Chinese Sent-down Youths’ Efforts for Self and Collective Enrichment under Adverse Conditions and Policies of the Down to the Countryside Movement
Jingxuan Lin
The Hotchkiss School
December 2023 – January 2024
At the end of his exhibition at the Jianchuan Museum Complex in Sichuan, China, multimillionaire collector Fan Jianchuan placed a large calligraphic inscription on the green walls of the exhibit: “无论是无悔, 还是蹉跎, 总归是我们的青春,” which translates to “It matters not if it is without regret or if it was wasted, it was our youth, after all.”[1] The ambivalence of this statement intrigued many museum visitors, inviting them to reflect on the atypical, unfathomable experiences of a unique generation of the People’s Republic of China: the zhiqing (知青: shortened expression for the term “educated youth,” 知识青年).[2]
The term “zhiqing,” also generally referred to as “educated youth,” “rusticated youth,” or “sent-down youth,” does not mean just any young, educated individual: these were urban residents who had finished primary, secondary, or post-secondary education during the height of the Cultural Revolution.[3] Unlike regular graduates, who would enter the labor market in search of employment opportunities, the zhiqing underwent an unprecedented process called the Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement between 1968 and 1980.[4] This policy, otherwise referred to simply as the Down to the Countryside Movement, entailed mass rustication of educated urban youth, dispatching graduates to rural villages and state farms, either near their cities or in distant frontiers and hinterlands of China.
A common perception in historical literature regarding the zhiqing is that they were a “ruined” or “lost” generation.[5] Indeed, the zhiqing generation’s experiences in the countryside exposed them to all the harshness society and the natural world has to offer: long-term separation from their families, intense physical labor, harsh living conditions, diseases, food insufficiency, and for some, even death.[6] While rustication certainly inflicted suffering and agony upon the educated youths, as state policies forced them into economically precarious, physically unhealthy, and often emotionally devastating circumstances, positivity and the dedication to attaining personal and communal betterment were also pervasive. Through adaptability, perseverance, personal strength, and hope, many rusticated youths fought arduously to improve their quality of life and that of others.[7] Stories of optimism, struggle, and self and collective enrichment need not suffer exclusion in academic examinations of the sent-down youths’ experiences during their time in the countryside. Such exclusion would not only erase an integral facet of this group’s experiences and identity but also neglect their ardent efforts to ameliorate their conditions and those of others, no matter how adverse the circumstances and policies.
Many individuals of prominence in China today possess zhiqing backgrounds. The Chairman of the nation, Xi Jinping, as well as the former premier, Li Keqiang, were both rusticated youths. Acclaimed authors such as Ye Xin, Tiesheng Shi, and Xiaosheng Liang also identify as part of the zhiqing group. These people, amongst many other intellectuals, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, professors, businessmen, and laborers who carry the identity of zhiqing, have impressed upon modern Chinese society an everlasting impact.[8] Many of these individuals have reflected on their time in the countryside with nostalgia and reminiscence, whereas others have refrained from discussing their experiences due to trauma or the political sensitivity of many aspects of the movement in Chinese society.[9] Nevertheless, rustication is a common experience that definitively changed the life courses of these people and various aspects of China as a nation. To say that zhiqing had a significant influence on Chinese society qualifies as an understatement; indeed, they laid the groundwork for revolutionizing rural life by cultivating massive new territories and by inspiring later rural reforms, and many others then played instrumental roles in China’s corporations and government, conducting international business, engaging in technological and social innovation, occupying prominent government positions, and deliberating policy.[10] As this generation recedes from the stage of history, eroded by the passage of time, it becomes more critical than ever to once again comprehensively capture their authentic, genuine experiences during this aberrant movement of youth “down to the countryside.”
This study of zhiqing experience in the countryside will commence by contextualizing the historical background under which this movement first began and why mass rustication occurred during the Cultural Revolution. Then, a brief examination of the existing literary landscape surrounding the Down to the Countryside Movement and the zhiqing experience will be undertaken. This study will proceed to examine the prevalent negative sentiment about the rustication policy and reconcile these historical accounts of suffering with the struggle of many educated youths to make the best of their rural life, derive enjoyment, and improve their circumstances and those of others. These stories and anecdotes will be presented through various forms: personal interviews, diaries, journals, monographs, autobiographies, and journal articles.
Background
Early Rustication: Precursors to the Mass Movement of the Cultural Revolution
Albeit it was a policy that was first adopted on a small scale in the 1950s, the rustication scheme culminated during the Cultural Revolution as the Chinese government mandated the displacement of around 16 to 17 million urban educated youth, accounting for more than 10% of the urban population at the time, to live in the countryside amongst peasants and undergo a “socialist re-education.”[11] Most sent-down youth remained in their assigned locations for more than 5 years, though some completed rustication and departed the countryside early—often through guanxi, or personal connections (关系) —and some others remained permanently in their rural settlements after obtaining employment and marriage.[12] During their time in the countryside, the educated youths often had to engage in intense manual labor, participate in political “struggle sessions,” and work as “barefoot doctors” or elementary school teachers.[13] Their time in the rural recesses of China has also left profound consequences on the countryside and on their personal characters that contributed to China’s mammoth economic growth during Reform and Opening Up, which followed the Cultural Revolution.
While many scholars consider the Down to the Countryside Movement, the bulk of which occurred between the period 1968 to 1980 that encompassed the most prominent period of the movement, as a constituent event of the Cultural Revolution, the rustication of Chinese youth commenced long before Mao Zedong’s famous 1968 promotion of the campaign. China’s first Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) created a primary education system that fostered large quantities of educated youths in both rural and urban areas. This phenomenon, coupled with a strong urban-rural divide due to food rationing policies, induced urbanization: a rapid, dominant force driving populations to migrate into cities.[14] This massive migration quickly augmented pressure on urban centers, as their population sizes soared despite employment opportunities not undergoing significant expansion, for the supply of which the government assumed responsibility. To offset this urban pressure, the central government revised policies throughout the 1950s to reduce urban stress by reversing the urbanization process, that is, through rustication. Educated youth from the countryside, many of whom did not have easy access to collegiate education, became the first target of the rustication policy in 1953. The government encouraged them to adopt an agricultural, peasant life in their home villages instead of attempting the acquisition of urban employment or further educational opportunities.[15] This group is referred to as the huixiangzhiqing (回乡知青), denoting “educated youth who have returned to their [rural] homelands.”
