"My son's generation can't grasp any of this."

Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview.

First, could you please tell me the decade of your birth? You don't have to say the exact year; just "'30s," "'40s,""'50s" will do...

I was born in the 1950s in Shanghai, and grew up there, in the southwestern part.

It was the area where Shanghai's culture and administration is concentrated; relatively speaking, it was a fairly nice and stable area.

After the Cultural Revolution started, the situation quickly changed. The lane where we lived was lined with Spanish-style houses; there were six houses altogether.

[Before Liberation], six wealthy people had lived in those six houses; to put it in Cultural Revolution terms, they were all capitalists.

After Liberation, [numbers] 1, 3, and 5 were taken over by the officials, and became officials' dormitories.

[Numbers] 2, 4, and 6 were still occupied by capitalists. So, during the Cultural Revolution, this strange phenomenon occurred.

After the Cultural Revolution started, the capitalists in [numbers] 2, 4, and 6 began having bad luck.

[They were classified among] "landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists," you know.

They were impacted first. Their houses were searched to confiscate their possessions, and they were struggled against.

[Incriminating] things were indeed discovered [in their homes].

A kid was climbing on a fence, and he saw the old man in number 2 burying something.

That child was about 10 years old, and didn't really understand what was going on.

When people came to search the house, that kid just said so-and-so had been burying stuff.

In the end, a stack of gold ingots, paper bills—

Interviewer: Really?

Yes. Land deeds, and real estate contracts were dug up, and [the man] was struggled against.

Six months later, that so-called capitalist head of the household died not from illness, but from the anger [stress].

Of course, for them it was hard to bear. However, to children like us at that time, we were just watching the action. At the time, we lived in the officials' dormitory.

Later, as the Cultural Revolution moved forward, [its development] was not right.

The so-called "capitalist-roaders" within officialdom met with misfortune, as did intellectuals.

The houses at [numbers] 1, 3, and 5 were searched in order for possessions to be confiscated, and those families were struggled against.

"Big-character posters" were were also hung up.

Among the six families, there were no "good people."

Some were rich landlords or capitalists; others were "capitalist-roaders" or "the stinking old ninth" [intellectuals].

Anyway, it was these people.

I remember clearly the year the Cultural Revolution started [1966], because I was in the fifth grade.

Since the school [I went to] used a 10-year system, [I] graduated elementary school after that [fifth grade] year.

Right after that came "suspending classes to make revolution."

The Shanghai Municipal Party Committee was not far from my home or my school,

so when the Committee was under attack, [when people] were throwing bricks and factions were fighting, [everyone] saw it.

All we kids did was play. Our parents all went to cadre school. Not long after this, I started middle school.

My older brother and sister went to Heilongjiang to join a production team.

There was an impact, but for us regular intellectual families the impact was not that large.

But in our environment, nearly every family had someone in it who felt some kind of impact.

So, you can say [the Cultural Revolution] had its good and bad: every family had complaints, but after everyone was impacted, still not many people were killed.

For example, the man at number 2 died from anger, but he was already pretty old. Of course his family was unhappy after he died from the stress.

But in general, since everyone was in poor circumstances, we didn't differentiate ourselves [in our thinking].

Interviewer: [You] felt everyone was the same.

We didn't think we were especially tragic. Because, in fact, no one [among us] had the bad luck of someone like [Chinese novelist] Lao She.

The bureau chiefs at [numbers] 1, 3, and 5 were struggled against somewhat harshly.

One was the marine bureau chief; one was the light industry bureau chief; I forget the other one. They were struggled against quite fiercely.

But everyone was struggled against; that's how it was. After being struggled against, they went to May 7 cadre school, and were released after several years.

Altogether, my feeling is that [the Cultural Revolution] hurt many people, but for regular people, the feeling was not that deep.

Personally speaking, it was a waste of several years; I didn't really go to middle school, and fifth grade didn’t really count.

And right after that I went to "do field study on farms and in factories." Then, I was assigned to work.

What left the deepest impression on me from the Cultural Revolution was something with which I can make an important comparison to my children's generation.

During the Cultural Revolution, because of “up to the mountains and down to the countryside," though I didn't join a production team,

I studied farm work for over six months. I ate, lived and worked side-by-side with the peasants.

I also experienced famine.

I know what it's like not having enough to eat, not having filling foods like meat and oil.

I've been a worker and an apprentice. I saved my pennies to work on semiconductors and make model planes.

