationist reversal-of-verdicts trend.” 15 00:01:50.500 --> 00:01:57.090 align:center line:-1 So we experienced this trend, as well as its later revival. 16 00:01:57.100 --> 00:02:08.390 align:center line:-1 As for my personal memories, the Cultural Revolution deeply affected rural areas. 17 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:16.890 align:center line:-1 Rural areas were not, as some have said, only mildly impacted by the Cultural Revolution. 18 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:30.740 align:center line:-1 I have memories of the violent struggle, and I also remember some other things happening that were really inhuman. 19 00:02:30.750 --> 00:02:39.020 align:center line:-1 What left the deepest impression on me was the Dongsong Middle School located at the east end of the village. 20 00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:48.290 align:center line:-1 At that time, there was a Dongsong Middle School, which was actually a high school. 21 00:02:48.300 --> 00:02:55.750 align:center line:-1 We had a teaching director who was struggled against by his students not long after the Cultural Revolution started. 22 00:02:55.760 --> 00:03:03.890 align:center line:-1 After several struggle meetings, he chose to hang himself. 23 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:29.990 align:center line:-1 I was a middle school student at that time; upon hearing the news, I ran with some neighbors and kids to the scene to see him. 24 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:48.990 align:center line:-1 As I watched, some people released his dead body from the tree and covered it with a piece of newspaper, on which they wrote in large characters, “[Because he] killed himself to avoid the punishments from the people, even death is not enough.” 25 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:54.790 align:center line:-1 Up until now, these horrifying memories are still very clear. 26 00:03:54.800 --> 00:04:06.690 align:center line:-1 At my elementary and middle schools, I also had classmates who rebelled -- especially against the teachers. 27 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:10.990 align:center line:-1 My class monitor at the time had the surname "Cheng." 28 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:13.990 align:center line:-1 One time Teacher Cheng came to my house. 29 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:23.790 align:center line:-1 I was always a child who studied hard; when the Cultural Revolution began, I didn’t participate and became what was called a “bystander.” 30 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:34.090 align:center line:-1 Teacher Cheng visited my home and said to my mom, “Your child is a good boy; don’t let him go bad and rebel like the other kids.” 31 00:04:34.100 --> 00:04:40.290 align:center line:-1 Teacher Cheng was struggled against many times by my classmates. 32 00:04:40.300 --> 00:04:50.390 align:center line:-1 During the struggle meetings, we all pumped our fists in the air and chanted the slogan “Down with so-and-so.” 33 00:04:50.400 --> 00:04:58.140 align:center line:-1 We started from “Down with Liu Shaoqi!”, “Down with Deng Xiaoping!” and continued level by level, from top to bottom -- from the leaders in our village, 34 00:04:58.150 --> 00:05:10.190 align:center line:-1 to the team leader, to the teachers at our school. 35 00:05:10.200 --> 00:05:23.690 align:center line:-1 I have a middle school classmate whose father was a disabled serviceman. He had once fought in North Korea. 36 00:05:23.700 --> 00:05:32.090 align:center line:-1 Because he has this particular identity, his words always had power in our village. 37 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:44.490 align:center line:-1 When the Cultural Revolution started, he joined the rebellion as well, seizing power from the village leaders and secretaries. 38 00:05:44.500 --> 00:05:50.390 align:center line:-1 Later, as the Cultural Revolution went on, he was beaten down by another faction. 39 00:05:50.400 --> 00:05:55.290 align:center line:-1 We students went along to attend the struggle meetings, his son included. 40 00:05:55.300 --> 00:06:03.490 align:center line:-1 His son was in the same class as I was, and he also pumped his fist in the air and chanted slogans to bring down his father. 41 00:06:03.500 --> 00:06:15.040 align:center line:-1 If he hadn’t, it would have been hard for him to survive at school. 42 00:06:15.050 --> 00:06:22.490 align:center line:-1 I also have memories about the violent struggles. In our village, peasants were also divided into two factions. 43 00:06:22.500 --> 00:06:48.190 align:center line:-1 One had a larger number of people. Its counterpart was associated with a large work unit for a state-run enterprise. 44 00:06:48.200 --> 00:07:06.090 align:center line:-1 One night, all of a sudden there was a rumor in the village that people from the state-run unit were coming with trucks full of people to massacre the mainstream faction in our village. 45 00:07:06.100 --> 00:07:11.590 align:center line:-1 Ordinary people were probably going to be caught up in it and hurt as well. 46 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:17.270 align:center line:-1 So every household was told to close their doors to prevent ordinary people from being hurt. 47 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:19.990 align:center line:-1 I followed [the others] to close the doors. 48 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:28.990 align:center line:-1 Even now, I still remember how my heart was pounding. 