Darkroom Tricks, Trends, and a Free, Unprepared Photograph
Part I: The Trend of "Four-Eyes" and Darkroom Sorcery
In 1974, a curious trend swept through the stylish youth of Shanghai: wearing eyeglasses. In those years, people who actually wore glasses were exceedingly rare, often mockingly teased as "Four-Eyes" (四眼儿). Countless youths who possessed absolutely perfect vision would deliberately go out of their way to snag a pair of non-prescription, plain-glass spectacles just to look scholarly, cultured, and refined. It was quite ironic, considering that not long prior, intellectuals had been heavily criticized and branded with the derogatory title of the "Stinking Ninth" (臭老九). To catch this wave of fashion, I went along and borrowed a pair of plain-glass spectacles myself, rushing off excitedly to a photo studio to snap a portrait.
It was also in 1974 that the masters of the photography studios began concocting all sorts of new novelties inside their darkrooms. One moment it was the "vignette portrait" (白化照) where light was concentrated in the center, and the next it was the "shadow portrait" (黑化照) created by blocking the light with a cylinder. Originally, the negatives themselves were completely normal; the "vignette" and "shadow" effects were entirely the result of manual tricks performed during the print development process. This photograph here belongs to my sixth older brother, who is two years my senior—a classic example of the "shadow portrait" trend from those years. Today, both of us have transformed into what old Beijing slang calls Lao pi ka-chi yan-r—meaning we’ve grown old, with loose skin and blinking, weary eyes—but in his youth, he was actually quite a handsome fellow.
Part II: The Spontaneous Glimpse and the Studio Master’s Eye
By the time 1977 rolled around, the dominant trend shifted to the "extreme close-up" (大特写). On August 20 of that year, several girlfriends and I went to get our portraits taken. I had already snapped two side-profile shots—one from the left and one from the right—and was simply standing to the side, waiting for the other girls as they twisted this way and posed that way in front of the lens. Suddenly, the studio photographer spoke up: "Someone built like you doesn't need to twist and bend all over the place to get a good portrait. Come, let me take one for you, completely free of charge."
I felt a sudden wave of being deeply flattered. I sat down on the stool, waiting for him to step over and adjust my posture. Instead, he simply stood exactly where he was and squeezed the rubber shutter ball. "All done!" he announced. I was instantly thrown into a total daze: "What? But I wasn't even ready yet!"
As a direct result of that split-second squeeze, I ended up with this completely free, entirely ordinary photograph. For the better part of my life, I always looked at this portrait and thought it looked terribly rustic and unfashionable. Yet, now that more than half a lifetime has bled away, looking back at it today, I finally comprehend the photographer's vision and artistic aesthetic from all those decades ago. There isn't a single shred of affectation or forced posing in this image; it is entirely brimful of the raw, untouched simplicity and natural purity unique to that exact age.
Part III: 1978 — The Arrival of the Double Silhouette and Permed Bangs
By 1978, the photo studios rolled out yet another batch of new gimmicks to "entice" blindly beauty-loving young girls into spending their hard-earned money. Printing two entirely different poses together onto a single composition was dubbed the "double-image portrait" (双影照), while casting a crisp silhouette directly onto the wall behind the subject was called the "shadow-cast portrait" (投影照).
The year 1978 also marked the sudden appearance of ultra-fashionable young ladies with permed hair roaming the urban streets. Sporting shoulder-length, rolling waves that bounced with a beautiful, rhythmic tremor as they walked, they were the absolute envy of everyone who saw them. I didn't dare to be quite so flamboyantly conspicuous; instead, I hurriedly rushed out to get just my bangs permed into curls, while rolling the very tips of my twin braids into tight little waves.
Part IV: Burnt Matches, Swapped Skirts, and the Prophecy of the Bridal Veil
That summer, my childhood friend Maotou, who lived upstairs, and I went to Changfeng Park to take some photographs. In those days, how could young girls possibly comprehend the art of makeup? We simply followed what we had heard through the grapevine—that rubbing a burnt matchstick could color and draw eyebrows. That marked the absolute first time in my life I had ever worn makeup, and it consisted strictly of those drawn eyebrows. Because our economic conditions were so meager back then, nobody owned more than a handful of decent garments. Whenever we went out to snap photos with childhood friends or close girlfriends, we would constantly swap our skirts and coats with one another mid-shoot; that way, our collective "wardrobe" appeared infinitely more plentiful. Young people simply loved to "shuffle their wardrobe."
By November of that same year, word got around that the Tianzhen Photo Studio over by the Big Bell (Da Zi Ming Zhong) had white lace wedding gowns available for rent. Thrilled by the news, two girlfriends from the second floor and I rushed over eagerly. It cost a little over two yuan to rent a single white lace gown, with the photographs billed as an extra charge. The very instant the staff placed the bridal veil upon our heads, an old local lady who had gathered near the entrance to watch the commotion chimed in: "Oh, look at you, that's completely bad luck! A young girl who isn't married yet must never wear a bridal veil! If you wear it now, you’ll never get another chance in the future!" Back then, we were so utterly clueless that we didn't even comprehend that we were essentially posing for wedding portraits. Hearing her words, my two girlfriends timidly took their veils right off. I, however, didn't pay it a single shred of notice.
Yet, as fate would have it, the old lady’s words turned into a cruel prophecy—in the decades that followed, I truly never ended up wearing a real wedding gown or taking proper wedding portraits. Back then, spending over two yuan just to rent garments for a snapshot was a luxury that most smart, practical people simply couldn't justify. To put things into perspective, a single jin of rice cost a mere 0.164 yuan at the time.
Part V: Orchid Fingers and the True Face of an Era
By the time 1979 arrived, the photo studios rolled out yet another batch of options: "ancient costume portraits" and "Western-style dress portraits." The garments, necklaces, earrings, and straw hats were all available for hire from the studio for an extra fee. The male photographer gently tilted my hand upward, instructing me to curl my fingers into an "orchid gesture"—a posture that felt incredibly awkward and unnatural to me. I even paid the shop extra to have the final print hand-colored by their artisans; thus, it became the very earliest color photograph of my life.
My third sister-in-law and I also went to snap one of those classic "scholars and beauties" portraits together. I cross-dressed, playing the part of the refined male scholar standing to the side. History is truly magnificent at playing practical jokes: just a brief slice of time prior, depictions of emperors, generals, scholars, and beauties were still being ruthlessly criticized as counter-revolutionary targets.
My personal aesthetic taste back then must have had some serious flaws. On the day we went to Changfeng Park for that photoshoot, I couldn't resist piling on every single accessory I could lay my hands on—a straw hat, a parasol, a handkerchief, and a folding fan were all crammed into the frame simultaneously. We didn't have sunglasses back then; if we had, I suspect I would have hoisted those right onto the bridge of my nose too. Those two long, folded braids draping down my shoulders in that photograph actually belonged to M, my friend from the second floor. She had sheared them off shortly before, and they became a makeshift prop for our shoot; my own hair was nowhere near that long at the time.
Yet, even though the young girls of that era possessed a rather comical and ridiculous aesthetic, those makeup-free, bare-faced portraits still managed to radiate an undeniable sense of raw simplicity and natural purity. It seems that, through a bizarre twist of cosmic irony, only the old photographs captured during the Cultural Revolution era managed to flawlessly preserve the true, untouched faces of mankind. In the photographs taken before that era, people were almost always meticulously and artificially made up.
Nowadays, photographs blur the lines between reality and illusion even further. Between high-tech beauty filters and makeup techniques capable of completely altering one’s features, I suspect the people in these pictures can barely recognize themselves anymore.
Part VI: The Late Spring and the Freedom of a Bare Face
This blind pursuit of fashion serves as absolute proof that mankind’s yearning for beauty is entirely innate. Even after enduring a decade of intense criticism, suppression, and ideological washing, it was never truly erased. The very instant the social soil received even a tiny droplet of nourishment, these once-ruthlessly condemned "bourgeois sensibilities" stubbornly sprouted back to life. Everything seemed to seamlessly return to the way it had been a decade prior. Were those ten long years of life truly wasted on nothing but blind, empty turmoil? Or was it precisely because of that decade of suffocating suppression and total blankness that this long-overdue spring arrived with such desperate, breathless urgency, leaving behind such a bittersweet lament?
