Red Childhood

Author: Liu Shuhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: This is a book that will make you read it from start to finish in one breath. Because, this book records your childhood, records your companions, records every little detail that is closely related to you. It records the laughter and tears of your first half of life. Whether you believe it or not, you are definitely in this book. Ten years, twenty years, thirty years, or even longer, someone takes out some footage of your past, and it vividly records everything related to you. This is a written documentary. It records the joy, tears, wisdom, and courage of China and all the Chinese people of that era. All of this is related to you. Really, it's related to you!
I was born in 1970, and that was a very special period. Whenever I mention those days, those older than me find it hard to understand, and those younger than me also find it hard to understand. Sometimes, even I find it hard to believe, but these happy memories stubbornly linger in my mind. So, I would find some of my peers and ask if they could understand my memories and my happiness. But my peers who grew up with me don’t live in the same city as me. One lives in the United States, and we often communicate via email. Most of them work at a large steel plant in Ma'anshan City, Anhui Province, some are in prison, and others are in other parts of the country. After childhood, most of us never saw each other again.
I and my companions were born in a courtyard of a geological team and spent my red childhood there. Then, I left with my father, who worked in geology. My close friend, Cai Dada, who I mention later, now lives in the United States. We are all grown up now, married, have children, and have become fathers who understand and have the ability to choose our homeland again. We haven’t been in touch for many years, but after reconnecting via email, we often talk about our childhood and that era. That era was the 1970s. Nowadays, people are categorized by decade—50s, 60s, 70s, and now there are the 80s. My seven-year-old daughter should be considered a 90s kid. Based on my experience, categorizing people by decade is meaningless, as there is no value in condemning or reflecting on the past and childhood. Because most people don’t even have the truth in their hands.
My elderly father, who is now seventy years old, has lived a life of hard labor. He was an absolutely hardworking and resilient geologist. I deeply understood his deeds after I became an adult. In 1960, he took many workers into the mountains and worked all day on a single steamed bun, yet they toiled endlessly. He told me that as they worked, they grew too tired and would lie down on the grass beside the drilling site, covered with clothes, and then get up and continue working. After a few months, the work was finished, and the grass was so worn down that it had taken on the shape of a person. The grass died under the imprint.
My father was a drilling geologist who drilled countless holes on Earth in his lifetime. Once, during a severe drought, he drilled water in a place where it was nearly impossible to find, saving many crops and people. My father once said, while he was seriously ill, that he had met those he had saved. Later, he miraculously recovered from a serious illness. Most of his life was spent drilling in the wilderness. My mother said that during the famine, when they reached a village, the people there had already starved to death. The geologists would first dig a pit and bury those who died last and were left unburied, then they would work like oxen on an empty stomach.
I believe my father’s life of labor was truly suffering, truly unbearable. But once, I asked him if he felt tired about his life or if his youth was hard. He replied, “Not tired. Not hard at all.” I didn’t understand his answer. Perhaps I will only understand it when I am seventy years old.
My mother once told me that during the Japanese invasion of China, her family only had one pair of pants. Everyone took turns wearing them. When my mother’s pants were taken by others, she would sit on the kang wrapped in a blanket, hugging her older brother. I asked my mother, “Was it hard then?” She replied, “Not hard.” She said what was truly hard was her grandmother and her grandmother’s mother. I never met my grandmother or her mother. My grandmother only left me a yellowed photograph, which I also lost in the frequent relocations of the geological team. History has disappeared before our eyes, vanished.
My good friend Cai Dada said he thought his childhood was too beautiful. His attitude toward this memory of life puzzled me, because he now lives in the United States, driving a BMW, and lives in a house that can only be seen in almanacs. How could his impoverished childhood experiences feel beautiful? Perhaps, the metaphysical aspects of life are more important than material life. Although my most profound memory of childhood is hunger, combined with confusion, in the attitudes of others toward childhood and in my writing about those days, I have gradually come to experience happiness. No suffering is unbearable for a person. The key is the attitude one has when enduring suffering. Because from history, I have deeply understood that suffering is always waiting for humanity. Whether they belong to which decade.