China Witness: Voices From a Silent Generation

CHANGZHENG: I was in the PLA, which started off as the Eighth Route Army, but afterwards everything got called the PLA: the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and other troops too.

  XINRAN: Were you with the Fourth Field Army then? From the places where you fought battles, it sounds like you must have been in Lin Biao's Fourth Field Army.

  CHANGZHENG: That's right – the Fourth Field Army.

  XINRAN: May I ask you who its chiefs were then?

  CHANGZHENG: Generals Wang Ming and Wang Zhen. In Yan'an, it was also General Wang Ming. He was chief when we were clearing new land for cultivation, and he led us to the north-east too.

  When the People's Republic of China was established, I attended the founding ceremony in Beijing. There were no trees and paths in front of Tiananmen Gate then, and I watched from an earth embankment on the west side. After the ceremony was over, I went to the suburb of Dongbeiwang. After that, I got a train to Hankou, then Guangxi, then Vietnam. Then I went to Shanghai, Tianjin, Qiqihar and Manchuria. We had an old army friend who was working there as an official. He asked me if I'd like a trip to the Soviet Union. I said I couldn't possibly go, I was still in army uniform. But then I was sent there anyway. When people found out I'd been in the PLA, they were very nice to me. When their chiefs talked, I couldn't understand a thing, but there was one who spoke Chinese, so I could understand him.

  I've been on the move for most of my life, going here and there. I went back with the army to Beijing, then Nanjing, then Zhenjiang. Then I got a civilian job and moved to Tianjin.

  XINRAN: When did you leave the army?

  CHANGZHENG: In 1956. I got transferred from Tianjin to be a researcher at an oil depot, for what is now Great Wall Lubricants, part of Sinopec. I worked there until I retired. The first time I went to the Daqing oilfield, the first oil well, I said to my boss I'd never seen an oil rig, I'd like to go and look. He said, go ahead. So in the evening, off I went. I was at the base of the oil rig and they gave me a quilt, and I spent all night there, carefully watching the drilling. The Daqing oilfield really pulled out all the stops for China. If it hadn't been for Daqing, we couldn't have run our vehicles, or developed our industries. The Americans, the British, even the Soviets had wanted to get a stranglehold on us then. Times were really hard, but we broke through. Just as in the grasslands, we never thought how rosy life would be now, so in the fifties, who would have imagined we would have televisions and fridges? At that time, our idea of a good Western meal was potatoes and roast beef from the Soviet Union!

  XINRAN: How did you get to know your wife?

  CHANGZHENG: We met in the north-east. After we got there, almost all my army mates found themselves partners and married, and so they introduced me to her. That was 1947. The day we were married, I had just arrived at her parents' house when someone shouted: "The planes, the planes are coming!"*13 They pulled me into the house and we dashed for the cellar, and that was where we got married, with planes flying overhead, dropping bombs on us. My wife had no wedding dress, we had absolutely nothing. But we've never been parted.

  XINRAN: How many children have you got?

  CHANGZHENG: Five. Our eldest daughter, then a second daughter, then a son, then a third daughter, then our youngest son.

  XINRAN: How do your children's lives compare to yours when you were young?

  CHANGZHENG: I don't know. I'm just an army man. It's mainly been my wife who's done all the work. She brought all our kids up.

  XINRAN: Do you argue? Are there things you fight about?

  CHANGZHENG: We don't fight about anything. She knows how I suffered on the Long March, and the health problems it left me with, and she's very good to me. Now that I'm old, she does everything for me. She gets the food, she's the buyer, the phone-answerer, the messenger, the nurse, the cook, and so on and so on. She has a lot to cope with.

  XINRAN: From what I hear, you haven't been idle since you retired, you still give patriotic education classes. Isn't that right?

  CHANGZHENG: Yes, that's right. I've taught in primary, secondary, right up to university level – I've lectured at Qinghua University, for instance. I've given more than 430 talks. More than 130,000 people have been at my classes, and I can still remember which schools I've taught at.

