Old Society in China

By Xuqing Liu

     The past can remind us not to make the same mistakes again and to cherish the life now. Do you know what Old Society is? Old Society is "landlord class" and "peasant class" for two society of the "agricultural society" or "countryside society" in China. Do you know or hear something about Old Society. My mom belonged to peasant class, now; I will talk about what my mom's life looked like in Old Society.

My mom was born in 1955. She grew up in a village of the mountain. There were some poor houses in the village. The floor of the house it had some holes: If outside it were purines, inside the house it would sprinkle. Around the house there were many mountains. The mountains had many bamboo and many fruit trees, but you couldn’t get the fruit from the tree because they belonged to the government or landlord. Also, the mountains had some path, but the path was not steep, it was very sinuate and hard to walk.

She lived with her father, mother and 5 brothers together. Three or four people lived in one small room and slept in one bed. It was very crowded. Every day they ate a little sweet potato or cassava or porridge and some salted fish or pickles, but the porridge just had a little rice. They could eat chicken and other meat except in New Year. Of course, they didn’t have oil when they cooked. They just used pork streak one time. All the food was sour and very insipid, but my mom still ate because she felt hunger and her family was poor, they didn’t have enough money to buy food to eat. They didn’t care about the food’s taste. They just wanted something to eat.

They also didn’t have money to buy new clothes. Everyone wore busted clothes. Nobody could see the original clothes because the clothes were patched so many times. In the New Year, the older brother or sisters away could get new clothes. The younger brother or sister only could wear the clothes from the older brothers or sisters. My mom was the youngest child in her family. And she only has brother. So she just could wear the old clothes from her brothers. She never wore the new clothes, including New Year when she was young.

Certainly, they didn’t have any transport in that time. Everyone just walked no matter how far. Some people’s feet were like carbon because they didn’t have shoes. Also, they didn’t have TV because there was no electricity. They only used kerosene oil lamps. When they had time, they couldn’t go to play, the only one thing they could do was housework.

She still remembers the Great Famine in 1958 because she was child and this event scared her. Many people died in that time just because they didn’t have food to eat. Some people died of edema because they didn’t have food to eat, they just could drank water to satisfy hunger. After that time, it had many tombstones over two sides of the path. When her brother went to school, they usually ran so fast because they need to pass the tombstone and they were scared. My mom was timid, young and her brother was away tell she how terror about the tombstone, so she never pass tombstone.

In 1965, she started going to school. The school was the old house and small that had two rooms and one hall. Inside the school had some tables and chair make by rotted wood. Also, they had a big blackboard in the wall. All the childes of the village was study in this school. They learned about the multiplication of math and some Chinese worlds before the Great Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Great Cultural Revolution happened. The school only taught the “Three Constantly Red Articles”. Every student needed to put Mao Tus-tung’s picture on the table and writ down their loyal to Mao Tus-tung. However, if you didn’t do these things, that mean you needed to stay behind after class. My mom was the person who didn’t do these things because she didn’t’ know how to do it. So she stayed behind after class every day.

After half year, my mom stopped going to school because her family didn’t had money supply her go to school. Her mom wanted her to help make money, gathering firewood and carry in water of the family. When she was 14 year old, she worked in the production team, she helped farmland, and cut the rice.........she worked so hard in the production team because it can get more work-points. If you had more work-points then you can get more wages for each month.

      Times are changing all the time and becoming better. Now, we can get many things that we want; we have beautiful clothes, enough and different food to eat, and the transportation is more convenient-----we can go anywhere we want. Also, we have more freedom. We can choose anything we want to do. So, we need to cherish the life now and try to make it better.