The earliest form of urban-to-rural rustication emerged in the form of small-scale movements encouraging urban educated youth and workers without employment to participate in a socialist (re)construction of the countryside, improve conditions for peasants in the vast hinterlands of China, and enrich themselves with practical life experiences in the countryside prior to obtaining urban employment. [16] Youth Reclamation Teams were prominent examples of youths conducting voluntary rustication in the hinterlands and frontiers of the nation, such as Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia.[17] In December 1955, Mao Zedong substantiated the youths’ fervor around the rustication scheme with his famous line, “The countryside is a vast universe where there is plenty to be done.”[18]
In the early 1960s, the Great Leap Forward, characterized by deficiencies in urban production, food provision, and employment opportunities, prompted further redress of economic problems in cities through rustication. Thus, discussion regarding the rustication policy continued, this time designed to be a more regimented process centering around state farms and then production teams rather than rural hinterlands.[19] The rustication policy at this time targeted graduates who failed to enter higher education after obtaining secondary education and continued as a long-term initiative that the government undertook to alleviate employment and economic pressures in urban centers.[20]
The Context of the Cultural Revolution: The Red Guard Movement
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, or the Cultural Revolution, was an extensive political movement which started in 1966 and lasted for about a decade. Directed against many existing leaders in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Cultural Revolution was instigated by prominent Party figures, including Mao Zedong and Lin Biao,[21] to rid Chinese society of all feudal, capitalist, bourgeois, or revisionist forces—or simply, those that Mao and Lin did not like.[22] Revolutionaries attacked anything or anyone they deemed to be related to the “Four Olds”—old ideas, old habits, old culture, and old customs—thus intensifying class struggle between the poor proletarian worker and peasant classes and the richer, bourgeois classes.[23] The Cultural Revolution ended with the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Estimated figures of the death toll during the Cultural Revolution range from 500,000 to 2,000,000.[24] The Red Guard Movement and political persecutions constituted the first and most intense period of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1968, with students as the central enablers of the social upheaval and violence.
Incited by Mao Zedong, students from junior and senior high schools across China, starting with passionate students from the Affiliated Middle School of Tsinghua University, swarmed the streets to protest the “pro-capitalist,” “revisionist” forces prevalent in school authorities and the higher echelons of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao viewed students as a powerful force capable of assisting him in toppling his opponents’ pro-capitalist regime. Labeling themselves as defenders of Marxist and Maoist communist ideologies, the collective of these students identified themselves as “Red Guards,” essentially acting as paramilitary organizations promoting violence and sabotage against any force deemed not “socialist” by Mao Zedong.[25] The most prominent “anti-socialist” was the then-president Liu Shaoqi and the secondary target was Deng Xiaoping,[26] a strong proponent of China’s later economic reform and marketization.[27] Revolutionary fervor dominated the student-led movements, which induced mass demonstrations, denunciations, and political persecutions of intellectuals, revisionist and capitalist cadres in the local and central governments, and landowners. These groups were deemed as “black classes” during the Cultural Revolution, which glorified proletarian workers and peasants as the rightful dominant forces of society.[28] Violence quickly ensued across cities, especially on secondary school and university campuses, where many school officials, teachers, principals, and professors were persecuted, resulting in widespread aggression and deaths. The Red Guard Movement encountered little obstruction in its early stages, as Mao instructed the People’s Liberation Army to not intervene with the students’ revolutionary efforts.
As the Red Guard Movement expanded, the students participating in the revolution divided into different factions because of ideological tensions and disagreements. The publication of the first dazibao (大字报), or big-character poster, at Peking University inspired an inundation of independent publications sponsored by different Red Guard organizations, which helped distribute revolutionary propaganda, speeches, articles, and reviews supporting Mao Zedong and his revolution.[29] While the proliferating revolutionary press was originally viewed as progressive, managing the political correctness of content became a substantial challenge as the revolution developed and factional movements intensified, creating a national security concern for Mao Zedong. During the later parts of the Red Guard Movement, Mao Zedong and Lin Biao no longer viewed the Red Guards as useful because their political opponents within the party had already been destroyed, by which time the violence and pandemonium caused by these fervent youths had metamorphosed into a liability.[30]
Once the Red Guards appeared too radical even for Mao Zedong himself, he declared that “the knowledgeable youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in poverty, this is necessary.”[31] Mao’s advocacy stimulated many impassioned Red Guards to rusticate and contribute to the construction of a socialist countryside, while also cultivating their communist ideals through proximity to and camaraderie with the peasants. Many Red Guards rusticated willingly due to the popular fellowship of Mao’s cult of personality: they believed that everything he said was correct and weighed more than all else. It was common practice for revolutionaries to write on newspapers and pamphlets messages like “Mao gave us infinite strength…support us” and that “the parents are not as dear as Chairman Mao.”[32]
Disruptions in Education
Following the closure of schools and universities in May 1966, China’s educational landscape entered a period of anomaly, which lasted until the resumption of University Entrance Exams in 1977.[33] This period was characterized by universities suspending their normal enrollment via testing and secondary schools promoting political, revolutionary concepts and Mao Zedong thought instead of instruction in the normal science and arts curriculum.[34] This disruption in education culminated during the Red Guard Movement of 1966-1968, during which graduates were referred to as the laosanjie (老三届),[35] meaning “old three classes,” which constituted the largest population of rusticated students. Despite the resumption of classes in the early 1970s, universities were only able to recruit youth who had years of work experience and demonstrated correct political consciousness as defined by Mao Zedong, further serving as an indication that one should rusticate to fulfill these criteria to even have an opportunity of pursuing higher education. Secondary school graduates, who often were unable to procure employment opportunities in the cities, discovered that rustication remained their only viable option.
Perceptions of the Zhiqing in Academic Literature
English-language scholarship regarding the Cultural Revolution mainly focuses on the turmoil between 1966-1968, when the Red Guard Movement provoked significant unrest throughout many cities and counties.[36] Many prominent works regarding the Cultural Revolution, such as MacFarquhar and Schoenhals’ Mao’s Last Revolution, do not specifically explore the Down to the Countryside Movement.[37] Yen and Kao’s The Ten Year History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution similarly overlooks the rustication movement in its extensive coverage of the 1960s and 1970s.[38] Literature regarding the Down to the Countryside Movement is quite limited, and most studies addressing the rustication movement emphasize the policy’s effects on personal finance, life course, unequal governance, and the hardships of rural life. Accounts regarding personal experiences in the countryside are further limited in number, whether it be monographic or academic literature.[39] Existing perspectives of the Cultural Revolution and the Down to the Countryside Movement in English-language scholarship predominantly emphasize the negative, devastating humanitarian aspects of the movement.[40]
The first English monograph documenting youth rustication was Thomas Bernstein’s 1977 work, Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China. Bernstein’s work was hailed as a thorough, comprehensive narrative of the CCP’s developmental and ideological goals of pursuing youth rustication, mostly adopting a top-down approach of policy analysis. However, Isaiah Sirois points out that Bernstein’s work “has limited contemporary utility and academic significance,” partially because Bernstein compiled his work prior to the end of the Down to the Countryside Movement.[41] Also in the late 1970s, Jonathan Unger conducted a study on rusticated youths’ conditions in the Kwangtung, or Guangdong (广东) province. His paper exhibited firsthand the many hardships rural youths encountered in the countryside, along with how zhiqing and their families fought for improved living conditions, subsequent policy changes, and employment opportunities upon rural youths’ return.[42] This study, conducted while the rustication policy was ongoing, serves significant referential value for understanding the overall image of the rustication movement on a national level, despite its lack of hindsight given its composition before the end of the Down to the Countryside Movement. Similar contemporary reports of the sent-down youths’ conditions include Thomas Gold’s “Back to the City: The Return of Shanghai’s Educated Youth,” which scrutinizes demonstration movements by Shanghai youth protesting the rustication policy.[43] This report appears to indicate that most demonstrations encountered repressive responses; nevertheless, it also unravels the various benefits directly and indirectly engendered by these movements.[44] One should remain wary of this report’s evaluation of long-term consequences of these movements due to its composition occurring before the end of the Down to the Countryside Movement.
