12 "Capable Women Can Make a Meal without Food” Famine
十二 “巧妇能为无米炊”
——Famine(1958-1962)
——大饥荒(1958—1961年)
In the autumn of 1958, when I was six, I started going to a primary school about twenty minutes' walk from home, mostly along muddy cobbled back alleys. Every day on my way to and from school, I screwed up my eyes to search every inch of ground for broken nails, rusty cogs, and any other metal objects that had been trodden into the mud between the cobbles. These were for feeding into furnaces to produce steel, which was my major occupation. Yes, at the age of six, I was involved in steel production, and had to compete with my schoolmates at handing in the most scrap iron. All around me uplifting music blared from loudspeakers, and there were banners, posters, and huge slogans painted on the walls proclaiming "Long Live the Great Leap Forward!" and "Everybody, Make Steel{' Although I did not fully understand why, I knew that Chairman Mao had ordered the nation to make a lot of steel. In my school, crucible-like vats had replaced some of our cooking woks and were sitting on the giant stoves in the kitchen.
1958年秋天，我六岁了，开始上小学。从家到学校约要步行二十分钟，沿途多是泥土、石块铺成的僻静小巷。每天，在上学、放学途中，我总用双眼紧盯着每一寸路面，搜寻被踩进石缝、泥土里的破钉子、锈螺丝钉。所有能送进火炉去的破铜烂铁都是我的目标。当时六岁的我正在为席卷全国的大炼钢铁出力呢！我得和同学们比赛，看谁拣的废铁最多。到处都有大喇叭传出震耳欲聋、日夜不停的宣传口号和振奋人心的革命歌曲，红旗四处飘扬。报纸通牌标题、涂在墙上的大标语都在呐喊：“大跃进万岁！”“全民动手，大炼钢铁！”尽管我不完全明白到底发生了什么事，但我知道毛主席要全国老老少少炼很多很多的钢铁。在我的学校里，坩锅代替了我们烧饭的铁锅放在厨房改装了的大炉子上。
All our scrap iron was fed into them, including the old woks, which had now been broken to bits. The stoves were kept permanently lit until they melted down. Our teachers took turns feeding firewood into them around the-clock, and stirring the scraps in the vats with a huge spoon. We did not have many lessons, as the teachers were too preoccupied with the vats. So were the older, teenage children. The rest of us were organized to clean the teachers' apa~iments and babysit for them.
铁锅已被砸得稀烂，与我们收集到的废铁一起，倒进里面。炉子昼夜熊熊冒火，直到倒塌为止。我们的教师一天二十四轮流把木块、煤炭塞进炉中，有的则用大勺子在坩锅里搅动。许多课程都停下来了，因为老师们得全力以赴对付大坩锅。高年级的学生也统统参加了，我们低年级的被组织起来扫打教师的住宅，照看他们的孩子。
I remember visiting a hospital once with some other children to see one of our teachers who had been seriously burned when molten iron had splashed onto her arms. Doctors and nurses in white coats were rushing around frantically. There was a furnace on the hospital grounds, and they had to feed logs into it all the time, even when they were performing operations, and right through the night.
我记得有一次和同学去医院看望一位老师，她的手臂被熔铁烫伤。身着白大褂的医生和护士们都神情激动地在医院院子和病房过道里跑来跑去，原来这医院院子正中就立着一座炼炉。他们必须不停地把木材、煤炭送进去。有的医生一下手术台就跑去炼钢，整夜医院里热闹异常。
Shortly before I started going to school, my family had moved from the old vicarage into a special compound, which was the center of government for the province. It enclosed several streets, with blocks of apartments and offices and a number of mansions; a high wall blocked it off from the outside world. Inside the main gate was what had been the US Servicemen's Club during the Second World War. Ernest Hemingway had stayed there in 1945.
在我入学前不久，我家搬进一个特殊大院，这里是四川省权力的中心，由几条街打通组成，一墙高墙与外部世界隔开，住宅、办公楼应有尽有。进大门斜对着的是二次大战时期的美国军人俱乐部，海明威曾于1941年在这里住过。
The club building was in traditional Chinese style, with the ends of its yellow filed roof turning upward, and heavy dark red pillars. It was now the office of the secretariat of the Sichuan government.
俱乐部建筑是中国传统风格，有深红色的大圆柱玫黄色的穹形瓦铺成的大屋顶，檐角翘上蓝天，这座楼现在是四川省委办公厅。
A huge furnace was erected in the parking lot where the chauffeurs used to wait. At night the sky was lit up, and the noise of the crowds around the furnace could be heard 300 yards away in my room. My family's woks went into this furnace, together with all our cast-iron cooking utensils. We did not suffer from their loss, as we did not need them anymore. No private cooking was allowed now, and everybody had to eat in the canteen. The furnaces were insatiable. Gone was my parents' bed, a sofa, comfortable one with iron springs. Gone also were the iron railings from the city pavements, and anything else that was iron.
院内有个很大的停车场，司机们闲坐着等待调遣。现在这里也竖起了一个巨大的炼铁炉。夜晚火光冲天，嘈杂的人声在距它300米外的我的住房里都可以听到。我们家的炒菜锅和所有其他厨房内的铁家当都被扔进了这个炉子。这并不影响我们吃饭，我们不需要它们了。不成文的规定不允许各家自己做饭，大家都必须到食堂搭伙，但是这炼炉总也填不满。我父亲柔软而舒适的钢弹簧床被送了进去，附近街道的铁栏杆也送了进去。
I hardly saw my parents for months. They often did not come home at all, as they had to make sure the temperature in their office furnaces never dropped.
我的好几个月没见到父母了，他们经常不回家，以确保他们各自所管的火炉温度不会降下来。
It was at this time that Mao gave full vent to his half baked dream of turning China into a first-class modern power. He called steel the "Marshal' of industry, and ordered steel output to be doubled in one year from 5.35 million tons in 1957 to 10.7 million in 1958. But instead of trying to expand the proper steel industry with skilled workers, he decided to get the whole population to take part. There was a steel quota for every unit, and for months people stopped their normal work in order to meet it. The country's economic development was reduced to the simplistic question of how many tons of steel could be produced, and the entire nation was thrown into this single act. It was officially estimated that nearly zoo million peasants were pulled out of agricultural work and into steel production. They had been the labor force producing much of the country's food. Mountains were stripped bare of trees for fuel. But the output of this mass production amounted only to what people called 'camel droppings' (nill-shi-ge-day meaning useless turds.
这是毛泽东想把他不成熟的梦想变为事实的时代，毛想一夜之间把中国变成第一流的现代化强国。他称钢铁为工业的元帅，并号召人们在一年之内提高一倍的钢铁产量，即从1957年的五百三十五万吨增加到1958年的一千零七十万吨。但他并不扩建由专家管理的先进钢铁工业，而决定沿用他的老办法：搞群众运动，让所有人民参加。每个单位都有一个钢铁指标，日复一日，月复一月，所有的人都停下正常工作去完成它。国民经济的发展被简化成生产多少吨钢铁的问题。全国上下被卷进这个支配一切的运动。据官方估计，近一亿名农业劳动者放下手上的农活去大搞钢铁，而国家大部分粮食生产都是靠他们。平原、山区的树木都被砍光了用作燃料。但是这场轰轰烈烈的运动生产出来的都是废铁，老百姓叫它“牛屎疙瘩”。
This absurd situation reflected not only Mao's ignorance of how an economy worked, but also an almost metaphysical disregard for reality, which might have been interesting in a poet, but in a political leader with absolute power was quite another matter. One of its main components was a deep-seated contempt for human life.? Not long before this he had told the Finnish ambassador, "Even if the United States had more powerful atom bombs and used them on China, blasted a hole in the earth, or blew it to pieces, while this might be a matter of great significance to the solar system, it would still be an insignificant matter as far as the universe as a whole is concerned."
这样荒谬的情景不仅反映了毛泽东不懂现代经济，也反映了他不时认为自己可以改变、创造现实的倾向。不顾现实可能对吟诗作赋有用，但对一个拥有绝对权威的政治领袖，则完全是另外一回事了。(此处删去一句)几年前，他对芬兰大使说：“即使美国的原子弹威力再大，投到中国来，把地球打穿了、炸毁了，对于大阳系来说，还算是一件大事，但对整个宇宙来说，却算不了什么。”
Mao's voluntarism had been fueled by his recent experience in Russia. Increasingly disillusioned with Khrushchev after his denunciation of Stalin in 1956, Mao went to Moscow in late 1957 to attend a world Communist summit.
苏联的变化使毛泽东益发坚信自己。在1956年赫鲁晓夫谴责了斯大林之后，毛对赫鲁晓夫越来越感到失望。次年，他去莫斯科出席世界共产党最高级会议，回来后，确信苏联与东欧已背弃社会主义而变成了“修正主义”。他认为中国实行的是唯一纯正的马列主义，得为世界开辟出一条新路，非我莫属的信念很容易就和唯意志论结合在一起了。
He returned convinced that Russia and its allies were abandoning socialism and turning 'revisionist." He saw China as the only true believer. It had to blaze a new path.
