WEBVTT
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Interviewer: Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview.
Could you please tell me the decade in which you were born, such as "'50s,"
"'60s"...
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I was born in the early '60s, and lived in Beijing.
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Interviewer: I was about to ask you about where you lived
from 1966 to 1976. So it was in Beijing?
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Beijing.
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Interviewer: Having been born in that decade, you probably
have a lot of memories [about the Cultural Revolution].
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Interviewer: If I give you about 10 minutes, what memories
would you most want to share? You don't need to organize your language or
plan too much.
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Interviewer: In the first 10 minutes of the interview,
what would you most want us to know about? Maybe some thoughts or
recollections? You may speak freely.
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Sure. I'll just speak off the top of my head. When the
Cultural Revolution started, I was in kindergarten. Usually my mom picked
me up after school.
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One day, an older cousin came to get me instead. He said
my mom couldn't come, because our house was being searched in order to
confiscate our possessions.
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So, my cousin took me to stay at the hospital [where my
mom worked]. I stayed one night, and went home the next day, to stay with
neighbors.
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When I walked into the courtyard, I saw that all sorts of
items had been smashed on the ground.
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A pack of poker cards been ripped to shreds, and some
porcelain figurines had been smashed.
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Interviewer: Oh, smashed up.
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At about four o'clock in the morning, the Red Guards
came.
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I cowered in the neighbors' house and watched from the
window. The Red Guards were burning papers. I didn't really understand what
they were up to.
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The next day, like a refugee, I went back to stay at my
mom's hospital. I stayed there for three or four months.
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The Red Guards [had] searched my maternal uncle and aunt's
house [first], and since we lived together with them, they did our house as
well.
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Interviewer: Oh, so actually, they were searching your
uncle's house to confiscate possessions.
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Right. At that time, a lot of people lived together as one
big family. Three or four months later, [my uncle's family] were released
and sent back.
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When they got back, I saw them and saw that my aunt's head
had been shaved, and my maternal grandmother's arm was broken; it was
wrapped in a bandage.
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Interviewer: Someone beat her?
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I think maybe she had been pushed down. Maybe they
wouldn't hit an old woman, but perhaps since she was a landlady,
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...they pushed her down, caused her to take a tumble, and
that's how she broke her arm. That's my impression.
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Interviewer: Were you scared at that time?
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I was a little scared, but not terribly so. This was the
early stage of the Cultural Revolution.
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Later, I didn't have the feeling that there were too many political
movements—
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Oh, there was another thing I remember really well. I have
an older cousin who was studying at a physical education university.
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Where she was studying was not far from Tsinghua
[University] and Peking University.
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One morning, she came rushing back home, saying that the
night before guns had been fired.
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I think a "work group" had gone in and established itself
in the universities, and students had picked up guns, and then a fight had
started, maybe.
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It seemed like it had been that kind of situation. These
are some Cultural Revolution memories.
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Others are just things like, we didn't go to school—I'm
sure that's the same [as everyone else].
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When I went to elementary school, we'd often run around on
the desks; I don't know if any movies have shown this.
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Interviewer: On the desks?
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Yes, the kids would rush in the door, jump up on the
desks, run across, and jump out the window. This happened a lot. When we
were having classes, some kids would just run out.
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Interviewer: They'd run out in the middle of class?
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Right. And during class breaks, we'd play "horseback
wars"—it was very satisfying.
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Interviewer: Satisfying, huh?
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Do you know what I mean by "horseback wars"?
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Interviewer: Is it when one person rides on another
person's back?
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One person carries another person, and tries to knock the other
person off. This was during elementary school. Then, when I was about to
start fifth grade—
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I think it was around the first time Deng Xiaoping came
onstage [politically]. Once again, we were told we had to
study. We were in school about a year or
two—
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Interviewer: Oh, and then came [the] Huang Shuai
[Incident].
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Right, Huang Shuai came along, and then we stopped going
to school again. Once again, we started playing; in general, we weren't in
school.
