Interviewer: Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview.
Interviewer: First, could you please tell me the decade of your birth?
Interviewer: You don’t need to say the exact year, [just] “1920s,” “1930s,” “1940s,” etc. will do.
1930s.
Interviewer: 1930s. During the 10 years from 1966 to 1976, where did you live in China?
At the time [I] was in Tongren, Guizhou [Province].
Interviewer: Since you were born in the 1930s, you must have many memories of the Cultural Revolution.
Interviewer: Even with several days and nights, you probably couldn’t talk about everything.
Interviewer: If I only give you about 10 minutes, or in other words, in the first 10 minutes [of the interview], without preparation, could you share the memories that immediately come to mind?
Sure.
Interviewer: Thank you. You may speak freely.
To speak of the Cultural Revolution…during the Cultural Revolution, I was [working] in a school.
Our group had three people surnamed XXX. I was the group leader.
These three people were all well-known in that district.
At the time, the Cultural Revolution came along, [and] since [these three people] were all well-known, we were called the “Three-Family Village.”
Interviewer: Beijing had the “Three-Family Village [Anti-Party Clique],” and you had a “Three-Family Village” there as well.
We were called the “Three-Family Village,” [became] the same type as Liao Mosha.
In the end, they couldn’t find any material [to use against me], and [I] was the head, so [I was labeled part of] the bourgeois “those in power.”
Interviewer: A “capitalist-roader.”
A “capitalist-roader.” They wanted materials [as evidence] to struggle against me.
What could they do? They [wanted to use] my teaching materials to struggle against me.
[However], there were no teaching materials, since I taught physical education.
At the time, the textbook had been published by People’s Publishing House.
[It had] a little game [in it], “Guess the Leader.”
Since it was an elementary school, [we used] some games to teach the children.
Interviewer: “Guess the Leader”?
Right. “Guess the Leader” was a game.
Interviewer: Oh, it was the name of a game.
Yes. It was a game called “Guess the Leader.”
At the time, a student pointed out, “We obviously know our leader is Mao Zedong—why do you still want [us] to guess?...
...Is it that [you] hope our leader will be replaced with another?”
As a result, this accusation was added—[I] obviously knew, [but] still wanted to guess the leader.
This was one [piece of material used against me].
Another game was called “The Eagle Grabs the Little Chicks.”
Interviewer: “The Eagle Grabs the Little Chicks.” We played this as children.
[We] all played it. During class, I’d have [my students] play this game.
[They] made an inaccurate comparison, [asking], “What is the eagle? It’s England, the British Empire...
...You know that the British Empire wants to come and grab our China’s little chicks; the little chicks are our China...
...[You] have a notion to let imperialism come and invade China.”
Interviewer: Who was it [who said this]? Was it someone from your own school’s rebel faction?
Yes. [From the] rebel faction.
Interviewer: The rebel faction. [Was it] a student, or a teacher?
There were both teachers and students. These were the accusations.
[To make] these accusations, they’d looked for some content from my classes; they couldn’t find anything else.
Usually, my relationship with students was good. [I] didn’t usually have much interaction with other colleagues.
Interviewer: Did you experience hardships?
After I’d been labeled a bourgeois “capitalist-roader,” [they] wanted me to do reform through labor.
At the time, there was a place close to us called XXX Mountain; it was about 10-20 kilometers away.
[I] carried my backpack and my hoe, and set off for the mountains to do manual labor.
Because my relationship with the students was good, [some] students picked up the hoe for me and carried the backpack.
[They] wouldn’t let me do manual labor when we reached the mountain.
Interviewer: [Those] students were really good.
[They] wouldn’t let me do manual labor.
Every day, [they] accompanied me to the countryside, and wouldn’t let me do manual labor. Sometimes I’d play chess with them.
Interviewer: Play chess.
Yes. Every day it was like this. [If we were] hungry—at the time students didn’t have money.
I’d get [my] money, [and] they’d walk more than 10 kilometers to Maya to buy steamed bread—more than 10 kilometers, up and down the mountain.
That steamed bread was not so large, and black. The students didn’t have money.
I treated my students to eat it. Then I ate.
All in all, I didn’t experience hardship from manual labor. The students were good to me.
Interviewer: How long did you [have to] go there?