Megalomania and voluntarism meshed easily in Mao's mind.
Mao's fixation on steel went largely unquestioned, as did his other obsessions. He took a dislike to sparrows they devour grain. So every household was mobilized. We sat outside ferociously beating any metal object, from cymbals to saucepans, to scare the sparrows off the trees so they would eventually drop dead from exhaustion. Even today I can vividly hear the din made by my siblings and me, as well as by the government officials, sitting under a mammoth wolfoerry tree in our courtyard.
除了迷恋钢铁以外，毛泽东突然开始憎恨麻雀，理由是它们吞食谷物，于是动员各家各户驱赶这些失宠的小生物。我们全部坐在房屋外面拼命敲打金属器皿，从饶钹到铝锅都有，以惊吓麻雀，使它们不得停息在树上、房上、地上，最终因疲劳坠地死亡。时至今日，我还能清晰记得我们姐弟和省委机关各级干部坐在大院里大枸树下拼命敲打发出的震耳欲聋的钉铛声。
There were also fantastic economic goals. Mao claimed that China's industrial output could overtake that of the United States and Britain within fifteen years. For the Chinese, these countries represented the capitalist world.
毛泽东的经济目标也犹如神话一般，他宣称中国工业要在十五年内超过英国赶上美国。对中国人来说，这两个国家代表了资本主义世界。
Overtaking them would be seen as a triumph over their enemies. This appealed to people's pride, and boosted their enthusiasm enormously. They had felt humiliated by the refusal of the United States and most major Western countries to grant diplomatic recognition, and were so keen to show the world that they could make it on their own that they wanted to believe in miracles. Mao provided the inspiration. The energy of the population had been eager to find an outlet. And here it was. The gung-ho spirit overrode caution, as ignorance triumphed over reason.
十五年内超过它们将是中国的胜利。毛的号召唤起了人民的自豪感，激发了民众极大的热情。当时，美国和西方其他主要国家拒绝承认中国，使中国人感到气愤。他们渴望向全世界显示中国人能够比西方国家活得更好，相信自己能创造奇迹，毛泽东鼓舞了他们，他们的精力有个宣泄口。雄心压倒了谨慎，就像无知战胜了理性。
In early 1958, shortly after returning from Moscow, Mao visited Chengdu for about a month. He was fired up with the idea that China could do anything, especially seize the leadership of socialism from the Russians. It was in
1958年初，毛泽东从莫斯科回国后不久，来到成都，呆了近一个月。他此刻满心都是这个念头：中国什么都能办到，特别是从俄国人手里接过社会主义运动的领导权。
Chengdu that he outlined his "Great Leap Forward." The city organized a big parade for him, but the participants had no idea that Mao was there. He lurked out of sight.
就在成都，他构思出“大跃进”草图。成都市为他组织了声势浩大的游行队伍，但参加的人并不知道毛就在这里，他避开了人们的视线。
At this parade a slogan was put forward, "Capable women can make a meal without food," a reversal of a pragmatic ancient Chinese saying, "No matter how capable, a woman cannot make a meal without food." Exaggerated rhetoric had become concrete demands. Impossible fantasies were supposed to become reality.
游行队伍里有一条标语是：“巧妇能为无米炊”。修辞学上的夸张变成了实际要求，不可能的幻想被人认为可以实现。
It was a gorgeous spring that year. One day Mao went for an outing to a park called the Thatched Cottage of Du Fu, the eighth century Tang poet. My mother's Eastern District office was responsible for the security of one area of the park, and she and her colleagues patrolled it, pretending to be tourists. Mao rarely kept to a schedule, or let people know his precise movements, so for hours and hours my mother sat sipping tea in the teahouse, trying to keep on the alert. She finally grew restless and told her colleagues she was going for a walk. She strayed into the security area of the Western District, whose staff did not know her, and was immediately followed. When the Party secretary of the Western District received reports about a 'suspicious woman' and came to see for himself, he laughed: "Why, this is old Comrade Xia from the Eastern District!" Afterward my mother was criticized by her boss, district chief Guo, for 'running around without discipline."
那年春天几乎天天阳光明媚。一天，毛泽东要去唐朝诗人杜甫的故居“草堂”。我母亲的东城区干部负责公园一部分安全警卫工作。她和同事假装成游人，留心观察可疑人物。毛泽东很少遵守时间表，他不想让别人知道自己的确实行踪。所以，我母亲枯坐在茶馆喝茶，尽量保持警惕。终于她坐不住了，告诉同事她想去走走。她无意中走到西城的监视区，那里的干部不认识她，立即跟了上去。当西城区党委书记接获报告亲自赶来看时，他笑了起来，“这不是东城区的老夏同志吗？”事后，我母亲被她的领导郭先生批评为“无组织、无纪律，到处乱跑。”
Mao also visited a number of farms in the Chengdu Plain. Thus far, peasant cooperatives had been small. It was here that Mao ordered them all to be merged into bigger institutions, which were later called 'people's communes."
毛泽东还访问了成都平原的一些合作社。当时合作社规模尚小，正是在这里，毛泽东号召农民并社。后来，这些合并后的大社称作“人民公社”。
That summer, all of China was organized into these new units, each containing between 2,000 and 20,000 households. One of the forerunners of this drive was an area called Xushui, in Hebei province in North China, to which Mao took a shine. In his eagerness to prove that they deserved Mao's attention, the local boss there claimed they were going to produce over ten times as much grain as before. Mao smiled broadly and responded: "What are you going to do with all that food? On second thought, it's not too bad to have too much food, really. The state doesn't want it. Everybody else has plenty of their own. But the farmers here can just eat and eat. You can eat five meals a day!" Mao was intoxicated, indulging in the eternal dream of the Chinese peasant-surplus food. After these remarks, the villagers further stoked the desires of their Great Leader by claiming that they were producing more than a million pounds of potatoes per mu (one mu is one-sixth of an acre), over 130,000 pounds of wheat per mu, and cabbages weighing 500 pounds each.
这年夏天，全中国农村都“人民公社化”了。每个“人民公社”有两千至两万户人家。运动的先锋之一是毛泽东树为样板的河北省徐水县。当地干部迫切地想证明他们不会辜负毛泽东的厚望，于是宣称他们要把粮食产量提高十倍。毛泽东十分开心，笑着说：“你们粮食多了怎么办啊”“……其实粮食多了还是好！国家并不需要这么多，但农民自己多吃嘛！一天吃五顿也行！”毛泽东陶醉了，沉浸在中国农民历来的梦想——填饱肚子中。听毛这么一说，当地农民为了让伟大领袖更开心，就声称他们的马铃薯可亩产一百万斤，小麦亩产叫二万斤，白菜一棵重五百斤。
It was a time when telling fantasies to oneself as well as others, and believing them, was practised to an incredible degree. Peasants moved crops from several plots of land to one plot to show Party officials that they had produced a miracle harvest. Similar "Potemkin fields' were shown off to gullible or self-blinded agricultural scientists, reporters, visitors from other regions, and foreigners.
在那个年月，把梦想当作现实来吹牛，而且自己也信以为真，已达到了令人难以置信的地步。农民们把几块田里的庄稼全移到一块田野给党的干部看，以证明他们真的创造了奇迹般的收成。类似的“样板田”也展示给轻信或愿意相信的农业科学家、记者、各地来访者和外国人看。
Although these crops generally died within a few days because of untimely transplantation and harmful density, the visitors did not know that, or did not want to know. A large part of the population was swept into this confused, crazy world.
尽管不适时的移栽和有害的密植使庄稼在几天内都死掉了，但来访者却不知道或视而不见。大多数人都卷入了这种迷乱、疯狂的世界中，
"Self-deception while deceiving others' (~ioqiqi-ren) gripped the nation. Many people including agricultural scientists and senior Party leaders Said they saw the miracles themselves. Those who failed to match other people's fantastic claims began to doubt and blame themselves. Under a dictatorship like Mao's, where information was withheld and fabricated, it was very difficult for ordinary people to have confidence in their own experience or knowledge. Not to mention that they were now facing a nationwide tidal wave of fervor which promised to swamp any individual cool headedness? It was easy to start ignoring reality and simply put one's faith in Mao. To go along with the frenzy was by far the easiest course. To pause and think and be circumspect meant trouble.
自欺欺人支配了整个国家。许多人——包括农业科学家、党的高级领导——都说他们目睹了奇迹。诚实的人也被弄糊涂了，因为他们怎么也造不出那种奇迹，反而怀疑自己的能力有问题而责怪自己。当时消息被封锁、制造，一般人很难凭自己的经验或知识来建立信心信息（保持自信），遑论（何况）此时已成为全国性的一般热潮，淹没了理智，任何头脑清醒的人都会被孤立。消极的随波逐流是最容易、最轻松的事，稍为放慢脚步、停下来想一想都会马上遇到麻烦。
An official cartoon portrayed a mouse like scientist who was saying “A stove like yours can only boil water to make tea."