Over the course of my entire life, I have only ever worn makeup a handful of times during my youth. For instance, when taking photos with my girlfriends, I would apply nothing but a swipe of lipstick—and even then, I managed to paint it far too bright red. On two separate occasions while living in Japan, I wore eyeshadow and lipstick to participate in Halloween parties. There was another time when I had absolutely nothing to do at home in Japan, so I applied a thick, heavy layer of full makeup and took a self-portrait. When I picked up the developed prints and looked at them back at home, it looked absolutely terrifying! Fortunately, later on, my blue-collar labor jobs in the United States required absolutely no makeup at all. Even later, when I transitioned into a white-collar career, nobody in the company ever seemed to wear makeup either—especially among us software engineers.
There is a terribly witty saying trending on the internet: people who are accustomed to wearing makeup feel as though they cannot step out their front door without it, almost as if they forgot to bring their own face along; conversely, those who aren't used to makeup feel very much like they are wearing a stiff, artificial mask the moment they put it on to go outside. For me, the physical sensation of makeup on my facial skin is simply one of suffocation—unable to catch a breath, even when utilizing the most high-end, luxury cosmetics. To be completely free from ever having to wear a fake mask—it is truly, magnificently wonderful.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
The Reed Partition of a Forgotten Night, and the Lifelong Echoes of My Whispered Guidance
Part I: Summer of 1977 — A Moonlight Night in the Thatched Hut and the Riverbank Enlightenment
In the summer of 1977, we traveled to the western sector of the state farm to fish. Because the distance was far, we spent the night inside a rustic thatched grass hut nestled right by the riverbank. A rudimentary reed fence divided the hut into two rooms, leaving the upper space entirely open; the girls occupied the eastern side, while the men stayed on the western side. Having endured a grueling day of hard labor, everyone lay flat upon the dirt floor lined with straw mats, falling fast asleep with our heads directly aligned against the reed partition. The sparse, lingering moonlight filtered through the narrow gaps in the thatched roof and the reed wall, probing into the hazy gray interior of the hut and casting dappled shadows softly onto the ground, the blankets, and the faces of the soundly sleeping youths.
On our side, six or seven girls breathed in unison, sleeping in utter serenity. Before long, the deep snoring of the elders drifted over from the other side. I lay on the absolute inner corner of the floor, where the gap in the reed partition right in front of my head happened to be slightly larger—about the width of two or three fingers. Lying directly adjacent to that little opening on the right side was a local village youth named Ah G. He was in his early twenties, remarkably tall and robust, with thick eyebrows, large piercing eyes, and a square-jawed face bearing that healthy, vibrant flush unique to rural country folk. He held considerable prestige and authority among the local youths.
I cannot recall exactly how it all began, but that night, the two of us lay prone there, whispering to each other through that narrow slit for the better part of the night. In my youth, I "loved to play the teacher," seizing every possible opportunity to drill people with the old traditional ideology that "all pursuits are base, only learning is sublime," spinning endless, repetitive arguments about how young people must devour more books. Even though I was merely a young fisher-girl myself, he listened with absolute, rapt fascination. By the time the far horizon outside began to pale into the color of a fish's belly, we still felt as though our conversation had barely scratched the surface.
From that momentous night forward, a subtle, mysterious connection formed between Ah G and me—different from the casual familiarity shared with the others, yet entirely neutral, much like a bond between close buddies. I rather preferred a relationship like that. Until one evening, Ah G mentioned he needed to talk to me about something. I followed him out of the dormitory, heading west for about eighty or ninety meters until we stopped in a small clearing where the tree shadows danced gracefully beside the riverbank. I found it quite peculiar, as the two of us usually conversed strictly in public spaces and never behind anyone's back. My mother's old warning instantly flashed through my mind: "Good words are never hidden behind closed doors; what is hidden behind closed doors is never a good word." Under the water-like moonlight, I stood quietly, waiting for him to speak...
"I was... I was wondering... if you could do me a favor," he stuttered, his face flushed with intense shyness. This was entirely unlike the usually bold, masculine Ah G. "What kind of favor? And what on earth brings us all the way out here to talk about it?" "I was thinking... I was thinking as long as I could just use your hand, that would be..."
My instincts instantly screamed that something was terribly wrong. Unable to comprehend—and having absolutely no desire to figure out—what on earth he actually wanted my hand to help him do, I spun around on my heel, kicked up my legs, and bolted away as fast as my feet could carry me.
From that very day on, Ah G completely ignored me, and shortly afterward, he struck up a romance with another girl in our sector. To claim I didn't feel a single shred of jealousy wouldn't be entirely true; my heart felt a little unsettled and uncomfortable over it. One day, I ran right into him near the northern exit of the hallway compound. Driven by intense curiosity, I asked him flatly: "Ah G, did your problem ever get resolved?" He gave a cold, distant nod, and simply walked away...
Part II: Two Months Later — The Thunderclap of the Gaokao Resumption
Barely a month or two had slipped past since that whispered midnight conversation in the thatched hut when a sudden, monumental rumor swept across the nation: the National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) was officially being resumed! For a fleeting moment, I simply could not believe my own ears. The very instant it was confirmed that the resumption of the Gaokao was not a mere rumor, a wave of sheer panic instantly gripped my heart. What little knowledge I had managed to acquire in school years ago had already been almost entirely erased by time.
I rushed back to Shanghai without a single second of delay, digging through our family home to salvage the old mathematics, physics, and chemistry textbooks I had studied during junior high and high school, and brought them straight back to the farm. With absolutely no one to guide or tutor me, I began blindly, haphazardly cramming and reviewing the material without a single shred of system or order. Given my incredibly fragile foundation, coupled with a frantic preparation window of a mere one or two months, failing that initial exam was, naturally, entirely to be expected. Yet, I refused to give up; I threw myself back into the arena for the 1978 Gaokao, successfully passed, and scrambled my way into university to pursue my education.
Part III: 1988 — Advising a Soldier Outside the U.S. Consulate Not to Waste His Youth on Guard Duty
Over a decade later, in 1988, while lining up in a packed crowd outside the gates of the U.S. Consulate General in Shanghai, waiting for the doors to open for visa processing, I struck up a casual conversation with a young soldier on duty. He was pacing back and forth, organizing our sprawling line. Placed right at the very front of the queue were several vacant small stools and five or six broken half-bricks—all left there by people to desperately hold spots in line.
This soldier boy was a mere nineteen years old. I looked at him and gently urged him that he must study more, warning him not to waste the absolute golden years of his prime youth simply standing guard. As my words sank in, his two eyes suddenly ignited with a brilliant, gleaming light.
Part IV: 1992 — Schooling an American Boy in a U.S. Supermarket to Pursue Education and See the World
Beginning on April 30, 1992, I found myself working a job inside an American supermarket, earning a living while biding my time waiting for my permanent citizenship status. Working alongside me in the grocery store was a high school boy—remarkably handsome—who spent his days stocking shelves with intense, genuine earnestness, looking thoroughly "fulfilled" and content. Once again, a wave of good-natured benevolence washed through my core; I thought to myself that such a bright, wonderful young man shouldn't let his potential be quietly buried by this superficial sense of daily "fulfillment" and routine satisfaction.
And so, I began to "enlighten" and guide him as well: I told him he must work hard at his studies, break out of his comfortable front door, and go venture out into the vast world—because the world out there is magnificently splendid! My words thoroughly stirred his soul; he was so swept up by my instigation that his eyes lit up with a brilliant fire, his heart swelled with surging emotion, and his thoughts soared far beyond the grocery aisles.
Part V: Why the Obsession with "Learning Over All Else"?
