In the sixties and seventies of last century, millions of young intellectuals went to the countryside and frontier of the motherland with ideals and passion.
40 years has made "Lao San" go down in history as a special term; Forty years have passed, and the third generation of that year has now frosted its temples. Facing history and looking back on youth, they may feel sorry for their ridiculous innocence and sincerity, as well as all kinds of irreparable mistakes and limitations ... but it is not enough to immerse themselves in nostalgia, which will hinder us from truly entering history and easily distort our memories.
"Memories should be more of an idea and a touch, not just a touch." The fate of the third generation is bound up with the fate of the country. Their experience, their pain and their reflection are the nutrition of the next generation and the unique life value of this generation. Xiao Fuxing's new book "Farewell to the Third Year" allows us to re-examine the 40-year life track of this generation of people who have entered retirement.
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Chen Hetong Jianhua was an educated youth in Shanghai in 1969. At that time, Chen was the statistician of the team, later he became a mechanic, and finally he became a vice captain. People grow tall and straight, with delicate faces. I remember that there was a model play "The Red Lantern" in the team, and almost everyone agreed to Li Yuhe's performance. Although he has repeatedly said that he can't act at all, everyone still wants to pull him into the battle. Although he can't sing with a Shanghai accent, his appearance is far better than that of a fat and bloated Hao Liang. People applauded him when he appeared on the stage.
At that time, Tong Jianhua worked as a farm worker, mechanic and clerk. She is slim and delicate, with a particularly good figure and long legs. Even if the thick cotton-padded jacket covers the beautiful measurements, it can't cover her natural beauty. Moreover, her personality is more beautiful than her, extremely gentle and decent, with a rare bookishness at that time. Her handwriting is as beautiful as hers. At first glance, you can know that she has received a good education and training since she was a child. She doesn't talk much, works hard and is never afraid of hardship, which is very different from some delicate young women in Shanghai.
If Chen is like a tall poplar in the Great Northern Wilderness, Tong Jianhua is really like a beautiful birch tree. So when two people fall in love, everyone thinks it's a match made in heaven, so bless them.
In fact, love was a helpless choice for Tong Jianhua at that time. Tong Jianhua never wanted to find a partner in the Great Northern Wilderness, let alone get married in the Great Northern Wilderness. She comes from an intellectual family, and reading has always been her unshakable hope. Especially after the news that workers, peasants and soldiers can be recommended to go to college came out, this idea burned like yellow fire. With her work attitude, good popularity and, of course, her good looks, the team recommended workers, peasants and soldiers to go to college and naturally recommended her. Who knows, the political examination failed, saying that her father had historical problems, and the door of the university was ruthlessly closed to her. It was at this time that she took Chen as her object. In the failure of life, love gave her warm comfort and compensation.
All leaders will like people like Chen, who are honest, capable and obedient, and are born to be authentic workers. There is nothing wrong with the smooth progress at home and outside. So he joined the party soon after he arrived in the Great Northern Wilderness, and his career was promoted, which became a typical example of what he needed at that time. He is like a blank sheet of paper, on which anyone can draw the latest and most beautiful pictures that were popular at that time. This kind of picture once made him brilliant, but it blocked his way at a critical moment. Recommend workers, peasants and soldiers to go to college, without him, because he is a trained successor, of course, to stay in the Great Northern Wilderness to play a role. He has consciously given up the idea of going to college.
1976 The last batch of places for college students of workers, peasants and soldiers, like a few drops of rain on a dry day, Tong Jianhua was lucky enough to catch up with the tail of the last bus and was recommended to study metal in a middle school in Harbin. Although I didn't get into my dream university, after all, I left the Great Northern Wilderness to go to school, which is the second best.
When Chen Weitong Jianhua saw him off, he had mixed feelings beyond words. I have been in the Great Northern Wilderness for 7 years and have been in love for 3 years, and my feelings have been integrated into this land and my girlfriend. Of course he wants her to get what she wants, but he doesn't want to leave her. He was glad that she finally went to school, but he couldn't get away from the temporary glory that hung over him, and the pain was nowhere to tell.
Fortunately, the days are not too long. More than a year later, the Gang of Four was smashed, the college entrance examination system was restored, and Chen was admitted to a secondary school in Harbin. He was ecstatic and immediately packed his things and ran to Harbin to see Tong Jianhua.
But they didn't expect that the joy of meeting and studying was not over yet, and the wind of educated youth returning to the city immediately blew up, and it blew harder and harder, and Shanghai waved to them. Chen and Tong Jianhua discussed that their students would stay in Harbin after graduation, and it would be difficult to return to Shanghai then. He wants to drop out of school and go back to the Great Northern Wilderness. It may be easier to go back to Shanghai. Then, you have to throw away the diploma you can get. Tong Jianhua supported him, went back alone, and finally had a glimmer of light. Studying and going home were the two major complexes in the hearts of many educated youth in a foreign land at that time!
As a result, Chen and Tong Jianhua separated again. When Chen returned to the Great Northern Wilderness, the farm was beyond recognition, and the educated youth dormitory was empty and desolate. He knew that the vigorous educated youth's going to the countryside was over, but it was not until he and Tong Jianhua entered the old age that he knew that this end would last for such a long time. He doesn't know that the shock of the times is just a page of history that has been gently turned over. For an individual, it is a lifetime. In the face of history, everyone is so weak and insignificant.
During the separation, Chen had nothing to do. All he has to do is miss him and wait for orders from Shanghai. These two things are grinding his temper, the vastness of the sky, the flying geese flying south, the grass swaying in the grass, the thin water in Qixinghe River and the wilderness in the north make him want to cry.
At 1980, Chen finally got the transfer order from Shanghai. After leaving home 1 1 years, he returned home, walked around and returned to the original starting point. Youth has waved goodbye to him.