有一幅四处张贴的漫画描绘一个老鼠模样的科学家翘着二郎腿喝茶，一边嘲笑身边炼炉前的炼钢工人说：“你们这种炉子只能用来烧水给我沏茶。”
Next to him stood a giant worker, lifting a huge sluice gate releasing a flood of molten steel, who retorted, "How much can you drink?" Most who saw the absurdity of the situation were too frightened to speak their minds, particularly after the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. Those who did voice doubts were immediately silenced, or sacked, which also meant discrimination against their family and a bleak prospect for their children.
那位高大的工人此时打开巨大的炉门，流出滚烫熔铁，反驳道：“你能喝下多少？！”大多数人看到不合理的现象已不敢说真话，特别是在1957年反右运动刚过去后。即使有人敢直言，也马上被批判，撤职降级，他们的家庭也跟着受歧视，孩子们的前途暗淡。
In many places, people who refused to boast of massive increases in output were beaten up until they gave in. In Yibin, some leaders of production units were trussed up with their arms behind their backs in the village square while questions were hurled at them:
在许多地区，拒绝吹牛说谎的人最后也被打出“产量大增”来。在宜宾，一些生产队领导被倒叫在村里的广场上，被这样逼问：
"How much wheat can you produce per mu?"
“你们生产队每亩生产多少斤小麦？”
"Four hundred fin' (about 450 pounds a realistic amount).
“四百斤。”(一个实际的数字)
Then, beating him: "How much wheat can you produce per mu?"
“四百斤？打！”
然后，再问：“每亩多少斤小麦？”
"Eight hundred fin."
“八百斤。”
Even this impossible figure was not enough. The unfortunate man would be beaten, or simply left hanging, until he finally said: "Ten thousand fin." Sometimes the man died hanging there because he refused to increase the figure, or simply before he could raise the figure high enough.
即使是这种不可能的数字也远达不到要求。这不幸的人还是挨打了，结果是，有的人忍受不了折磨而不得不把数字提高到“一万斤”；有的则因拒绝乱说而被活活打死。(此处删去一句)。
Many grass-roots officials and peasants involved in scenes like this did not believe in the ridiculous boasting, but fear of being accused themselves drove them on. They were carrying out the orders of the Party, and they were safe as long as they followed Mao. The totalitarian system in which they had been immersed had sapped and warped their sense of responsibility. Even doctors would boast about miraculously healing incurable diseases.
打人、吊人的基层干部和农民自己往往也不相信这类荒唐的牛皮，但因害怕挨打而去逼别人。他们觉得反正是执行党的命令，只要闭上眼睛跟着毛泽东就可平安无事了。人们的责任感和人格被扭曲、被摧毁。甚至连医务界也跟着吹牛，夸口“治愈癌症放卫星”。
Trucks used to turn up at our compound carrying grinning peasants coming to report on some fantastic, record breaking achievement. One day it was a monster cucumber half as long as the truck. Another time it was a tomato carded with difficulty by two children. On another occasion there was a giant pig squeezed into a truck. The peasants claimed they had bred an actual pig this size. The pig was only made of papier-maiche, but as a child I imagined that it was real. Maybe I was confused by the adults around me, who behaved as though all this were true. People had learned to defy reason and to live with acting.
卡车常常开到我们居住的省委大院，载咧着嘴笑的农民来汇报他们创造的奇迹。一次，车上是一根黄瓜，足有卡车那么长，又一次，两个孩子抬着一个大番茄，好像重得抬不动；还有一次，一头纸糊的大猪差点没挤破破卡车，农民们说他们真的养了这么大的猪，当时年幼的我也信以为真。或许是我被周遭的大人弄糊涂了，他们表现得好像是真有这回事。人们学着蔑视理性，大家一起演戏。
The whole nation slid into doublespeak. Words became divorced from reality, responsibility, and people's real thoughts. Lies were told with ease because words had lost their meanings and had ceased to be taken seriously by others.
结果全国上下交相欺瞒，言语脱离了现实，不负责任，也反映不出人们的真正想法。说谎说得心安理得，因为话说了就算了，没人认真。
This was entrenched by the further regimentation of society. When he first set up the communes, Mao said their main advantage was that 'they are easy to control," because the peasants would now be in an organized system rather than being, to a certain extent, left alone. They were given detailed orders from the very top about how to fill their land. Mao summed up the whole of agriculture in eight characters: 'soil, fertilizer, water, seeds, dense planting, protection, tending, technology." The Party Central Committee in Peking was handing out two-page instructions on how peasants all over China should improve their fields, another page on how to use fertilizers, another on planting crops densely. Their incredibly simplistic instructions had to be strictly followed: the peasants were ordered to replant their crops more densely in one mini-campaign after another.
社会变成了个大军团。毛泽东在建立人民公社时，就说过其主要的好处是“便于领导”。农民被组织起来，不再是分散的个体了，由最高领袖指挥他们耕作土地。毛泽东把农业简化成八个字，“土、肥、水、种、密、保、管、工”。中央委员会发布了两纸文件，指示全国的农民应该怎样改进地力，如何使用肥料，密植农作物。这些简单得令人难以置信的指示必须严格照办，结果农民们得一次又一次地按指示重种他们的庄稼。
Another means of regimentation, setting up canteens in the communes, was an obsession with Mao at the time. In his airy way, he defined communism as 'public canteens with free meals." The fact that the canteens themselves did not produce food did not concern him. In 1958 the regime effectively banned eating at home. Every peasant had to eat in the commune canteen. Kitchen utensils like woks and, in some places, money were outlawed. Everybody was going to be looked after by the commune and the state.
人民公社办食堂也是军事化的一种，毛泽东在那时完全迷上了它，轻描淡写地把共产主义定义为“公共食堂吃饭不要钱”，食堂本身并不从事生产，这一点毛泽东并不在意。1958年，不成文的规定要农民不得在家中做饭，大家都得到公社食堂进餐。厨房用具如铁锅之类，都砸了拿去炼钢。更有甚者，在一些地方，钱也被废除了，每个人现在由公社和国家来照料了。
The peasants filed into the canteens every day after work and ate to their hearts' content, which they had never been able to do before, even in the best years and in the most fertile areas. They consumed and wasted the entire road reserve in the countryside. They filed into the fields, too.
农民每天工作后，整队进食堂，大吃大喝，吃够为止。而从前即使是在收成最好的年分、最富裕的地区，农民都不敢敞开肚子吃。现在，他们消费加上浪费，很快就吃光了整个农村的储粮。
But how much work was done did not matter, because the produce now belonged to the state, and was completely unrelated to the peasants' lives. Mao put forward the prediction that China was reaching a society of communism, which in Chinese means 'sharing material goods," and the peasants took this to mean that they would get a share anyway, regardless of how much work they did. With no incentive to work, they just went to the fields and had a good snooze.
当然他们也整队到田里干活，但做多做少无关紧要，因为产品都是国家的，完全与农民自己的生活无关。毛泽东给人的印象是共产主义的最后阶段快到了，所谓“共产”，对农民来说意味着做不做事，都能分到一份。由于丧失工作的动机，大家只是到田里打个转，或睡个好觉。
Agriculture was also neglected because of the priority given to steel. Many of the peasants were exhausted from having to spend long hours finding fuel, scrap iron, and iron ore and keeping the furnaces going. The fields were often left to the women and children, who had to do everything by hand, as the animals were busy making their contribution to steel production. When harvest time came in autumn 1958, few people were in the fields.
因为“钢铁大王”挂帅，大批大批的农民把时间都花在寻找燃料、废铁及铁矿上，使炼钢炉不至停顿。留在田里的尽是妇孺，他们还得用手做每件农活，因为牲口全被拉去为钢铁生产做贡献了。到了1958年秋收时，田里很少人去收割。
The failure to get in the harvest in 1958 flashed a warning that a food shortage was on its way, even though official statistics showed a double-digit increase in agricultural output. It was officially announced that in 1958 China's wheat output had overtaken that of the United States. The Party newspaper, the People's Daily, started a discussion on the topic "How do we cope with the problem of producing too much food?"
1958年欠收已预示了食物将会严重短缺，但官方统计却显示农产量呈倍数增长。官方宣布，1958年全国小麦产量领先于美国。《人民日报》开始讨论这样的议题：粮食太多了怎么办？
My father's department was in charge of the press in Sichuan, which printed outlandish claims, as did every publication in China. The press was the voice of the Party, and when it came to Party policies, neither my father nor anyone else in the media had any say. They were part of a huge conveyor belt. My father watched the turn of events with alarm. His only option was to appeal to the top leaders.