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In the mornings, we'd go to Shichahai to ice skate. In the
mornings, the doors at Shichahai wouldn't be open, but there was a hole in
the wire fence, so we'd squeeze through.
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We'd skate all morning, and then when it came time to pay to skate,
we'd pay and skate longer. We'd also play basketball—in
general, we were always playing.
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Interviewer: Did you play for 10 years?
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Up until my sophomore or junior year of high school, when
I joined the April Fifth Movement and things like that.
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Interviewer: So 1976, '75?
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1976—[the public mourning for] Zhou Enlai.
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Interviewer: Zhou Enlai—1976.
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‘76, the April Fifth Movement, etc... There was something else in
the Cultural Revolution that left quite an impression on
me—"external investigations."
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My paternal grandfather lived with us. He had been an
executive with the bank run by [senior army general] Zhang Xueliang's
family.
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When I was little, I didn't know why, but our family often
had people coming by to do "external investigations."
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Interviewer: Who were they investigating?
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I don't know who. They'd just always ask my grandfather
about things that had happened in the past, like "When did so-and-so do
such-and-such?"
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I guess it was about who had fought against the Japanese,
and who hadn't.
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I suppose it was that during the Cultural Revolution, they
were giving a lot of people a hard time. People would say, "You'd better
not persecute me. I'm in the Party, I fought the Japanese..."
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Interviewer: They'd look for people to back it up?
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Right, they were looking for people to confirm it. I think
that must've been what all this was. People often came [for
this]—a lot of people. I have a deep impression of
this.
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There's something else that I think kids today would never
be able to understand.
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During the civil war, my maternal grandfather was taken
along when the Kuomintang [Nationalists] went to accept the Japanese
surrender.
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Because he was from Northeast China, he was taken along. I
don't know what position he held at the time.
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But because of this, he was labeled a historical
counterrevolutionary.
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So, every time a holiday came, my grandfather was made to
go to the neighborhood committee [offices].
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He would have to stay there until 10 o'clock at night, and
then he could go home. They were afraid he'd make some trouble.
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Interviewer: He was kept under surveillance?
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Right, for fear he'd cause trouble. As soon as Labor Day
or National Day came along,
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...at eight o'clock in the morning, he'd act like
everything was normal, say, "I'm leaving," take some food, and go.
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Interviewer: And then he'd stay [at the committee] all
day?
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The whole day. He'd come back at 10 o'clock at night.
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Interviewer: This was to keep people under
supervision.
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Probably they would study
Quotations from Chairman
Mao together. I'm not sure of the exact
circumstances. They'd just stay at the neighborhood committee for the
day.
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Also, at that time there were many struggle meetings.
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Whenever there was a struggle meeting, my maternal
grandfather was told to attend, but actually he never had to get on
stage.
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The struggle meetings at that time were actually kind of
funny. When there was a struggle meeting, anyone might be struggled
against; it wasn't exclusively "capitalist-roaders."
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For example, run-of-the-mill hoodlums and others were
struggled against, too. And people like my grandfather, who belonged to the
"five black categories" had to go as well.
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There was actually reserved seating for the "five black
categories." We elementary school and junior high students sat off to one
side.
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The people on the stage were writing criticism reports.
Some kids would say to me, "How come your grandfather is here? He is
sitting over there."
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You know, I'd get really upset! I'll never forget this
situation—
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Interviewer: What would you say [to them]?
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Every time there was a [struggle] meeting, I'd be so
embarrassed.
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Interviewer: So, to be honest, with the other kids
pointing this out, did you feel your grandfather was causing you to lose
face, or did you feel sympathetic toward him?
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It was a little of both. Anyway, I didn't think my
grandfather was a bad person; I was certain he was a good person.
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Our relationship was really good. Those other kids had a
good relationship with him, too.
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Them saying "How can your grandfather be over there, too?"
showed that they had never thought of him as a bad guy.
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During the Cultural Revolution, I didn't see my mother and
father for years.
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Interviewer: Where were they?