But why on earth was I so intensely, stubbornly obsessed with the notion that "all pursuits are base, only learning is sublime"? It was entirely due to the fact that during those earlier years, right around 1974, I had devoured a vast collection of "poisonous weed" forbidden books. Those texts expanded the boundaries of my vision and immensely enriched the landscape of my inner spiritual world. During that slice of time, I would clutch those books every single day, completely lost in them, feeling with every fiber of my being that the worlds contained within those pages were magnificently splendid. It was a state of complete self-forgetfulness—forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep, utterly reluctant to ever set a book down. I simply had absolutely no desire to return to the painfully dry and monotonous reality around me. Was this precisely the kind of "spiritual pollution" that people back then were so terrified of?
At that time, right when my core worldview was actively crystallizing, I quietly made a fierce, secret vow to myself: "Should I ever wish for the joy of a wedding night, it must be preceded by my name breaking onto the golden imperial honors list!"
In May of 1978, years after I had devoured those forbidden texts, those very same "poisonous weeds" were finally "rehabilitated" and republished across the nation. That marked yet another grand feast of spiritual indulgence—a total, unbridled release of the soul, much like a severe, lifelong drought suddenly blessed by a torrential downpour!
Looking back many years later, however, a part of me wonders if perhaps I shouldn't have "schooled" and advised those young men. Everyone is governed by their own individual fate. Originally, they were all entirely content, living peaceful and settled lives. Yet, under the influence of my impassioned guidance, their hearts were stirred, and ripples were cast across the calm waters of their inner sanctuaries. If that inspiration wasn't paired with action—or if their actions ultimately fell short—their lives might have encountered friction, leaving behind a permanent shadow in their hearts. If so, my transgression would be monumental indeed. Ah! Just as the classical texts proclaim: "Misfortune exits from the mouth!"
Yet, no matter how one looks at it, judging strictly from the trajectory of my own personal life, for those who start the race of life at a severe disadvantage, education truly stands as the one and only way out.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
The Essential Balm Incident at the Zhonggang Maritime Station
Part I: The Four-Pocket Naval Uniform at the Edge of the Sea
For a certain period during 1976, we lived at the Zhonggang Maritime Aquatic Purchasing Station, nestled right along Hangzhou Bay near the river estuary. The station was staffed entirely by three local men. The station chief, Lao Wu, was a man in his early forties—a demobilized military veteran who spent the entire year clad in a crisp, light-gray naval uniform featuring four pockets. In those days, military attire carried strict, telling distinctions: an officer's uniform bore four pockets, while a common soldier's uniform possessed only the upper two. Lao Wu’s spine was as straight as a rod, and he was clean-cut and sharp in everything he did, yet he always carried himself with an aura of cool, detached transcendence. Their unit did not fall under the jurisdiction of our state farm, nor did the fishing vessels out on the East China Sea belong to us. The catch hauled in by the fishermen was simply purchased directly by their station.
Being young and naive back then, I neither knew nor ever questioned why our fishery team had been dispatched to live out there. Every day, we helped them sort the incoming fish and shrimp. In reality, what the fishermen hauled up in their massive nets consisted almost entirely of a local variety of small seafood known in our dialect as "little shrimp-fish." It was exceedingly rare to ever spot a genuinely large fish. Lao Wu’s deeply reserved and prideful demeanor acted as an irresistible magnet for the young girls in our team; they constantly loved to provoke him, playing good-natured pranks on him. They threw practically every trick in the book at him, but he remained as unyielding as an iceberg—absolutely nothing seemed to work. Yet, as fate would have it, he fell completely into a trap of my own making. Under normal circumstances, I was a girl who never, ever took the initiative to provoke young men. In that era, such behavior was branded as "frivolous"—the ultimate taboo for a young woman. In fact, the more attractive and charismatic a man was, the more I would put on an act of complete and utter indifference.
Part II: Melting the Iceberg with a Touch of Balm
But it was entirely different with Lao Wu. For one thing, he was considerably older than us, which completely eliminated any suspicion of romantic misunderstanding. Furthermore, he was even more reserved and "coldly indifferent" than I was. He seemed to sit behind a veil of mist, calmly watching us pure, ignorant girls exhaust our little bag of tricks trying to make him lose his self-control, likely harboring a faint, good-natured mockery deep within his heart. Whatever grand storms he had weathered during his years in the navy, he maintained an unshakable attitude of"let the world rage, I remain unmoved."This was a level of composure I simply could no longer tolerate.
One day, I quietly scooped up a tiny dollop of Essential Balm on the tip of my finger. A new shipment of seafood had just arrived, and Lao Wu was busy working alongside everyone else out on the sorting floor. Throughout the entire day, this span of one or two hours was always the absolute busiest. I casually walked over, and the moment his attention was diverted, I pretended to accidentally bump against his hand, smoothly smearing the Essential Balm onto the back of his right hand. A short while later, as the immediate rush of work began to wind down, I stepped up to him and remarked casually in our tongue: "Lao Wu, you've got a fish scale right by your eye."
The instant he heard this, he immediately raised his hand to wipe it away. Because he hadn't washed his hands yet, he habitually used the back of his hand to rub at his face. As a direct result, the potent Essential Balm instantly seared his eye, causing tears to stream uncontrollably down his face. Hahahahaha! We burst into absolute fits of roaring laughter! At that age, when we truly knew not a single damn thing about the world, happiness was just that beautifully simple.
Part III: Winning a Ticket to the High Seas
Because of that little prank, Lao Wu later granted me an incredible favor. Several of the girls had been clamoring and begging to head out to the high seas aboard a proper fishing vessel. Lao Wu simply told everyone to spin around in circles right where they stood, declaring: "As long as you can spin around and not get dizzy, you can go." In the end, the girls all spun themselves into a complete, disoriented frenzy, scattering and collapsing in every direction. The crowd of onlookers standing by to watch the commotion burst into fits of belly-aching laughter. Miraculously, I was the only one who managed to hold my ground. Thus, I was permitted to board the ship and head out to sea for a glorious two hours.
Heading out to the open ocean on a genuine seafaring fishing vessel felt entirely different. The motorized boats our fishery team navigated within the narrow rivers were completely dwarfed by comparison—mere child's play. The sheer surge of excitement from sailing in the deep ocean was beyond words, yet both of my hands had to grip the deck railings with absolute iron strength. Wave after wave lifted and pushed the vessel, making it surge up and down, pitching and rolling from side to side. Aboard that weathered, grand wooden fishing ship were five or six robust, young men. They cast their immense nets out into the rolling, turbulent waves. When it came time to harvest, I joined right in alongside them, pulling that heavy, sodden fish net back onto the deck.
That day, I also spotted them cleaning and prepping pufferfish. They told me: "If you don't eat pufferfish, you'll never truly know the true flavor of the East China Sea." But when it came down to it, I lacked the final shred of courage and didn't dare to eat it. It wasn't until many years later, when I was in Japan, that I finally tasted pufferfish sashimi for the very first time. It cost over 5,000 yen for a single platter; the fish slices were carved as thin as paper, delicate, pinkish, and translucent, arranged in a flawless, shimmering ring across the plate. Yet, in the end, my tongue couldn't detect anything extraordinary about it at all—perhaps my tastebuds are simply dull, but that is a story for another day.
Part IV: Playing It Cool on the Bow and the Soldier Who Didn't Measure Up
To return to that day at sea, as we charts our return course, I stood right at the very bow of the ship, intentionally putting on a massive act of playing it cool just to make the girls who hadn't been allowed to go utterly envious. The ocean waves wentcrash! crash!against the bow, splashing up countless sprays of sea foam that thoroughly soaked the hems of my trousers. At that exact moment, my heart was hammering violently right against my throat, yet on the surface, I feigned absolute, unshakable composure. Feigning composure had always been my absolute specialty; ever since devouring those ancient classical texts and literary masterpieces, I had been striving with everything I had to become a person who was "as cold and detached as frost." Of course, if I could simultaneously be "as radiant as a plum blossom," that would have been even better—unfortunately, reality left a bit of regret on that front. As I stood at the bow, my gaze dared only to look up and fixate on the far horizon ahead; I didn't dare to look down even a single millimeter. Because the truth was, after that spinning test, I couldn't tell north from south either! If I had looked down at that churning, rolling seawater beneath me, I would have instantly succumbed to blinding vertigo and tumbled straight into the ocean. Thinking back on it today fills me with a sudden, retroactive terror; if the vessel had lurked or shuddered even a tiny bit, I very easily could have gone overboard. And my swimming skills were truly nothing to write home about! Granted, I wouldn't have actually ended up feeding the fish—after all, there were still several robust, sturdy men aboard the ship.