我父亲的部门负责四川省的报纸，和当时全国的其他出版物一样，他们也登了许多“奇迹”式报道。新闻报刊是党的喉舌，当涉及到党的方针政策时，我父亲或其他任何宣传机构的人都无发言权，他们不过是一条大输送带里的一环。但我父亲已警觉到危机将要发生，他唯一能做的就是向上级反映。
At the end of 1958 he wrote a letter to the Central Committee in Peking stating that producing steel like this was pointless and a waste of resources; the peasants were exhausted, their labor was being squandered, and there was a food shortage. He appealed for urgent action.
1958年底，他写了一封信给党中央委员会，陈述这样生产钢铁毫无意义，徒费资源，农民被搞得疲惫不堪，浪费了劳动力，而且食物已出现短缺现象。他呼吁采取紧急措施来扭转恶化的趋势，他把这封信交给省长李大章转上去。李大章是四川省的第二号人物，当初就是他帮助我父亲调来成都。
He gave the letter to the governor to pass on. The governor, Lee Da-zhang, was the number-two man in the province. He had given my father his first job when he had come to Chengdu from Yibin, and treated him like a friend.
Governor Lee told my father he was not going to forward the letter. Nothing in it was new, he said.
李省长告诉我父亲他不会代转这封信的。他说信里所说的事一点儿也不新鲜，他说：
"The Party knows everything. Have faith in it." Mao had said that under no circumstances must the people's morale be dampened. The Great Leap Forward had changed the psychological attitude of the Chinese from passivity to a can-do, get-up and-go spirit, he said, which must not be imperiled.
“党了解一切，要相信党。”毛泽东曾说：无论如何绝不能给群众泼冷水。大跃进已改变了中国人被动的心理，中国人不再前怕狼后怕虎，而是敢想敢做。
Governor Lee also told my father that he had been given the dangerous nickname "Opposition' among the provincial leaders, to whom he had voiced disagreements. It was only because of his other qualities, his absolute loyalty to the Party and his stern sense of discipline, that my father was still all right.
李省长还告诉我父亲，在省内领导阶层中，他已被冠上“反对派”的危险绰号，只因为他对党绝对忠诚、严守纪律，才平安无事。
"The good thing," the governor said, 'is that you only voiced your doubts to the Party, and not to the public." He warned my father he could get into serious trouble if he insisted on raising these concerns, as could his family and 'others," clearly meaning himself, my father's friend. My father did not insist. He was half convinced by the argument, and the stakes were too high. He had reached a stage where he was not insusceptible to compromise.
省长说：“好在你只对党说出了心中疑问，没有在群众里说。”他警告我父亲，如果一意孤行硬要上书，他就会惹上严重的麻烦，他的家人和其他人也会受到牵连。这里的“其他人”明显指的是李省长本人。我父亲不再坚持了，他一半觉得省长的话有道理，而且代价委实也太高了，这段时期他已开始学习做些妥协了。
But my father and the people working in the departments of Public Affairs collected a great number of complaints, as part of their jobs, and forwarded them to Peking.
但是我父亲和宣传部门的仍收集了一大堆的意见，上报给中央。
There was general discontent among the people and officials alike. In fact, the Great Leap Forward triggered off the most serious split in the leadership since the Communists had taken power a decade before. Mao had to step down from the less important of his two main posts, president of the state, in favor of Liu Shaoqi. Liu became the number-two man in China, but his prestige was only a fraction of that of Mao, who kept his key post as chairman of the Party.
当时在人民和干部中弥漫了不满的情绪。事实上，大跃进使领导阶层发生了分裂，这是共产党掌权十年以来所发生的一次最严重的分歧。毛泽东从国家主席位置上退了下来，刘少奇代之。刘少奇擢升为中国第二号人物，但他的威望还不及毛泽东，毛仍保留共产党主席这个最关键的位子。
The voices of dissent grew so strong that the Party had to convene a special conference, which was held at the end of June 1959 in the mountain resort of Lushan, in central China. At the conference the defense minister, Marshal Peng Dehual, wrote a letter to Mao criticizing what had happened in the Great Leap Forward and recommending a realistic approach to the economy. The letter was actually rather restrained, and ended on the obligatory note of optimism (in this case, catching up with Britain in four years).
反对呼声持续高涨，以致共产党于1959年6月在庐山召开了一次特别会议。在这次会议上，国防部长彭德怀元帅写了一封信给毛泽东，批评大跃进的做法，提出经济建设的办法要实际。这封信事实上已写得十分婉转了，还照例加上乐观的结论：四年内赶上英国。
But although Peng was one of Mao's oldest comrades, and one of the people closest to him, Mao could not take even this slight criticism, particularly at a time when he was on the defensive, because he knew he was wrong. Using the aggrieved language of which he was enamored, Mao called the letter 'a bombardment intended to level Lushan." He dug in his heels and dragged the conference out for over a month, fiercely attacking Marshal Peng. Peng and the few who openly supported him were branded 'rightist opportunists." Peng was dismissed as defense minister, placed under house arrest, and later sent into premature retirement in Sichuan, where he was assigued a lowly post.
尽管彭德怀是毛泽东最亲密的老战友，毛仍听不进人家对他的批评，特别是当时他处于被动地位，因为他已意识到自己错了。他以一种满受委曲的姿态称彭的信“大有炸平庐山之势”。他把会议拖长了一个多月，猛烈谴责彭德怀元帅。彭和几个公开支持他的人被定为反党集团，每个人都是“右倾机会主义分子”。彭德怀被罢了国防部长之职，被软禁起来，后来被送到四川，安排了一个有职无权的官职。
Mao had had to scheme hard to preserve his power.
In this he was a supreme master. His favorite reading, which he recommended to other Party leaders, was a classic multi-volume collection about court power and intrigues. In fact, Mao's rule was best understood in terms of a medieval court, in which he exercised spellbinding power over his courtiers and subjects. He was also a maestro at 'divide and rule," and at manipulating men's inclination to throw others to the wolves.
In the end, few top officials stood up for Marshal Peng, in spite of their private disenchantment with Mao's policies. The only one who avoided having to show his hand was the general secretary of the Party, Deng Xiaoping, who had broken his leg. Deng's stepmother had been grumbling at home, "I was a farmer all my life and I have never heard of such a nonsensical way of farming? When Mao heard how Deng had broken his leg playing billiards he commented, "How very convenient."
(此处删去5行)。当时，只有极少数高级干部站在彭元帅这边，尽管大多数人心里都对毛的灾难性政策持怀疑态度。有一个人避免到庐山举手同意打倒彭德怀，此人就是当时的共产党总书记邓小平，当时他的腿摔伤了。邓的继母在家里嘀咕：“我一辈子都在种田，从来没有见过这种胡说八道的种田法！”当毛泽东听到邓因玩撞球而伤腿的经过时说：“伤得可真巧啊！”
Commissar Li, the Sichuan first secretary, returned to Chengdu from the conference with a document containing the remarks Peng had made at Lushan. This was distributed to officials of Grade 17 and above; they were asked to state formally whether they agreed with it.
四川省负责人开完庐山会议后，带着印有彭德怀在庐山发言的文件回到成都。文件发到十七级以上干部，要他们对彭的观点表态。
My father had heard something about the Lushan dispute from the governor of Sichuan. At his 'exam' meeting my father made some vague remarks about Peng's letter.
我父亲已从李省长处听到了一些庐山会议的争论。在他参加的“考试”会上，他对彭德怀的信作了一些含糊的评论。
Then he did something he had never done before: he warned my mother that it was a trap. She was greatly moved. This was the first time he had ever put her interests before the rules of the Party.
回家后，他做了一件以前从没做过的事：暗示我母亲这是一个“引蛇出洞”的圈套。我母亲非常感动，这是第一次他把她的利益放在党规之上。
She was surprised to see that a lot of other people seemed to have been tipped off as well. At her collective 'exam," half of her colleagues showed flaming indignation against Peng's letter, and claimed the criticisms in it were 'totally untrue." Others looked as though they had lost their ability to speak, and mumbled something evasive. One man managed to straddle the fence, saying, "I am not in a position to agree or disagree because I do not know whether the evidence given by Marshal Peng is factual or not. If it is, I would support him. Of course, I would not if it were not true."
在母亲的“考试”会上，她很惊讶地发现其他许多人似乎都已听到风声。一半以上的同事对彭德怀的信都表示愤慨，说他对毛的政策批评是“颠倒是非”。其他人看上去像失掉了说话能力，吞吞吐吐半天也说不出个所以然。有个男人则勉强地说：“处在我的立场上，很难说同意还是不同意，因为我不知道彭元帅举的证据是否真实。如果是真的，我支持他。当然，如果不是真的，我就不支持。”
The chief of the grain bureau for Chengdu and the chief of the Chengdu post office were Red Army veterans who had fought under Marshal Peng. They both said they agreed with what their old and much-revered commander had said, adding their own experiences in the countryside to back up Peng's observations. My mother wondered whether these old soldiers knew about the trap. If so, the way they spoke their minds was heroic.