I know what it's like to go through hardships. But my son's generation can't grasp any of this.

I think the Cultural Revolution's [greatest influence on people my age] wasn't from attacks or factional fighting.

Rather, its greatest influence on me was that I didn't have a job; of the three kids in my family, the other two went "up to the mountains and down to the countryside," to a rural village.

I went to a rural village, too, but the work I was assigned to was in a factory in Shanghai.

I have the deepest impression from this practical experience in society. It had the greatest influence on my life.

Interviewer: Is your meaning that its influence on you, personally, was more positive?

Yes, it was more positive. It help me [understand] the difficulties in life, and gave me ambition.

For example, we make money, but we are not like today's kids.

My son's generation doesn't understand how to endure difficulty, doesn't understand that labor is important.

Among that generation, people just want to live well without doing any work. [They] have money to spend.

When I went abroad in the 1980s, it was when China was most poor.

Chinese people didn't get any respect in the west. The police called me "Chinaman."

I had gone abroad as a visiting scholar. Since Chinese people were poor, there were many who "hopped a plane."

People from Hong Kong said to "hop a plane" meant to arrive in another country as an illegal immigrant;

to

[消失] and work illegally. You might get off the plane and never been seen again. Chinese people were like that at the time.

Why? It was to escape from poverty; at that time, the salaries in western societies were 10 or more times greater [than salaries in China].

Our salaries were 10 times lower than theirs. How could you get along? Of course life was tough.

So, though people of my generation experienced great hardship for years, I think [this experience] helped our lives a lot later on -- and we also did our own hard work.

After working hard and succeeding, you couldn't [live] like the prodigal son or a rich playboy.

Even if you were one of those who had relatively good qualifications during the Cultural Revolution, such as Hu Shuli or Miao Ning, you wouldn't [behave] like some people today,

like in Guo Jingming's

novels, which describe an extravagant lifestyle, which is totally self-involved, and really meaningless.

Interviewer: Under what circumstances have you spoken about the Cultural Revolution with your son?

They usually don't like to hear about this. I rarely get an opportunity to talk about it.

My son is actually not bad, since he’s an engineering student who knows about working hard to make money.

But still, most people in their generation don't like to listen to this.

It's just like us [when we were young].

It was so annoying to hear how the past was miserable, and we hated being made to eat a poor meal to recall past bitterness.

Interviewer: So when you talk about the Cultural Revolution, it's from the perspective of how our generation went through such hardships?

Actually, I don't speak too much about painful things. I want them to have a relatively correct outlook on life.

My son has been quite successful, receiving a Ph.D. and becoming a university professor in England.

He's gotten married and has children; he's bought a house in England -- material life is pretty good!

But he can't experience our life at the time, and it would be hard for him to deeply experience some of the valuable things in life,

including going to the countryside, or experiencing hardship or hunger.

Once you experienced this, you had a different view of how valuable certain things are. [Today's young people] are too fortune.

Interviewer: So from this point of view, do you affirm the value of your experience during the Cultural Revolution?

I'm not affirming the experience. People of our age didn't get overly involved. I became a Little Red Guard and a Red Guard.

That time during which I was a Little Red Guard was a bit of a mess.

Later, after I became a Red Guard, [things] proceeded on a so-called normal track.

At that time, the area of Shanghai I was in was [controlled by] the Gang of Four; this was an advantage, [because] there was no more factional fighting.

After the Gang of Four defeated a faction in a Shanghai diesel engine factory, no one could compete with them.

When [Shanghai] was controlled by a faction, although they were extremely leftist, relatively speaking, [that period] was pretty stable, compared to the rest of China.

Other places still had factional fighting, still had nothing to eat. Although Shanghai had rationing, material goods were in full supply.

So, with ration tickets, you could get anything.

It was relatively stable. My parents were never around, having gone to May 7 cadre school. My older brother and sister went to the Northeast.

I went to work in a factory. The years went by quickly, but I didn't think it was difficult. I saved money, made model planes, and was quite happy.

I have a good ability to work with my hands. I think that in today's [educational environment], children's ability to work with their hands is pretty poor.

Back then, we could do everything ourselves. In general, [our] lifestyle wasn't really affected.

Although a lot of study time was wasted, we received a lot of benefits, [things] that helped our entire lives, even if they were fun or enjoyable.

But my parents' generation was more miserable, since they experienced even more hardships.

Interviewer: Thank you.

That's what kind of generation it was – based on my age, that's how I feel about it.

Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview.

Thanks.