When she was in Beijing, Feng He had actually developed the habit of sleeping alone with her two children. However, now that the place had been changed, she was afraid that the children would not adapt to it, so Feng He originally planned to accompany them on the first day.
As usual, she would tell them a bedtime story before going to bed.
Feng He was a college English teacher and had read a lot of foreign fairy tale books, so she would tell some fairy tales to her two children before going to bed.
But now all kinds of foreign novels had been classified as banned books, so every time before telling a story, Feng He would urge her two children to remember not to tell these stories outside.
Zhao Suisui and Zhao Jingcheng nodded quickly.
They all liked to listen to the stories told by Feng He, which was another world different from the comic books.
Feng He asked the two of them to lie down, covered them with quilts, and then said: “Then, let’s tell the story of Cinderella today. A long, long time ago…”
The two children held their breath and listened carefully.
Zhao Suisui’s eyes widened even more as she listened.
Cinderella was so pitiful. She had a bad stepmother just like her, who robbed her of everything.
But Cinderella was much luckier than she was. She had a bird and also a Prince to help her.
She didn’t have a little bird to help her. As for the Prince, a scene suddenly flashed in Zhao Suisui’s mind. It seemed that when she was about to die of illness, a big brother came to find her.
But Zhao Suisui couldn’t remember what this big brother looked like.
Zhao Suisui fell asleep as she thought about it.
***
The next day—
The package sent from Beijing in advance had been delivered, and it was the little soldier who helped them carry their luggage yesterday who helped deliver it to their home.
Feng He spent the whole day organizing things.
She really wanted to let Zhao Suisui and Zhao Jingcheng go out to play with other children, but she didn’t expect that they both refused.
Zhao Suisui was naturally worried about her mother being with her bad Dad.
But she hadn’t seen the bad Dad since she got up. She also didn’t see the person until lunch.
“Your Dad won’t be back for lunch.” Feng He explained while picking up food for the two of them.
Zhao Suisui said ‘Oh’, a little happy.
Although Feng He made up her mind yesterday to hone her cooking skills, she didn’t dare to do it immediately. Otherwise, it would be unpalatable and a waste of ingredients.
So most of the lunch was bought from the canteen, and Feng He only tried one dish to test the waters.
It’s still potatoes. These days only potatoes produce the most food.
This time, without Zhao Haoyang’s help in shredding, Feng He fried potato slices.
She gave Zhao Suisui and Zhao Jingcheng a piece of potato each and said, “Try it. How does it taste? Don’t tell lies.”
Zhao Suisui looked at the potato slices in the bowl. The color looked normal and smelled normal.
She picked it up and took a bite, her expression a little strange. This time Feng He learned her lesson and didn’t add too much salt, but the taste was weird.
“How is it?” Feng He asked.
Zhao Suisui and Zhao Jingcheng looked at each other and finally shook their heads.
Feng He took a taste for herself, frowned, and then sighed.
The considerate little cotton-padded jacket Zhao Suisui was about to comfort her injured mother when she heard Feng He says: “It’s not very tasty. Suisui and Cheng Cheng don’t eat it. Leave it for your Dad to eat at night.”
Zhao Suisui: “Okay!”
She didn’t know what was going on, but she felt a little happy!
Zhao Haoyang returned home after the afternoon training.
Dinner was the food he brought back from the cafeteria. During the meal, Feng He pushed the potato slices over and said, “These are for you.”
Zhao Suisui snickered on the sidelines.
Zhao Haoyang: “…”
He finished the potato chips silently, fully realizing the fact that he was just a trash can in this house.
*****
Translator’s Little Encyclopedia:
The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, often known simply as the Down to the Countryside Movement, was a policy instituted in the People’s Republic of China between mid 1950s and 1978. As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In total, approximately 17 million youth were sent to rural areas as a result of the movement.
Many fresh high school graduates, who became known as the so-called sent-down youth (also known in China as “educated youth” and abroad as “rusticated youth”), were forced out of the cities and effectively exiled to remote areas of China. Some commentators consider these people, many of whom lost the opportunity to attend university.
(Cultural Revolution. Source: Wikipedia)
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Lucien On ABRWF Chapter 34.1
Thank you very much for the explanation. Finally I understand what educated youth and this program mean. I read a lot of novels set in the 60s but I don’t understand them at all
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I’ve read novels with reeducated youth and the conditions were terrible. Even if it’s propoganda against the regime of that era, imagine going from a urban life to the village where you are meant to build your life
How did they decide who was sent?
There wasn’t one way. People signed up at first due to the propaganda of the time and others due to a sense of patriotism. Eventually, people realized the harsh conditions they would have to endure and stopped rushing to sign up. Forced conscription then gained momentum, usually taking one kid from each family, focusing on the educated kids who weren’t married.
Poor dad lol. Thanks for the chapters!
This commentary is very one sided: providing a better class of teacher in rural environments—well over 50% of the population at the time—was absolutely necessary from any perspective and some kind of national policy attempting to improve rural education was entirely natural. As was using—indeed at some level exploiting—the youthful idealism of new graduates to encourage this, and the sacrifice of (an admitted minority) who ended up dedicating their lives to this end should be applauded. Of course many gave up once the reality of the situation and conditions became apparent—but two years, say, of youthful idealism might only delay their prospects while doing immeasurable good for some rural students. As propaganda alone became insufficient more and more coercive measures were adopted. Some people were forced out of their homes due to the toxic effects of the cultural revolution (i.e. as victims of political struggle) and some were forced because of conscription (that is to say, are you willing to stand in line with the party?). And as stated above the situation became an effective exile for many. None of this is to be applauded, but it should be apparent that for a government to allow maybe 70% of its juvenile population to have an education that was known to be inferior and insufficient for purposes of future national development is not only irresponsible but frankly criminal. At a moral level why do only urban children deserve to go to highschool? Similarly major social issues associated with peasant lifestyles (e.g. patriarchal attitudes, to put it euphemistically) were certainly improved during this period, despite the devastating effect of the one-child policy. Finally, I find it bizarre to sympathise with privileged students because they have to experience how ‘the other side’ live, without recognising that the people for who those conditions are everyday reality also deserve both the same sympathy and an opportunity to improve their situations. Of course the movement was bound up with ideological aspects—learning from the peasantry—as a kind of general philosophy of anti-intellectualism and proletarianisation; this was mimicked in Europe at a similar time, for instance by the workerism movement. At any rate, all major countries have adopted similarly coercive policies in times of war and the motivation in this case is rather more noble. The biggest deficiencies here ware a lack of long term support for the teachers, an incommensurability between timescales of rural development and educational procedures, wider political instability brought about by the cultural revolution—which did descend into a social lynching programme—and unfair implementation: hard working bright students from underprivileged backgrounds were more likely to be sent to teach in the countryside (rather than go to universities they were qualified to attend, especially since they could better put up with the conditions) while graduates with good connections could sometimes avoid this fate despite a lack of educational prowess. History is generally complex, and while the educated youth programme had many problems, nearly all commentary in English is clearly blinkered.
The commentary most certainly is biased but I think so is yours. I doubt anyone can give an objective view on history. And I frankly don’t see how this is supposed to be a good approach to spread education. You’ve completely left out the food shortage issue which played a large roll in all of this aswell.