In that era, the land belonged to the public, the mountains belonged to the public, and the grain harvested from the land also belonged to the public. Every household’s assets were completely transparent, with every little thing at home clear to everyone in the village. Families with fewer laborers kept quiet, tightening their belts to get by.
Raising a few chickens or ducks had to be done behind the backs of fellow villagers, hiding and sneaking around; if discovered, the chickens and ducks that were raised with hard work would be confiscated by the village as profiteering from socialism. Doing a bit of petty trade was criticized as undermining socialism, and cultivating wasteland in the mountains to grow some grain was seen as encroaching on socialist property.
Once found out, the village head, branch secretary, and production brigade leader would visit one by one to deliver political lessons, from Party policies to the history of the resistance war in the past..., and then go on and on about the glorious deeds of the village ancestors who were peasants.
The gist was that your consciousness was too low, unable to resist the sugar-coated bullets of capitalism. The revolution had just ended, comrades still needed to strive, must not stray from the Party’s leadership, must always follow the Party’s footsteps; must always self-reflect, raise awareness, absolutely must not harbor capitalist thoughts, and lower the village’s level of noble character.
In the early eighties, the country introduced new policies, the production teams were abolished, the brigades dissolved; land was managed autonomously, shifting from public to private ownership, and the country allowed a portion of the population to become wealthy first.
With the possession of land, the daily lives of each family quietly started to change.
Blinking her eyes, Lan Tian’s memory slowly returned, and those long-distant memories surged forward.
She vividly remembers the mosquito net on the wall’s side, with two fist-sized holes. During those times, rural life was tight, and some families with more members didn’t even have mosquito nets. This bed net was Grandma’s dowry kept from her wedding days, the only thing Grandpa left her, and Grandma had been reluctant to use it, keeping it stored away. When she had grown up a bit and started sleeping in a separate room from Grandma, Grandma took it out for her to use, and mended the holes with an old, tattered dress that could no longer be worn.
The gray patch was about one foot in diameter, looking like two oversized pockets; it was her secret base. The New Year’s money and candies Grandma gave her were secretly saved there, and after the New Year, she would take them out to slowly enjoy with Grandma.
During those wandering years, with famine so severe, eating anything you could see — grass roots, tree leaves, field frogs, mice, even dirt, Lan Tian was terrified of starvation. Having something in hand but not hidden away felt insecure, always restless, feeling a sense of security with a little surplus grain hidden away as if it secured life itself. Even now, she still has the habit of hiding things.
Lan Tian nervously feared Grandma’s blame, afraid that Grandma would think she had unclean hands, stealing money from home to buy candies. When she handed Grandma the candies, she was anxious and uneasy.
She remembered Grandma smiling with her eyes squinting, holding the candy, cheeks damp, patting her head teasingly calling her a little mouse, not blaming her in any way. Lan Tian finally felt at ease. Sitting in the courtyard with Grandma, they looked at the distant mountains rising in layers, Lan Tian smiling sweetly into her heart, determined to repay Grandma for raising her.
When she grew up, she would certainly earn lots and lots of money, buy lots and lots of grain, raise plenty of pigs, eat white rice every day, and have pork in every meal, more than they could ever eat.
Indeed, Lan Tian was not a local villager; at the age of six, she fled famine to this place, going days without food or drink, parched and starving, collapsing at the entrance of the village. Villagers returning from work surrounded her, pointing and making a spectacle. In those days, few households had surplus; everyone was hungry. While villagers felt sympathy, pity was only a sigh, with no one offering her food or drink.
It was still Grandma Sun, who came back later, moved by compassion, took her in and gave her something to eat and drink.