WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.310 --> 00:00:03.970 align:center line:-1Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview. 2 00:00:03.980 --> 00:00:10.280 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Could you tell us in which decade you were born, such as 1930s, 1940s, etc.? 3 00:00:10.290 --> 00:00:16.150 align:center line:-1 I was born in the 1940s. 4 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:23.960 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Could you tell me where in China you were living between 1966 and 1976? 5 00:00:23.970 --> 00:00:27.180 align:center line:-1 I lived in Guiyang. 6 00:00:27.190 --> 00:00:33.900 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Based on your age, I believe you must have many memories of the Cultural Revolution. 7 00:00:33.910 --> 00:00:41.960 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: If we only give you about ten minutes to speak freely, without organizing your speech too much, 8 00:00:41.970 --> 00:00:47.350 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: ...what memories would you most want to share with us? 9 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:51.260 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Please just speak freely. 10 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:54.550 align:center line:-1 Let me tell you a story. 11 00:00:54.560 --> 00:01:10.030 align:center line:-1 In 1970, my mother worked at Guiyang Xinguan Elementary School, teaching second grade students. 12 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:24.400 align:center line:-1 One afternoon, two teachers from the school came to my home and said my mom had written a reactionary slogan, 13 00:01:24.410 --> 00:01:29.510 align:center line:-1 and as a result, she was being held at Xinguan Elementary School. 14 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:43.700 align:center line:-1 People from the school asked us to send some bedding and clothes to her. 15 00:01:43.710 --> 00:01:54.990 align:center line:-1 I said OK. When the two people left, I told my younger brother: 16 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:10.580 align:center line:-1 the Six Regulations of Public Security indicated that anyone who attacked Chairman Mao and Vice Chairman Lin was a counter-revolutionary. 17 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:23.720 align:center line:-1 My mom taught second-year Chinese. She intended to write “Down with Liu Shaoqi,” 18 00:02:23.730 --> 00:02:27.880 align:center line:-1 but she mistakenly wrote it as “Down with Chairman Mao.” 19 00:02:27.890 --> 00:02:34.090 align:center line:-1 But she erased it right away. 20 00:02:34.100 --> 00:02:35.960 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: It was just an accident, right? 21 00:02:35.970 --> 00:02:38.210 align:center line:-1 Yeah – so she just erased it. 22 00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:46.990 align:center line:-1 The result was, an eight-year-old child told this to his older brother. 23 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:54.360 align:center line:-1 His brother and I were both apprentices at the same tractor factory, and we knew each other quite well. 24 00:02:54.370 --> 00:03:02.990 align:center line:-1 It was him [the older brother] who reported my mother’s reactionary slogan to the principal. 25 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:18.700 align:center line:-1 So the principal called the District Education Bureau and locked my mom up. 26 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:25.520 align:center line:-1 I said to my younger brother that this was not a small thing. 27 00:03:25.530 --> 00:03:29.660 align:center line:-1 It was a counter-revolutionary crime, which would lead to an arrest. 28 00:03:29.670 --> 00:03:34.130 align:center line:-1 [I told him] we should fight to release mom today. 29 00:03:34.140 --> 00:03:39.630 align:center line:-1 After all, she did not write any confession. 30 00:03:39.640 --> 00:03:45.500 align:center line:-1 Let us take her back and definitely not admit [the crime]. 31 00:03:45.510 --> 00:03:55.540 align:center line:-1 When we arrived at the school, it was already dark. 32 00:03:55.550 --> 00:04:01.290 align:center line:-1 The principal saw us and asked, “Why didn’t you bring anything [for your mother]?” 33 00:04:01.300 --> 00:04:20.980 align:center line:-1 My brother said, “We are here to take our mom back. Do you hear us? We will fight you to the death if you dare to say another word.” 34 00:04:20.990 --> 00:04:25.370 align:center line:-1 We escorted our mom out while cursing [the school leaders]. 35 00:04:25.380 --> 00:04:33.700 align:center line:-1 Even the principal did not dare to stop us. 36 00:04:33.710 --> 00:04:38.640 align:center line:-1 The two teachers standing beside [the principal] knew us well, 37 00:04:38.650 --> 00:04:44.010 align:center line:-1 and did not try to stop us, so we just took our mom back home. 38 00:04:44.020 --> 00:04:55.610 align:center line:-1 I told my mother, “Since [the slogan] was erased anyway, there was no longer any evidence. You could just say you never wrote [those words].” 