"[We] were all brainwashed."

Interviewer: OK. [What] decade were you born? You don’t need to say the exact year.

[I was born in] the 1960s.

Interviewer: Where did you live in China [during the Cultural Revolution]?

Beijing.

Interviewer: During these 10 minutes, you may share with us the memories you most want to share [about the Cultural Revolution].

Poverty.

Interviewer: In Beijing? Even in Beijing?

[Yes]. Poor, really poor. Let’s talk about basic needs in everyday life.

As for food—in Beijing, [we] weren’t starving, but [we were still] pretty miserable.

All year round, there were very few vegetables. Just cabbage, potatoes, and radishes.

Interviewer: There weren’t any of these?

There were, [but] only these kinds [of vegetables].

Everything had a ration ticket. You might not know this. You may have never heard about it.

Based on how many people were in a family, there was a ration book.

Every time you bought something, you got a checkmark in [the book].

At the time, the stores weren’t privately owned; they were all state-run stores.

For each item you bought, you got a checkmark.

When we cooked—we lived in a

[neighborhood of connected alleys]—[our parents would say], “Go buy 10 cents’ worth of meat.”

I’d go with 10 cents in my pocket. 10 cents’ worth was [a thin strip of meat].

Interviewer: How many people could eat [from that]?

Our family had six people. [The meat] was only used to add some flavor when stir-frying vegetables.

Anyway, that was what we had. As for grain, there was a set amount of rice [you could get]—very little—it was called “refined grain.”

There might’ve been some “coarse grain” like corn and things, some flour.

But Beijing was certainly much better than other places; we did not go hungry.

However, during that time, nutrition was really poor.

[I] was really thin; if you look at photos of me as a kid, I was as thin as a refugee–extremely thin.

When I went to university in the 1980s, I was still that thin, because of the influence [of poor nutrition] in childhood.

Interviewer: What do you think caused these economic issues?

The chaos!

Interviewer: So there was nothing to be done…

It was chaotic, with little production.

I just remember when I was really little, I don’t know what really happened,...

...[but] for a while people were on the streets banging drums [because] Chairman Mao’s newest directive had been announced.

Everyone went out in the streets to welcome this newest directive.

You’d grab the little red book and—

—walk along banging drums. Thinking of it now, those days were really crazy.

Interviewer: No one worked? No one produced—

Right. But Beijing—Beijing…

At the time, I was little, so I didn’t understand anything about producing, but anyway, I’d see—there was a factory next to our home—[I’d] see these [factory] workers, not working.

[If] they said they were going to the restroom, they’d sit around the hutong for half the day.

Anyway, [they] just stayed there and did nothing.

However, later I heard how it was in places outside [Beijing], but in Beijing, it was not that…

Because it was difficult for most people to come into Beijing.

Interviewer: At that time, it was already difficult to come in [to Beijing]?

Right, difficult to come in. You couldn’t just come in because you wanted to.

If you wanted to enter Beijing, you had to first have a letter of introduction—

Interviewer: An exit-entry permit or something?

A letter of introduction, not an exit-entry permit. At the time, people took trains to enter Beijing.

Our family’s ancestors were from Northeast China.

If our relatives from Northeast China wanted to come to Beijing—at the time, there was a person in our family who was in charge of sales or purchases for Benxi Steel.

He’d come to Beijing several times a year. He told me, every time, he [had to show] a letter of introduction.

Every time he came, he’d buy a lot of meat.

Interviewer: [He’d] bring a lot of meat from other places? Or from here…

Right… No, he’d buy a lot of meat in Beijing and [take it] back to Northeast China [since] there was no meat in Northeast China.

Sometimes, we’d save our own quota of meat [in] the ration book, and buy [meat] for him.

Or, besides the supply quota from the ration book, there was a certain amount you could buy freely.

That is, one person could buy 10 or 20 cents’ worth of meat. [We] ate poorly.

When it got to be winter—winter was horrible: boiled cabbage, stewed cabbage, stir-fried cabbage…

Interviewer: It was all just cabbage.

Right, and boiled radish, stewed radish, stir-fried radish.

That’s how it was day after day, plus 10 cents’ worth of meat.

Actually, our family still had it pretty good. [My parents] were both teachers.

Teachers’ wages were relatively high. Workers were much worse off.

In our courtyard in the

, there were three or four families in all.

The other families were all workers. [You] couldn’t say it was “miserable,” since anyway, [we] were all about the same—we could eat until we were full.

