by Weijian Shan
I began to miss home and my parents. But I could not tell them what my living conditions were at the time, or they would have worried.
* * *
After the study sessions and two days of break, it was time to prepare the farmland. Tractors had already plowed the fields. Our job was to build ridges to segment the fields and ditches to channel water into the fields from the main irrigation canals. Although we lived in a desert, we were not too far from some canals that connected all the way to the Yellow River, the second largest river in China. We had plenty of water for irrigation in summertime.
The only tools we had were shovels. Usually, the whole platoon would work in a single field, then go on to another one. The farm could have used tractors and other types of machines, but the leaders believed that “people make trouble when they don’t have enough to do.” So they would retire the machinery for months. Tractors were only used to deep-plow the soil and to spread seeds.
Like almost everyone, I was not used to working all day with a shovel. My hands were soon covered with blisters. Even with a pair of work gloves, they still hurt. After a day in the fields I would pierce the blisters with a needle to let the fluid out. But after about a week, the blisters turned into calluses. The work did not feel as bad.
It was important to be able to carry things on one’s shoulders, often the only means of transporting anything. In the beginning, it was extremely painful as my shoulders were tender. The first time I had to carry a heavy load was when Platoon Leader Liu ordered me to go back and fetch several shovels from our living quarters a few kilometers away. This was regarded as a good assignment since it involved walking empty-handed or with a “light” load for about an hour.
I picked up five shovels, put them on my shoulder and headed back to the fields. Almost as soon as I started, my shoulder began to hurt. I had to unload the shovels every 20 steps to catch my breath and allow the pain to ease. Eventually, my shoulder became too bruised to touch, and my destination was still not in sight. I had to carry the shovels in my arms or drag them along very slowly and painfully. When I finally rejoined my platoon, Platoon Leader Liu was annoyed and gave me a stern look. He thought I had stolen a break. I was too embarrassed to tell him that these few shovels were too heavy for my tender shoulders.
We were thirsty all the time we worked in the fields under the sun. Drinking water was scarce. Some old-timers carried canteens, but we newcomers had none. Each day, someone had to carry two buckets of water to the fields.
It required skill to fetch water. The hardest part was filling a bucket from a well. If you simply lowered the bucket, it would float. The trick was to pull the rope to one side and then very quickly and sharply to the other, so that the bucket would turn over and sink. Once you pulled two buckets up, you placed them on the ends of a shoulder pole. An experienced laborer could carry two buckets of water, weighing about 50 kilograms (∼100 pounds), for up to 50 kilometers (∼30 miles) in a single day.
At first, it took me forever to pull water from the well, and then the buckets were only half full. This was for the best; I could not carry more than two half-buckets. The narrow pole on my 15-year-old shoulders was pure torture. Besides, I could not balance to prevent water from spilling out. My pants and shoes were soaked when I arrived.
But I soon learned. I changed from a city boy to a farm laborer. Miraculously, although I was eating food with little in the way of nourishment and had come to the Gobi with a fairly weak constitution, I was in good health. I only wished that I could put a little weight on my 50-kilogram (∼100-pound) body.
I had settled into the routines of life in the Gobi.
Chapter 6
Digging for Potatoes
Capitalism, which even before the founding of the People’s Republic had been quite new and underdeveloped in China, had by the 1960s been systematically rooted out. In the cities, private ownership of the means of production—factories, businesses—had been expropriated, although usually with some compensation to the previous owners. What remained was either owned by the state or owned by collectives. The difference between the two was that the employees of a state-owned factory generally received a pay rate commensurate with their rank and seniority, and usually regardless of the performance of the business, whereas the compensation of a member of a collective varied greatly depending on the output of the business as well as the member’s contribution.
The Communist Party had been carrying out a policy of land redistribution for decades, taking agricultural land from rich peasants and dividing it among the poor in areas it controlled during its war with the Nationalist government. This policy had only been suspended during the Anti-Japanese War in order to bring the big landowners into the war effort, but it resumed in earnest after the Japanese surrender and the establishment of the PRC.
By 1958, there was yet another major transformation in the rural areas, as the Party instituted a process of collectivization, resulting in a system known as the People’s Commune. In the commune system, all the major means of production, including land, became collectively owned. Peasants worked for points and were allocated grain and other crops at harvest in accordance with the points they had earned in the year. Income levels for peasants varied greatly from one place to another, depending on how much their village produced, which in turn was determined by the fertility of the land (or lack thereof), the weather, and labor input.
There were state-owned farms, but only a small number of them, and they were generally located where there had not been much in the way of farming. Our farm in the Gobi was one. Whereas the peasants in a commune ate what they produced, more or less, we at a state-owned farm were paid regardless of our effort or output. But our pay was de minimis: Other than food rations and some basic clothing, we were paid only five yuan a month, not enough to buy a chicken.
Food and clothing had already been rationed before 1966. The turmoil of the Cultural Revolution had further hampered production, exacerbating the shortage. By 1969, just about everything, including basic necessities, was in short supply. All socialist economies are shortage economies, but China was probably the most extreme case in the late 1960s and 1970s as the Cultural Revolution took a heavy toll on the economy.
