by Weijian Shan
In the first year, our crops were a total failure. They would not get better. We worked so hard throughout the year to plow the land, to fertilize, to build canals and ditches, to irrigate, to weed, to spread insecticides, and to harvest under the blazing sun or in the rain, day and night (irrigation was usually done at night). But we produced less, far less, than the seeds we sowed, after a season of backbreaking labor. It would have been better if we had simply consumed the seeds as our food supply. We put so much time and sweat into the most barren parts of the land, and in the end, we failed. The labor of the few hundred of us was no match for the Gobi.
* * *
At the subheadquarters of our regiment, located between our company and Company No. 9, there was a little shop. It sold some basic goods such as soap, needles, and thread. It also sold canned food. A can of cooked pork cost 2 yuan, 40 percent of my monthly pay of 5 yuan. Unlike most of the boys in our company, I didn’t smoke. Nor did I drink. I spent most of my money on buying canned pork. Among my friends, we shared each other’s food no matter how hungry we were. Typically, each person only got a single bite out of a can, as there was never enough to go around.
Hunger also drove us to eat everything we could catch. If we caught a stray dog, we ate it. If we caught a stray cat, we ate it. I once joined others in eating an owl that Liu Xiaotong had found dead somewhere near our barracks. A horse died and its carcass lay near the outhouse. Not everyone wanted to eat a dead horse. Some of us including myself cut pieces of meat from the carcass. We ate it for many days. Given the circumstances, it was delicious.
We lived quite far away from the locals. The nearest village was about an hour away by foot. Some boys snuck into nearby villages to steal chickens. If they were caught, they were likely to get beaten up. So they only raided the villages at night. It was rather easy to snatch a chicken from its coop where they slept. Eventually, the locals learned how to deal with the thieves by building a long tube made of mud bricks at the entrance of the chicken coop. The tube was longer than an arm’s length so the thieves could not reach the coop.
* * *
In large parts of northern China, north of the Yangtze River and south of the Great Wall, wheat seeds are planted in early October. They sprout when the weather is still warm and grow for about a month and a half to about 30 centimeters tall (∼1 foot) before winter comes. During the winter, they wither away as the land turns brown or, when covered by snow, white. Even though their stems above the ground appear dead in winter, their roots remain alive. The more snowfall the better for them, because snow provides needed water when spring comes. Winter in most parts of northern China is not cold enough to damage the roots of the wheat. Peasants here have a saying: “A good snow heralds a good harvest next year.”
When spring returns in late March, wheat plants begin to sprout out of the soil and grow again. I think the reason for winter wheat to be planted the previous year is to allow the roots to take hold deep in the soil before winter, so that in spring the wheat can grow rapidly and ripen in early summer, before the summer rains.
We were farther north. In Inner Mongolia, as in almost all the regions north of the Great Wall, we grew “spring wheat,” as opposed to winter wheat. Seeds were sown in springtime, not the previous winter. Because the winter so far north is extremely cold, it would not only kill the crop above the ground but also the roots when the ground freezes. In the Gobi, the ground is frozen solid in wintertime and to just break the surface is exceedingly difficult.
The sowing season for spring wheat was at the end of March or beginning of April, when the soil had thawed and migrant birds were beginning to return from the south. It was also a time when the roads were muddy and travel was difficult. We called it fan jiang, or frost boiling, which causes upswellings of mud from below the surface when the frozen earth thaws. To work in the fields in early spring, we had to pick our way carefully in order not to get stuck in the mud. Too often, vehicles, including horse-drawn carts, sank in the mud and it took the joint efforts of beasts and people to get them out.
Company No. 3 was supposed to help us with their tractors and machines. But we rarely saw them. The political instructor told us many times: “People with free time are prone to trouble.” Therefore, he kept us busy with manual labor but left the machines idle.
There was another reason why machines were seldom employed. They broke down all the time. None of us knew if the breakdowns were caused by mechanical problems, because only the operators had the knowledge and skills of a mechanic. We suspected the frequent mechanical problems were just excuses for the machine operators to steal a break, and our company leaders, none of whom knew anything about machines, could be easily fooled.