49 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.890 align:center line:-1 So, in my impression, the Cultural Revolution – 50 00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:33.590 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: -- also came to your village. 51 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:37.590 align:center line:-1 Yes, disasters also impacted our remote village. 52 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:40.990 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: How far was your village from the county seat? 53 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:43.770 align:center line:-1 20 li. [6.2 miles] 54 00:07:43.780 --> 00:07:47.210 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Fairly close, right? 55 00:07:47.220 --> 00:07:55.990 align:center line:-1 But at that time, a distance of 20 li [6.2 miles] still created a natural feeling of isolation. 56 00:07:56.000 --> 00:08:03.770 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: The rebellions you talked about, such as the clash of the two factions, were all spontaneous among the local people, right? 57 00:08:03.780 --> 00:08:08.980 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: As far as you remember, were there outside influences that came in? 58 00:08:08.990 --> 00:08:16.540 align:center line:-1 As I remember, [the only outside influences] might be the high school students who came to our middle school to “network.” 59 00:08:16.550 --> 00:08:21.090 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: They were all local students? They didn’t have any influence from the national “networking”? 60 00:08:21.100 --> 00:08:26.890 align:center line:-1 Some Red Guards among the high school students went to Beijing to “network.” 61 00:08:26.900 --> 00:08:32.090 align:center line:-1 And there were a few who had received Chairman Mao’s inspection at Tiananmen Square. 62 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:34.790 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: [Laughs.] They carried back the “sparks of revolution”! 63 00:08:34.800 --> 00:08:37.890 align:center line:-1 After they came back, they became the famous people of the time. 64 00:08:37.900 --> 00:08:43.290 align:center line:-1 They were giving talks everywhere you looked, reporting on what they saw and heard at Tiananmen Square. 65 00:08:43.300 --> 00:08:51.190 align:center line:-1 Actually, none of them got the chance to shake hands with Chairman Mao. 66 00:08:51.200 --> 00:09:01.490 align:center line:-1 Still, just because they went to Tiananmen Square and saw Chairman Mao, they seemed to become heroes and came back [to the village] to do propaganda work. 67 00:09:01.500 --> 00:09:09.670 align:center line:-1 I don’t have any impressions of outsiders coming to agitate our local villagers, only those of high schoolers coming to the middle school to agitate. 68 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:11.850 align:center line:-1 It truly had an effect. 69 00:09:11.860 --> 00:09:16.990 align:center line:-1 I have another interesting memory about the time when we were making “big-character posters” about our teachers. 70 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:20.890 align:center line:-1 When we first starting putting up “big-character posters,” we needed paste. At that time, 71 00:09:20.900 --> 00:09:30.690 align:center line:-1 food in the village was in short supply, so teachers called on us to “economize when making revolution.” 72 00:09:30.700 --> 00:09:35.490 align:center line:-1 That was also a slogan during the Cultural Revolution. How did we do this? 73 00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:44.510 align:center line:-1 Well, although actively participating in the Cultural Revolution and making “big-character posters” was correct, -- which our teachers had no choice but to emphasize – 74 00:09:44.520 --> 00:09:51.490 align:center line:-1 [they also reminded us] we shouldn’t use paste, since it was made from wheat. 75 00:09:51.500 --> 00:10:13.090 align:center line:-1 So, based on the teachers’ suggestion, we got mud from the pond at the end of the village to use as paste for the “big-character posters.” 76 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:14.590 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Did it work? 77 00:10:14.600 --> 00:10:27.890 align:center line:-1 Yes, it did. But even a gentle breeze would blow it away, leaving blotches of mud on the walls throughout our village. 78 00:10:27.900 --> 00:10:36.890 align:center line:-1 So, that was us writing “big-character posters” and “economizing when making revolution” – totally ridiculous. 79 00:10:36.900 --> 00:10:46.990 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Thank you very much for sharing these stories of your local situation. 80 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.980 align:center line:-1 There’s more! I just want to say a few more sentences. 81 00:10:50.990 --> 00:11:02.180 align:center line:-1 Even among the peasants, there were cases where family members belonged to different factions, making the family relationship very anxiety-ridden. 82 00:11:02.190 --> 00:11:08.040 align:center line:-1 [For example], the wife belonged to one faction, while the husband belonged to another, and the couple didn’t talk at home. 83 00:11:08.050 --> 00:11:14.490 align:center line:-1 The Cultural Revolution mobilized people, indeed! 84 00:11:14.500 --> 00:11:22.490 align:center line:-1 What Chairman Mao said at that time truly corresponded with the reality. 85 00:11:22.500 --> 00:11:28.630 align:center line:-1 The masses were mobilized, which [I think] was a saddening social phenomenon. 86 00:11:28.640 --> 00:11:31.000 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Thank you.
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