  XINRAN: Why do you enjoy going to talk to them about your experience?

  CHANGZHENG: I'm very concerned about whether or not the next generation understand us. We suffered so much hardship and so many people died. As the new generation grows up, I want them to remember those fallen comrades. They died for us today and they cannot be forgotten.

  XINRAN: If your children asked you what were the worst and the happiest things which have happened to you in your life, what would you tell them?

  CHANGZHENG: The time when I'm happiest is when I look at my children and grandchildren. That's what makes me happiest. My second daughter has a grandson too, that's my great-grandchild, so the fourth generation has arrived. My childhood may have been hard, but now I'm very fortunate. That's made me think of a song I know. [He begins to sing at the top of his voice]:

  Our childhood was steeped in the waters of bitterness,

  We follow the Red Army to fight all over China. Hey!

  We rush into the forest of guns. Hey!

  We run through the rain of bullets. Hey!

  We cross the mountains and the grasslands. Hey!

  We weave cloth and make clothing. Hey!

  We pass our days amid flames and gunpowder smoke. Hey! . . .

  Our spirit remains undimmed. Hey!

  Our guns will never get old and die. Hey!

  New China is springing up.

  We're on the road to the Four Modernisations.

  Love is everywhere in China

  And we will never forget the goodness of the Communist Party. Hey!

  XINRAN: You sing well! Do you remember any other songs?

  CHANGZHENG: There's "Yellow River":

  The wind is moaning,

  The horses are neighing,

  The Yellow River is thundering . . .

  The Yellow River is thundering,

  Troops laden with weapons charge forward,

  So many heroes fighting the Japanese . . .

  We're protecting China, protecting the Yellow River,

  Protecting China's mountains, protecting China.

  XINRAN: Can your children sing them?

  CHANGZHENG: No, they never learned them properly.

  XINRAN: You say that things were hard in the past. Your generation suffered so much. What was the worst thing you suffered? And what have you enjoyed most?

  CHANGZHENG: It was very hard, but it was for our country. The Party and China have looked after us well. You see, when the People's Republic was established, I went to the ceremony. At the Spring Festival every year, I go to the Great Hall of the People. I've been interviewed by reporters from other countries, and by people from the Army Museum. Canadian reporters were here doing an interview. They said to me: "You can't go to Canada, but your photo can go."

  XINRAN: Your songs will go to lots of places in the world too, and everyone will read the words of the songs you have just sung.

  CHANGZHENG: What a pity they can't hear me sing.

  XINRAN: If you could live your life again, how would you live it? Would you choose the same life as before?

  CHANGZHENG: Of course I would.

  XINRAN: Would you still follow the Communist Party, and suffer all those hardships?

  CHANGZHENG: Ha! If I'd known in advance, of course I wouldn't have. But if we hadn't been through all that, would we have peace today? We were fighting every day, so of course everyone suffered. But because of us, China stopped fighting, so it was well worth suffering for. Otherwise our children and grandchildren would go through what we went through as children. China has developed and changed enormously; this sort of development never happened before.

  XINRAN: How do you know China has changed so much?

  CHANGZHENG: I like to follow the news
, I watch the TV news, I read the Party magazine Qiushi, and the newspapers – the Workers News, People's Daily, Beijing News, Beijing Times and World of the Elderly. My eyesight is good, I can read the small print perfectly. The one I like most is Qiushi.

  XINRAN: Why?

  CHANGZHENG: Because it's put out by the Central Committee, and there are a lot of study topics.

  XINRAN: Have you told your children and grandchildren stories of when you were young?

  CHANGZHENG: Yes, I have. They know most of it. My children and grandchildren come and see me on Saturdays and Sundays. These children of mine all understand how to behave properly.

  XINRAN: What kind of people would you like your grandchildren to turn into in the future?

  CHANGZHENG: Well, that depends on their abilities.

  XINRAN: You're ninety years old now. Do you have any unfulfilled wishes?