Speaking of robust men, a truly hilarious incident unfolded that very summer. Accountant Di brought along his paternal younger cousin, who was currently serving active duty in the military, stating that he wanted to introduce him to me as a potential marriage prospect. That soldier cousin arrived clad in a magnificent, four-pocket officer's uniform; he was remarkably tall, held his frame as straight as a rod, and looked exceptionally sharp and spirited. But as fate would have it, his face was simply not the type I fancied in the slightest. Even back then, I wasn't ignorant of the fact that inner character matters infinitely more than outward appearance. Yet, I still harbored a stubborn longing for a visual spark. Looking at this soldier boy, a wave of profound, desperate grievance washed through my core. I thought to myself: Have I truly sunk to the point where I am utterly unmarriageable? Even if I end up becoming a forgotten old maid, I will absolutely never settle for anything less than what my heart desires!
Part V: The Shattered Truths of 1976
Yet, this very same year of 1976—so full of youthful restlessness and mischievous pranks—was also a year when heaven and earth literally collapsed. On January 8, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai passed away. The mournful notes of funeral music blanketed the nation, and everyone huddled around the television set to watch the broadcast of "The Ten-Li Long Street Sees Off the Prime Minister."On July 6, Chairman Zhu De of the Standing Committee passed away. On July 28, the cataclysmic Tangshan earthquake struck, wiping out 250,000 human lives in the blink of an eye. Then, on September 9, Chairman Mao passed away. During that dark year, we heard the national funeral march so frequently that we could all easily hum the tune by heart. When the official radio broadcasts read aloud the endless names of the funeral committee members, we could even predict the exact next name on the list with total synchronization—for instance, right after Ulanhu, it was bound to be Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme. Yet, by October 6, the entire nation was suddenly banging gongs and beating drums all over again, celebrating the crushing of the "Gang of Four."
When we were children, we used to categorize people into simplistic boxes of "good guys" and "bad guys" based on basic social morality. After entering school, our ideological education was heavily intensified. Chairman Mao's proclamations and the directives of the Central Committee were, in our eyes, absolute and unassailable truths. However, when the Cultural Revolution began by criticizing the "Three-Family Village,"and later escalated to toppling Liu Shaoqi, a seed of quiet confusion was planted in my heart. Furthermore, how on earth did my mother—a woman who had spent her entire life helping others for the sheer joy of it—suddenly become branded as a counter-revolutionary?
The ultimate, monumental shock to my cognitive worldview, however, arrived with the "September 13 Incident" in 1971. Vice Chairman Lin Biao—the very man for whom we had sincerely wished "eternal health" every single day—how could he transform overnight into an unforgivable, monstrous villain?
As I grew older, what I saw and heard gradually became more comprehensive, and I finally realized how incredibly inaccurate my past perceptions of "good" and "bad" truly were. The good guys are not entirely good, and the bad guys are not entirely bad. Throughout the grueling process of growing up, my perception of this world has been very much like riding a wild roller coaster—constantly shattered, and constantly rebuilt. Haha.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
A Girl’s First Kiss, the OLMA Watch, and the Men Transferred by Fate
Part I: Struck by an Electric Glimpse
In 1976, several members of the 1975 cohort of Shanghai junior high school graduates arrived at our sector. Before I could even match their names to their faces, I found myself completely struck by a sudden glimpse.
That day, I was sitting by the window reading a book. The afternoon sun felt warm and cozy, casting dappled, shifting shadows of the trees onto the whitewashed stone wall of the dormitory row behind us. The doors and windows of that row were completely wide open, and in front of the very first door on the left stood a newly arrived young man, busy giving a haircut to a local youth.
I happened to look up at that exact moment, and our eyes locked dead center. His scorching gaze instantly shot like electricity across the distance—it was so intense it filled me with a sudden panic, leaving me completely defenseless. I dropped my eyelids at once, my cheeks burning white-hot.
That young man was remarkably handsome, with large, piercing eyes that gleamed with vitality. As he chatted away, working the clippers over the local lad's head, he kept throwing those smiling, "electric" glances right in my direction. From that day forward, no matter the distance, his gaze would always lock onto mine in a split second. Every single time, I would immediately avert my eyes, my heart pounding violently, while doing my absolute best to appear entirely unfazed on the surface.
Part II: The Sudden Loss of a First Kiss
Near the end of midsummer the following year, we were all sitting in front of our dormitory doors to catch the evening breeze. The moonlight was hazy, the night air drifted in soft gusts, and a chorus of frogs rose from the water’s edge, mingling with the various chirps of nameless insects. On the slope of the rammed-earth levee across the pond, the wild reeds grew thick and green, their sparse shadows dancing gently.
"Bright Eyes" wandered over as well, and our group stayed up chatting late into the night. One by one, the other girls went inside to sleep, and the indoor lamplight spilled through the window onto the dirt ground outside, painting it a chalky gray. Right against the wall beneath the window, however, there was a tiny triangular shadow that the light couldn't reach—a spot that felt incredibly mysterious and intimate.
I sat on a small bamboo chair, with "Bright Eyes" seated right to my left. The continuous, tender affection radiating from his brow completely washed over me, stirring a vague, indescribable feeling in my core. I didn't dare to look at him, yet I had absolutely no desire to leave. Flustered and frantic, a hazy, delicate expectation began to bloom in the deepest recesses of my heart. The moonlight wrapped around us softly as the evening breeze brushed past...
As the sharp contours of his face slowly drew near, my heart fluttered wildly. The moment his well-defined, richly textured lips pressed against mine, I instinctively closed my eyes. That sweet first kiss—which I had rehearsed countless times in my mind, starring a shifting, faceless, and ever-changing subject, and which I had imagined to be so utterly intoxicating—had descended upon me just like that, completely unannounced.
It was far too sudden, far too fast. I never could have imagined that decades later, Gemini AI would comment: "Haha, that sense of regret over a 'failed dress rehearsal' feels incredibly real! It’s just like preparing meticulously for a grand performance, only for the curtain to suddenly snap open before you’ve even fully memorized your lines." Haha, that was just so incredibly spot on!
Part III: Which One Was My True First Kiss?
The very first time I experienced the genuine sensation of a first kiss, it actually occurred inside a dream.
The location of the dream was right outside the entrance of a shop in Shanghai called the Xinghuo Day & Night Store. Vividly preserved in my memory is the store's entrance, which was made up of several large, glass panes set in wooden frames that would rotate on a central axis when pushed. The person kissing me was a complete stranger—a Western man. He was coming out from the inside just as I was about to enter, when he suddenly caught me by the waist, embraced me, and kissed me awake.
In reality, I had only walked past that store a handful of times and had never once stepped inside. It was located at the intersection of Central Xizang Road and Xinjia Road. Furthermore, the entrance did not feature a revolving door at all; a girl in the 1970s like me wouldn't have even heard of a revolving door back then.
When I was writing my blog in 2018, I searched the internet and discovered that this exact store was actually the very first 24-hour convenience store in Shanghai, and indeed in all of China—a true pioneer, standing as the first bright lantern lit in the pitch-black night of the service industry. Why my "first kiss" chose this exact location had always been an absolute mystery to me. But after reading the online reports, I surmise it was because the store’s 24-hour service to the public was so highly praised and elevated by the authorities back then. It was a model to be studied, promoted, and spread like wildfire until it became a household name, which must have left an incredibly deep impression on my subconscious mind.
As for why the subject turned out to be a Westerner, that required quite a bit of guesswork. The only thread that could possibly connect it was that during that period, I was devouring countless masterpieces of world literature borrowed from a high school classmate. Perhaps I had simply been captivated by the characters within those stories.