* * *
Three weeks after our arrival, the company leaders announced that the following day our platoon would march some 30 kilometers (∼18 miles) to dig potatoes. Like soldiers, we were expected to be able to respond to any order without warning. They called this being “as fierce as thunder and as fast as wind” and told us we should consider it glorious that our platoon had been chosen for such an urgent and important task.
National Day, October 1, celebrated the founding of the People’s Republic 20 years earlier. It was a holiday for the nation, but not for us. Each of us packed a quilt and some clothing into a small backpack and loaded it onto a horse-drawn wagon that would also transport shovels, food, and cookware. Then we set out on foot.
There was not much of a path. Platoon Leader Liu, who had been to the fields before, led the way. The autumn weather was great, dry and clear, with a refreshing snap in the air.
The land was virtually bare, with not a house or tree as far as I could see. Our view stretched to the Yin Mountains, at the horizon line. There was nothing between them and us but vast land. As the saying in Inner Mongolia went, “You could run a horse to death trying to reach the mountains.” They appeared close, but they were far away.
The earth beneath our feet was sandy and barren and the few desert plants were all dead and dry. When the wind blew, they rolled around. Our feet broke through a crust of salt on the surface as we walked, and our shoes became heavy with salty dirt.
Occasionally we encountered long expanses of sand that could migrate with the wind. They could move unbelievably rapidly in a storm and were capable of engulfing a small house. All the houses in Inner Mongolia were built with doors and windows facing south, away from the northern Siberian wind. This way, there was less chance o
f being completely buried by the moving sand.
Small lizards darted from one hole in the dry ground to another. I spotted several larks, singing quite beautifully. I was always glad to see these little creatures. It made me feel like I was in a land with some life after all.
The sandy soil in some parts of Inner Mongolia was suitable for growing potatoes. Potatoes liked the sand, because they could grow large. In fact, any root vegetable grew well—even carrots grew to several kilos (∼2 pounds per kilogram). But these enormous vegetables did not taste nearly as good as their small brethren, the kind that I used to eat in Beijing.
Each of us carried a canteen and some wotou, which is a type of steamed cornbread. I did not own a canteen, but Li Baoquan borrowed one for me from a friend of his. Li himself had also borrowed a canteen.
When I asked him what had happened to his own, he said, “I smashed it.”
I was astonished. “Why?” I asked.
“To test its quality,” he said, without smiling.
By the middle of the day, I had eaten the wotou and my canteen was empty. As I walked under the sun, I grew more and more thirsty. I noticed that the old-timers like Li Baoquan were still sipping water. Li told me that here you had to learn how to conserve your water, only using it when absolutely necessary. He was kind enough to share his canteen with me. I only moistened my lips and let some water trickle into my throat, for I did not want to drink too much of the little he had left. The journey ahead was still long.
Probably because we were thirsty, we started to talk about watermelon. Watermelons grew well in Inner Mongolia, especially in dry years, when they grew particularly sweet. Baoquan said that there had still been plenty of watermelons around at this time the year before. But they were difficult to come by this year.
He hoped there would be watermelon fields near the potatoes. I reminded him that none of us had any money, so that even if there were watermelons, it wouldn’t make any difference. Baoquan said that only a fool would spend money on watermelons. He got his melons the direct way: by stealing them.
He told me how he would dress in dark colors before going to the melon fields. On a dark night, the guards could not see you in your “night-walking” clothes. Baoquan described how he would crawl out and pick the ripe melons, identifying the best ones by flicking them with his finger. I learned this skill from him. To this day, my wife is amazed how I can pick out the best watermelon in the supermarket by tapping my fingers on them.
He had had numerous adventures, but he had never been caught. Once he had to have a bowel movement halfway through his melon raid, because he was eating too much. The old man guarding the fields heard something and fired a shot with his bird gun. The pellets from the gun hit Baoquan in the rear end. He had to flee, pulling on his pants as he ran.
Baoquan told this story with such good humor that I could not help laughing. But I wondered if he felt bad about stealing. “Come on,” he said. “A man eats from the mountain if he is next to the mountain and he eats from the water if he is next to the water. We contribute much more to socialism than our meager pay shows. Those turtle egg company leaders have a much better life than we do, and the girls give them cigarettes and candies as well. What’s a few melons?”
I had to agree. And as I got to know him, I found that Baoquan was an upright and honorable man despite being a melon thief. He was always willing to help others, especially those he considered his friends. When he stole from the melon fields or from the company kitchen, he shared his loot with everyone, although he was often the only one to take the risks. He was notorious for being “ideologically backward” in the company because he complained about everything. But the company leaders could not do much to him because they could not shame him by calling him “not progressive.” He only cared about how he was perceived by his friends.
Baoquan continued, “Platoon Leader Liu loved the melons I gave him. So did his girlfriend.” Liu’s girlfriend was the leader of the Sixth Platoon. She came from Tianjin, same as Baoquan. “I wouldn’t want to have a girlfriend from Tianjin,” he added. “Tianjin wives make their husbands wash their feet for them. I would like to marry a Japanese woman. They take better care of their husbands.” He said this loudly for everyone to hear. Nobody knew where he got the idea.
