A Leaf In the Bitter Wind by Ting-Xing Ye

Author:Ting-Xing Ye [Ye, Ting-Xing]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67414-0
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 1998-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

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IN MARCH 1973, DENG XIAO-PING was brought back to power as vice-premier, after years of disgrace. Within a month the “Suggestions for University Enrollment” was issued by the Party’s Central Committee. Deng realized the need for educated people after years of turmoil throughout the school system. Until then a person who had worked in a unit for at least two years and had a recommendation from his or her unit leaders and co-workers could get into university without taking entrance exams. These were the “Worker-Peasant-Soldier” students. Deng’s declaration stated that Worker-Peasant-Soldier candidates must sit for exams, although their scores would not be the sole criteria; for university entrance political correctness would also count.

I took this as a sign that things might be returning to normal and was encouraged in my English study, though I dared not hope that I would ever get a chance at university. Just a couple of weeks before, my application to be a taxi driver in Shanghai had been refused. The farm’s new civilian leader, Sun, told me that as the youngest of the experienced hands in the brigade I should let the older men and women go back to the city first to plan their future. Instead I was assigned as “elder sister” to a batch of newly arrived seventeen-year-old girls, to show them the ropes. For days and nights I was like a fire-fighter, running out one door and in another, except that I put out tears instead of flames. My heart went out to the miserable teenagers. They were about the same age as I had been when I first came to the farm and they were depressed, scared and homesick. I did the best I could to teach them everything, from the differences between rice seedlings and grass to the best way to hang clothing to avoid insect contamination. Using my five years of experience to help them gave me great satisfaction.

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