成都市有两位局长是老红军，曾是彭德怀的部下，两人都说同意他们德高望重的老司令员的观点，他们还加上自己在农村的经验来支持彭的意见。我母亲担忧这些老红军知不知道这是个陷阱，如果知道，他们仍说出自己的心里话，真是英雄！
She wished she had their courage. But she thought of her children what would happen to them? She was no longer the free spirit she had been as a student. When her turn came she said, "The views in the letter are not in keeping with the policies of the Party over the last couple of years."
她但愿自己有他们的勇气，但她得替孩子想想——他们怎么办呢？她已不再像当年做学生时那样无牵无挂了。轮到她发言时，她含糊地说：“这封信的观点和党最近一两年的方针不一致。”
She was told by her boss, Mr. Guo, that her remarks were thoroughly unsatisfactory because she had failed to state her attitude. For days she lived in a state of acute anxiety. The Red Army veterans who had supported Peng were denounced as 'rightist opportunists," sacked, and sent to do manual labor. My mother was called to a meeting to have her 'right-wing tendencies' criticized. At the meeting, Mr. Guo described another of her 'serious errors." In 1959 a sort of black market had sprung up in Chengdu selling chickens and eggs. Because the communes had taken over chickens from individual peasants, and were incapable of raising them, chickens and eggs had disappeared from the shops, which were state owned. A few peasants had somehow managed to keep one or two chickens at home under their beds, and were now surreptitiously selling them and their eggs in the back alleys at about twenty times their previous price. Officials were sent out every day to try to catch the peasants. Once, when my mother was asked by Mr. Guo to go on one of these raids, she said, "What's wrong with supplying things people need? If there is demand, there should be supply." Because of this remark, my mother was given a warning about her 'right-wing tendencies."
她的领导郭先生不大满意她的说词，因为她没有表明是赞成还是反对彭德怀。那些天她每天都惴惴不安，不知何时大祸临头。支持彭的老红军被扣上“右倾机会主义分子”的帽子，解除职务，下放体力劳动。我母亲则在会议上受批评，说她思想“右倾”。郭先生指出她还犯了另一个“错误”，1959年买卖鸡、鸡蛋的黑市在成都蔓延，当时国养鸡场困难重重，作用不大，而人民公社又禁止农民私下养鸡。结果鸡和鸡蛋都从国营商店消失了，少数农民设法在家里留下一两只鸡，藏在床下下蛋，偷偷带到城内的偏僻小巷以国营商店的二十倍价格出售。干部们每天都被派出去捉拿这些农民。有一次郭先生要我母亲去“抓黑市”，她说：“只要老百姓需要，卖鸡蛋又有什么不对？有求就要有供嘛！”就因为这句话和她在“考试”会上的暧昧态度，我母亲被批评思想“右倾”。
The purge of 'rightist opportunists' rocked the Party once again, as a great many officials agreed with Peng. The lesson was that Mao's authority was un challengeable even though he was clearly in the wrong. Officials could see that no matter how high up you were Peng, after all, was the defense minister and no matter what your standing - Peng had reputedly been Mao's favorite if you offended Mao you would fall into disgrace. They also knew that you could not speak your mind and resign, or even resign quietly: resignation was seen as an unacceptable protest. There was no opting out. The mouths of the Party as well as the people were now tightly sealed.? After this, the Great Leap Forward went into further, madder excesses. More impossible economic goals were imposed from on high.
由于有许多共产党干部同意彭德怀的观点，清洗“右倾机会主义分子”运动再次撼动全党上下，这次的教训是：不准对毛泽东提任何批评——即使明显是他的错。干部们都看到，不管你的职位有多高(彭毕竟是国防部长)，也不论你过去的功劳有多大(彭一直是共产党部队里高级将领之一，为共产党打天下，立下汗马功劳)，只要触犯了毛泽东，一夜之间就会沦为阶下囚，他们也明白：开诚布公地说出心里话再辞职也不行，哪怕是悄悄辞职，辞职被看成是一种抗议，参加了革命，入了党就没有退出的余地，(此处删去一句)在此之后，大跃进更是如火如荼地发展，更多天方夜谭式的经济指标从上面强压下来，更多的农民被派去炼钢，不切实际地命令像雨点般落下，在农村造成混乱。
More peasants were mobilized to make steel. And more arbitrary orders rained down, causing chaos in the countryside.
At the end of 1958, at the height of the Great Leap Forward, a massive construction project was begun: ten great buildings in the capital, Peking, to be completed in ten months to mark the tenth anniversary, x October 1959, of the founding of the People's Republic.
1958年底大跃进的最高潮时，一场大规模的建筑工程开始了：首都十大建筑，将在十个月内完工，也就是在建国十周年纪念日——1959年10月1日前。
One of the ten buildings was the Great Hall of the People, a Soviet-style columned edifice on the west side of Tiananmen Square. Its marbled front was a good quarter of a mile long, and its chandeliered main banqueting hall could seat several thousand people. This was where important meetings were to be held and the leaders were to receive foreign visitors. The rooms, all to be on a grand scale, were named after the provinces of China. My father was put in charge of the decoration of the Sichuan Room, and when the work was completed he invited Party leaders who had been connected with Sichuan to inspect it. Deng Xiao ping, who was from Sichuan, came, as did Marshal Ho Lung, a famous Robin Hood figure who had been one of the founders of the Red Army, and was a close friend of Deng's.
十大建筑之一是人民大会堂，天安门西侧的一幢苏维埃式立柱大厦。它的大理石正面长达四分之一哩，悬挂着水晶吊灯的主宴会厅可容纳几千人，这里是召开重要会议和领导人接见外宾的地方。所有的厅堂都很堂皇，以各省名字命名。我父亲负责装饰四川厅的工作，完成后，他邀请和四川有关系的中央领导来检查。四川人邓小平来了，贺龙元帅也来了。贺龙是著名的罗宾汉式人物，创建红军的开国元勋之一，也是邓小平亲密的朋友。
At one point my father was called away, leaving these two and another old colleague of theirs, actually Deng's brother, chatting among themselves. As he came back into the room he heard Marshal Ho saying to Deng's brother, while pointing at Deng: "It really should be him on the throne." At that moment they spotted my father and immediately stopped talking.
一时我父亲因事暂时离开了，留下这两人和另一位官员——邓的兄弟闲谈。他回来时，正好听到贺龙元帅对邓的兄弟说：“令兄才是正统。”他们看见我父亲进来，就停止了谈话。
My father was in a state of intense apprehension after this. He knew he had accidentally overheard hints of disagreements at the top of the regime. Any conceivable action, or inaction, could get him into deadly trouble. In fact, nothing happened to him, but when he told me about the incident almost ten years later he said he had lived with the fear of disaster ever since.
事后我父亲一直紧张万分。他知道自己是无意中听到了高层统治阶级内部不满的心声。看来他是凶多吉少了。幸而，什么事也没发生，大约过了十年后他告诉我这件事时，他这么多年来他一直生活在恐惧中，“这种造反的话，就算只是听听也会犯杀头之罪！”
"Just to have heard that amounts to treason," he said, using a phrase which means 'a crime bringing decapitation."
What he had overheard was nothing but an indication of some disenchantment with Mao. This sentiment was shared by many top leaders, not least by the new president, Liu Shaoqi.
他无意听到的话不过是对毛泽东的一点儿不满而已。这种不满情绪在许多高级领导中都有，包括新的国家主席刘少奇。
In autumn 1959 Liu came to Chengdu to inspect a commune called "Red Splendor." The previous year, Mao had been highly enthusiastic about the astronomical rice output there. Before Liu arrived the local officials rounded up anyone they thought might expose them, and locked them up in a temple. But Liu had a 'mole," and as he was walking past the temple he stopped and asked to have a look inside. The officials made various excuses, even claiming that the temple was about to collapse, but Liu refused to take no for an answer. Eventually the big, rusty lock was clicked open, and a group of shabby peasants stumbled out into the daylight. The embarrassed local officials tried to explain to Liu that these were 'troublemakers' who had been locked up because they might harm the distinguished visitor. The peasants themselves were silent. Commune officials, though completely impotent regarding policies, held awesome power over people's lives. If they wanted to punish someone, they could give him the worst job to do, the least food, and invent an excuse to have him harassed, denounced, even arrested.