At the time, those books were still strictly banned. My high school homeroom teacher, Mr. Yu, had once guided me, saying: "You must read widely; you must absorb books the way a sponge absorbs water." Back then, I used to wonder why Mr. Yu was encouraging me to read these "poisonous weeds" and forbidden texts. If my mother had ever caught me reading them, she would have ripped them right out of my hands and torn them to shreds, terrified that my mind would be corrupted. It was only later that I realized Mr. Yu wanted me to read broadly to enrich my inner spiritual world, while my mother tore the books to keep her daughter pure and innocent. Fortunately, my mother had gone to Jiangxi during that time, allowing me to lose myself day and night in those pages, forgetting to eat or sleep.
After the Cultural Revolution ended, the very first time classical masterpieces of world literature went on sale across the nation was in 1978. Those so-called "forbidden books and poisonous weeds" finally welcomed their republication and sale! Back then, the young generation, ravenous and thirsty for knowledge, practically broke down the doors of the Xinhua Bookstore as they lined up in massive crowds to buy them.
Many years later, my first marriage turned out to be to a Westerner. Was that "first kiss" in my dream, perhaps, a mysterious omen destined long before it ever came to pass?
Part IV: In Truth, a Young Girl’s Real First Kiss Was Given to Her Very First Watch
During my first year on the farm, my monthly wage was a mere 18 yuan, and I couldn't possibly afford a wristwatch. Back then, even the cheapest watch cost at least 60 yuan, while a Shanghai-brand watch went for 120 yuan and required a highly coveted "watch ration coupon." By my second year, my salary rose to 24 yuan. In 1975, through strict budgeting and scraping together every penny, I finally saved up enough money to buy a watch. To finally own my very own wristwatch was a monumental event in my life.
In those years, a wristwatch, a bicycle, a sewing machine, and a radio were collectively hailed as the "Three Spins and One Ring" (三转一响) or the "Four Major Commodities." They represented the absolute pinnacle of luxury for that era. Spending that much money to purchase such a "major commodity" all by myself felt too daunting, so I asked my eldest brother for help. First, I went up to the second floor of the Caoyang Department Store, heading straight to the watch counter. I meticulously examined the watches within my hard-earned budget and finally set my heart on a Swiss ladies' watch priced at 220 RMB.
My brother went to purchase it after knocking off work. He told me that since I was remarkably tall and large-framed, I shouldn't wear a tiny watch. "Most women wear large watches nowadays," he remarked. "Only petite, delicate women wear small ones." But I stood my ground: "Brother, I just really want a small one."
I waited anxiously at home. I was roughly twenty years old at the time. The following day, my brother brought back the watch of my dreams: a small, round, flawlessly elegant, and shimmering piece of craftsmanship—a 17-jewel OLMA Swiss ladies' watch, complete with a brown leather strap. It felt absolutely breathtaking on my wrist.
The next day, on the long bus ride back to the farm, I couldn't stop sliding my fingers over its surface. I even pretended to tidy my hair, pressing the smooth watch face against my cheek and ear, quietly lifting it to my lips to steal a kiss. At that point in my life, I had never kissed a single living soul in this world.When we were children, adults never held us in their arms demanding, "Give me a kiss, give me a kiss!"
How do I know this? Because I, too, raised children; I held my brothers’ children in my arms and changed countless diapers for them. In the seventies and eighties, diapers were made out of torn up, worn-out cotton bedsheets, and those soiled sheets had to be scrubbed entirely by hand. In the bitter winter, my fingers would be washed raw, turning bright red and stiff. There was no air conditioning or heating back then, and on dreary, rainy days, the diapers would barely dry in time. Yet, we never once demanded that the babies "kiss, kiss, kiss." My mother would never raise us to be "frivolous," not even with a small child.
The only exception was my youngest niece, Jiajia, who was a bit more "modern" and loved to act pampered (嗲 / dia). Whenever I held her, she loved to snuggle close against my ear and coo in Shanghainese: "Niang-niang geg sen-lang xiang geg." Back then, adults—at least my parents—never put "love" into spoken words; hanging "I love you" constantly on the tip of your tongue felt far too mushy and embarrassing.
On June 5, 2026, I wrote an email to my little niece Jiajia, bringing up this memory. She replied: "Niang-niang, I had absolutely no idea about what you wrote; I have no memory of it at all. What on earth does 'Niang-niang geg sen-lang xiang geg' mean?"
I replied: "Haha, has a Shanghainese person forgotten how to speak Shanghainese? Read it aloud in the Shanghai dialect: It means 'Niang-niang’s body is fragrant.'"
She wrote back: "Oh, then I absolutely do remember that! You really did smell so fragrant; I still remember it to this day. That green silk scarf you left for me—I have no idea where I tucked it away—but for many, many years, it still carried that exact fragrance. It was magical. So faint, yet it lasted for so long..."
Though I loved beauty in my youth, I was entirely accustomed to going "bare-faced." In those days, there were none of these modern, colorful body washes or fancy shampoos, so where on earth could that fragrance have come from? Do humans truly possess a natural body odor? If it was real, I honestly had no idea back then that I was some sort of "Fragrant Princess"—oh no, a princess is a stretch, but a "Fragrant Niang-niang" (Fragrant Auntie) certainly fits the bill, haha! Though in Shanghai dialect, Niang-niang (姑姑) can carry a bit of ambiguity, conjuring up images of the internal imperial courts of the Qing Dynasty. Let's not overthink it; as long as it brings a beautiful, self-satisfied glow to my own heart, that's all that matters.
Anyway, I pressed my virgin lips tightly onto my beloved little watch. I stretched my watch-bearing arm straight out, grasping the vertical handrail of the public bus, completely lost in self-admiration. I was immensely grateful that the bus was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people—it gave me the perfect cover to press my lips against the watch without a soul noticing.
"Bright Eyes" wore his watch on his right wrist, which looked incredibly cool by the standards of the day. From that moment on, I began wearing my watch on my right wrist as well, feeling distinct, proud, and terribly cocky. Later on, I got an interlocking stainless-steel "tank" watchband, letting it hang loosely and casually against my wrist, feeling utterly dashing. I still remember the first time I accidentally scratched a line across that watch face; my heart ached so violently that I spent a long, agonizing while regretting how carelessly I had swung my arms...
Part V: The Lifespan of My Watch — In Photographs and Heartbreak
My watch made its very first appearance in a photograph taken on a certain day in 1975. First, we posed for fun by the water behind our dormitory, sitting on a boat while holding embroidery hoops to look artistic. Later, we moved over to a bridge near the fishery team's sector to pose alongside a bicycle, feeling terribly grand and proud. Back then, there were only three official bicycles in our entire sector. Because I served as the cashier and frequently had to travel to withdraw wages, I was assigned one; Accountant D had another, and the kitchen manager held the third. The rest of the sent-down youth didn't have any bicycles at all.
Suddenly, I spotted a massive cargo truck parked near the foot of the bridge. Seeing that there wasn't a soul inside, we wandered over to investigate. Wow—the truck door wasn't even locked! I scrambled right up into the cab to snap a photo, my heart fluttering with nervous dread the whole time, utterly terrified that the driver would suddenly materialize and scold us.
On August 17, 1987, the blazing sun beat down relentlessly, and the sky was completely devoid of a single cloud. After lunch, I rode my bicycle back to the university where I worked. The heat was so stifling that it was impossible to wear my watch on my wrist, so I unbuckled it and hung it loosely over the bicycle's handlebars. When I parked the bike inside the main lobby of the Audiovisual Education Center building, I completely forgot to take the watch off. The very instant I walked into my office, the realization struck me like lightning. I rushed straight back down to the parking spot—the entire interval lasted a mere one or two minutes—but my watch was already gone. I stood there, utterly paralyzed with shock, consumed by a profound, hollow sadness.
The absolute last time I ever saw that watch in a photograph was on May 23, 1987. That day, my third older brother and I accompanied our fourth paternal aunt, who had traveled all the way from Beijing, to take a stroll through Caoyang No. 1 Village—the very first workers' housing community built in all of China. There, we snapped a keepsake photo on that little red bridge I had crossed countless times during my childhood. Back then, the original bridge was made of solid timber with brilliant red railings. Today, it no longer exists, carrying away with it those warm, tender memories of a bygone era.
