Reborn in 1966

Chapter Forty discusses

There weren't many entertainment activities in the village, so during the winter when things were quiet, everyone would gather around to watch any commotion. The return of these men who had been married off was considered a big event. Many people in the village gathered under the big locust tree at the village entrance. When they saw that Peihua from the Shen family had returned from marrying off his father, many people gave Peihua a thumbs up. Peihua shyly thanked those who greeted him in a low voice.

On the large kang (heated brick bed) in Grandma's room, several children gathered around Peihua, listening to him recount his experiences in other places.

As soon as Grandma entered the house, she rolled out a big bowl of noodles for Peihua, poached two eggs, cooked it in a soupy broth, ladled it into a large, rough porcelain bowl, and placed it on the kang table.

The noodles were white, the poached egg was snow-white, and some bright green scallions floated on top of the soup. Grandma added a few drops of sesame oil, and the whole house was filled with the aroma of noodles and sesame oil. Pei Yin also felt her salivary glands become much more active.

Grandma said, "Grandma will make noodles for you all for dinner. But you have to let your eldest brother eat first. Dumplings for breakfast and noodles for dinner. When you get home, you have to have a bowl of hot soup noodles."

Peitian said, "Brother, eat quickly, and then continue telling us your story."

Peihua said, "Okay!"

After eating half a bowl, Peihua said to his grandmother, "Grandma, we ate lunch at the commune canteen. I ate three big steamed buns, made of white flour and cornmeal. They were so filling. I really can't eat any more after this half bowl."

Grandma knew that her eldest grandson wanted to share the noodles with the younger children, so he made up this excuse. She sighed and said, "Alright, we'll also take advantage of your eldest brother to have a few bites of white noodles."

Peihua didn't eat either of the two fried eggs. Grandma picked up an egg with chopsticks and held it to Peiyin's mouth, saying, "You two can share these two fried eggs. Yinyin, take a bite first."

Pei Yin took a small bite with her tiny teeth, nibbled on a bit of egg white, and then waved to her grandmother.

When given another egg, Pei-zhi only took a small bite and then stopped eating. In the end, she didn't even get to bite into the yolk of the last poached egg.

Grandma felt a pang of sadness as she watched the children listening intently to her older brother's story. They were all obedient and good children, but unfortunately, the family was too poor to afford an egg for each child. The five children guarded two eggs, but in the end, none of them finished one.

Pei Yin is now captivated by her elder brother Pei Hua's description.

Peihua is a very reserved person. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, he gets straight to the point and doesn't waste any words. He does the same when he talks about something; his descriptions are very apt and make people feel as if they are there.

After Peihua and his group gathered at the commune, they were led by a commune leader to Xiping Railway Station. They boarded a freight train and traveled for almost a day. After getting off the train, they took a military truck and arrived at the Yellow River. For the next month, they worked on digging a channel along the Yellow River.

Pei Yin had seen the Yellow River. When she was in school, she went to the Hukou Waterfall on the Yellow River to enjoy the magnificent rivers and mountains of her motherland. She still remembers the spectacular sight vividly.

The Yellow River, known as the mother river, is famous for its tendency to silt up, breach its banks, and change course. It is said that it "breaches its banks twice every three years and changes its course once every hundred years." There are many records of its course changes in history. Each course change is a history of blood and tears, because the so-called course change means that the Yellow River breaches its banks and the roaring river water carves out a new channel on the plain.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country adopted measures such as "strengthening the dikes and clearing silt" to manage the lower reaches of the Yellow River. During the dry season of winter, manpower was organized to strengthen the dikes on both banks of the Yellow River and remove the silt from the riverbed. This was the work that Peihua and his team were doing this time.

Peihua told his younger siblings that the boxcar was just like a regular train carriage—square and without windows, only a sliding door in the middle, with straw mats on the floor. Once the door was closed, it was pitch black inside; even in winter, it felt stuffy and hot, filled with the smells of mold, sweat, and cheap tobacco, making it hard to breathe. Once the train started moving, all you could hear was the monotonous clatter of it crawling slowly along the tracks; you had no idea what time you'd arrive or where you were. The boxcars were filled with people going to work in the countryside. Because they boarded in groups from their communes, Peihua stayed with a few people from his village.

The straw mats in the carriage weren't very thick. Peihua sat with an uncle from the same village, and when it got too cold, they used their bedding as a mat to sit on. There was no water to drink along the way, and sometimes they could only use the toilet at a small station. These carriages were usually attached to the back of slow trains, so there was no rush. They had to give way to fast trains and stopped at every station, making the journey quite leisurely.

After traveling several hundred miles for almost a day, they finally stopped about a hundred miles from the place where the husbands were to be married. After getting off the carts and resting, everyone pushed wheelbarrows and walked towards the place where the husbands were to be married.

Peihua's new husband's place is near the mouth of the Yellow River. It's a sparsely populated area with strong winds and sandstorms. I heard that sometimes when he wakes up after a night's sleep, his mouth is full of fine sand.

After getting off the train in the evening, we ate some dry food and then walked for about a hundred miles in pairs, pushing wheelbarrows, until we reached our campsite early the next morning.

We found some houses in nearby villages and used the brigade headquarters of several villages as barracks. When we arrived, we had a simple meal at the construction site canteen, then found our assigned barracks, settled in, and received a notice that we had to go to work on the construction site after lunch.

Building a dike requires sand and gravel. Because it is close to the sea, the sand and gravel in the area are not good. They have to be transported from a far away place, and then the laborers push the sand and gravel over in wheelbarrows.

At that time, wheelbarrows were made of wood, with a wheel hub in the middle and wide sides. The outermost handles were made of locust wood and had wide leather straps. When pushing the wheelbarrow, you would hang the leather bag around your neck, lift the two handles with both hands, and push a lot of things.

Peihua said that the most capable person on the construction site could push a stone weighing 800 jin (400 kg). When the project was completed, he received a certificate of merit for being a model worker and a white enamel mug with the name of the project written on it. Others usually received a tank top with the name of the project printed in red on it.

Peihua gave a detailed account of what he had seen and heard over the past month. Peihua is a very meticulous person, and he had also taken note of the local customs and traditions. When he returned home, he carefully told his children about them so that they would not offend the locals if they had the opportunity to visit these places again.

As dusk fell, Grandma prepared dinner. Shen's father, who had gone to the production team to help with the inventory of the warehouse, also returned. Seeing his eldest son, who had gone to marry in his place, return, Shen's father was very excited. Seeing his much more mature eldest son, Shen's father felt gratified. People's growth requires experience, whether it is a sweet experience or a hardship. Only through personal experience can one's thinking rise to a certain level, and only in this way can a person truly grow.