1959年秋天，刘来成都视察一个人民公社。一年前，毛对这个社的掺了水的水稻产量数字大加赞扬。为了迎接刘少奇的到来，当地干部把他们认为可能泄露机密的人都锁在一间庙里。但是刘少奇也有他的“情报”，他走到庙前时刻意停下来，要到里面看一看。干部们急忙提出各种借口劝阻，甚至说庙要倒塌了。但刘坚持要看，最后那把生了锈的大锁哐铛一声开了，一大群衣衫褴褛的农民蹒蹒跚跚走到阳光下，极为尴尬的公社干部试图对刘主席解释这些人都是捣乱分子，把他们锁起来是因为他们可能伤害主席，农民们都默不作声。虽然公社干部都无权决定政策，他们对治下的农民却有无上的权力。他们如要惩罚某人，可以派他做最坏的工作，给他最少的粮食，或捏造莫须有的罪名折磨他、斗争他，甚至逮捕他。
President Liu asked some questions, but the peasants just smiled and mumbled. From their point of view it was better to offend the president than the local bosses. The president would be leaving for Peking in a few minutes, but the commune bosses would be with them for the rest of their lives.
刘少奇问了一些问题，农民们只是咧着嘴笑，支支吾吾的。在他们看来，冒犯国家主席要比冒犯公社干部好得多。因为几分钟后，国家主席就要回北京去了，但公社干部却会和他们过一辈子。
Shortly afterward another senior leader also came to Chengdu Marshal Zhu De accompanied by one of Mao's private secretaries. Zhu De was from Sichuan and had been the commander of the Red Army, and military architect of the Communists' victory. Since 1949 he had kept a low profile. He visited several communes near Chengdu, and afterward, as he strolled by the Silk River looking at the pavilions, bamboo groves, and willow embraced teahouses along the riverbank, he waxed emotional: "Sichuan is indeed a heavenly place .... He spoke the words in the style of a line of poetry. Mao's secretary added the matching line, in the traditional poets' fashion:
另外一位中央高级领导也来过成都——朱德元帅，由毛泽东的一位秘书陪同。朱德是四川人，曾是红军的总司令和共产党取得胜利的主要军事功臣。1949年以后，他就逐渐引退。此行他访问了成都附近几个人民公社。当他沿着锦江岩边散步时，沿岸的凉亭、竹林及垂柳环抱的茶馆激发了他的诗兴，朱德顺口吟道：“天府之国真正好。”毛泽东的秘书补充了下句，“可惜共产风刮糟了！”当时我母亲在旁跟随，她心里暗暗说，“我完全同意！”
"Pity that damning gales of lie telling and false communism are destroying it!" My mother was with them, and thought to herself: I agree wholeheartedly.
Suspicious of his colleagues, and still angry about being attacked at Lushan, Mao obstinately stuck to his crazy economic policies. Although he was not unaware of the disasters they had been causing, and was discreetly allowing some of the most impracticable ones to be revised, his 'face' would not allow him to give up completely. Meanwhile, as the sixties began, a great famine spread across the whole of China.
毛泽东自然对这样的同事疑心重重，又对在庐山会议上受到反对耿耿于怀，他固执地坚持他的经济政策。虽然他不是不明白它们造成的灾难，并且悄悄修改了一些极端行不通的命令。但他绝不愿意丢面子，全盘取消他的办法。就这样。六十年代初，一场大饥荒席卷了全国。
In Chengdu, the monthly food ration for each adult was reduced to 19 pounds of rice, 3.5 ounces of cooking oil, and 3-5 ounces of meat, when there was any.
在成都，每个成年人每月的食物配给减少到大米十七斤，食用油二两，要是有肉卖的话，也只能分到二两。
Scarcely anything else was available, not even cabbage.
这是当时所能得到的全部，其他食物几乎没有供给，连卷心菜也极为罕见。
Many people were afflicted by edema, a condition in which fluid accumulates under the skin because of malnutrition.
许多人患了水肿——一种由于极度缺乏营养而造成皮下积水的疾病。
The patient turns yellow and swells up. The most popular remedy was eating chlorella, which was supposed to be rich in protein. Chlorella fed on human urine, so people stopped going to the toilet and peed into spittoons instead, then dropped the chlorella seeds in; they grew into something looking like green fish roe in a couple of days, and were scooped out of the urine, washed, and cooked with rice. They were truly disgusting to eat, but did reduce the swelling.
病人变黄、腿肿得像水桶。最流行的医治方法是吃小球藻，据说它所含的蛋白质多。小球藻以人尿为养料。所以人们不再去厕所，而把尿撒在便盆里，往里面种下小球藻种籽，几天后就会长出像绿色鱼卵一样的东西，然后用勺子把它们舀出，冲洗干净，混着大米一起煮。大家都吃得恶心，又不能不吃，因为它确实能减轻水肿。
Like everybody else, my father was entitled only to a limited food ration. But as a senior official he had some privileges. In our compound there were two canteens, a small one for departmental directors and their wives and children, and a big one for everyone else, which included my grandmother, my aunt Jun-ying, and the maid. Most of the time we collected our food at the canteens and took it home to eat. There was more food in the canteens than on the streets. The provincial government had its own farm, and there were also 'presents' from county governments. These valuable supplies were divided between the canteens, and the small one got preferential treatment.
我父亲的食物配给也和其他人一样，但因为是高级干部，所以享有一些特权。在我们居住的省委大院里有两个食堂：一个小灶，是为部长和他们的妻子儿女设的；另一个大灶，为低于这个级别的其他人服务，包括我姥姥、俊英娘娘和保姆。食堂里的食物比街上要多些，因为省级政府有自己的农场，而且受管辖的县政府也常送来“礼物”。这些珍贵的食品都分到两个食堂，小灶优先。
As Party officials, my parents also had special food coupons. I used to go with my grandmother to a special store outside the compound to buy food with them. My mother's coupons were blue. She was entitled to five eggs, almost an ounce of soybeans, and the same amount of sugar per month. My father's coupons were yellow. He was entitled to twice as much as my mother because of his higher rank.
我父母还有特别的购买券，我常和姥姥用它们到大院之外的专门商店去买食物。我母亲的购买券是蓝色的，她每月有权买五枚鸡蛋、一两黄豆和二两糖。我父亲的购买券是黄色的，因为他的级别较高，他可以买两倍于我母亲的配给。
My family pooled the food from the canteens and the other sources and ate together. The adults always gave the children more, so I did not go hungry. But the adults all suffered from malnutrition, and my grandmother developed slight edema. She grew chlorella at home, and I was aware that the adults were eating it, although they would not tell me what it was for. Once I tried a little, and immediately spat it out as it tasted revolting. I never had it again.
我们把两个食堂和其他门道拿回来的食物混在一起吃。大人总是让着孩子，所以我没有挨饿，但大人们都半饥半饱。我姥姥得了轻度水肿，她在家里养了小球藻，我知道大人总吃它，虽然他们不告诉我为什么要吃这种泡在尿里的东西。有一次，我好奇的尝了一点，马上觉得恶心，吐了出来，再也不碰它了。
I had little idea that famine was raging all around me.
我没意识到周遭正有一场大饥荒发生。
One day on my way to school, as I was eating a small steamed roll, someone rushed up and snatched it from my hands. As I was recovering from the shock, I caught a glimpse of a very thin, dark back in shorts and bare feet running down the mud alley with his hand to his mouth, devouring the roll. When I told my parents what had happened, my father's eyes were terribly sad. He stroked my head and said, "You are lucky. Other children like you are starving."
一天，我走在上学的路上，边吃着一块小馒头，一个人冲过来，一把从我手上抢走，待我回过神来，只见一个非常瘦小的黑背影，赤着脚飞快地跑进一条泥泞的小巷消失了。当我告诉父亲这件事时，他眼里露出非常悲哀的神情，摸着我的头说：“你很幸运，别人家的小孩子都在挨饿。”
I often had to visit the hospital for my teeth at that time.
那时，我经常到医院去治牙。
Whenever I went there I had an attack of nausea at the horrible sight of dozens of people with shiny, almost transparent swollen limbs, as big as barrels. The patients were carried to the hospital on flat carts, there were so many of them. When I asked my dentist what was wrong with them, she said with a sigh, "Edema." I asked her what that meant, and she mumbled something which I vaguely linked with food.
在那儿，我看到一群群腿肿得透明发亮，圆得像大水桶的病人，被人用平板车拉到医院，医院此时已人满为患。当我问牙科医生他们怎么会变成这样时，她叹了口气，简单地说：“水肿。”我问她是什么意思，她只含糊地咕哝了几句，我似懂非懂地想到这和食物有关。
These people with edema were mostly peasants. Starvation was much worse in the countryside because there were no guaranteed rations. Government policy was to provide food for the cities first, and commune officials were having to seize gram from the peasants by force. In many areas, peasants who tried to hide food were arrested, or beaten and tortured. Commune officials who were reluctant to take food from the hungry peasants were themselves dismissed, and some were physically maltreated. As a result, the peasants who had actually grown the food died in the millions all over China.