  CHANGZHENG: Ninety years old . . . No I haven't. My health is quite good, and I go out every day to do morning exercises or to do other things, and everyone says I'll easily live to be over a hundred.

  XINRAN: What would you like to do most now? If you had the time and energy?

  CHANGZHENG: Keep myself fit. When I go out every day I take my dragon-head walking stick given to me at the Great Hall of the People. I do at least 5,000 paces daily, that's 50,000 paces every ten days. I'm not boasting. To get really fit, live a bit longer, see China change. Those are the things that will make me even happier. I go to bed at nine thirty at night, get up at six and eat breakfast. Once I've eaten I go out and do my exercises and my paces. I told the reporter from the China–Japan Friendship Association: "I did the 25,000 li Long March, and now I've walked a new Long March of 25,000 li."

  XINRAN: Do you know where your granddaughter Yanyan is now?

  CHANGZHENG: I'm not exactly sure where she is. Sometimes she writes to me.

  XINRAN: She's in England.

  CHANGZHENG: I had heard but I don't know anything about it. Her granny keeps in touch with what she's doing, I don't.

  XINRAN: You say that you saw Chairman Mao. Did you know that many people are saying that Mao made mistakes? Do you agree?

  CHANGZHENG: I can tell you that Chairman Mao was a very open-minded man. When we were clearing land for cultivation, he planted vegetables too. When we were tending our vegetables, we saw Chairman Mao in the vegetable garden too. Think of that . . . a chairman, tending his vegetables just like a peasant. He did neglect some things though. He didn't even keep an eye on his wife, Jiang Qing. He used to say: "Women are like the weather – they can't be controlled." But he was a terrific man.

  XINRAN: Are the cadres nowadays the same as they were before?

  CHANGZHENG: Of course not, they're nothing like they were before. You can see it on the news every day. Cadres nowadays do nothing but "eat, take, extort and demand". In the past, whether they were senior cadres or ordinary cadres, they would be disciplined if they did wrong.

  XINRAN: Were cadres in the past as corrupt as they are now?

  CHANGZHENG: Very few of them were. I think it's because now they don't have much to worry about, and they have a good standard of living. Some cadres develop the wrong attitude to their work – they do a bit and they think they're great. They guzzle huge dinners and gulp down the liquor – that's something I can't get used to. I was asked to give a lecture at Shanghai University, and they invited me to dinner afterwards. I said, "I'm not eating your food. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. When I was on the Long March, we ate roots and leather, and those hardships and those struggles were what I was talking about today. If I come and eat your banquet, then none of my stories would mean anything, would they!?"

  XINRAN: How many survivors of the Long March of your age are there in the world?

  CHANGZHENG: If you add together those in Chinese cities and villages, there are reported to be only around two thousand of us in total.

  *

  I accompanied him to the next-door room where he would take a rest. Changzheng's wife watched his hands gripping the dragon-head walking stick, and said to me: "That walking stick has a radio and an alarm – it has everything. He was given it at the ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. His life has not been easy. I suppose you've seen his feet. So many scars – all of them from the Long March. His life has not been easy, not easy at all." She then sat down for a chat with me.

  *

  XINRAN: He's just told me how well you look after him. You do the main jobs at home, right?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: That's right, I do everything at home myself, I do all the tidying up, I don't need anyone's help.

  XINRAN: May I ask how old you are?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: I'm seventy-seven. Thirteen years younger than him. We married in the army. I was a soldier too. We married in 1947.

  XINRAN: I'd like to ask you, if I may, how you met your husband.

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: Times were hard back then. Women comrades who had no education, we couldn't think about things like that, so our chiefs did the matchmaking for us! Think of it – a difference of thirteen years between us.

  XINRAN: And what did you feel when you first set eyes on him?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: It didn't matter what I thought, we had to do what we were told by our chiefs.

  XINRAN: Did you have a boyfriend back then?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: No.

  XINRAN: No?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: Well, discipline in the army was very strict, so there was none of that sort of thing. We were in the vehicle unit, we were always on the move so we were always busy.