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We didn't see each other for seven or eight years, from
about 1967 to 1974.
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Interviewer: Did they go "down to the countryside"?
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No. My father was in Sichuan, [one of the] Third Front
provinces.
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But before the Cultural Revolution, he'd come back once a
year to visit our family; he had family leave.
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When the Cultural Revolution began, because of suspicions
of spying, he couldn't come back, but had to stay there. Sometimes we'd get
a letter or two.
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Hearing my mother read his letters aloud was really
interesting: "Today I put the pigs out to graze"; "I went up the mountain
to cut bamboo";
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"Every day I cut this much bamboo," etc. It was funny.
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Interviewer: So they were separated all that time?
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[Yes], for seven or eight years. There was also a
considerable amount of time when we didn't get any letters.
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There had already been a period of time where I was
confused, thinking my father was dead.
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Interviewer: It was because you hadn't met for a long
time—
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Probably after he hadn't come back for three or four
years, since I was small, I just got mixed up.
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One thing was that my father hadn't come back, and another was that
my mother was sick for a while—she had a bit of a breakdown. When I was
little—
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—at that time, I [actually] wasn't that
little—I thought what happened was
that my father had died, and my mother had gone into shock. That's what was
in my mind.
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Interviewer: It was just your own confusion?
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I just guessed wrong. In fact, it wasn't like that at all.
Because my mother did surgery, she was very tired, and ended up having an
accident.
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After the accident, she suffered from shock. What I mean
by her having a breakdown was just that she couldn't sleep at night, so she
took sleeping pills.
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Interviewer: But since your father was never around, and
you didn't know the reason [she was sick], you started coming up with
explanations.
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Right. I saw my mother crying all the time—she was
mentally unwell. I thought, is my dad dead? At that time, I didn't really
know.
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At that time, I didn't really know. Later, it turned out
okay—he came back around 1974.
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Interviewer: Since you hadn't been with your father for a
long time, how was your relationship with him?
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It was really good. I longed for him to come home.
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Another thing I remember well from the Cultural Revolution
is that there was nothing to eat, so I was always craving food.
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If there was a little something to eat, we were so happy.
If we got a little preserved tofu or pickled vegetables, it made our
day.
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If we [kids] were sent to get sesame paste or sesame
oil—
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Interviewer: You'd sneak a bite.
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We'd sneak a little taste. If we got some dried shrimp,
that was awesome.
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One time, my aunt and uncle had some boiled cabbage with
dried shrimp.
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Interviewer: Oh, that's tasty.
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And since our two families lived around the same
courtyard, I could smell it cooking. It made my mouth water, even though
there was no meat in it, just cabbage and dried shrimp!
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My maternal grandfather was from Northeast China, and
didn't really know how to cook. So, when winter came, he was always boiling
cabbage.
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Interviewer: When did your grandfather pass away?
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At the end of 1976.
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Interviewer: The same year the Cultural Revolution
ended.
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[His death] had to do with the [Great Tangshan]
earthquake.
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Interviewer: July 28, 1976.
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July 1976. After the earthquake, we lived in the
courtyard.
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They made my grandfather work fixing houses—the "five
black categories" were made to work as laborers. [My grandfather] was over
80.
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He got sick—it was something with his lungs, maybe
tuberculosis or lung cancer; it was never quite clear. It must have been
the end of 1976 when he passed away.
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Interviewer: How do you think your grandfather felt about
being put under supervision, and all the rest?
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He was very optimistic. He was really amazing.
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Interviewer: That couldn't have been easy.
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He closely resembled a guy in that recent movie about
Zhang Xueliang, bald with a thick mustache.
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Interviewer: And his attitude was still—
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He had a great attitude. The only time I heard him say
anything bad was toward the end of 1976.
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At that time, a lot of people had already come to detest
the Gang of Four. It was only then that he started to say negative
things.
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But back at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he
had been very earnest, copying out Quotations from
Chairman Mao and things like that when he had
spare time.
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Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview.
137
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Bye.
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