An exception to the machines’ idleness was that tractors were used for sowing. The time window for sowing was short, a week at most. It was impractical to plant hundreds of hectares of land manually, no matter how hard we worked. The seeds were mixed with insecticides before they were planted. Machines could mix and spread insecticides much better than we could by hand. The insecticides were to kill the mole crickets that lived in the soil and would eat the seeds. There were many mole crickets and we could hear them chirp at night. There was a popular expression among us: “Don’t stop planting wheat just because mole crickets chirp,” which means you should not let little problems or risks prevent you from doing what is necessary. I still follow such wisdom today.
I took part in the wheat planting every spring. A tractor pulled a sowing machine that looked like a long trough with many holes at the bottom. Two of us stood over the trough on a narrow piece of wood board. As the tractor moved, the holes in the trough opened and closed to let out the insecticide-laced seeds. We bumped up and down with the trough, using our hands to spread the seeds over the holes.
As we worked, we were constantly covered in dust and dirt and by plumes of insecticides stirred up by the crawler wheels of the tractor. We called our work “eating dust.” When the tractor stopped to refill the seeds in the trough, only the eyes and dirty teeth of my coworkers were visible under the layer of dirt. It was not only the dust we ate, but also a powerful cocktail of dirt, engine exhaust, and insecticides. Cui Xianchao was lucky. He was bespectacled, and behind his glasses he could keep his eyes open when waves of dust blew into his face.
These insecticides were effective poisons. Locals used the seeds mixed and soaked with insecticides to bait and kill waterfowl along the shores of Lake Wuliangsu. The birds dropped dead quickly after eating the seeds. The hunters then took the dead birds to our barracks to sell. It was so rare for us to eat meat, and we were so hungry for it, that these wild delicacies sold well. I had not worried too much about dipping my hands into insecticide, but I knew it was dangerous when swallowed. The temptation of the meat, however, was too strong to resist.
Coincidentally, I was reading an insecticide manual, not so much because I wanted to learn about insecticides but because at that particular time I had run out of books to read. I had learned that the chemical composition of insecticides was highly acidic. Alkali should neutralize the acid, I reasoned; if we soaked the bird in soda water, maybe the poison would be neutralized. I had absolutely no idea if my theory was correct. Nonetheless, that was exactly what we did. We soaked the birds in soda water for a couple of hours before cooking them. They were absolutely delicious. None of us died from eating the birds’ poisoned meat, either because my method worked or our bodies were a lot tougher than the birds’.
It was not until many years later that I learned that the most common insecticide we’d used in the Gobi, DDT, had been banned in many other countries. In Inner Mongolia, we used nothing but DDT, not only as an insecticide for crops, but also to spray indoors to kill mosquitoes and flies. I must have had a healthy dose of exposure to DDT over the years. I am positive my body’s tolerance level for poison is quite high, but I don’t quite believe that what does not kill you makes you stronger.
* * *
If our farming yielded
less than the seeds we used, why did we do it at all? We had no answer for this question. Nor, I think, did our leaders. I guess there was always the hope that next year would be better. But in truth, we did worse each year. Our hard labor was wasted. We described our work as “repairing the Earth” because it was so ambitious, and yet so futile, pointless and backbreaking.
The description came from a song titled “Song of Educated Youth” that was banned by the authorities but secretly circulating among us. It was composed by an educated youth just like ourselves, who came from Nanjing, a major city by the Yangtze River and once China’s capital under Nationalist rule. His song struck a chord with us, as it not only described our job in the Gobi but also resonated in our hearts:
Ah, … Nanjing
My lovely hometown;
Ah, … Nanjing
When will I be able to go back to you?