Even though there was nothing that great to eat, we didn’t go hungry, didn’t starve to death.

There was nothing to complain about, since we didn’t know anything really delicious to eat.

At the time, having a fried pancake felt like celebrating New Year. So that was eating.

Living [conditions] were definitely really terrible.

Interviewer: You lived in a

, right?

[Yes]. Within the

were courtyards. Our courtyard was really, really rundown.

Our family lived in Xicheng. Xicheng was an old district, with a lot of really rundown houses.

Central party officials all lived in Xicheng; we lived alongside them.

Interviewer: But it was still really rundown?

Very rundown. The walls around the hutong were all leaning, as were the houses. [They’d] been there many years, those…

Interviewer: Those kinds of old houses?

Right. They were all rental houses. At that time we were renting the house.

The houses all belonged to the housing management authority, to the government.

The monthly rent was really cheap. Later on, since it was in a courtyard, everyone was building houses in the courtyard.

Later, my parents built a tiny house in the courtyard and moved in.

Interviewer: Oh, then [the original place] became yours?

We three kids and our paternal grandmother [lived in it].

As for cooking, [we cooked] outside the window, in a little shed.

Interviewer: At that time, did you still go to school?

Going to school was very interesting.

At school, the teacher didn’t teach anything, just “Long Live Chairman Mao!” and things like that.

Elementary school started from [learning] “Long Live Chairman Mao!” Just learning Chinese, Pinyin and all that.

Interviewer: The teachers didn’t talk about anything [concerning] the environment at the time? Since you were too young—

They talked [about it], but we didn’t understand.

Anyway, there was so much going on—at one point, it was the Criticize Lin [Biao] and Criticize Confucius campaign, then Deng Xiaoping was being criticized.

Oh, and also criticizing Lin Biao. I remember we went to [several different] kindergartens to write and put up “big-character posters.”

Interviewer: [You] wrote them in kindergarten?

No, in elementary school. I didn’t attend kindergarten, so I don’t know [if the kids wrote posters].

My paternal grandmother took care of me.

When I went to elementary school, the Criticize Lin [Biao] and Criticize Confucius campaign was going on; we were writing “big character-posters.”

How could I know who was who?

Interviewer: You wrote?

[I] wrote!

Interviewer: What did you write?

Whatever, I just grabbed a piece of paper, a newspaper, and copied [from that].

Interviewer: Did you write with a brush?

[Yes], with a brush. Later, who else did I criticize? I just remember criticizing.

Anyway, there was a lot going on--criticizing, hanging up “big-character posters.”

At that time, [we] were all brainwashed, you know?

[Everyone] was crazy. [We] didn’t have our own opinions.

That is, whatever Chairman Mao said was right, whatever

said was right.

No one had their own opinion. Or at least, you acted like you didn’t have your own opinion.

You’d just write [a poster], pick up a newspaper and copy it.

After you copied it, you’d stick it up, and who would actually read it?

At that time, we were six or seven years old.

Interviewer: You just thought it was fun?

It was just for fun—messing with people!

At the time, there was “going against the tide,” right?

Huang Shuai—I don’t know if you’ve heard of her—she refused to take exams or something.

What else? Wei Jingsheng, he’s in the U.S., right? At the time, he was also a “rebel element.”

[Also, Zhang Tiesheng] handed in a blank exam booklet.

He didn’t write anything at all, [as a way to] oppose how the bourgeoisie teach.

It seems like it was something like that. I don’t quite [remember].

I just heard what other people said; I was just a kid and didn’t remember clearly.

Anyway, it was that kind of meaning.

Later, Wei Jingsheng was sent to prison or something—I forget.

Now he is a democracy activist, who is really famous in North America. Besides Guo Wengui, he is probably the most famous one.

Interviewer: Do you have memories of Educated Youth being sent “up to the mountains and down to the countryside”?

Yes! Didn’t I mention it to you?

Interviewer: Yes, you mentioned it in an

[电子邮件].

Oh! Anyway, “up to the mountains and down to the countryside” was up until… I remember… anyway, it was summer—or was it?

Middle school students had graduated. Rows of military transport vehicles would come, and these students would carry…

Interviewer: Was it really the military driving the trucks?

It was that kind of…

[公车]. We called it a “da jiao zi che” [military transport vehicle].

Interviewer: Oh, “da jiao zi che.” I don't get it.