Deng Xiaoping’s Boluan Fanzheng[45] (拨乱反正) and Reform and Opening Up policy, which highlighted the 1980s, allowed a slight liberalization of the literary landscape surrounding the Cultural Revolution in China. As persecuted “capitalists” and “revisionists,” Deng’s regime demonstrated lenience and sympathy towards critical accounts of suffering during the Cultural Revolution. This catalyzed the development of a novel genre referred to as “scar literature,” consisting of novellas and stories recalling traumatic memories and suffering during the Cultural Revolution.[46] For instance, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China became one of the most prominent works in scar literature and was written by Jung Chang, who experienced rustication in various regions of the Sichuan and Gansu provinces. Jung Chang, whose parents underwent persecution and whose grandmother tragically perished due to deficient medical treatment during the Cultural Revolution, harbored significant resentment against the rustication policy.[47] She composed her autobiographical novel later in England under the assistance of Jon Halliday, reflecting on the damage and trauma inflicted upon her family by the Cultural Revolution, not just the Down to the Countryside Movement.[48] Expressing her pronounced dissent against the Cultural Revolution, Chang’s substantive work vividly portrays the horrific suffering endured by rusticated youths and their families during the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, historians like Michel Bonnin, who wrote The Lost Generation: The Rustication of China’s Educated Youth, and Yihong Pan, author of Tempered in the Revolutionary Furnace, share views that the zhiqing were to an extent, a “ruined” or “lost” generation.[49] However, they also acquiesce that negativity was not the sole theme pervading the movement, as youths themselves often strove for positive change and happiness during and after their lives in the countryside, creating one of the most capable, adaptable, and resilient generations in modern China.
During the 1990s, a resurgence of zhiqing nostalgia prevailed in Chinese society, celebrating the accomplishments the generation had made during and after the Down to the Countryside Movement.[50] Seventies, by Dao Bei and Tuo Li, spectacularly captures this nostalgia.[51] Declared by the authors to be a historical account of an age “in the crevices of history, between the height of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and the reforms in the 1980s,” Seventies includes around 30 personal stories and accounts of life during the Cultural Revolution and the Down to the Countryside Movement. One of these stories, “下乡第一年 [The First Year of Rustication],” provides a vivid account of the author’s personal experiences in the countryside.[52] Such accounts supply comprehensive coverage of both positive and negative aspects of rural life as well as personal struggle and growth, exposing many sides of the Down to the Countryside Movement, one of which includes youth making the best and empowering themselves to find enjoyment out of the most adverse conditions. Authors like Feng Jicai, who compiled Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China’s Cultural Revolution, adopted similar strategies, using oral interviews to reflect individual narratives and anecdotes of personal encounters during the Cultural Revolution and the Down to the Countryside Movement.[53] His interviewees, whose names he kept anonymous, revealed both negative and positive accounts of zhiqing rustication experiences and personal struggle, analogous to the accounts documented in Seventies. These Chinese historians compiled their studies through fieldwork, examining the microhistories and personal experiences from the “crevices” of Chinese society to which Western historians have less access.
Many recent studies regarding the Cultural Revolution examine its long-term impacts, exemplified by Xueguang Zhou and Liren Hou’s “Children of the Cultural Revolution: The State and the Life Course in the People’s Republic of China.” Zhou and Hou’s paper, through comprehensive sampling and data analysis, display that the rusticated youths, despite having been deprived of education and undergoing significant suffering, did not seem to have statistically significant disadvantages in employment and education compared to their counterparts who stayed in the cities. [54] Instead, in various occupations, zhiqing often enjoyed higher immediate incomes in 1978 than those who stayed in urban areas. [55] The group of educated youths who experienced less than 6 years of rustication were markedly more likely to pursue higher education compared to their urban peers, which the authors attribute to a sense of determination for upwards mobility derived from rustication experiences.[56] This article also received response from other zhiqing authors, such as Kevin Chen and Xiaonong Cheng, who similarly shared positive attributes along with deficiencies of the rustication movement.[57]
Many of these studies do not directly describe personal experiences in the countryside, and those that do address the subject matter tend to argue that negativity prevailed in and dominated the Down to the Countryside Movement. However, positivity and struggles towards self and collective enrichment also appear prevalent in youths’ experiences during the rustication movement, as exhibited by a range of firsthand historical documents and accounts. This study will now examine the dominant negative sentiment against the Down to the Countryside Movement before offering alternative evidence that challenges this hegemony of negativity.
Adverse Conditions and Policies of Rustication
Most educated youths who volunteered to undergo rustication commenced their journey to the countryside with grandiose, idealistic visions that they were doing something great for not only themselves but also the peasants living in the countryside and China as a whole. Others who were coerced by government policies into rustication did not share such fervor but found such ideas consoling given their deteriorating situation. However, both populations lost their disillusionment upon settling into their new lives in the countryside, as harsh conditions, intensive labor, homesickness, hunger, and even illnesses and injuries became routine. Negative perceptions and attitudes regarding the rustication movement swiftly settled into the minds of many rusticated youths, dislodging their idealistic preconceptions of the movement. These negative ramifications of the Down to the Countryside Movement prevail in the genre of scar literature.