In the blue sky
White clouds fly;
On the bank of the beautiful Yangtze
Is Nanjing my lovely ancient city
My hometown;
Ah, the bridge is like a rainbow
Bettering the colorful clouds;
Across the Yangtze
Is the great Zhong Mountain
Where my home is;
Said goodbye to mother,
Farewell home,
Golden student era
Now in the history book of the youth
Never to return.
Ah, the road of the future so hard
So long.
The steps of life
Deep and shallow in a remote strange land.
Rising with the sun
Returning with the moon
Heavily repairing the Earth
Is the glorious and sacred duty, my destiny.
Ah, … Our two hands embroider the Earth with red
Red all over the universe.
Looking toward tomorrow
Believe it, it will arrive.
Ah, … Nanjing.
My lovely hometown
Ah, … Nanjing
When will we be able to return to you, to you?
There was no better description for our job than “heavily repairing the Earth.” All year round we dug in the earth, rain or shine. In the end, we produced hardly anything.
At the time, none of us knew where the song had originated. I later learned that the composer was Ren Yi, who was just 21 years old when he wrote it in May 1969. For this, he was arrested and sentenced to death in May 1970. Fortunately for Ren, the commander-in-chief of the Nanjing Military Region was General Xu Shiyou, who was also the head of the city of Nanjing. Xu was a war hero with a hot temper who repeatedly clashed with the Rebels. The Red Guards could not do anything about Xu because he was one of Mao’s favorite generals. When Ren’s death sentence landed on the general’s desk, he felt sorry that a 22-year-old boy would die for a song and commuted his sentence to 10 years in prison.
* * *
Digging ditches was hard labor. We would not know how hard until we began to dig below the surface. Under the gravel was a layer of sticky clay. In springtime, when ice crystals were still visible in the earth, the clay was particularly thick, requiring the strength of one’s whole body just to push a shovel into the ground. Often, it was impossible to dig out the clay by lifting the shovel. Instead we had to cut the clay like a piece of cake on four sides before lifting a large cube of earth out of the ground. Once the clay was dug out, it often stuck to the shovel and was difficult to shake off. I had to use my full body strength to do so. After a day’s work, not only were my arms sore, my back and legs were aching as well.
The blacksmith of our company made our shovels. The blades were hammered out by hand. As such, the surface of the blade was never smooth, no matter how we tried to flatten it. It bore dents and marks from the hammer, and mud and clay would stick to a marked-up, dented blade and make the shovel impossible to use. The only way to make it even and smooth was to use it repeatedly and to grind it with gravel until the steel shone.
My shovel was my pride. I used it so often, and I ground it with a piece of broken brick so much every day, that eventually its surface was almost like shining armor. Such a tool made my work much less frustrating and more productive. When its surface became smooth, it cut like a knife and I could throw the clay out of the ditch. I cared for my shovel so much that Liu Baoquan said I should marry it. It was indeed the most precious possession I had.
The blacksmith shop in our company was located in a tiny brick house. The blacksmith, Master Hu, was of medium height, dark-skinned, with a strong and muscular body. He was a friendly and helpful man and always smiled before he spoke. He was a man of few words, but he was a straight shooter. He talked directly to you, no nonsense. My good friend, Li Rongtian, was Master Hu’s only apprentice. Li Rongtian was also of medium build but thin. His skin was pale, just like any city boy, and, without his working apron, he didn’t look at all like a blacksmith. Like Old Cui, Li Rongtian was a 66er, three years my senior and more educated than most of us. He and I were among the few who continued to read whatever books we could find, so we were close. I was somewhat envious of him because by not having to work in the fields, he had more time to read.
Li Rongtian believed that wasting time was the biggest sin one could commit against oneself. My whole life since then has been influenced by this wisdom he had shared with me. I still feel a sense of guilt when I find myself with nothing productive to do, such as when on vacation.
