Cui Zengqi: Trip to Yunnan (8)

Cui Zengqi: Trip to Yunnan (8) Phoenix City Cui Zengqi After finishing the activities with the brigade, I started a journey to find my roots in recalling my childhood. During the Anti-Japanese War, I and...

Phoenix City Cui Zengqi

After finishing my activities with the brigade, I began a journey to reminisce about my childhood and find my roots. During the Anti-Japanese War, my parents and I spent our childhood in a village called Zaige in the mountains near Kunming, where the Resources Committee opened the Mingliang Coal Mine to meet wartime needs. Seventy years have passed and it is not easy to find the place where I lived as a child. Before leaving, I remembered Xu Qiang from the Yunnan Association and asked him to contact the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Yunnan Province to give me some foreign aid, hoping to find a classmate named Lu Liwen who I had played with for an hour. She was a good friend of mine when I was young. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, her family had six children and could not afford to move back to their hometown, so they stayed in Kunming. I visited this mountain village thirty years ago and we met in Kunming. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Yunnan Province was very responsible. They found that the employer where my friend worked no longer existed, and then broadcast a missing person advertisement on the provincial TV station for a week. Finally, Ms. Tang told me that there was still no result, and told me that if I need help from the country, I can contact her. The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office in China did show a very serious and enthusiastic attitude towards overseas Chinese returning to China. Although I did not bother them again, I called them specifically to express my gratitude when I left. If the government takes the people's demands seriously, it will truly fulfill the original intention of "the people's government for the people." I contacted my college classmates and work friends that I knew well in Kunming. Unexpectedly, things have changed and times have changed. Some of my contemporaries moved to other places with their children after retirement, and some completed their journey of life and went to heaven to enjoy blessings. I have also immigrated to the United States for more than ten years. This is something I never dreamed of twenty years ago. These are witnesses of the great changes in Chinese society. In an emergency, I quickly contacted a general manager of Yunnan Pioneer Coal Mine through a friend in Beijing. He had listened to my lectures while studying at China University of Mining and Technology, and had some contacts after working. He received me very warmly and decided to accompany me personally to find the small mountain village where I once lived. We first looked for Kebao Village, which is a small station on the Yunnan-Baoji Railway from Kunming to Bainan. The Mingliang Coal Mine used to have an office here, and materials and personnel were transferred here to the coal mine by car. From here we turned onto a rugged mountain road, a rural road paved with loess and ginger stone. I call it a "10,000-ton road" because people sitting in the car will be kicked ten thousand times every kilometer forward. After traveling along the bumpy road for about four or five kilometers, a piece of high plains appeared in front of me. I immediately recognized that this was the Bazi where we lived back then. During the trip, every scene and emotion brought back many childhood memories for me. I remember riding a small train on the Yunnan-Bao Railway. Because the track gauge of the train is one meter narrow, the carriages are also very narrow, and the passengers sit on the floor. The speed of the train is unimaginably slow. It is conceivable that if your hat accidentally flies off the train, you can jump out of the car, pick it up and run to catch the train. The most interesting thing is that before approaching Kunming, there is a section of road called "Seven Gong Slope". The slope is very steep, reaching 30% per thousand. At that time, the two steam locomotives pushing and pulling the train up the slope. Sometimes because the force cannot be used together, the train climbs and retreats. It often takes six or seven times to climb up. People call this place the Seven Gong Slope. Therefore, "trains don't run as fast as cars" has become one of the eighteen strange things in Yunnan. I still remember the ghost story that happened in the guest house of Kebao Village. One day, we went to Kebao Village. My father played mahjong with a few friends in the evening, and my mother took me and my classmate Lu Liwen mentioned before back to the guest house to sleep. When we walked to the door of the house, I saw a feather duster swinging on the glass window on the upper half of the door to wipe the glass. Both of us children saw this scene. When I walked inside and took a closer look, I did see a feather duster hanging on a nail on the back of the door. I thought of one thing at that time. The day before we went to the guest house, a mad dog bit the administrator of the guest house. He was an old man who was very diligent and praised by everyone. Everyone felt sorry for this old man. I decided that the moving feather duster must be the reappearance of his soul, and he was still continuing his work. This story established my lifelong belief in the existence of human souls outside the human body. Before these phenomena were scientifically proven, they were collectively called ghost stories. On the road to Zaig, I looked for the site of two rollover accidents during my childhood. I survived two car rollovers with no damage to my hair. It was really a blessing from heaven and God. One time, the employees went to Kebao Village to attend the mine manager’s birthday party. There were about 30 people standing on an open truck. Ma Yan and I were sitting in the cab on the front floor. At an S-shaped bend, the truck tipped to one side because the speed was too fast, and all the people in the car fell to the ground. Fortunately, there was a piece of flat land next to it, and no one fell into the ditch. The adults were all injured, but I was the only one who was safe. Another time, my mother and I hitched a ride back to Zaig with an uncle Tao Bo from Kebao Village. The three of us were all sitting in the cab. At a turning point, in order to avoid another truck coming from the opposite direction, because the road was too narrow, the rear wheels of our truck were hanging in the air, and it rolled down the hillside. It rolled about six or seven times and reached the bottom of the ditch. At some point, Uncle Tao, who was sitting on the outside, was thrown out of the truck. Outside, he fell into the river at the bottom of the ditch. He has been a little delirious ever since. My mother also had an injury on her forehead and had to be bandaged for some time. I only felt like I was rolling around in the carriage, bumping here and there. I couldn't find a leather shoe when I climbed out of the carriage, but there was no other damage. I remember these two car accidents very well. I carefully searched for the location of the accident in my memory and took a photo.

The hillside where the car overturned. At this moment, I couldn't help but think of an interesting thing that happened to me later. After returning to Shanghai after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the first thing my family did was to arrange for me to go to school. I went to Peizhen Primary School to take the fifth-grade exam, but I was not admitted. My cousin is going to find out? The school teacher said that my English and Chinese scores were both zero. It’s strange. It’s understandable that I scored zero in English, because primary schools in Yunnan have never learned English, while Shanghai primary schools already have English classes in the fourth grade. What about Chinese? The teacher said that the Chinese language was an essay, and the title was "Climb up the mountain", and the four words your son wrote were "Fall down". Everyone burst into laughter after hearing this. I think this may be the intuitive revelation given to me by this car rollover experience! It was also the failure of this exam that inspired me to work hard in the future.