The unit first sent him to Jiujiang production line, which lasted for five months. In these five months, Tong Jianhua also graduated from Harbin, but he couldn't go back to Shanghai, so he first became a teacher in Zhenjiang and finally got much closer to Shanghai. Even though they still miss each other, both of them feel bitter and full of longing for a new life in the future.
Who would have thought that when Chen returned to Shanghai five months later, it never rains but it pours. Because I lived opposite Jiujiang Infectious Disease Hospital for five months, I was infected with hepatitis and admitted to the hospital soon after I returned to Shanghai. Tong Jianhua always has a stomachache, and the doctor in the unit doesn't give her sick leave, but only gives her some medicine. By the time she lay in bed and rolled in pain, it was too late to send her to the hospital. After the first operation, the tumor in the uterus was still very long, so she had to have a second operation to remove the uterus. At first, Tong Jianhua complained that the doctor in the unit had delayed her. Later, she understood that it was cold, damp and wet in the Great Northern Wilderness. She is too young and works too hard, and her illness has spread to her body. She has been helpless for years.
Lovers who have missed for many years finally returned to Shanghai from the Great Northern Wilderness, but they are thousands of miles away, lying in their hospital beds, facing the bright moon and stars, pinning their bitter acacia.
They got married in the spring of 1985, when Chen was 33 years old and Tong Jianhua was 3 1 year old. Tong Jianhua loves and appreciates Xiao Chen. The sequelae of surgery and hormone drugs have made her obviously fat, and she is no longer as slim and beautiful as before. The key is to remove the uterus, which makes her infertile. However, Chen resolutely married her. He just said, "I love her." I won't say anything more.
However, love is also facing a test. After getting married, they have been crowded in Chen's home. A house, parents in front, brother in the back, they are squeezed in the middle. This is the beginning of a new life in Shanghai.
It's just that this generation has learned to suffer without complaining. We have voluntarily boarded this vigorous train of the times. When the train rumbled away, we were inevitably left behind and injured. So we don't complain when we suffer, because we know that complaining won't get people's sympathy, and the next generation will think that we just asked for it. Who makes you think you can really hit three thousand li? We can only lick the wound quietly, let the wound scab slowly, and let the wound quietly bring us bursts of dull pain in rainy days.
From 65438 to 0986, Tong Jianhua read in the newspaper that education bureau of shanghai and the Personnel Bureau jointly held consultation activities to solve the problem of teachers' resignation in the two places. She rushed back to Shanghai from Zhenjiang and dragged Chen to the scene, trying to treat the dead horse as a living horse doctor. They were lucky enough to meet the director of the personnel bureau who was sitting there on duty. After listening to their complaints, they sympathized with the couple in trouble, saying that Tong Jianhua could go back to Shanghai according to their situation, and told them that the transfer procedures should be reported to Chen's parent company first. Chen asked the director, "Can you write us a note? We are looking for a unit leader. " The kind director wrote them a note. This note worked. The unit leaders don't shuffle, they call the company immediately, and the company immediately reports to the city ... They don't know what the relationship between Chen and Tong Jianhua and the director of the Municipal Personnel Bureau is. A complicated problem-simplified at once. After giving them so many hardships, life finally smiled at them.
Tong Jianhua returned to Shanghai and worked in the laboratory of a university. She has suffered a lot, so she has no choice at work. However, at this moment, Chen's backyard caught fire. His younger brother is getting married, and the only house, the younger brother wants to fight for a new house, and finally quarrels with his younger brother. Tong Jianhua was caught in the middle, very embarrassed and uncomfortable. In the end, they had to move into Tong Jianhua's parents' house and live with two old people. It's a 10 square meter west room, which is dried every day. What I hate most is getting along with old people. The old people used to be the leaders of the unit and had strong self-esteem. Chen used to be a leader in the Great Northern Wilderness and had a strong self-esteem. When several strong teams meet, it is inevitable that there will be sparks. It was very cold at home for a while, and no one spoke when he came home from work. His parents watch TV, Tong Jianhua reads books, and Xiao Chen puts on headphones and listens to music with a tape recorder. Every day, he is in his position.
If I had a child, I wouldn't die like this. Tong Jianhua and Chen Dou thought of children. Without children's pain, they really feel like salt sprinkled on the wound. They didn't say anything, but it hurt more than saying it. A home without children is like a dish without salt, and life is monotonous as hell. At that time, Tong Jianhua and Xiao Chen sometimes refused to enter the house after work.
I worked hard to get back to Shanghai. For what? What did you pay for a diploma and a uterus? They used to be the envy of the villagers in the Great Northern Wilderness, but the tempering of the Great Northern Wilderness made their lives incomplete and their hearts were always bleeding. But even in those days of friction, none of them mentioned the old scar of their children, and they knew it was a memorial of their youth left by the Great Northern Wilderness.
Like many educated youths who returned to Shanghai from the Great Northern Wilderness, they worked hard and lived honestly. They lost a lot, but they didn't complain too much and didn't feel too much. They know that no matter what, life will always be like a road, so let's move on.
In recent years, their lives have been very good. Chen was promoted to be the dean of the institute in charge of production, and Tong Jianhua became the director of the laboratory. He also served as branch secretary and trade union chairman of the college. The couple's work is busier. They moved to a new house and lived in a big house of 1 12 square meters. The two of them are spacious enough
It has been 40 years since the youth season of the Great Northern Wilderness walked hand in hand. Day after day, it seems that time passes slowly. Only when they are left behind by us, do they appear to be very fast. Everything, even the painful and difficult days, has become a beautiful memory. (Excerpted from Xiao Fuxing and China Overseas Chinese Publishing House "Farewell to the Third Session"