Separation from Families
The first source of distress for rusticated youths was leaving their families. During pre-departure pledges, send-off ceremonies, and at train stations, zhiqing and their families could be found embracing each other, distressed about long-term separation.[58] Liu Ping’s diary documents that “each parting will last for one or two years.”[59] One would expect to hear wailing every time one visits a train station during this period, for there likely were educated youths parting with their families.[60] Wild Swans vividly captures Jung Chang’s grief in leaving her grandmother, who wept prior to her departure.[61] The death of Chang’s grandmother shortly after exacerbated her agony. Other autobiographical accounts like “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness” also describe how, upon the departure of educated youths, “noises of wailing and crying filled the railway station…educated youths reached out from the windows to hold tightly onto the hands of their family members. Even when the train started moving, they wouldn’t let go…like they were going to part forever!”[62] Due to the educated youths’ perception at the time that they were to permanently settle in the countryside and leave their families and urban life forever, this emotional barrier between them and their families made the commencement of their rustication journey an extremely painful and difficult experience. Most youths learned to endure this separation from their family as they began to live independently.
Harsh Living Conditions
The pain of parting with one’s family was only the beginning of a series of adverse situations which these zhiqing had to encounter. Upon settling into their countryside accommodations, which consisted of small mud huts and communal tents with holes, the educated youths quickly realized the harsh conditions that were awaiting them.[63] Some zhiqing had to live in shacks next to pigsties which were inundated during flood season, necessitating them to tread through mud water in order to get to sleep.[64] It was not uncommon for one to find fungi or wild grass growing on the mud floors of zhiqing residential quarters.[65] Most zhiqing housing had no electricity and frequently included beds that consisted simply of pieces of wooden planks on a frame.[66] Bathrooms frequently appeared as small huts with holes in the middle, and often in northern provinces like Heilongjiang, the excrement therein froze during winters and necessitated manual removal.[67] The standard housing subsidy of 200 yuan per zhiqing proved inadequate to resolve housing deficits: in all of China, only 64 percent of educated youths were able to move into newly constructed zhiqing residential quarters.[68] In Sichuan province, this figure was only 60 percent. In some regions like Hechuan county, even after the 1973 National Working Conference on Sent-Down Youth (全国知青工作会议), when an extra stipend of 200 yuan was added for every rusticated youth, the percentage of sent-down youths enjoying new residences, along with those living in peasants’ houses, reached only 54.7 percent.[69] Having to cope with these living conditions was unfathomable for many urban youths, most of whom were raised in relatively more privileged conditions than their rural counterparts. Effectively learning to tolerate these more spartan conditions and to appreciate basic luxuries became essential for these educated youths during their time in the countryside.
Intense Physical Labor
One of the most pronounced struggles for sent-down youth was the strenuous labor they were asked to perform. Having been nurtured in relatively privileged urban environments, these youth by no means possessed adequate physical fortitude, stamina, or tolerance to undertake exhausting agricultural labor in the countryside.[70] A day in the fields would often be “back-breaking” for the unaccustomed zhiqing.[71] Jung Chang, when attending to her assignments in both Ningnan and Deyang, complained that “everything at Ningnan was done manually, the way it had been for at least 2,000 years…no machineries…no draft animals,” and “everything [in Deyang], including the transport of water, manure, fuel, vegetables, and grain, was done entirely by hand, and shoulders.”[72] Not only was agricultural work labor-intensive, but fetching basic supplies like water also broke backs. In Ningnan, Jung Chang had to climb for half an hour up to a water well, as her “arms became unbearably sore.” She concluded that “it was an exhausting battle for every meal.”[73] Fortunately for Chang, the boys in her company were “perfect gentlemen,” who “gallantly declared that fetching water was their job.”[74] These adverse conditions certainly discouraged less physically potent individuals like Chang from agricultural work and rural life, making important one’s sense of compassion and a willingness to assist others in times of need.
Starvation and Insufficiency
Due to many educated youths’ inability to perform intense agricultural production, some were subsequently unable to cultivate their own plots of land and suffered food insecurity, because the state ceased to provide grain and oil rations for zhiqing after their first year in the countryside.[75] Compelling youths to suffice for themselves (自给) reflected one of the primary rationales for rustication: to alleviate stress on urban food provisions.[76] In actuality, only a third of urban youth in production teams could be considered self-sufficient; another third required assistance from their families; the final third could not support themselves at all.[77] In rural villages of counties like Hechuan, more than two thirds of sent-down youths could not adequately provide for themselves as of 1976. The 1973 National Working Conference, despite alleviating some stress on food by allocating one-off food subsidies of 100 yuan and plots of private land (自留地) to sent-down youths, did not thoroughly resolve the problem of insufficiency. While some learned how to farm and raise poultry, others starved and had to take on debts to feed themselves.[78]
Deaths in the Countryside
In the poorly planned Down to the Countryside Movement, deaths were unfortunate but not uncommon phenomena. Due to inadequate management, many rusticated youths starved to death as they were unable to provide for themselves.[79] Some perished from severe diseases for which they were unable to obtain treatment, as health complications due to unsanitary living conditions and food were prevalent.[80] Jung Chang extensively discusses the discomfort that persons of frail health had to endure. She consistently struggled with skin rashes, diarrhea, vomiting, and dizziness, the perpetuity of which prohibited her from working in difficult occupations during her time in Ningnan and in Deyang.[81] Accidents were another reason for deaths. For instance, in a company of educated youths at a production brigade in Heilongjiang province, a girl working in a brick kiln found the kiln collapsing on her, burying her alive.[82] The worst incident at that production brigade was a forest fire, during which “the regiment commander ordered all of the educated youths to fight the fire,” and more than 40 zhiqing lost their lives fighting that fire.[83] Natural disasters in rural areas, such as mudslides, also ended the young lives of some zhiqing.[84] The 1973 National Conference aimed at improving the youths’ conditions, setting many regulations to protect the health and safety of zhiqing, but that did not completely end deaths related to the rustication movement.[85] The most miserable experiences fathomable during the Down to the Countryside Movement were these deaths: an immense, irreparable blow for victims’ families and a traumatic loss for their comrades.
Inequality
The negative experiences educated youth underwent were not evenly distributed either. Inequality remained a hallmark of the rustication movement since its inception. Those with power and “good familial background” enjoyed higher likelihood of acquiring nomination for early return, and those with connections bribed their way out of adverse conditions.[86] Favoritism also impacted job assignment in the countryside: in many cases, attaining “favorable” employment opportunities like working as a schoolteacher or as a “barefoot doctor” depended on familial background and personal connections to local officials.[87]
Self and Collective Enrichment through Combatting Adversity: Creating Positive Experiences during Rustication
Whilst discomfort, inequality, injustice, and suffering surely pervaded the rustication movement, most educated youths did not simply succumb to the depression that they initially thought would dominate their lives in the countryside. Instead, they avidly endeavored to enjoy facets of rural life that they found novel, improved not only their own but also other people’s lives, and combatted adverse policies and conditions for their own justice and equal treatment, deriving happiness and an upwards force of positivity throughout their life in the countryside.[88] Rusticated youths, after undergoing the hardship of the countryside, have learnt to appreciate smaller delights. Some studies demonstrate the sent-down youths’ ability to derive more enjoyment out of less resources by the zhiqing group’s relatively more conservative and responsible financial behavior than others.[89] While educated youths surely underwent immense suffering during the rustication movement, other historical documents offer an alternate view to the dominant narrative created by scar literature; journal entries, memoirs, letters, and interviews with zhiqing reveal a world of personal experiences and anecdotes articulating a narrative of struggling towards better living conditions and treatment and indulging in joys despite adversity.
