Chongqing, China 1975 and I reach 5 years old. Now the darkness has embraced the world. My mom starts to make dinner on the kerosene stove. The kerosene stove is about 8 inches high, looking green outside and looking black inside. My mom is boiling something on it. It seems that she does not have much interest in cooking. I don’t care and don’t like eating either. It takes me an hour to finish a meal. I feel taking medicine is much simpler. Putting the pills into the mouth, drinking water, and then swallowing, that’s it. I can finish taking medicine in a minute. I don’t understand why other people like eating that much and fear taking medicine so much.
晚饭好了。蒸的白饭,有菜的时候也不会超过一个。
Now the dinner is ready, steamed white rice. There won’t be more than 1 dish if there is any dish at all.
“妈妈,没菜吃,我觉得白饭好难吃,”我慢慢地说。
“Mom, there isn’t dish. I feel hard to eat the white rice,” I say slowly.
“老蔚,你放些白糖在饭上面,”妈妈说。
“Old Wei, you put some white sugar on it,” my mom says.
I put a spoonful of white sugar on the white rice, delicious. The picture is here. On most nights, our dinner is like that. I write 2 song sentences for it, “There isn’t good meal in the big hills of Three-Creek Area, only a spoonful of white sugar and white rice for a meal.” Sometimes my Mom feels sad for the dinner. I don’t feel sad. The sweet white rice let me finish the dinner without much struggling. Why do we have to have dishes for dinner?
看着我吃得慢,妈妈对我说,“老蔚,看看你,吃饭变成了苦差事。不应该是那样,吃饭是一种享受。”
Looking at me eating slowly, my Mom says to me, “Old Wei, looking at you, eating becomes drudgery. It shouldn’t go that way. Eating is a pleasure to people.”
I don’t say anything. Probably she’s right. In the mass propaganda of the media, they often say somewhere in China there is a big harvest. I know the crop harvested is for eating. Meanwhile, at that moment, I feel my mom talking is like one who cares for me. Outside is all darkness, soundless; inside is the yellow light, somewhat dim, a pot on the kerosene stove with fire, and my mom. What a cozy moment of family life. Such moment is rare.
Not every night is as quiet as that. Many a night, we are summoned to the outside field for the inflicting gathering, inveighing or beating those so called Class Enemy. I feel there isn’t any clear standard for class enemy. It is possible that every one to be the class enemy. If some day a person who I like gets labeled as class enemy, I won’t feel surprised.
Standing in the field, I feel people around me are all tall and big. They are the students of No. 52 High School of Chongqing. It’s interesting that from time to time, all of a suddenly, every one raise his/her fist above their head, making hundreds of fists waiving forcefully in the air, and hundreds of mouths shouting, “Beat down—beat down—” I wish this is not for my mom.
“走过六年高考岁月1.8:只有那白糖一小勺,下着那白米饭”完
《走过六年高考岁月》之1《从出生到小学毕业》待续
The end of “My Life in China 1.8: Only a Spoonful of Sugar to Finish the White Rice”
My life in China Book One From Birth to the Graduation of Elementary School to be continued
公友/觉醒人士/民.主人士/普通百姓签名档
实现一个民主公平的新中国
刘蔚 2013年6月29日更新
The Signature Line of Human Rights Activists/Awakened People/Democratic People/Common People
Build Up a Fair, Democratic New China, a New World
In China, where there are no human rights, people are thrown by the high Communist officials into the battlefields one after another. From the 1970s to the 2010s, in the battlefield of the Entrance Examination to College, we Chinese students study 13 hours a day to survive that exam and shed many tears, with faint hope to make a living. Less than 2% of people can make a living on his own. When can 1.3 billion Chinese people have our own house, our own medical care? When can we Chinese people free from the 100 degrees heat waves and the pollution? When can we have enough time for chess, mahjong, classics books and other good things that give happiness to ourselves and other people? In the 2010s, living in China one day is equal to have a pack of cigarette. The solution is to build up a fair, democratic new world, including a fair, democratic new China. Any human is entitled to the 4 Fundamental Human Rights including the land right, the welfare right, the decision-making right and the cash right. For the 4 Fundamental Human Rights, we are willing to have a universal vote and reckon that the pros will be more than the cons. So we bring them forward in the following.
1. The Land Right: Every person reaching 18 years old is entitled to have about
half an acre of land given by God for him/her to live, which let any person
build their house and plant crops for food. The land does not pass down to
one’s children when one dies, but return to the people-elected government
for other people to have who reaching 18 years old later. One person, one
portion.
2. The Welfare Right: Any government that has used the land given by God for people to live has the responsibility to give every person the 4 living welfares of housing, food, education and medical care, one person, one portion. If one has solved it by oneself, then one does not get that kind of welfare from the government any more.