Zhenghua - I rely on my own hands (i)

"Hú le! (胡了) Hahaha!" Zheng Hua laughed as he laid down his winning Mahjong tiles, delighting in the shock of the older man across from him. Each time he won a game, whether it was cards or Mahjong, the wrinkles on Zheng Hua's face bloomed into a radiant smile.

Born in 1952, Zheng Hua is now 74, embodying the classic look of an elderly man from the countryside—dark-skinned, lean, yet brimming with vigor. His openness to new things and sharp, logical thinking far surpasses that of typical rural elders.

In the morning, he received his pension (Zheng Hua was once a soldier, so in addition to the rural elderly subsidy provided by the government, he also has three additional sources of income: 1. He can receive the pension for retired veterans, 2. He can receive the wages for cleaning village roads, 3. He can receive the wage as the production team leader (although Zheng Hua is old, others lack the leadership and courage to undertake this 'heavy responsibility.' For example, when Zheng Hua was the leader, he helped the villagers obtain funds from the government to fill in wetlands near the lake and convert them into farmland, construct cement ditches for irrigating farmland, and rewire and optimize the electrical system. Zheng Hua made several trips to the township government to secure these funds for the village, so he has always been the team leader). Therefore, whenever it’s the day to collect his pension and wages, Zheng Hua always feels like he’s more impressive than the President of the United States. The moment he brings it home and slams it down on the table with a 'thud' in front of his wife, his pride is truly uncontainable! 'Here! My pension and wages, put them away for me!' Seeing his wife’s face light up as she gathers up the pension from the table, Zheng Hua's presidential-like pride receives full admiration.

In the afternoon, after finishing household chores and cleaning the village road in less than two hours, he goes to the village’s small general store, also the village's gossip, political news center, and leisure entertainment venue, to play Mahjong. He plays until five o'clock, then returns home for dinner.

Zheng Hua has exceptional abilities in organization and leadership and writes beautifully in both pen and calligraphy. By all accounts, he had the potential to be an official in his youth, though he would modestly say, "It was just fate; no shortcuts ever belonged to me. I rely on my own hands."

His father, a former private school teacher, suffered mental turmoil due to the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 and eventually passed away. Zheng Hua, his mother, and his two brothers struggled on together. Time reached the utterly tragic 1960. Back then, China was devastated; it’s no exaggeration to say that there were corpses of people who had starved to death everywhere. “I don’t know if it was solely due to starvation or if there was truly an epidemic spreading, but a lot of people died. Except for those local officials and bullies who lived well, every other living person walked like a paper-thin figure drifting along. Some people, too weak from hunger to walk, fell by the roadside and died,” Zheng Hua said. Every time he mentioned this, his eyes would redden.

Among the three brothers, Zheng Hua was the most capable and energetic, helping his mother care for his sickly older brother and frail younger brother. In that chaotic era, the production team set up communal kitchens, and no household was allowed to keep food or cook privately. To eat, they had to get food from the communal kitchen.

One day, he and his brother fetched some porridge from the kitchen. It was truly just porridge—an entire basin with only a few grains floating on top. Because they were too young to carry the basin, they placed it in a basket and used a shoulder pole to lift it between them, planning to bring it home to eat with the family. Along the way, they tripped over a clod of dirt, spilling the porridge all over the ground. The two brothers, frantically scooping up the spilled porridge with their hands and stuffing it into their mouths, sobbed as they did so. With the porridge gone, they were scolded by their mother and left hungry.

In that tragic era, in a village of more than twenty households, seven or eight families lost everyone to starvation. In other households, some elderly and frail people starved to death, while those who survived were a bit younger and stronger. In those days of overwhelming disaster, Zheng Hua’s family of four miraculously survived, though his younger brother almost starved to death. Ultimately, they survived by eating tree bark, wild vegetables, chaff, and even a fine, grayish-white clay called “Guanyin soil.” This cruel and tragic period continued almost until the first half of 1962.

To be continued...