Going through the Furnace: Rustication as an Opportunity for Character Enrichment
A consensus many zhiqing possess regarding the send-down experience is that the “revolutionary furnace” made them the mentally and physically strongest of all generations of urban youth in modern China. Much zhiqing nostalgia centers around how they were trained to become physically potent, in that the agricultural work in which they engaged endowed them with physical strength and bodies much more capable than their former selves. Moreover, the sent-down youths managed to learn many agricultural practices and skills from the peasants, helping them persist through harsh conditions and live independently. A statistical study by Wang and Zhou revealed that rusticated youths, especially males, were more likely to take up domestic chores for their spouses, as they not only developed stronger household skills but were also more willing to conduct hands-on work than their urban counterparts.[90] The zhiqing generation grew to become extremely adaptable, even in the face of new policies during Reform and Opening Up which seemed adverse and unfavorable to persons of zhiqing background. Surprisingly, many zhiqing were able to thrive during the marketization of the Chinese economy, partially if not significantly owing their success to the adaptability and resilience they gained by persisting through the Down to the Countryside Movement.[91]
Y. Xia,[92] a female zhiqing from Wuhan, Hubei and part of the laosanjie, recounts during an interview on her experience in the countryside some of the experiences that she perceived as traumatic in the past with retrospective nostalgia and ease.[93] She was assigned to a village in Huanggang County in Hubei, not too far from Wuhan, which possibly contributed to a less uncomfortable experience of rustication compared to some other rusticated youths, especially those sent to the country’s borderlands and frontiers. In an interview with her about her rustication experience, she recalls:
“I and my rusticated company of four males and three females once fried wheat in the pan, mistaking it for Chinese chives. The peasants in the production team admonished my company of zhiqing that [one] cannot eat wheat as chives and instructed us how to distinguish between the two crops.”[94]
She then reflects that she was always able to distinguish between the two crops from then, as wheat has “furry little spikes” on its soft leaves, and Chinese chives are characterized by their smooth and thick leaves.[95] She also reflects with gratitude that “the peasants taught us the purposes and functions of each [type of] agricultural equipment and the seasonality of different types of crops.”[96]
In addition to practical abilities learnt in the fields, Xia also recalls her joyful experience as an elementary school teacher in her village, where
“although the classroom was simplistic [in décor], with two grades sharing the same room, the left side being first grade and the right being second grade, I taught [Chinese] language and art. The obedience of the schoolchildren, never naughty, made me happy: when I taught the first-grade class, the second grade sat silently doing homework. Some even listened to the other grade’s class. I had more teaching responsibilities than the other zhiqing, and I was happy in this job.”[97]
Indeed, the involvement of educated youths in occupations such as schoolteachers, barefoot doctors, and accountants helped them foster close relationships with the local peasants, in the process of which Xia, for one, took delight.[98] Approximately 11.7 percent of rusticated youths engaged in technical occupations as schoolteachers and barefoot doctors between 1962 to 1972, as this figure grew steadily during the rustication movement.[99] Rusticated youths found ways to market their participation in these occupations as “internship experiences,” assisting their later pursuit for positions in factories, state corporations, and private enterprises, all of which hired extensively from the zhiqing group.[100] In this regard, Y. Xia reflects appreciatively on the rustication campaign’s contribution to her practical life experiences and her acquisition of a decent position in the 304 Military Factory, concluding that
“the zhiqing is a collective, helping each other grow. I also managed to integrate with the rural villagers, teach cultural lessons and sanitation techniques, and help close the gap between urban and rural [areas]. We learned things that can’t be learnt from the textbook, including how to identify, plant, and harvest vegetables.”[101]
Like many other zhiqing in her company, Xia was eventually able to return to the city and obtain for herself a decent, respectable occupation in the military factory.[102] The lessons she gained as a zhiqing helped her life take an upwards trajectory after her rustication experience, and she attributes the attainment of her employment opportunity at the factory to her being prioritized as a rusticated youth returning to the city of Wuhan. Her zhiqing friends underwent similar experiences during and after rustication, and they have developed a strong sense of camaraderie and community after bearing through the challenges of rustication together. On one occasion during her time in Huanggang, Xia found a leech attached to her right leg drinking her blood, and she panicked and ran across the field screaming, damaging many crops. Her male peers came to the rescue and helped her remove the leech, and eventually, her leg was fine. Feeling guilty after having damaged such quantities of crops, she “and [her] teammates on the production team…worked really hard to recuperate the losses in preparation for [the] harvest.”[103] During reunions they reminisce over their rustication experience, appreciating their time together and laughing about how they were the “strongest generation in China’s existence.”[104] Another rusticated youth, Liu Ping, reflects upon the solidarity of the zhiqing in her diary before departing the countryside, where “through three years of sharing the sweet and bitter sprang an unbreakable friendship [between the educated youths].”[105] The anonymous author of “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness” corroborates that rustication “has tempered us. We have gone through everything…There is nothing to fear anymore…We have the strongest adaptability…are able to deal with all kinds of tough situations.”[106] This author’s choice to use “we” instead of the singular pronoun “I” exhibits the collective identity shared by the sent-down youths, who were unified by their endurance and fortitude gained from working in rural areas and state farms.