About a month and a half. I grew corn.
Interviewer: Grew corn.
Grew corn. When growing corn, [after] dropping a few kernels of corn, there was no need to fertilize.
[The earth] has sulfur and nitrogen elements. It would just grow.
Interviewer: That land was really fertile, right? No need to fertilize.
Right—no need. At harvest time, we went there again.
Interviewer: To harvest it.
Interviewer: Depending on the heavens for food. [You] didn’t need to water [the plants], since they were watered by the rain.
Yes. [We did this] for about a month. Then, in the end, at harvest time we went to pick [the corn].
Otherwise, there was nothing else [to do].
Interviewer: At that time, classes were suspended.
From my point of view, classes were suspended, [but] students were still attending class.
Interviewer: Oh, students were still attending class.
Interviewer: Oh, that’s a difference: at that time, Beijing had already “suspended classes to make revolution”; [students] weren’t going to class.
Interviewer: [You] were still having classes [in Tongren, Guizhou].
Our students were still attending classes. It was just that the so-called “cow-demons and snake-spirits” had been separated.
Interviewer: It was just "capitalist-roaders" like you who had gone to do manual labor, but students were still attending classes.
Right. The rebel faction followed the “cow-demons and snake-spirits.”
At the time, our leaders all fell; not a single one escaped.
Every day [we had to] proclaim [our] plans for the day and give an update on [our] activities in the evening, and [do] so-called confessions.
We saw a reporter from Beijing, named XXX, who was in charge of reporting on the field of research study at that time, be taken there to be struggled against.
Interviewer: Taken to [your area in Guizhou] to be struggled against?
[Yes]. [They] stood in a line, and during proclaiming plans for the night, [they] asked the reporter, “Do you love or hate the Red Guards, after all?”
Interviewer: Who did they ask? [They] asked this reporter?
They asked this [reporter] named XXX. Then, two [people] in front of him were beaten cruelly.
[The first person] said, “I hate the Red Guards.”
“You hate the Red Guards?!” [they said]. "You must all hate the Red Guards!" [They] just slapped him.
Everyone surely hated [the Red Guards]. You hated the Red Guards very much.
“We really love the Red Guards, [but] you hate them?!” [they said].
The second [person] said, “I neither love nor hate [the Red Guards],” and was slapped, too.
[They] asked [the reporter], “Do you love or hate [the Red Guards]?”
[He] said, “Love, absolutely,” [but] was slapped.
Blood ran out of [his] nose; his glasses were knocked off.
[He] said, “Love is no good, and neither is hate?”
[His opponent] didn’t answer. [Other people] didn’t dare to speak; didn’t say “love” or “hate.”
They didn’t reveal their attitude. [The Red Guards] didn’t get a chance to beat them. That's what I saw.
Interviewer: Were the Red Guards there local, or had they “networked” to go there?
They were all students.
Interviewer: All local [students].
Right. Students from [our] school. Wearing red arm bands, Red Guards.
Interviewer: Did you have students who came from other places to Guizhou for “networking”?
“Networking” didn’t come to our school. Our school’s students came back from “networking.”
Interviewer: [You had students who] went out, “networked” [in other places].
[They] had come back. We’d also followed the Red Guards to go out [for “networking”].
Interviewer: Oh, you also went [“networking”]?
[Yes], before I became the target of attack.
Interviewer: Oh, before you were the target.
[Yes, I] also went along. As a result, when [I] came back, [my name] was circled, check-marked; I became the target of struggle.
There were only a few people who were not struggled against.
In general, they all were toppled. I was [one of] “those in power,” a “capitalist-roader,” and I had a somewhat “problematic history.”
Others without a “problematic history” had “active problems.”
I remember there was one teacher. The Red Guard salute was to raise one’s hand.
[This teacher] said, “This is creating a sect.”
With this one statement, [the teacher was labeled] a rightist.
I also have a friend, who had always been a faithful believer in Chairman Mao.
[One time, he’d] finished reading a newspaper, [so he] rolled it up and threw it away.
It had Chairman Mao’s portrait on it.
As a result, [he was] caught and [labeled] an active counter-revolutionary.
He’d been a good student of Chairman Mao year after year.
[Even so], in an instant he was turned into a counter-revolutionary, just [because] he threw away a newspaper.
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