not be aware of: when the country was just established, Chairman Mao invited Mr. Liang Sicheng to the Tiananmen Tower to discuss the future urban planning of the new Beijing. Not knowing much about cities, Chairman Mao might well have been in the grip of his own excitement at having won the revolution, or he might actually have had an in-depth understanding of the urgency of rapid industrialization, if the country was to be strong and prosperous.
In either case, he stood on the Tiananmen Tower and looked down, sweeping that great-man’s arm of his towards the grey misty distance and saying to Liang Sicheng, “In the future, chimneys should be visible from here in every direction.” The great leader’s declaration must have terrified Liang Sichang, the great architect so devoted to preserving old Beijing. And Yixun, an undistinguished young architect, immediately expressed his own doubts on hearing this piece of privileged information. He thought it was absurd and inconceivable to make chimneys appear everywhere in the view from the Tiananmen Tower. How could Beijing, a city famous for culture, which had survived so many dynasties, be turned into a huge factory? A few years later, when Yixun’s sympathetic comments to Liang Sicheng were reported, both he and his wife, Wu, an English translator in the reference room, were transferred to Fuan.
This transfer didn’t set off panic in their hearts. The Cultural Revolution had already started by then, and one city was much like another. Most people at the Beijing Architectural Design Academy were headed for a farm located somewhere in the south for concentrated labour and thought reform. The revolution was not going to give up on any of its revolutionary targets easily.
They brought their two daughters—Tiao and Fan—to the provincial capital, Fuan, only to have to leave it behind as soon as they got used to it. They hastily settled their daughters and gave Tiao their residential card, rice ration book, clothes coupons, bankbook, and a small sum of money. After emphasizing to Tiao over and over again what a great responsibility she would have as head of the household, they took their bags and left for Reed River Farm with most of their colleagues. It had been suggested that the period of labour might have no definite end, it wouldn’t be a week or a month; it could be several years, perhaps, so they prepared themselves for a long stay. They were put under the leadership and management of the working class, and the first thing they were asked to do was to separate—husbands and wives must separate in order to help them temper their revolutionary willpower and strengthen their dedication to the labour. They lived in big collective dormitories—men in a male dorm and women in a female dorm—and inside, lines of plank beds stretched out toward the vanishing point. They were assigned to work in the brick factory. Every day, Yixun hauled the bricks in a big cart, originally pulled by a horse, and Wu wore coarse cloth gloves to load the bricks into the cart.
Those intellectuals who laboured at the Reed River Farm—the male and female teams—didn’t object to the Cultural Revolution. They had plenty of time when they were not labouring to study or to criticize each other, to attend denunciation meetings or to do self-criticism. They diligently tried to use these methods to remove the nonproletarian marks imprinted on their bodies, rolling in the mud and stepping into cow dung, fervently hoping to be reborn. But at the same time they were weak and easily distracted by fantasy. For instance, their hearts and minds didn’t always remain at peace. At the end of a day’s work, when they returned to their separate dormitories, stinking of sweat, their faces all dusty, husbands always longed for their wives, just as wives always longed for their husbands.
If you were to look at Reed River Farm from the point of view of someone who appreciates landscape, ignoring the atmosphere
In either case, he stood on the Tiananmen Tower and looked down, sweeping that great-man’s arm of his towards the grey misty distance and saying to Liang Sicheng, “In the future, chimneys should be visible from here in every direction.” The great leader’s declaration must have terrified Liang Sichang, the great architect so devoted to preserving old Beijing. And Yixun, an undistinguished young architect, immediately expressed his own doubts on hearing this piece of privileged information. He thought it was absurd and inconceivable to make chimneys appear everywhere in the view from the Tiananmen Tower. How could Beijing, a city famous for culture, which had survived so many dynasties, be turned into a huge factory? A few years later, when Yixun’s sympathetic comments to Liang Sicheng were reported, both he and his wife, Wu, an English translator in the reference room, were transferred to Fuan.
This transfer didn’t set off panic in their hearts. The Cultural Revolution had already started by then, and one city was much like another. Most people at the Beijing Architectural Design Academy were headed for a farm located somewhere in the south for concentrated labour and thought reform. The revolution was not going to give up on any of its revolutionary targets easily.
They brought their two daughters—Tiao and Fan—to the provincial capital, Fuan, only to have to leave it behind as soon as they got used to it. They hastily settled their daughters and gave Tiao their residential card, rice ration book, clothes coupons, bankbook, and a small sum of money. After emphasizing to Tiao over and over again what a great responsibility she would have as head of the household, they took their bags and left for Reed River Farm with most of their colleagues. It had been suggested that the period of labour might have no definite end, it wouldn’t be a week or a month; it could be several years, perhaps, so they prepared themselves for a long stay. They were put under the leadership and management of the working class, and the first thing they were asked to do was to separate—husbands and wives must separate in order to help them temper their revolutionary willpower and strengthen their dedication to the labour. They lived in big collective dormitories—men in a male dorm and women in a female dorm—and inside, lines of plank beds stretched out toward the vanishing point. They were assigned to work in the brick factory. Every day, Yixun hauled the bricks in a big cart, originally pulled by a horse, and Wu wore coarse cloth gloves to load the bricks into the cart.
Those intellectuals who laboured at the Reed River Farm—the male and female teams—didn’t object to the Cultural Revolution. They had plenty of time when they were not labouring to study or to criticize each other, to attend denunciation meetings or to do self-criticism. They diligently tried to use these methods to remove the nonproletarian marks imprinted on their bodies, rolling in the mud and stepping into cow dung, fervently hoping to be reborn. But at the same time they were weak and easily distracted by fantasy. For instance, their hearts and minds didn’t always remain at peace. At the end of a day’s work, when they returned to their separate dormitories, stinking of sweat, their faces all dusty, husbands always longed for their wives, just as wives always longed for their husbands.
If you were to look at Reed River Farm from the point of view of someone who appreciates landscape, ignoring the atmosphere
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