Spiritual Enrichment through the Therapy of Nature
In addition to these practical benefits, the rustic setting could also be an inspirational, eye-opening experience for urban youth, many of whom had never left the cities before, to engage in spiritual enrichment. In “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness,” the author recalls that small lakes and lush grass covered the landscape of Heilongjiang, which was free from urban pollution: “If you went there as a tourist, it would seem nice.”[107] In addition, the “Ho Chi Minh Trail,” a secret path behind the zhiqing residential tents, meandered into the forest and became the secret rendezvous for young lovers; in this “beautiful, quiet” setting, “many young lovers, with trembling hearts,” engaged in their romantic excursions, which were some of the most enjoyable experiences of their time in the countryside.[108]
The author also recounts the mirage of a solitary “maple tree growing on a piece of flat grassland,” which symbolized hope and therapy for the zhiqing who suffered low emotions. When undergoing episodes of grief and depression, the zhiqing would “run towards the tree to be alone for a while, even to weep a little. Then we would feel much relieved…the tree had a magic power that could dispel sufferings.”[109] This “therapy tree” stood as a testament to rusticated youths’ unyielding resilience and ability to discover and create joy out of suffering. Despite performing such intensive agricultural work in the remote frontiers and hinterlands of the nation, most educated youths persisted through the process and discovered consolation in themselves, others, and the natural setting around them. The author of “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness” claims that to this day, he would like to return to the commune he worked in just to experience the therapeutic magic of the maple tree once again.[110]
Jung Chang also felt it necessary to do the natural scenery justice in the description of her rustication experience in Ningnan, where she “washed clothes in those heavenly pools…in the sunshine and the crisp air…we would lie down on the grass and listen to the vibration of the pine forests in the breeze. I would marvel at the slopes of distant mountains opposite us, covered with wild peach trees, and imagine the masses of pink in a few weeks’ time.”[111] Before departing, she also observed near a river that “on the high rocks above, egrets were balancing on one slender leg, raising the other in various balletic postures. Others were flying, fanning their gorgeous snow-white wings with panache. I had never seen these stylish dancers wild and free.”[112] Despite detesting the Cultural Revolution and the rustication movement, Chang too perceived the sublime beauty of nature, in which she found consolation. Liu Ping, at the end of her diary, summarizes how “vast the land [was], how fresh and free the air [was],” and her years of rustication thus seemed unbearably long but also exasperatingly short.[113] Her departure from the village evoked “good memories,” the most “fragrant food,” and the “sweetest naps” she had in the countryside, reflecting how she managed to transform and enjoy what she had first described as “unbearable conditions.”[114] These rusticated youths’ experiences testify how they found nature as a source of consolation and spiritual enrichment, which was a reason for these former-youths’ nostalgia of their time spent in the countryside.
Leisure and Entertainment in the Countryside
During rustication, urban youth made the best of their time by creating and indulging in entertainment opportunities. Common methods to pass time included sitting on the kang, playing Chinese chess, poker, the flute, and conversing.[115] In some villages, educated youth utilized their free time to create revolutionary-themed theatrical productions, in which they took pride.[116] Educated youth often flocked to village centers when movies were shown. “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness” captures the sheer elation of the educated youths when gathering to watch a movie, which was an occasion comparable to a “grand party” or a “happy festival.” Once a Hong Kong movie called The Acrobatic Troupe was to be displayed, but the film did not arrive until three in the morning, so they “just sat there and waited. When the film was finally delivered, [they] broke into deafening cheers, like the roar of thunder.”[117] Because of the harsh conditions and hardship youths had to endure during rustication, they were also much more appreciative of small delights like this, as reflected by their patience in waiting for the film deep into the night. Once a Korean movie was shown, and “it was snowing hard both in the movie and the square where [they] were standing. But no one left. It was indeed a queer, wonderful feeling.”[118] The author and the other zhiqing discovered pleasure in situations which would otherwise be perceived as unideal, and subsequently, a sense of solidarity formed between rusticated youths who underwent experiences like these. These personal accounts illustrate that the rusticated youthswere able to find their own means of entertainment, form profound interpersonal bonds through social activities, and excavate their own artistic creativity by putting together performances and productions despite the spartan conditions to which they were subject.
There also existed more mischievous means of entertainment and attaining happiness. One educated youth, author of “Aunt Pig” in Ten Years of Madness, recounts his “quite interesting” life in his village where “despite all the hardships, there was a lot of fun.”[119] The author and his zhiqing friends decided to “steal a pig from the neighboring B village” and devised a “brilliant plan”: sedating a pig, stealing it under disguise, and then cooking it to satiate their watering mouths.[120] A series of complications led to other strangers falsely believing that the author’s disguised pig was actually a sick patient, and when a doctor from the local county hospital came to check upon the supposed “lady,” the pig “gave out a big roar, jumped up, and started running hysterically…Nobody could tell it was a pig. Everyone was so shocked to see that an old woman could be so swift and wild.”[121] The author and his group of zhiqing friends “laugh about this whenever [they] got together,” regarding it as a hilarious, amusing experience worth relishing and reminiscing over.[122] Sometimes, by engaging in mischievous activities without doing injury and harm to others, many educated youths were able to pursue happiness during their time in the countryside.[123] As exemplified by this author, the adverse conditions of the countryside did not always dampen the youthful spirit of the zhiqing.
Improving Conditions and Policies through Activism
During the rustication movement, many youths engaged in personal and interpersonal struggle against adverse policies and conditions, attending their own benefits and those of others combating similar predicaments. “Returning the Clock” in Ten Years of Madness, by an anonymous male zhiqing,[124] exemplifies such a struggle against a corrupt local official who controlled the commune in which the author was working. The zhiqing was hoping to return to his city after spending five years in the countryside, but in this endeavor, he needed the approval of the brigade’s Party Secretary, who “was a snakehead, cruel and greedy.”[125] The zhiqing, after inquiring with the official’s nephew about what the official prefers to receive, devised an ingenious plan of giving the official an extremely expensive grandfather clock that the youth obtained from his own uncle. The youth used the clock to obtain the official’s stamp of approval, and afterwards, he decided to reclaim the clock by exposing the official’s acceptance of the “gift” publicly in front of higher-ranking cadres: the commune leaders. This strategy worked, and the zhiqing managed to both acquire approval to return to the city, expose the official as corrupt, and return the expensive clock back to his uncle.[126] The author writes that he is “really proud of this,” which he regards as a “success story”: indeed, after having undergone rustication for a sufficient duration in the countryside and seeing the opening of new employment opportunities in the cities, the author was able to leave a positive legacy before departure by exposing the corrupt official, who, having been “instructed” by the zhiqing’s exposure of his corruption, would likely not have the audacity to commit such outrageous misappropriations again.[127] This zhiqing rejoices that he had impressed a beneficial impact on the rural commune during his time there.