In Beijing, we called it “da jiao zi che” [military transport vehicle],

[公车

].

In general, it was [the kind] the army used, green.

In order to hold so many students, it had to be that [kind of] vehicle.

The students were really happy then, but they didn’t know what kind of place they were going to. [They were] just kids!

Interviewer: How old were those [kids]?

Around high school [age] or so, I think. They were put [on the bus] and taken away.

It was not like they were forced to go. There must have been mobilization ahead of time.

Interviewer: Like signing up?

There was no signing up—they all had to go.

It was just Educated Youth going “up to the mountains and down to the countryside.”

Chairman Mao [sent them] with one sweep of his hand.

In fact, there was nothing else for Chairman Mao to do, since the students were too restless.

This was my later understanding. There was nothing else [Mao] could do.

These kids were restless, with no jobs. Just send them away as soon as possible.

But I didn’t go “up to the mountains and down to the countryside” because…

Interviewer: You were still a student?

Right, I was still going to elementary school. I saw them [going away] and felt so envious, [thinking] they were going out to play.

Going to the suburbs, to Yanqing and Shunyi—it was great!

Green hills and clear water. How fun! How happy!

After a while, those students came back. At the time, my father was a middle school teacher.

So, when the students came back, they visited my dad and chatted.

Interviewer: Talked about what they’d done there.

How they’d suffered there, with nothing to eat, how cold it was in the winter, how hard they tried to come back to the city, to return to Beijing, etc.

At the time, I thought, Ah! These students were all talking about Yanqing.

They would talk with my dad, and as a kid, I’d be standing around listening without actually understanding.

Just hearing them talk about how cold Yanqing was, how whatever Shunyi was.

At that time, there were no roads. There were only a few crummy roads within the city, and leaving the city were just primitive dirt roads.

It was really not easy to come and go.

I remember later, when I was a bit older, but not yet in junior high school,...

...[the Cultural Revolution] was spoken about a few times—but I didn’t understand what it was all about.

My dad said, “Oh, the Cultural Revolution! A lot of stuff happened.”

He couldn’t say the Communist party was also in turmoil; he just said he was also beaten, and…

Interviewer: He was beaten?

[He] was beaten. [He was] a teacher—teachers were beaten by their students.

He said he was beaten, and the principal was beaten to death.

He said, “You know Teacher Wu, right?” I said yes.

He said, “At the time, [Teacher Wu and I] knelt there in rows and students beat us. Later, I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I just sent myself down to a small school to be a…”

Interviewer: Middle school teacher?

...No, [he was] a worker in a school-owned workshop.

During the Cultural Revolution, [students] didn’t study, just fooled around.

I asked [my dad], “[When] the Red Guards beat you, couldn’t you retaliate? Couldn’t you hit back?...

...You were just over 30 at the time; you were young and strong. Why didn’t you beat them?”

He said, “They had more people—how could you beat them? Also, we were considered ‘capitalist-roaders’ at that time...

...The students were Red Guards—how could you hit them, right? You couldn’t hit them."

[My dad said], "So later, I just ran off; I just went to a small school to be a worker...

...Being a worker was actually pretty good—[I] later became the workshop head!” [Laughs].

After the Cultural Revolution, [my father] went back to [his] old school.

All along, I didn’t understand clearly which years the Cultural Revolution took place in.

It wasn’t until I read [information from] you that I knew it was [exactly] from 1966 to 1976, because I was really young at that time.

But I remember, [when] Old Mao died, we were asked to go to the school, and [I] pretended to cry. I remember all these [things].

If you look at North Korea, it was just like that. It was exactly the same.

That is, people’s madness was just like that.

We kids [felt], “Chairman Mao died? All right, whatever.” That’s how we thought about it.

But when I saw everybody else pretending to cry, I pretended as well. The teacher said, “Stand up.”

[The teacher] said something was going on, and [asked us] to listen to the school’s broadcast.

It said, “Chairman Mao has died.” Chairman Mao died? Chairman Mao died!

What should we do when Chairman Mao died? What should we do next?

Chairman Mao—we couldn’t say he was a god, [but]… How could we survive without Chairman Mao! What could we do?

At that time, we kids just thought,

And then, in 1976, there was an earthquake, the Great Tangshan Earthquake.

[During that time], we played happily, living in earthquake tents.

We didn’t dare live in our houses then—our rundown houses, those houses that leaned.

