From the autumn of 1967 to the summer of 1968 we had utmost freedom and boredom as well. We stopped going to anywhere and had no interest in any activities organized by the students’ organizations. Every morning we came to a classroom, studied the editorials issued on newspapers and discussed the situation. All of us didn’t dare not to come but the manner was careless. We sat there for a while and then left, doing one’s own things. Someone summarize that many students were taking part in the struggle between two lines (fashionable language: one was the revolutionary line of Mao and the other the capitalist line of Shaoqi Liu): Male students installed radio sets by welding circuits and female ones knitted the woolen sweaters. I was clumsy and couldn’t do anything with the circuits and didn’t like to play cards until late in the night. I was always dreaming of resuming classes to study German, which was not realistic. I lent a typing machine from the department and practiced on it. Although the keys on it were English letters, it could be used to type German, which encouraged and blew up my strength. When we were in the first and second year, I saw teachers typing on this kind of machine, preparing lessons. Carbon papers were used to print four copies of teaching plans for four teachers, at which I was gazing in great admiration. So I wanted to practice on it and tried hard to type very fast in months, which, I was sure, was to be useful in the future. Every day when we finished studying the newspaper together I went to a small basement of the department and typed on the machine. Once, Meilan Zhang asked me what I was busy with and I brought her to where the type-machine was, which also attracted her. So we were practicing together, frequently contacted each other and talked about a lot of things.
During the Cultural Revolution
She was born in the suburb of Xuzhou and not lucky during the childhood. At the end of 1948, during the Huaihai Campaign between the Communist Party and the National Party her father was missing and her mother brought up her and her brother. Fortunately, she studied hard, and was always excellent in the class, depending on the stipend until to NJU. I could imagine how difficult it was for a single-parent family. Once during the senior middle school her mother had no money to buy sweet potato stalks to grow, she had to spare her stipend for mother to spend. I came to have a favorite impression of her and had such a feeling that if she was my partner I was sure to find a virtuous and loyal wife and a daughter-in-law with filial piety for my parents. It was not in romance that I fell in love with her and the reason controlled me completely. There were some in our class in love with opposite sex, but most of their girl or boy friends were in their hometowns, other colleges or other classes. After all, all of us had reached the age of 23 or 24, some even at the age of 25 or 26. Shenggen Ding, a classmate of mine, from Danyang County, went out every evening, detecting the love activities. When he came back, often reporting the surprising news that a certain he and a certain she were falling in love. All of us called Ding the chief of the intelligence agency. According to the information supplied by Chief Ding, we got to know that a lot of us were already on the move. Two boys of us went home marrying, and some made us know his or her friend of opposite sex. All that happened told us that the time was coming for us to be in love. I decided to act and wrote a letter to Mailan Zhang and waited for the reply.
Receivingh the Admission of NJU
It was in the wheat harvest season in 1968 that we were carried by the trucks of the Nanjing Military Region to the Chengxi Lake Farm, which was located in Huoqiu County, Anhui Province. On one full-moon-bright evening, I asked her out on a date. We sat on a boundary ridge between fields and she told me the story about her left arm dislocation. I was a careless young man and had never pay attention to her arms. After she told me about it I realized the asymmetry of her two arms. She stretched her two arms and let me see the different length between them. I expressed that I would look after her carefully and not let her do what she could not. She was very appreciative of my manner, diligence and strength in the study. It was so simple that we had not anything as presents to exchange. We fell in love in each other and kept our promises until we married. During our common life of decades, once in a while my decisive manner of cutting the Gordian knot had collision with her leisurely indecisive individuality. However, when I wooed her, she was not hesitant at all and hadn’t designed any barrier to test my heart. It was fortunate that she didn’t do so. I was not one of those men described in the modern literature who could surmount the long and trying journey to win a girl and even if they were put to shame. All that had happened between us indicated that fate had brought us together.
Since then, we had always been together. We wandered in all the main streets and small alleys in the neighborhood of NJU; we had been to Qingliang Mount, Mochou Lake, Bailu Island, Qixia Mount, Yanzi Rocky Mount, Xuanwu Lake, Xiaoling Mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty, Mausoleum of Sun Yat-Sen, Lin’gu Scenic Spot and etc. Typically, poor love between us, we had no money to spend and sandwiched mantou with pickled mustard tuber. The days of us being in love lasted from the early summer in 1968 until we married during the spring festival of 1971, almost three years. It was indeed a period of very happy time, but unlucky that we had not remained any piece of photos of our recreation and outings, because of the camera being the luxurious goods, very few rich and fashionable people being able to bring with them in that age.
Completing on Dec. 7 2008 in Melbourne
Proofreading on Feb. 2, 2012 in Chicago
Uploaing On Aug 4, 2023 in Xuzhou