Group activism and struggle during the Down to the Countryside Movement, especially against adverse state policies, also triumphed in various aspects. In 1973, one prominent victory manifested in the form of a letter of protest from a schoolteacher in Fujian to Mao Zedong, complaining that his rusticated son could not “make ends meet” in the countryside.[128] Even after Mao issued a nine-point directive in Spring 1970 mandating that sent-down youths receive “equal pay for equal work,” adequate accommodations, and healthcare benefits, the teacher’s son, along with many of his rusticated peers, was “short-changed in work-points and housing.”[129] In the letter, the father described with vehemence and infuriation how he struggled financially to support the boy, while pointing out that the rusticated youths with influence and connections departed early whereas children of “ordinary folks” like him were condemned to remain in the countryside. Mao Zedong, in a quixotic gesture, responded by sending the father a part of his salary as Chairman.[130] Mao then instructed that this letter become required reading for all Communist Party meetings throughout China, followed by the passage of a decree during the National Working Conference on Sent-Down Youth raising settlement subsidies of rusticated youths and starting a crackdown on the favored return policies for children of Party officials.[131] Although this change by no means resolved all the problems and unequal treatment educated youths encountered in the countryside, the decree significantly ameliorated many aspects of rusticated youths’ lives across the country and made the rustication program a less difficult experience for those coming afterward.[132] Individual struggle of educated youths and their families prevailed in this circumstance, aiding then-current and future educated youths on a substantial scale.
Mass movements like the April 1976 Tiananmen movement, along with the death of Mao Zedong the same year, helped catalyze the end of the rustication movement. Group movements and activism were arguably the political result of rustication, and they provided foundations for the Reform and Opening Up policy of the Deng Xiaoping era. Though few singular movements immediately achieved their desired effects, they combined to create an inundating force overcoming the momentum of adverse rustication policies. Such demonstrations were most notable in Shanghai, where young men and women took to the streets, blockaded train stations, rioted in front of operas, put up wall posters, and stormed government offices and public buildings to make their voices heard: they wanted to immediately put an end to the adverse policies of the rustication movement.[133] There was often strong government opposition to these protests, with the use of brutal suppression in extreme cases, such as in the government reaction to a blockage of trains by banner-carrying youths at the Shanghai North Railway Station.[134] Still, the momentum of the movement clearly conveyed to the local and central government the problems encountered by rusticated youths.[135] The zhiqing in Xishuang Banna of Yunnan province piloted a series of work disruption movements to advocate for improved treatment and policies with regard to “work problems, incorrect and trumped-up cases, lack of money to visit families and for medication, [the] settling of family members and so on.”[136] The zhiqing movement in Xishuang Banna involved setting up “petitions, strikes…posters, sit-ins, demonstrations, [and] even the occupation of government offices,” as almost all of the 50,000 zhiqing there became involved with the movement.[137] An educated youth named Ding Huimin helped spearhead the open-letter and petition movement, which eventually reached the central leadership in Beijing, as a delegate of ten rusticated youths from Yunnan met with key figures like Vice Premier Wang Zhen in January of 1979 to discuss problems encountered by zhiqing in Yunnan.[138] Despite the strong opposition of their local and provincial governments, these youths managed to make their voices heard by important figures in the Chinese Communist Party, and after a few more farm protests in Yunnan, the zhiqing movement there ended in great success, with almost all rusticated youths eligible for return by 1979: only 70 out of the 50,000 sent-down youths in Xishuang Banna remained by the end of that year.[139] Indeed, during the period following the demonstrations in Shanghai and the advocacy by the youths living in Yunnan, the number of new youths undergoing rustication dramatically decreased, while those who did go to the countryside primarily settled temporarily in regions near their home cities and received guaranteed wages.[140] This was a vastly better situation compared to before the Shanghai and Yunnan demonstrations and the 1973 National Conference reforms. After 1978, graduates in Shanghai did not have to undergo rustication, as the rustication movement was drastically reduced in scale. The municipal government and local cadres kept graduates without job assignments in “wholesome pursuits,” such as academic classes, social service work, cultural and athletic activities, and street patrolling.[141] In the same year, The Shanghai municipal government also exercised more favorable policies regarding job assignments for graduating youths, as over 90 percent of graduates who received job assignments that year were placed in occupations they have specified on their preference list.[142] The activism of the Shanghai and Yunnan youths illustrate how group struggle can slowly alter government policy to serve the wellbeing of the people for whom one is advocating.
A Lasting Legacy: Improving Education and Gender Equality
One of the most perceptible changes engendered by the educated youths’ work in the countryside is the changing role and treatment of women in Chinese society. Despite China having undergone many liberalizing changes with regard to gender equality under the Communist regime, including the institution of monogamy and consensual marriages, many traditional values still relegated women to be subordinate to men, destined to work domestically as housewives. The ancient practice of foot-binding, outlawed in China during the Communist regime, was still active until the 1950s, as numerous records showed that such practices continued in Yunnan until that time.[143] During the Cultural Revolution in particular, significant stigma was placed on women who engaged in extramarital sexual relationships, whereas the same did not apply for men.[144] Sent-down females, aware of their subordinate social positions, recognized an opportunity to reverse their status through outstanding performance during the Down to the Countryside Movement. The ideal image for rusticated females was that of an “iron girl”: embodying fearlessness and diligence, working as industriously as did their male counterparts. Ma Xiaodong, a female zhiqing who wanted to show that women were just as capable as men in conducting agricultural work, exemplifies this “iron girl” archetype.[145] In one instance when asked to dig holes for cinchona trees, Ma Xiaodong strove to dig as many holes as did the physically fit young men, acquiring significant respect from both the females and the males, with the latter even advocating for her to receive larger food rations.[146] Ma Xiaodong took agricultural labor to such lengths that she refused to take days off even when she had her period, hiding her menstruation schedule.[147] Girls like Ma Xiaodong display that women were not delicate and weak but were rather individuals capable of withstanding hardship and rigorous agricultural work typically performed by men.[148] Zhou and Hou’s 1999 study reveals that female employees with rustication experience enjoyed significantly higher incomes compared with the females who were not sent down.[149] They attribute this higher income to female rusticated youths’ higher awareness and subsequent greater determination to change their social positions after their experiences of laboring alongside males in the countryside. To an uplifted image and status of women, female zhiqing like Ma Xiaodong have contributed undeniably.