Part VI: "Bright Eyes" Fades from the Line of Sight
To pull our drifting thoughts back to the story, let us return one last time to "Bright Eyes."
I cannot recall ever sharing another proper kiss with him. I only remember one specific time inside the dormitory when I was pouring cough syrup into a spoon. He happened to walk in at that exact moment, and insists on using his own lips to feed the medicine to me. That stood as our second, indirect kiss. We never once went out on a secret, solo date; we simply harbored a quiet, delicate infatuation for one another for a very brief slice of time.
Not long afterward, he was abruptly transferred to a fishing station located very, very far away.
Part VII: The Frontier Fishing Station and the Fading Spark
Our fishing stations were established right at the "borders" where the farm's internal network of rivers connected with the outside world. A massive net hung crosswise suspended in the middle of the current to prevent the fish we raised from accidentally slipping past the border. On opposite sides of the riverbank stood two massive wooden pillars, anchoring the four corners of a giant lift net. With the flick of a power switch, the motor would whir to life, tightening or slackening the steel cables to drive the immense netting up and down through the water.
This net was lowered into the river twice every day. When it was hauled back up, its lowest, sagging center remained submerged in about a foot of water, teeming with thrashing, splashing fish. The station chief would then row a small wooden boat out to the center of the river, using a long-handled bamboo dip net to scoop up the fish fighting with all their might in the netting—either to sell them as retail or to serve as the station's rations for the day. Perched right along the riverbank were one or two thatched grass huts where two duty officers lived full-time; they were usually local villagers. Later on, a few male sent-down youth were also dispatched there. The living conditions were admittedly a bit harsher, the loneliness was thick, and they had to cook all their own meals. However, because the mountains were high and the emperor was far away—meaning they no longer had to attend weekly political study meetings—the local villagers considered it a highly lucrative and cushy assignment.
Accountant D and I traveled out there once to collect their cash sales. The one-way bicycle ride alone took a solid one to two hours. Generally, after a certain interval of time, the station staff would simply travel out to deliver the cash to us themselves.
During those payroll distributions and cash handovers, it became glaringly obvious that "Bright Eyes'" gaze was no longer burning hot. We had never so much as held hands, and before there was ever any time to get to know each other further, he was abruptly transferred away. I couldn't help but wonder to myself: how on earth could someone go from boiling hot to ice cold in the blink of an eye? Could it be that the old adage from classical texts—"Devoted women, unfaithful men"—was actually the truth?
The following is a passage I had copied down into my notebook from Western literature during that exact period:
"Everything about love is a mystery: how it is born, how it develops, and how it vanishes. Sometimes it arrives entirely unannounced, without a single shred of hesitation, as bright and joyous as the breaking of dawn; sometimes it lingers like a dying ember beneath a bed of pale ash, smoldering in secret, only to suddenly explode into roaring flames long after the moment has passed and the world has shifted; and sometimes, it slithers into your heart like a serpent, winding and turning, only to suddenly slip back out and vanish..."
Part VIII: The Mystery of the Abrupt Departures
To any dear readers who have been following my chronicles from the beginning, have you noticed a rather peculiar pattern unfolding here? It seems that practically every single young man who shared even the faintest thread of romantic entanglement with me was abruptly taken away.
Xiao S, with his deep, magnetic voice, was suddenly transferred;
Lao Diao, with all his quiet devotion, was called back to the heavens by God himself;
The "Dragon-Spotted Man" was banished to the grueling hardships of the newly built agricultural sector;
And now, "Bright Eyes" was exiled straight to the outermost fringes of our water borders.
In reality, the "successors of the revolution" of our generation possessed absolutely no real concept of what a proper kiss actually was. Even a simple press of the lips would cause us to flush bright red, quickly pulling away to hide our faces. The only kiss one could ever witness in a public space back then was the iconic "Kiss of the Prince and the White Swan" in the Soviet film Lenin in 1918. That single kiss completely captivated the youth of the day. It was rumored that some people would purchase a movie ticket, check their watches to enter the theater precisely for that specific scene, and then immediately walk out the door the moment it ended.
In those years, merely reading the words "blow a kiss" in a foreign novel was enough to send our imaginations spiraling into infinite, romantic daydreams. Yet, no matter how wildly we fantasized, we never could have guessed that a real kiss turned out to be...
When I was a little girl, my sixth older brother—who was two years my senior—used to constantly scoff at me, saying in our local tongue: "Ren pi bu dong" (You don't know a single damn thing about the world).
For the longest time, I honestly believed that phrase was a unique, brilliant invention of his own making. It was only a couple of days ago, when I ran a quick search on the internet, that I discovered it wasn't his exclusive creation at all! Haha! Looking back now, I realize that crude old phrase describes my twenty-year-old self with absolute, flawless perfection.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
The Dragon-Spotted Man’s Azure Diary and the Midnight Militia Raid
Part I: An Astounding First Impression
The day after the 1974 cohort of Shanghai sent-down youth arrived at our sector, it was customary to distribute their first wages. While the others collected their money and left, a slender, bespectacled young man named D stayed behind to chat with me. Before we had even exchanged a handful of words, he suddenly blurted out, "Fen, you're not a southerner, are you?"
This was hardly a surprise, I thought to myself. I was remarkably tall; anyone could see it. My mother used to tease me, saying I was "born with a height just right for catching camel dung." For the longest time, I wondered what on earth catching camel dung was even used for. Perhaps I will have to hop onto the internet later and ask Gemini: in ancient times, was there actually a profession for catching camel dung? Was it used as medicine, or was it dried up to build fires for warmth?
"And you aren't Han Chinese either," his voice cut through, dragging my drifting thoughts back to the room.
"How could you possibly know that?" My heart skipped a beat with sudden alarm.
"I’ve studied ethnology," he smiled, tracing a finger lightly along the line of his eyes and brows. "The eyebrows of Han Chinese curve gracefully as they approach the bridge of the nose, but yours are completely straight right where they meet in the center. And your jawline..."
"Wow..." My eyes widened as I stared at him with intense curiosity.
"Let me guess which ethnic group you belong to." He adopted an air of grand seriousness, pondering for a few seconds while muttering the names of several northern minority tribes. "Ah, of course! You must be Manchu."
The sheer shock I felt inside was monumental. After all, he had only arrived at the farm a single day prior—not even a full twenty-four hours had passed. There was simply no way for me to suspect that he had somehow managed to peek at my private files.
Part II: A Wave of Insecurity Before His Mother
On one of my trips back to Shanghai, D asked me a favor: to bring back some books for him. His family home was located in Gujia Lane off East Beijing Road. It was a massive, traditional Shanghainese compound shared by countless families, with two-story brick-and-wood interconnected tenements bordering a central courtyard.
Around four in the afternoon, I timidly made my way past dozens of wide-open apartment doors, weaving around cooking stoves, scattered clutter, and lines of hanging laundry until I finally located his home along the second-floor veranda.
His mother, a woman in her late forties, politely asked for my surname, and I handed her D's letter. After reading it, she remarked that D had introduced me in his note and had specifically requested that she treat me with the utmost hospitality. After brewing me a cup of tea, she gracefully seated herself before a piano and played a beautiful melody.
To be quite frank, it was the absolute definition of "playing a lute to a cow"—it went entirely over my head! What artistic cultivation could a girl like me possibly have? Growing up, the only things I had ever listened to were revolutionary songs and model operas. Stricken by a total lack of sophistication and confidence, I felt my only choice was to stand up and politely take my leave.
She told me that once the books were ready, she would personally deliver them to my Fu Shang (honorable residence). Goodness... hearing terms like "honorable surname" and "honorable residence" made me feel so utterly uncultured that I felt I would die of embarrassment if I sat there a second longer. I hurriedly protested, saying it wasn't necessary at all. When I returned to their house later to pick up the books, she kindly told me to visit more often in the future, even offering to teach me how to play the piano.