So we set up a small tent on the school’s sports field. Peasants were even more miserable.

It wasn’t until later that I heard—I didn’t see this, to be clear—peasants didn’t have anything to eat; there was famine in areas outside [Beijing], etc.

I really didn’t know. Today, you have good things to eat and good clothes to wear.

You feel that era is tragic. But actually, compared to that time, [I] feel we’re the tragic ones today.

Even though you eat well, and you wear nice clothes, you think too much every day—it’s painful.

Personally, I think today, [after] Reform and Opening, is definitely good.

But if you’re talking about back then… it’s hard to evaluate altogether.

How painful was that time for individuals? At the time, I didn’t feel it was that painful.

We didn’t have to study a lot. Every day, kids went to school but didn’t study.

[We’d] go home and play soccer with kids in the

, run around.

Simply speaking, fools are always happy. At that time, people’s IQ probably was negative.

Interviewer: Simple, right?

Right. So, [kids] were all happy.

[The experience of] those people who went “up to the mountains and down to the countryside” was painful, right?

But I think maybe it wasn’t that painful.

They didn’t eat well in the countryside, [but] they didn’t know what was good.

Because at that time, didn’t we all feel Americans were more miserable?

We even talked about liberating Taiwan, saving all the suffering people in the world, [thinking] how miserable Americans were.

It was just like how North Korean people think about Americans today, saying, “They’re miserable, so poor, with nothing to eat,...

...but for us [North Korean people], under our supreme leader’s guidance, we live such happy lives.”

It’s the same. People’s feelings of happiness come from a comparison.

Today, if you read some things written by overseas Chinese, sometimes, if you read [things written by] the Second Red Generation, they say [the same thing].

Like Chen Yi’s son, [or] Deng Xiaoping and Deng Pufang—they were all Red Guards.

Why are Deng Pufang’s legs paralyzed? Because the [opposing] faction of Red Guards surrounded him, and beat him.

He was in one faction, and there was another faction…

Interviewer: Oh, they also split into factions?

Of course! They fought fiercely. They really fought each other—had guns and explosives! I didn’t see it, but it’s been said.

Interviewer: They really fought? Really fought physically?

They really fought with all their might! Then later, Deng Pufang couldn’t bear it, and jumped off a building at Tsinghua [University].

At that time, there were a lot of incidents of people committing suicide or trying to commit suicide by jumping [from buildings], such as Lao She, who jumped into a lake to commit suicide.

Particularly those intellectuals, those who experienced the Kuomintang era, who had seen the world, thought the Communist Party was making a mess; there was no democracy.

[They] thought, “The Communist Party lied to us, promised democracy, but now it has turned into this…”

They probably couldn’t deal with it. [But] of course, there were many people who sucked up to the Communist Party to earn a living.

There are a lot of examples, such as Wang Meng. Many of them—they did pretty good in the Kuomintang era, like Qian Qichen and Qian Xuesen.

They weren’t good people, were all opportunists, you know.

Politics is always like, if you follow the Communist Party and say good things about the Party, you’ll have food to eat, you’ll get a position, you’ll live in a decent house…

Of course, the “decent” houses of that time are nowhere near as good as houses today.

Interviewer: Did the Cultural Revolution have a big influence on your relatives?

[I] haven’t talked about it with them much. It’s just that there wasn’t much to eat. I just remember every time they came to Beijing to visit us, they’d…

Interviewer: They took food back from Beijing.

…they’d take food back. But I’m not sure what was actually going on, since we weren’t that close, and I didn’t really ask them.

We kids just stood in line with them to buy meat, 10 cents [of meat] at a time.

I feel the time that gave me the most pain, the most painful period in my life was actually after the Cultural Revolution. It was…

Interviewer: After the Cultural Revolution?

…when I was in middle school, in high school, and in university. Going to junior high school was okay.

Going to high school and university was the most painful period.

Why? Every day we studied useless things.

So, I was really disgusted with studying in school, though I’ve gone to school a lot.

But coming to the U.S. to go to school was a totally different matter.

That was much better; it was really happy. I feel my happiest time is actually right now.

Besides that, studying in the U.S. was also a happy time: going to school, studying new knowledge—even my worldview changed.

The standards of my research were pretty good; the school and teachers really approved, thinking,

.

But later, [the teachers] became less satisfied, since I didn’t want to do research anymore; I wanted to do business.

[They thought],

[Laughs].