Wang Decai, who was also from Tianjin, was walking in front of us. He turned his head and sneered at Baoquan. “To find a mate,” he said, quoting a Chinese saying, “a man needs to have talents or wealth and woman needs to have beauty. What do you have to offer?”
Without hesitation, Baoquan replied that he was good looking, with “big eyes and a high nose, not like you with disgustingly small eyes and a flat nose.” The only shortcoming, he sighed, was his legs: they were somewhat O-shaped. But he said he had talents. He was good at soccer, wrestling, and doing tricks with a diabolo, a Chinese yo-yo. He also added that he liked to clean house. It was true; Baoquan always kept things tidy. “Anyway, I am much better qualified than you are, Big Decai.”
Everyone laughed and Decai sniffed. This was how the conversation went on between them all the time. The boys from Tianjin were a funny bunch.
“Old Cui,” Baoquan said, turning to Cui Xianchao. “What would you say I am worth?”
Old Cui was one of the oldest among us, so his words carried some weight. He frowned as if thinking seriously. “Baoquan, you are at least a four or four-plus out of five,” he announced. “I have no doubt that you will find a beautiful Japanese wife.”
Everyone laughed. We all knew that no one was really thinking about girlfriends or marriage. Even the oldest of us, like Old Cui and Deputy Squad Leader Huang Shurong, were too young to get permission to marry. The only one in our platoon who was approaching that age was Platoon Leader Liu.
Old Cui said that he did not want to get married at all. In his opinion, marriage would be a prison. Old Cui often had strange and interesting theories. Once challenged, he would argue fervently.
Huang Shurong took the bait, saying that Old Cui would be among the first to get married because he was so messy that he could not take care of himself. It was true. Old Cui never made his bed and he was in the habit of losing things. “If I ever get married,” Old Cui declared, “I will give you 50 cans of pork.”
There was much cheering and laughter at this. Even Platoon Leader Liu slowed down to listen. Fifty cans of meat cost about 25 months of our pay. Besides, Old Cui was barely 19. Nobody was going to remember what he had said by the time he really got married.
But Old Huang, as we called him, made Old Cui swear that he would give him 50 cans of pork on his wedding day. Then Platoon Leader Liu observed that the deal was unfair. What would Huang give up if Cui really did not get married?
Huang said that he would give Cui 100 cans of pork if he did not marry by the age of 40. He was so serious that he wanted to put everything in writing once we found something to write with. Platoon Leader Liu made them both pledge that when either one won, all of us would be invited as guests.
Such conversations made the journey more bearable. But after many hours, our destination was still not in sight. My legs felt more and more heavy, and my thirst was getting worse. Nobody was talking anymore. We were all parched and dying of thirst.
After a few more kilometers, we stopped at a small inn used by drivers of horse-drawn wagons, where we had some water and took a rest. Still, we were exhausted by the time we reached our destination, which turned out to be a rather large potato field. As if by a miracle, an enormous crop was growing here in the middle of the barren land. We sat down by the edge of the field to recover from our journey and marveled.
The old farmers who reclaimed this field from wasteland had made it into a self-sufficient farm. Now it had been turned over to “people’s ownership,” another term for state ownership, and the dozen-odd farmers had become state employees with wages and grain rations. Looking at the obvious bumper harvest, I could not help but admire them. They must have known what they were doing to m
ake the potatoes grow so well.
There were only a few hours left in the day and Platoon Leader Liu ordered us to start work with hardly any rest after the long walk. The job was not too difficult. The stems and leaves of the potato plants crawled on the ground. You had to lift them up to find the root, from which several potatoes grew. Then we put the shovel into the earth a foot or so away, so as not to cut into the potatoes. After loosening the earth, we pulled on the stem. Sometimes, all the potatoes attached to a root would come out together. More often, the root would break, and we had to dig the potatoes out one by one by hand.
These were gigantic white potatoes, larger than any I had ever seen. White potatoes are usually much smaller than sweet potatoes. But these were larger than the largest sweet potatoes in any market in Beijing. Very soon, there were large piles of potatoes in the fields. We were pleased to see the fruits of our labor.
At sunset, Platoon Leader Liu ordered us to stop digging and cover the piles with the stems and leaves. Although the temperature was about 25°C (about 77°F) during the day, at night it could fall below freezing. Once frozen, potatoes would rot quickly. We did not know if leaves would do much good to protect them from the cold.
After the potatoes were covered, the horse-drawn wagon arrived with some food and water. Cook Jin Jian from the cooking squad had gone to the horse-wagon inn to use their stove to prepare our meal. We ate right there in the open, sitting on the potato leaves.
Cook Jin also brought some letters, for the mail person had arrived just before we left our compound. There was a letter from my parents, the first I received since I left Beijing. They had received two of my letters. They told me that my sister left for the northeast the day after I had, and they had not yet heard anything from her. My mother would soon be sent to a farm, and she hoped she would not be too far from my sister. They told me to take care of myself and make new friends.