水肿病人大部分是农民，他们没有粮食配给。农村的饥荒情况最严重，因为政府的政策是有粮先给城市，公社干部不得不强制农民交出最后的存粮。在许多地区，藏粮的农民不是被捕，就是一阵吊打。不愿从饥饿的农民手中夺走粮食的干部被撤职，或受到肉体折磨。结果是种粮的农民饿死了几千万人。
I learned later that several of my relatives from Sichuan to Manchuria had died in this famine. Among them was my father's retarded brother. His mother had died in 1958, and when the famine struck he was unable to cope as he would not listen to anyone else's advice. Rations were allotted on a monthly basis, and he ate his within days, leaving nothing for the rest of the month. He soon starved to death. My grandmother's sister, Lan, and her husband, "Loyalty' Pei-o, who had been sent to the inhospitable countryside in the far north of Manchuria because of his old connection with Kuomintang intelligence, both died too. As food began to run out, the village authorities allocated supplies according to their own, unwritten priorities.
我后来才知道我家在四川和东北的几位亲戚死于这场饥荒。其中一个是我父亲的傻兄弟。我祖母于1958年谢世，他不听家人的劝，不懂要慢慢吃配给的粮，结果一个月的粮在几天之内就被他吃得精光，于是很快就饿死了。我姥姥的妹妹玉兰和她丈夫效石也在这场大饥荒中去世。由于效石原是国民党特务，他家被送到东北北部偏远地区的农村。粮食一少，公社就根据他们的不成文规定，给“阶级乱人”效石全家最后分粮。结果他们夫妇两人把食物让给孩子吃，自己送命，孩子们幸免于难。我姥姥兄弟玉林的岳父也是饿死的，死前，他把枕芯和编结大蒜串的草带都吃了。
Pei-o's outcast status meant that he and his wife were among the first to be denied food. Their children survived because their parents gave their food to them. The father of Yu-lin's wife also died. At the end, he had eaten the stuffing in his pillow and the braids of garlic plants.
One night, when I was about eight, a tiny, very old looking woman, her face a mass of wrinkles, walked into our house. She looked so thin and feeble it seemed a puff of wind would blow her down. She dropped to the ground in front of my mother and banged her forehead on the floor, calling her 'the savior of my daughter." She was our maid's mother.
我八岁那年的一天晚上，一位瘦小、满脸皱纹的妇女来到我家。她形容枯槁，似乎一阵风就能把她吹倒，她是我家保姆的母亲。她一进门就趴在我母亲面前磕起头来，称我母亲是她女儿的“救命恩人”，说：
"If it wasn't for you," she said, "my daughter would not survive .... " I did not grasp the full meaning of this until a month later, when a letter came for our maid.
“如果不是你，我女儿也活不成了……”我当时不明白这话的含意，后来才知道她是来报信，说她丈夫和小儿子都饿死了。一个月后，我家保姆收到一封信，信说她母亲从我家回去后不久也饿死了。
It said that her mother had died soon after visiting our house, where she had passed on the news that her husband and her younger son were dead. I will never forget the heart-rending sobs of our maid as she stood on the terrace, leaning against a wooden pillar and stifling her moans in her handkerchief. My grandmother sat cross-legged on her bed, weeping as well. I hid myself in a corner outside my grandmother's mosquito net. I could hear my grandmother saying to herself: "The Communists are good, but all these people are dead .... Years later, I heard that our maid's other brother and her sister-in-law died soon after this.
我永远也忘不了我家保姆哀哀欲绝的痛哭情形，她靠着门前台阶的柱头，用手绢捂着嘴，身体不停地抽动着。我姥姥盘着腿坐在床上，也在哭。我藏在姥姥的蚊帐外面的一个角落里，听见姥姥自言自语地说：“共产党好，共产党好，就是这么多人都饿死了……”几年以后，我听说我家保姆的哥哥和嫂子也饿死了，因为地主家庭在饥饿的人民公社里常常是排在最后面分粮。
Landlords' families were placed at the bottom of the list for food in a starving commune.
In 1989 an official who had been working in famine relief told me that he believed that the total number of people who had died in Sichuan was seven million. This would be 10 percent of the entire population of a rich province. An accepted estimate for the death toll for the whole country is around thirty million.
1989年，一位曾在专门救济饥荒的部门工作过的干部告诉我，他相信四川饿死的人有七百万，这占了“天府之国”总人口的百分之十，全国饿死人数呢？一般的估计是三千万人。
One day in 1960, the three-year-old daughter of my aunt Jun-ying's next-door neighbor in Yibin went missing.
1960年的某一天，宜宾俊英娘娘邻居的三岁小女儿突然失踪了。
A few weeks later the neighbor saw a young girl playing in the street wearing a dress that looked like her daughter's.
几天后，这邻居偶然看到一个小女孩在街上玩，身上穿的衣服很像是她女儿的。
She went up and examined it: it had a mark which identified it as her daughter's. She reported this to the police.
她上前细看，发现那衣服确实是她女儿的，就立刻报告了警察。
It turned out that the parents of the young girl were selling wind-dried meat. They had abducted and murdered a number of babies and sold them as rabbit meat at exorbitant prices. The couple were executed and the case was hushed up, but it was widely known that baby killing did go on at the time.
经过调查。发现小女孩的父母是卖烧腊肉的，他俩诱拐并杀了不少孩子，当作兔肉高价出售。这对夫妇后来被处死，案情秘而不宣，但大家都知道那时常有小孩被杀的事发生。
Years later I met an old colleague of my father's, a very kind and capable man, not given to exaggeration. He told me with great emotion what he had seen during the famine in one particular commune. Thirty-five percent of the peasants had died, in an area where the harvest had been good although little was collected, since the men had been pulled out to produce steel, and the commune canteen had wasted a large proportion of what there was. One day a peasant burst into his room and threw himself on the floor, screaming that he had committed a terrible crime and begging to be punished. Eventually it came out that he had killed his own baby and eaten it. Hunger had been like an uncontrollable force driving him to take up the knife. With tears rolling down his cheeks, the official ordered the peasant to be arrested. Later he was shot as a warning to baby killers.
多年后，我遇到父亲的一位老同事，他是一个非常和善、能干、从不夸大其词的人。他非常激动地告诉我一件当时在一个公社中所亲眼目睹的事。这个公社有百分之三十五的农民饿死，虽然那年本应是个丰收年。眼看就要到手的谷物大部分没有收割，因为男人们被派出炼钢。后来公社食堂又浪费了大量粮食，终于酿成大饥荒。一天，一个农民闯进他房间，跪倒在地就是一阵痛哭，说自己犯了不赦之罪，乞求惩罚。最后才弄清楚，这人杀了自己的婴儿，并吃了孩子的肉。饥饿成了难以控制的魔鬼，驱使他去动刀。他发疯似的揪打自己，脸上泪花滚滚。我认识的这位先生下令把他抓起来，后来枪决了他，以警告那些杀害儿童者。
One official explanation for the famine was that Khrushchev had suddenly forced China to pay back a large debt it had incurred during the Korean War in order to come to the aid of North Korea. The regime played on the experience of much of the population, who had been landless peasants and could remember being hounded by heartless creditors to pay rent or reimburse loans. By identifying the Soviet Union, Mao also created an external enemy to take the blame and to rally the population.
官方对饥荒的解释之一是：赫鲁晓夫突然逼中国偿还朝鲜战争中为帮助北朝鲜而欠下的债。因为好些中国人都记得从前被债主无情逼讨的苦日子，这么一说，他们怨恨的目标就转向苏联。(此处删去一句)。
Another cause mentioned was 'unprecedented natural calamities." China is a vast country, and bad weather causes food shortages somewhere every year. No one but the highest leaders had access to nationwide information about the weather. In fact, given the immobility of the population, few knew what happened in the next region, or even over the next mountain. Many thought then, and still think today, that the famine was caused by natural disasters. I have no full picture, but of all the people I have talked to from different parts of China, few knew of natural calamities in their regions. They only have stories to tell about deaths from starvation.
另一个官方公布的原因是：史无前例的自然灾害。中国是个幅员辽阔的国家，每年总有一些地区发生自然灾害造成粮食短缺。当时全国的气象全盘消息只有最高层领导才知道。事实上，由于人口难以流动，很少有人知道邻近地区发生了什么，甚至隔个山坡就像隔了千山万水。许多人对官方宣传信以为真，至今仍以为饥荒是自然灾害造成的。我虽然不了解全局但是我曾和来自全国各地的一些人谈过话，极少有人说他们那个地区在那几年发生严重天灾，不过，却都提到饿死人的事。
At a conference for 7,000 top-ranking officials at the beginning of 1962, Mao said that the famine was caused 7o percent by natural disasters and 3o percent by human error. President Liu Shaoqi chipped in, apparently on the spur of the moment, that it was caused 3o percent by natural disasters and 7o percent by human error. My father was at the conference, and when he returned he said to my mother: "I fear Comrade Shaoqi is going to be in trouble."