Moreover, the rusticated youths have left a positive legacy on rural education. School teachers like Xia found ways to utilize their urban education to construct a mutual relationship with the rural students. A statistical study conducted by Yi Chen’s research group found that “greater exposure to the sent-down youths significantly increased rural children’s educational achievement,” benefiting approximately 245 million schoolchildren at the time.[150] Contact with educated youths from the cities resulted in an aggregate 17.6 million more years of schooling for rural children during the rustication movement. Also remarkable is the persistence of the legacy imprinted upon rural communities after the departure of the urban youth, the effect of whose impacts on rural education “declined but never vanished.”[151] In the years following the Down to the Countryside Movement, rural children were more likely to proceed to higher-level education, pursue higher-skilled occupations, and more positively view education as an institution.[152] Chen’s study also found that rural social inequality was reduced during the Down to the Countryside Movement, with socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, female children in particular, receiving significant benefits from the additional instruction provided by the educated youths.[153] This expanded number of semi and highly-skilled youths, migrating from the countryside into the cities during the Reform and Opening Up era, helped construct the groundwork for China’s economic growth based on manufacturing.[154]
As demonstrated by these youths who strove to make the best of their life in the countryside and those who engaged in personal and interpersonal struggle, the zhiqing, through their persistent fight against adverse conditions of rustication, not only benefited themselves but also those around them and Chinese society in general. Indeed, these zhiqing would continue to occupy significant roles in developing China economically and politically in the ages after the Down to the Countryside Movement, as they contributed to the rural reforms in the 1980s that helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the decades to come. The Heilongjiang province, mentioned in “Trapped in the Great Northern Wilderness” as a frozen northern frontier of the country, has transformed into “the Granary of China” under the cultivation of the rusticated youths.[155] The zhiqing generation also influenced many liberalization and pro-democracy movements both in civil society and in the central government in the late 20th century, as testified by their activism in the April 1976 Tiananmen Movement and the creation of the “Democracy Wall” in the Xidan Area of Beijing.[156] Highlighted by a significant resurgence of zhiqing nostalgia in the 1990s, the rusticated youths reminisced about their experiences in the countryside, some with delight, others with melancholy; but many were proud of their generation bearing through this period of adverse state policies. One study yielded a surprising result from a random sample of zhiqing interviewees that corroborates with the positive sentiment of many zhiqing regarding their rustication experience–of the 87 responses collected, 63 demonstrated positive sentiment on their rustication experiences, and only 24 reflected negative perceptions.[157]
Conclusion and the New Zhiqing
By 1980, under the leadership of Hu Yaobang and Deng Xiaoping, most educated youths had been able to return to their home cities.[158] The zhiqing, back in their cities, brushing off the dust on their shoulders and commencing life anew, have demonstrated that the Down to the Countryside Movement was not solely dominated by meaningless suffering and misery. Instead, it was what the youths themselves made of their time in the countryside that became their highlights, be it teaching a class of eager children, stealing a pig, enjoying the natural scenery of the vast rustic landscape, exposing a corrupt official, or collectively bargaining to gain better rights and conditions for not only the rusticated youths but also all the residents of the countryside through contributing to rural reform. Many of these youths have taught themselves to endure adversity, to overcome adversity, and to find joy even under these difficult conditions, the process of which many recollect now with relief and nostalgia. The zhiqing is neither a silent group in the forward-rolling wheel of history nor a “ruined generation.” Instead, they have now been identified as one of the most capable and resilient generations modern China has witnessed, constituting a considerable portion of the “architects” of today’s China, which has come a long way since the Cultural Revolution and economic reform, in both of which zhiqing occupied unique capacities.
As the zhiqing generation undergoes the erosion of age with each passing day, it has become more important than ever to document and publicize their stories and authentic experiences. Many of that group have passed away in the past decades, and many more will unfortunately pass in the coming years.[159] Documenting and re-narrating both nostalgic and traumatic stories of these educated youths, a vast majority of whom have become parents and grandparents, have increased public awareness of this aberrant period of history when urbanization was reversed at a scale of tens of millions of city youth undergoing rustication in modern China.[160] Between the Cultural Revolution and post-reform China, the rural landscape has changed radically: state sources claim that China has successfully eradicated extreme poverty in 2020.[161] The countryside has thus transformed into a more agreeable and beautiful place to live in since the 1960s and 1970s. The inhumane living, working, eating, and sanitation conditions characteristic of the countryside during the Cultural Revolution have become a relic of the past.[162] Urban centers no longer experience the drastic employment stress and unrest that have forcibly deported graduates of secondary schools to places to which they did not want to go.
However, general rural poverty and deficiencies in adequate education have remained rampant in the western provinces of the nation. Inspired by the zhiqing generation’s stories and nostalgia, a new type of rustication of urban youths has commenced in the form of volunteer work in the countryside starting in 2003, when youths graduating college volunteered to participate in service opportunities in the western provinces to lead the development of underprivileged regions as village cadres or their assistants.[163] Forty years after the rustication movement ended, villagers in provinces like Yunnan, Guizhou, and Gansu once again see elementary schoolteachers coming to their assistance, now through volunteer organizations such as Teach for China.[164] Unlike during the Cultural Revolution, these new educated youths no longer must endure the inhumane conditions of a destitute countryside on the brink of famine. Economic conditions have ameliorated, and these youths sense a resolute commitment to continue this rapid transformation of the countryside. This new generation of educated youths shoulder on them memories, aspirations, and ideals that were once carried by zhiqing during the Cultural Revolution. This time they bid farewell to their families knowing that they will reunite, aware that they will engender tangible positive impact on the countryside. These new youths endeavor to eradicate the adverse conditions that had once forced tears out of the eyes of zhiqing during the Cultural Revolution. A hopeful vision of tomorrow radiates from the eyes of these new educated youths, as they see in the mirror of history the zhiqing of the past–their parents’ and grandparents’ generation–overcoming with relief and joy the challenges that have once placed them into misery.
Endnotes
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[21] During the latter part of the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao actually became a target and victim of the movement,
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[33] Wu and Fan, “The Rise.”
[34] Pan, Tempered in the Revolutionary, 29.
[35] The rustication of the laosanjie marked the height of the rustication movement, in terms of quantity of urban youths rusticated per year.
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[45] Boluan Fanzheng literally translates to “eliminating chaos and returning to normalcy.”
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[76] Pan, Tempered in the Revolutionary, 97.
[77] Tang, “Urban Youth,” 12-3.
[78] Fortunately, most of these youth were not forced to repay these debts at the end of the Down to the Countryside Movement.
[79] Tang, “Urban Youth,” 12-5.
[80] Feng, “Trapped in the Great,” 29.
[81] Chang, “‘Thought Reform,” 400.
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[83] Feng, “Trapped in the Great,” 28-9.
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[91] Chen and Cheng, “Comment on Zhou,” 38.
[92] Xia’s full name is not shown protect her identity.
[93] Xia, interview by the author.
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[123] Feng, “Seeking Pleasure,” 240.
[124] The author disguised the real names of the youth and of the county and province in which the youth resided to protect his identity.
[125] Feng, “Seeking Pleasure,” 243.
[126] Feng, “Seeking Pleasure,” 244-6.
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[145] Nettina, “Differing Perspectives,” 45.
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[158] Pan, Tempered in the Revolutionary, 217-30.
[159] As of 2024, the zhiqing group are mainly in their sixties and seventies.
[160] Xia, interview by the author.
[161] World Bank Group, “Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience,” The World Bank, last modified April 1, 2022, accessed January 19, 2024, https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience.
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