I went to the blacksmith shop to help out from time to time. The tools of a blacksmith were quite simple: a little furnace to heat up the iron, a bellows, a heavy iron anvil with a flat surface the size of about two palms, a few pairs of different-sized pliers, a couple of big sledgehammers, and a few small ones. The first step in forging a piece of metal was to heat the iron in the furnace until it was red-hot. To make the fire burn more intensely, the apprentice pushed and pulled the bellows. I sometimes helped handle the bellows. Once the iron was hot, the master took it out of the furnace with a pair of pliers and placed it on the anvil. Then with the pliers in his left hand holding the hot iron, Master Hu would use a small hammer with his right hand to strike the iron where required. His apprentice would then swing a sledgehammer in a full circle before striking where the master had struck. This way, the master basically directed with his small hammer where the sledgehammer should strike. The symphony of hammers striking the hot iron was loud and rapid as the hot iron was formed into the desired shape. If the iron cooled before taking shape, it had to be put into the furnace to be reheated.
I tried to help in the blacksmith shop. It was an extremely hard job. Swinging the sledgehammer required strength and effort, but also precision. Missing the spot where the master had struck would earn his glare at best or a scolding. It was dangerous if you missed the mark too much and you certainly would not want to hit your master by mistake. But unlike carpentry, which I also tried, the job of a blacksmith allowed mistakes; you could always reshape a piece of iron. But if a carpenter cut his wood too short, there was no cure and the wood piece was wasted. Therefore, the rule was “err on the short side for a blacksmith but err on the long side for a carpenter,” because it was easy to stretch a piece of iron and to cut a piece of wood shorter, but not the other way around.
Later in life, I always marveled at and appreciated the skills of sculptors of masterpieces, especially stone sculptors, because they cannot make the slightest mistakes. One wrong cut with a chisel, and the whole piece is ruined. That kind of precision is just so hard for a rural blacksmith to imagine. It seems Michelangelo never missed his chisel by a hair in creating the giant statue David, which stands 5.17 meters (17 feet) tall. That is hardly in the realm of humanly possibility, and he certainly defied the common wisdom: to err is human. Great sculptors like Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin were truly divine.
* * *
Spring in the Gobi came quite late. It was not warm until late April or even May. We began t
o work in the fields in March or earlier, as soon as the ice started to thaw. Despite the cold weather, almost all boys worked naked from the waist up and sometimes, when there were no women around, we worked in our underpants because doing such hard work made us sweat. We worked almost naked was not only to cool down, but also to save clothing; we were rationed only two sets of clothes each year, and they wore out quite easily. It also allowed us to tan gradually as the days grew warmer. The spring sun did not burn as badly as the summer’s. By the end of April, we were thoroughly tanned. After that, no matter how much the summer sun of the Gobi beat down on our backs, the skin would only get darker but would not peel off. My skin remained quite dark through the year, until deep into the winter.
One of the hardest parts of being a farmer was cutting wheat at harvest time. Wheat ripened in late June and early July, when the weather was hottest. Once ripe, the wheat needed to be taken in as soon as possible, typically within a couple of weeks, before the summer rains came, as the rain would damage the wheat. The short time window made the work extremely intense and fast-paced.
Harvesting wheat was done entirely by hand. We didn’t have any machines for this. I marveled as I read about mechanized harvesters in foreign countries. One such machine probably would do the work of 200 of us.
The tool we had was a sickle. The Chinese sickle is different from the European kind. Chinese sickles look exactly like the ones in the hammer and sickle logo on the flag of the Communist Party. The Chinese sickle has a short handle that can be held by one hand, whereas European sickles are long-handled and held with two hands. The European sickle, a scythe basically, allows the user to work in a standing position. The farmer swings it from right to left to cut down the wheat as he moves forward one step at a time. Using a Chinese sickle, one needs to bend down, wrap one’s left arm around a handful of wheat, hold the sickle in the right hand, and, once the blade catches the stems near the roots, sharply pull the sickle in your own direction to cut down the wheat. The farmer moves one step at a time after each cut, but always in a bent or squatting position. This motion was hard on the back and legs, which became sore after the first 100 meters (∼100 yards). After a day’s work, it became difficult to straighten up and you would ache all over. The scorching summer sun beating down on the head, neck, and back just added to the misery.