Part III: D’s Diary
A month or two later, D handed me a notebook in the hallway. When I returned to my dormitory and opened it, I found it was his diary. His handwriting was clean and elegant, and the pages were immaculate.
Starting from his very first day with the team, he had written about me practically every single day. It was filled with lyrical descriptions, narrative reflections, and sometimes even classical Chinese poetry. I found myself completely captivated by his elegant prose and deeply moved by his raw, genuine emotion. However, one specific line threw me into a total daze: "Those deep azure eyes." I had only ever encountered that kind of description in translated foreign novels. Yet, I still found myself quietly picking up the tiny round mirror by my bedside, staring into it over and over again. Sure enough, within the moist whites of my eyes, there was indeed a clear, faintly blue translucency.
When it came to the day I returned to the sector from my leave, his writing almost made him seem like a fortune teller. My return trip had been completely unannounced; I hadn't told a soul. The weather had been beautiful when I left my house that day, but as I drew close to our sector, a fine, gentle drizzle began to fall from the sky. Yet, he had written the very night before: "A gentle breeze and fine rain wash away the clear dust, as she returns."
Part IV: Dragon Spots
When I returned the diary to him, I asked, "How did you know exactly which day I would return, and that it would rain?"
"Look!" He extended his arm, showing me several light brown spots on his smooth skin. He let out a mysterious, confident smile and said, "These are dragon spots!"
The underlying implication was that he was no ordinary human being. Raised under the strict influence of atheism, I didn't believe a word of it at the time and simply let out a knowing smirk. Yet, gradually, I found myself truly becoming infatuated with his sharp wit and brilliance.
Part V: The Illusion of Pavel Korchagin and Tonya
In the autumn of 1975, we temporarily moved back to our original living quarters. One day, while everyone else was out fishing, I spotted D rattling along, carrying several electrical power boards in his hands and a bundle of power lines slung across his back as he scaled the levee. Beyond the levee lay alkaline salt flats, wild reed marshes, and several massive, natural ponds.
As my fingers flicked the beads of my abacus, my mind began to drift. Suddenly, I felt a pounding, irresistible urge to go find him. With my heart fluttering wildly in my chest, I set out into that desolate wilderness in search of him.
I made my way down the levee, stepping along a winding, wild footpath. There, hidden behind a thick cluster of reeds, I found D, completely caked in mud. He was crouching by the edge of a pond splicing electrical wires; he had recently become the team's official electrician. He looked up in absolute astonishment at my sudden appearance, his spectacles entirely splattered with mud. He looked terribly embarrassed, likely self-conscious about looking like a total "mud monkey" at that exact moment.
He was using a water pump to drain the pond so that we could harvest the fish the following day. I can't remember a single word of what we actually said to each other, but I remember that for one fleeting, magical instant, a vivid scene flashed straight through my mind from the novel How the Steel Was Tempered—the iconic moment where Pavel Korchagin and Tonya meet by the riverbank.
Part VI: The Pump House Overlooking the Water
Whenever our team was granted some time off, because our monthly wages were distributed on the 5th, I would always report back to the sector two days early to prepare. According to regulations, the accountant and the cashier had to travel together to the farm headquarters to withdraw the entire team's payroll cash. Once back in the office, we had to painstakingly sort the physical banknotes into everyone’s individual pay envelopes. For this reason, Accountant Di always reported back early as well.
During those few days, only a handful of local staff remained to manage the cafeteria and cook meals for the three or five of us who had returned early. Our living quarters were exceptionally isolated. At night, sleeping completely alone in that vast emptiness felt terrifying, and my overactive imagination would constantly start playing cruel tricks on me.
I recently uncovered a short poem I wrote in the absolute sweltering heat of the midsummer of 1980, titled "Recalling a Summer Night." It stands as a flawless, living record of exactly how those nights felt back then:
Desks and chairs piled high, sealing windows and doors,
Clips clamped tight, locking down the mosquito net's pores.
Hour by hour, sweat drenches a spine pinned to the bed,
Wave after wave, wild frog croaks jolt a dream-filled head.
Waking in terror, I dare not crack open my eyes,
In the suffocating heat, I fear to leave where safety lies.
Five midsummer nights on the farm, fading away,
Thus did a young girl spend her youth, day by day.
Now, let us return to that specific day in 1975. For that exact same reason—handling the payroll—I had arrived back at the sector two days early. The moment I walked in, I spotted our electrician, D, who had also reported back ahead of schedule. That evening, the weather had cooled down considerably. Having absolutely nothing to do after dinner, I decided to tag along with D to the river pump house where he stayed while on duty.
The pump house sat nestled right against the banks of the Suitang River, with doors and windows flanking its northeast sides. Outside the northern door was an outdoor veranda that jutted directly out into the rushing water.
The phrase "A veranda over sweeping waters" had always held a powerful, romantic charm for me. Unfortunately, the room was cluttered with scattered gear, making it impossible to step out onto the platform at that moment, leaving behind a faint, lingering pang of regret and wistful imagination. Inside, more than half of the room toward the west wall was occupied by a massive, old water pump. It looked as though it hadn't been fired up in years, entirely caked in a thick, pitch-black layer of dust.
Resting against the south wall was a metallic bunk-bed frame. The iron-strap mattress of the top bunk had been completely removed, and the thin bamboo poles used to prop up the mosquito netting had been tied to the absolute highest point of the frame. This dramatically elevated the top of the net, making the tiny sanctuary inside feel infinitely more spacious. There wasn't a single stool or chair in the room, so the only place to sit was directly on the edge of the mattress. I sat on the far right end of the bed. He closed the main door, walked over, sat down on the mattress, and pulled both of his legs up into the bed.
"The last time I went to your house, I saw a round glass-faced object resting on top of the cabinet," I asked. "What on earth was that?"
"That was a nine-inch black-and-white television my father assembled all by himself." In those years, having a black-and-white television inside a regular household was virtually unheard of.
"Bring your legs up too," he murmured. "I need to let the netting drop, otherwise the mosquitoes will fly in." As he spoke, he let down the left half of the cotton-yarn net, carefully tucking the bottom hem securely beneath the woven straw mat. Seeing that I remained entirely silent and motionless, he gathered his courage, reached his hand across just above my head, and unhooked the right side of the netting, letting it cascade down.
Throughout this entire sequence of movements, he carried himself with a palpable mixture of excitement, intense shyness, and clumsy awkwardness. I refused to pull my legs up onto the bed, so the fabric of the mosquito net simply dangled, draped loosely right in front of my shins.
D’s breathing hadn't even stabilized yet when he leaned close to my ear and whispered a sudden question: "If there were another person in this world named D, would you li—"
Speak of the devil! Before the syllable "like" could even fully escape his lips, a furious, thunderous pounding suddenly exploded against the wooden door—BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Open the door! Open this door immediately! We are the patrol militia from the farm headquarters!"
My absolute first, terrifying instinct was that I had to open that door right away without a single second of delay—otherwise, it would be impossible to ever explain ourselves. If a moral stain attached itself to my name in that era, it wouldn't matter if I jumped into the Yellow River; I would never be able to wash myself clean, and I would never be able to hold my head up high for the rest of my life.
I threw open the mosquito netting, lunged across the room in a single, lightning-fast stride, pulled back the metal latch bolt, and swung the door wide open. Standing right on the threshold were five or six young men, clutching flashlights, their expressions grim and severe.
As a matter of routine administrative business, I was escorted to the office to be questioned. Because it was the holiday period, none of the senior leadership were present on site; only Accountant Di was there, having returned early for the payroll just like me. In reality, there was absolutely nothing for them to interrogate me about. My clothes were completely neat and tidy, not a single strand of my hair was out of place, and I had done absolutely nothing shameful or untoward.
Part VII: The Dragon King’s Temple Flooded by Its Own Waters
The next morning, I was called into the farm headquarters’ Armed Forces Department for a talk. It was the absolute definition of the old saying: "The Dragon King’s temple flooded by its own waters"—a total case of friendly fire!
