"I glanced at [the scene], and immediately ran back home. I asked Mom how that old woman could be so fat. It looked like her entire body was swollen."

Interviewer: Hi, thank you for accepting my interview. Please tell me the time period you were born in--for example, 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s.

I was born in the 1950s.

Interviewer: 1950s. Then, what area of China did you stay in from 1966 to 1976?

In Beijing.

Interviewer: In Beijing. Since you were born in [the 1950s], you must have some memories of the 10 years of the Cultural Revolution.

Interviewer: Even if you talked for several days and nights, you might not be able to say everything.

Interviewer: But if I only give you about 10 minutes, that is to say, in the first 10 minutes, without preparing, what memories would you like to share with us?

Every time I think about the Cultural Revolution, the 10-year Cultural Revolution, I feel fear and pain.

One [reason] is that when supporting the Third Front [Movement], mom and dad took my older brother[/s] and sister[/s] [and I] to Gansu [Province].

After we arrived in Gansu, my mom had heart trouble, so she took us kids right back to Beijing. So that means mom [had to] take care of her four children on her own in Beijing.

First of all, during the Cultural Revolution, someone [who lived] in the same courtyard in our neighborhood, who was called the director [of the revolutionary committee], kept bullying our family, baselessly saying my mom was Japanese.

His reasoning was that, for one thing, my mom was not very tall, and for another, her skin was very white.

Because of that, we were always accused [of things], and had to participate in manual labor, such as digging an air-raid shelter, etc.

Mom was very afraid at that time. Actually, I was only in the first grade.

[But] mom couldn’t find anyone [else] to consult, so she asked me, "Should I go to the revolutionary committee to proactively admit what mistakes I made in my work in the past?"

At the time, I thought about it, and I immediately thought of an old man in our neighborhood. His family background was not good, so he had to sweep the street.

[I thought of how] his granddaughter would be out on our street, clinging to her grandfather's leg, crying.

Another memory is [about] my father working in Gansu. He had been a cadre. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent down to do manual labor in a workshop.

When he was setting nails, a nail bounced into his eye. As a result, he lost his sight in that eye. My father was a very handsome man.

He was tortured at heart, and really in pain, and soon he got serious hyperthyroidism.

Even now [I] still remember how he looked the moment he opened the door after returned to Beijing from Gansu -- he was already unrecognizable, a thin man who was already a bag of bones.

Another memory is that my elementary school principal was beaten. She was surrounded and struggled against by a group of Red Guards, [who] spit in her face.

This left a deep impression on me. I felt really terrified. At that time I just thought, could it be that when facing an enemy, the only thing to do was to raise your hands and fight?

Coincidently, and unfortunately -- though it also counts as fortunately -- later on this principal of the elementary school became my mother-in-law.

Therefore, this memory has become more painful, and I don't dare speak about this incident with my own husband and his family.

Another thing is that there was a big sports field near our home. At that time, hundreds of people held a struggle meeting [there] to struggle against people like Lu Dingyi.

At that time I saw...it was the first time I'd seen something called "jet plane style," pushing someone’s head down hard toward the ground, and lifting [that person's] arms up toward the sky. It was just terrifying to me.

Another thing is that I saw a neighbor, an old woman, beaten late at night. [I] could hear [her] miserable howling in the middle of the night.

The Red Guards beat her with their belts, which had iron buckles on them. They hit that old woman, who was actually very thin.

I glanced at [the scene], and immediately ran back home. I asked mom how that old woman could be so fat. It looked like her entire body was swollen.

Then there was my brother, who belonged to the class of '69.

When he was on the army farm, he hadn't gone along with a group of local people to steal some parts from the troop, some car parts, to sell.

Later on someone exposed this [theft]. [Those local people] suspected it was my brother [who had exposed it].

So, one day when they were all working, more than 10 people surrounded my brother and beat him, resulting in him getting a serious concussion, along with schizophrenia.

My brother was good at studying. During the Cultural Revolution…Before the Cultural Revolution, he was a sixth-grade student in elementary school.

I remember very clearly, the teacher said he might be able to get in to No. 4 Boys' High School, or at least No. 3 Boys' High School.

A composition he wrote in elementary school was exhibited and read in many other schools. He was a smart kid, and grew up to be so handsome.

But after [he was beaten], he suffered from schizophrenia up until he was in his 50s, when he passed away. [My] pitiful older brother.

What's more, his schizophrenia tortured him for practically his whole life. At the same time, it also tortured our entire family.

If a family has a patient with schizophrenia, life is tough for all family members.

Interviewer: [I] can imagine.

So every time the Cultural Revolution is mentioned, I feel pain and fear.

Not to mention, when the Cultural Revolution started, I was in the first grade, so basically I lost the opportunity to be educated.

At that time, the only thing you could do in school was read Quotations from Chairman Mao, in my memory.

Lots of my classmates cannot even really use Hanyu Pinyin very well now. Also, I couldn’t go to university because of [the Cultural Revolution].

Therefore, in my opinion, each time I think about these [memories]…Those are losses that we cannot…we can never get back.

They are pain and losses of our generation, the next generation after us, and even of the generation before us -- three generations of people. That’s all I want to say.

Interviewer: Thank you. Thank you for accepting my interview. Thank you so much!