  XINRAN: Where did you join the army?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: In Jilin, where my family were.

  XINRAN: You joined in 1947?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: We were a very poor family. My father, his sister-in-law and his older sister all joined up. After they had joined, my father said to me: "Guiying, you join up too. The good thing is they'll give you your meals." My grandmother disagreed. She said: "You must have seen how hard it is being a soldier. It's no life for a girl! If you're all soldiers and the GMD come, they'll kill our whole family!" My mother didn't want me to go either. But I joined up anyway. I hadn't been in the army long, when my chief introduced me to him. At first I wasn't keen, because when he talked I couldn't understand him.

  XINRAN: How many of your age group joined up in that way?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: Quite a few. But they checked you very carefully back then. They wouldn't let you in if you were from a rich family. I'd done six years of primary school in the north-east, but then the Japanese devils came, and you couldn't go on at school. Being a soldier was another way of leaving home, wasn't it? So that was how I left my home village.

  XINRAN: Your five children, what do they do?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: My oldest daughter worked for Great Wall Lubricants, but she's retired now. The second daughter has been in the army for twenty-one years; she's still a doctor in Sichuan. The third was also in Great Wall Lubricants, and is also retired now. The fourth works in Capital Hospital in Beijing, after being in a commune during the Cultural Revolution. The youngest also became a commune member. None of them were wild, like children in some families, they're all very decent. When they were small, I didn't worry about them. I went out to work, and I brought them up too. I was in the army then, and in my position as a cadre, I could get a nanny. Later on, you could take them to work with you. In 1955, there were too many people in the army, and there were economic problems in the country too. There were cuts, and I was made redundant. I couldn't afford the nanny any more, so after that I took care of the children.

  XINRAN: What benefits do you get now?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: I get money from the National Civil Administration Department, but it's a bit of a problem. After I left my job, I did "army dependants support work" for twenty-five years, but I never got a fen for it, except the last two years, when they paid me a little, twenty yuan a month. I've dedicated myself to the army for my whole life and I've hardl
y got a thing. The government ought to fix up jobs for ex-army people like me. The National Civil Administration Department has regulations for demobbed soldiers, they pay them a few hundred yuan a month, but no one's said straight out what I should get, so I have no income now. But in any case, we've got my husband's house to live in and the children are very good. Everything's fine and I've nothing to complain about.

  I'm an impatient sort of person, and if I want to do something, I'm not worried about it being hard work. The grandchildren phone me and say: "Granny, get yourself someone to help, I'll pay for it." But I can still do it on my own, I don't want a maid. I do all the buying, cooking and cleaning myself and getting someone in won't spare me any worries.

  XINRAN: What kind of upbringing did you give your children?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: When I was a child we were poor and we had no needle and thread so I had never done needlework. But after I had the children, I did all my own sewing. I got the kids ready for bed and I started work. That meant making everything clean as a whistle, wiping the floor, washing the clothes . . . then I made their clothes. Every winter, the whole family needed two outfits each. I lined the cotton with kapok and slowly stitched it together. When it was done, and nice and clean, then I went to bed. The next evening I did the same again. I didn't take a siesta like everyone else. When we first got a sewing machine, I didn't know how to use it, but I knew I could learn. I practised by sewing bits of rag, old bits of clothes, and kept on going at it, practising on scraps, and that way I taught myself.

  XINRAN: There's another question I'd like to ask you. I've visited many couples, but very few husbands have expressed such a high opinion of their wives as yours has. So I'd like to hear what you think about things, since there's a thirteen-year age difference between you. When people get old, they probably think more about what happened in the past, and the further back in the past, the easier it is for them to remember. What part of your life do you think most about? Your childhood, your parents, or the difficulties you had bringing up your children?

  CHANGZHENG'S WIFE: I don't have anything I think about, I don't have any views on that.

  XINRAN: Do you never think about your mother when you look at other people, and when you look at your children? Don't you think about when you were little?