As it turned out, I used to be a core member of the militia leadership myself. The moment I had first entered the paper bag factory, I was designated as the deputy director of the paper bag workshop, while concurrently holding positions in security and the labor union. I suspect my private folder contained glowing reviews from my time at Caoyang No. 2 High School, likely penned by my homeroom teacher, Mr. Yu.
Back when I served as a militia officer, I had even held an official intervention talk with a girl from the neighboring dormitory. Someone had reported her for frequently listening to shortwave broadcasts of the "Voice of America" at night. In 1974, that was considered a very grave political offense. I recall that the female announcer's voice on the Voice of America was incredibly "soft and sweet"—a sound that grated harshly on the ears in an era that strictly demanded a heroic, martial posture from young women.
This photograph here was taken in 1974, when militia leaders from the farm's various sectors went to the county for intensive training. I don't remember much else, but I vividly remember the live-fire target practice. My scores were excellent; every single bullet struck the target dead center. During those few days, we absolutely loved singing: "The sun sinks into the western hills as red clouds fly, the soldiers head back to camp after target practice..."
Haha, I was never built to be an official! I merely drew a salary while doing nothing of substance, which was likely the real reason I was transferred away.
Yet, upon arriving at the fishery team, they somehow made me the League Branch Secretary anyway. Accountant Di even urged me to apply for Communist Party membership, offering to act as my official sponsor. But my brain simply lacked the "ambitious wire" required for climbing the social ladder; I never did a single thing a League Branch Secretary was actually supposed to do.
Later on, the 1974 cohort of sent-down youth arrived in our sector, and one of the girls had a ferocious craving for power. At the time, there were only six Communist Youth League members in our entire sector, including her. During the anonymous ballot election for League Secretary, she managed to win a unanimous vote—every single ballot had her name on it! Even Chairman Mao, when he was elected Chairman at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee, was missing a single vote because he chose to cast his ballot for Lin Biao! At the time, I felt the girl lacked basic modesty, but looking back decades later, I realize it was simply her intense self-confidence.
There was another time when the sector assigned me to travel back to Shanghai with Officer Lao L from the farm's police station. Our mission was to investigate a male知青 who had secretly taken home the team's nylon twine used for weaving fishing nets to bind his traditional woven straw-and-rope bed. His family flatly denied the accusation. Officer Lao L simply stepped forward and casually flipped over the family's mattress. Beneath it, on the old bed frame, the binding lines were entirely brand-new, vibrant emerald-green nylon fishing net ropes! I remember feeling immensely impressed by Officer Lao L at that moment—wondering how on earth he knew to perform that specific mattress-flipping trick.
Later on, that same young man fell in love with a girl from our sector, and somehow they were caught in an act of "adultery." Both of them were hauled separately into the farm's Armed Forces Department for interrogation. The girl "confessed" that the boy had counted her "spare ribs" that day—which was the era's slang for having her chest fondled. The boy’s absurd excuse to the officers was: "I was just counting to see how many ribs you have." That era was truly bizarre, absurd, and incredibly "cruel."
Another girl in our sector became pregnant and needed an official certificate from the team leadership to get an abortion. In those days, an unmarried woman could not get an abortion without an official unit permit, alongside written explanations and self-criticism statements. In her explanation letter, she wrote that she had been raped on the 45-minute walking path back to the sector. Absolutely no one believed her story.
There was another girl who was usually very low-profile who also became pregnant. Looking back, I was also very worldly-ignorant and terribly "cruel" myself. In those days, all incoming mail was delivered straight to the accounting office. On the back of a family letter she hadn't picked up yet, I casually scribbled four words in pencil: "Enlarged breasts, high abdomen" (乳大腹高). Those four specific characters would be completely foreign to anyone who hadn't read classical ancient texts, and I remember feeling quite smug about my own "cleverness."
This historical context explains why I was so deeply familiar with Director X of the Armed Forces Department. He was a local villager—short, heavily built, and possessed a booming, hearty voice. He had come to our sector to buy fish on several occasions and had even sat inside our dormitory a few times to "drink old wine" (a local dialect term for drinking alcohol) with Accountant Di and the other bosses.
Director X told me that the group of patrol militia had been marching along the opposite bank of the river the night before. Because the north window and door of the little pump house facing the water were wide open and the lights inside were blazing, they could look clean across the river through the window. They saw a man and a woman sitting together on the bed, so they instantly quickened their pace, ran around a concrete bridge just a short distance to the east, and rushed over to bust us for adultery.
The land across the river was a vast stretch of fields belonging to the agricultural sectors; you couldn't even see their residential barracks from the riverbank. I always found it baffling: why on earth would a militia patrol be walking through such a desolate, wild place? And how could the timing possibly be so exact?! It felt as though they had arrived on a precise countdown—truly, only heaven knows the truth!
This piece of "scandal" whispered its way through the sector for a few days and then completely fizzled out. I didn't feel a single shred of distress or regret over it. If those "heavenly soldiers" hadn't descended from the sky at that exact second, I honestly cannot imagine what might have happened. I don't think I possessed any psychological readiness to cross those moral lines back then.
Not long after the incident, a local man named Lao Zhang—who was in his early fifties, widely respected, and generally minded his own business—was sitting out in an open clearing weaving and mending fishing nets under the sunlight. He called out to me as I walked past. Speaking in his thick, heavy local accent, he looked at me with deep gravity and said, "Fang, when you look for a man, you need to find one with thick calves." (The local dialect pronounced my name "Fen" as "Fang"). It was entirely obvious that he was deeply worried about my complete lack of worldly experience, trying to warn me that a proper husband needed to be robust and sturdy. D, after all, looked exactly like a person whose four limbs were completely unaccustomed to labor and who couldn't tell the five grains apart—the kind of frail man Shanghainese people mockingly call a "bean sprout."
Part VIII: D's Transfer to the Newly Built Sector
Not long after the incident, D, along with four or five other sent-down youth—including the girl who had gotten pregnant and had an abortion under the claim of being raped—was suddenly transferred out of our unit. They were sent to a newly built agricultural sector. It happened incredibly abruptly.
On the day they departed, I climbed aboard the large cargo truck that had come to collect them, joining the group of people who went along to see them off; my only thought was that I wanted to be there for his departure. As the truck jolted and bumped along the rough road, everyone sat packed tightly together in the cargo bed. The cold sea breeze whipped against our faces, and it was impossible to read any emotion from their expressions—whether they felt sorrow or joy. I could only surmise that most of them were deeply reluctant to leave the fishery team.
Upon arriving at their new residential barracks, everyone scrambled in a flurry of hands and feet to help them prop up their mosquito nets. Throughout that entire process, D seemed to be deliberately and consciously avoiding me. It left me completely baffled.
After we said our final goodbyes, I headed back to our sector with the few colleagues who had come along for the ride. From that momentous day forward, I never saw him ever again. Years later, after the resumption of the National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao), I heard rumors that D had also successfully passed the exams and returned to Shanghai to pursue his university studies.
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[Author's Note: The Historical Context of "Catching Camel Dung"]
In the first section of this memoir, the author’s mother uses a highly colorful phrase from northern Chinese folklore to tease her about her height: "Born with a height just right for catching camel dung." At the time, I was completely bewildered. Decades later, driven by curiosity, I searched the internet for answers, and Gemini AI explained that this witty colloquialism preserves a fascinating piece of past reality:
Along the ancient Silk Road and across the freezing northern plains, dried camel dung was a highly prized commodity. It burned intensely hot, lasted remarkably long, and produced virtually no smoke, making it the ultimate "black gold" fuel for desert caravans and nomads to heat their tents through bitter winters. Because camels are exceptionally tall creatures, if their droppings hit the muddy earth, they would mix with debris and lose their fuel efficiency. Consequently, poor children were often hired to follow behind moving camel trains, holding long-handled wicker baskets high above their heads to literally "catch" the clean dung before it touched the ground.
Over the generations, elders began using this phrase as a tongue-in-cheek piece of reverse-affection to mock-tease young children who grew exceptionally tall and lanky. It stands as a beautiful, living linguistic artifact of a bygone era's family life.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