39 00:04:55.620 --> 00:04:58.260 align:center line:-1 And later, this incident suddenly – 40 00:04:58.270 --> 00:04:59.440 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: -- just faded away? 41 00:04:59.450 --> 00:05:01.820 align:center line:-1 -- just faded away, right. 42 00:05:01.830 --> 00:05:10.020 align:center line:-1 Although it happened 46 years ago, I still remember it very clearly. 43 00:05:10.030 --> 00:05:14.520 align:center line:-1 In an uncivilized society, barbarous ways sometimes work effectively. 44 00:05:14.530 --> 00:05:25.980 align:center line:-1 If I had not fought to make them release my mother, the next day when she signed the confession, 45 00:05:25.990 --> 00:05:33.190 align:center line:-1 at the very least it would have said [she] had committed a counter-revolutionary crime. 46 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:34.910 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Is your mother still alive? 47 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:40.470 align:center line:-1 She is dead. If she were still alive, she would be 100 years old. 48 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:46.440 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: So when the Cultural Revolution decade is mentioned, this is the first thing you think of – saving your mother. 49 00:05:46.450 --> 00:05:52.250 align:center line:-1 Yes. I want to tell you another story. 50 00:05:52.260 --> 00:06:13.400 align:center line:-1 In 1966, I worked as an apprentice at XX, my younger brother was training in a chemical factory at XX. 51 00:06:13.410 --> 00:06:28.540 align:center line:-1 My brother is now in the United States and is already 60 years old. 52 00:06:28.550 --> 00:06:39.460 align:center line:-1 I also have a younger sister. 53 00:06:39.470 --> 00:06:50.930 align:center line:-1 At that time, my brother was 14. In March of 1966, my father retired. 54 00:06:50.940 --> 00:06:56.940 align:center line:-1 But in May, his former work unit asked him to come to participate in the Cultural Revolution. 55 00:06:56.950 --> 00:07:03.350 align:center line:-1 Later, though, they decided he was one of the “cow-demons and snake-spirits.” 56 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:08.770 align:center line:-1 One day in September, people were to struggle against him; 57 00:07:08.780 --> 00:07:13.830 align:center line:-1 the “big-character poster” [against him] was finished one day before. 58 00:07:13.840 --> 00:07:20.950 align:center line:-1 My father was already in his 60s. 59 00:07:20.960 --> 00:07:27.380 align:center line:-1 The struggle meeting would have destroyed both his body and mind. 60 00:07:27.390 --> 00:07:33.500 align:center line:-1 So my younger brother helped our father run away in the middle of the night. 61 00:07:33.510 --> 00:07:48.270 align:center line:-1 He took our father to the Forest Park and then went back home himself. 62 00:07:48.280 --> 00:08:07.760 align:center line:-1 My father ran into the countryside alone and hid in the home of a former student of my mother. 63 00:08:07.770 --> 00:08:19.100 align:center line:-1 The next day, someone from the work unit came to take my father to the struggle meeting. 64 00:08:19.110 --> 00:08:24.990 align:center line:-1 My brother said that our father was so scared of the struggle meeting that he ran away, and he [my brother] could not find him. 65 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.550 align:center line:-1 “Perhaps father ran off somewhere to commit suicide,” my brother said. 66 00:08:29.560 --> 00:08:43.420 align:center line:-1 As a result, the meeting that was supposed to have thousands of participants lost its object and couldn’t be held after all. 67 00:08:43.430 --> 00:09:04.020 align:center line:-1 Decades later, we still have classmates asking us where our father ran away to at that time. 68 00:09:04.030 --> 00:09:10.010 align:center line:-1 We brothers were fearless. 69 00:09:10.020 --> 00:09:35.610 align:center line:-1 At that time, I’m afraid it would’ve been hard to find another person in China who dared to do this: fight to get his mother back, and help his father run away. 70 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:43.430 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: When the Cultural Revolution is mentioned, the first thing you think of is how you and your brothers saved your mother and father. 71 00:09:43.440 --> 00:10:04.830 align:center line:-1 We were just fearless. In 1960, when my brother and I were starving, we even stole from the government warehouse. 72 00:10:04.840 --> 00:10:11.620 align:center line:-1 We really were fearless. 73 00:10:11.630 --> 00:10:15.700 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Thank you for accepting the interview.
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