1962年初，毛泽东在一次有七千名干部参加的会议上说，饥荒是七分天灾，三分人祸。当时刘少奇却突然冒出一句：“是三分天灾，七分人祸。”我父亲听到后对我母亲说：“恐怕少奇同志要倒大楣了。”
When the speeches were relayed to lower-rank officials like my mother, President Liu's assessment was cut out.
当这次演讲传达到我母亲这层干部时，刘少奇插进来的话已被删去了。
The population at large was not even told about Mao's figures. This concealing of information did help keep the people quiet, and there were no audible complaints against the Communist Party. Quite apart from the fact that most dissenters had been killed off or otherwise suppressed in the past few years, whether the Communist Party was to blame was far from clear to the general population. There was no corruption in the sense of officials hoarding grain.
当传达到普通干部、老百姓时，甚至连毛泽东说的“七分三灾，三分人祸”也没有了。隐瞒事实真相确实有助于稳住人民的情绪，老百姓没有起来反对共产党。还有一部分原因是前几年反党的人不是被杀就是吓得不敢动弹。另一部分原因则是老百姓不清楚共产党是否应对大饥荒负责。共产党干部没有贪污腐败、囤积居奇。
Party officials were only marginally better off than the ordinary people. In fact, in some villages they themselves starved first and died first. The famine was worse than anything under the Kuomintang, but it looked different: in the Kuomintang days, starvation took place alongside blatant unchecked extravagance.
他们也在挨饿，仅仅比普通民众好一些。甚至有的农村党员自己先挨饿，首先饿死。这次饥荒从死亡人数来看，比国民党治下所饿死的人要多得多，但看起来大不一样：在国民党时代，有人饿死，有人却骄奢淫逸。
Before the famine, many Communist officials from landlords' families had brought their parents to stay with them in the cities. When the famine hit, the Party gave orders for these elderly men and women to be sent back to their villages to share the hard life meaning starvation with the local peasants. The idea was that Communist officials should not be seen to be using their privileges to benefit their 'class-enemy' parents. Some grandparents of friends of mine had to leave Chengdu and died in the famine.
共产党掌权后，许多地主家庭出身的干部把他们的父母接到机关大院同住。饥荒严重时，共产党下令把这些老人送回农村与当地农民一起挨饿，共产党干部不准利用权力照顾他们的“阶级敌人”父母。我一些朋友的祖父母不得不离开成都，后来皆死于饥饿。
Most peasants lived in a world where they did not look much beyond the boundary of the village, and they blamed the famine on their immediate bosses for giving them all the catastrophic orders. There were popular rhymes to the effect that the Party leadership was good, only the grass-roots officials were rotten.
大多数农民的生活都局限在自己的村子里，难以看到外面的世界。他们把饥荒责任归咎于向他们下达灾难性命令的基层干部，当时广泛流传的话是“共产党干部上级好，下级胡乱搞”。
The Great Leap Forward and the appalling famine shook my parents deeply. Although they did not have the full picture, they did not believe that 'natural calamities' were the explanation. But their overwhelming feeling was one of guilt. Working in the field of propaganda, they were right in the center of the misinformation machine. To salve his conscience, and to avoid the dishonest daily routine, my father volunteered to help with famine relief in the communes. This meant staying and starving with the peasants. In doing so, he was 'sharing weal and woo with the masses," in line with Mao's instructions, but it was resented by his staff. They had to take turns going with him, which they hated, because it meant going hungry.
大跃进和骇人听闻的饥荒情形深深震撼了我父母，虽然他们不大了解全局，但他们并不相信“自然灾害”一说。他们心中有强烈的内疚感，因为他们是在宣传部门工作，正好处于虚报假消息的中心。我父亲为了平息良心上的不安，避开不诚实的日常工作，自愿去人民公社解决饥荒问题，这意味着要和农民呆在一起挨饿。这样做符合毛泽东的指示：与群众同甘共苦。只是他的下属很不满意，因为他们不得不跟随他到农村去挨饿。
From late 1959 to 1961, in the worst period of the famine, I seldom saw my father. In the countryside he ate the leaves of sweet potatoes, herbs, and tree bark like the peasants. One day he was walking along a bank between the paddy fields when he saw a skeletal peasant moving extremely slowly, and with obvious difficulty, in the distance. Then the man suddenly disappeared. When my father rushed over, he was lying in the field, dead of starvation.
从1959年下半年至1961年饥荒最严重的时期，我很少见到父亲。他长期呆在农村里，和农民一样，吃番薯叶、野菜，甚至树皮。一天，他走在田埂上，远远看见一个只剩骨架的农民非常困难地移动步伐。突然，这人消失了。我父亲赶忙跑过去，发现他倒在田里已饿死了。
Every day my father was devastated by what he saw, although he hardly saw the worst, because in the customary manner local officials surrounded him everywhere he went.
每天，我父亲都为他所看到的事而痛苦不堪，但是他没见识过最坏的一面，像他这样的高官走到哪里都有当地干部围着。
But he suffered bad hepatomegaly and edema and deep depression. Several times when he came back from his trips he went straight into the hospital. In the summer of 1961, he stayed there for months. He had changed. He was no longer the assured puritan of yesteryear. The Party was not pleased with him. He was criticized for 'letting his revolutionary will wane' and ordered out of the hospital.
后来他得了肝肿大、水肿和严重的身体机能衰弱，有好几次他一从农村回到成都就进了医院。1961年夏天，他一连住了好几个月的医院。他变了，不再像昔日那样对党坚信不疑。党不高兴了，说他“革命意志衰退”，令他出院。
He took to spending a lot of time fishing. Across from the hospital there was a lovely river called the Jade Brook.
Willows bent over to stroke its surface with their curving shoots, and clouds melted and solidified in their many reflections. I used to sit on its sloping bank gazing at the clouds and watching my father fish. The smell was of human manure. On top of the bank were the hospital grounds, which had once been flowerbeds, but had now been turned into vegetable fields to supply the staff and patients with additional food. When I close my eyes now, I can still see the larvae of the butterflies eating away at the cabbage leaves. My brothers caught them for my father to use as bait. The fields had a pathetic look.
他爱上了钓鱼。流经医院有条小河叫玉溪，河畔是弯弯垂柳，柔软纤长的枝条低垂，轻拂着潺潺流淌的溪水。云彩倒映在水中，一会凝聚在一起，一会又散开。我常坐在倾斜的岸坡上，注视着水中云彩，看我父亲钓鱼。空气中有股大粪味，我背后那块地，曾是医院的花坛，现在改为菜田了，以补充职工和病人一点额外的营养。现在，我一闭上眼睛，仍能看见毛毛虫在一个劲地蚕食卷心菜叶，弟弟捉它们给父亲作鱼饵。蔬菜都长成一副可怜相，医生护士们显然对种田是外行。
The doctors and nurses were obviously no experts on farming.
Throughout history Chinese scholars and mandarins had traditionally taken up fishing when they were disillusioned with what the emperor was doing. Fishing suggested a retreat to nature, an escape from the politics of the day. It was a kind of symbol for disenchantment and noncooperation.
历来中国士大夫对皇帝失望时，常常隐居到深山田园中去钓鱼。钓鱼代表回归自然，不问政治，是不满现状、消极不合作的象征。
My father seldom caught any fish, and once wrote a poem with the line: "Not for the fish I go fishing." But his angling companion, another deputy director of his department, always gave him part of his catch. This was because in 1961, in the middle of the famine, my mother was pregnant again, and the Chinese regard fish as essential for the development of a baby's hair. She had not wanted another child. Among other things, she and my father were on salaries, which meant the state no longer provided them with wet-nurses or nannies. With four children, my grandmother, and part of my father's family to support, they did not have a lot of money to spare. A large chunk of my father's salary went for buying books, particularly huge volumes of classical works, one set of which could cost two months' salary. Sometimes my mother grumbled slightly: other people in his position dropped hints to the publishing houses and got their copies free, 'for work purposes." My father insisted on paying for everything.
我父亲很少钓到鱼，他曾写过一首诗，“我自垂钓不为鱼，我得鱼趣不贪钓。”他的钓鱼伙伴——宣传部另一位副部长总把自己钓到的鱼给他。这是因为在1961年饥荒中，我母亲又怀孕了。传统上认为鱼是胎儿头脑和头发发育的基本营养。她当时并不想要孩子，她和我父亲都靠工资生活，政府已不再为他们提供奶妈和保姆。由于有四个孩子，姥姥和父亲家庭一部分人要供养，他们没有多少余钱。我父亲工资的一部分总是用来买书，特别是厚重的古文书籍，有的一套就值两个月工资。偶尔我母亲向他抱怨，别的领导有的对出版社说一句“工作需要”，就能免费拿书。我父亲却坚持自己买。
Sterilization, abortion, and even contraception were difficult. The Communists had started promoting family planning in 1954, and my mother was in charge of the program in her district. She was then in an advanced stage of pregnancy with Xiao-her, and often started her meetings with a good-humored self-criticism. But Mao turned against birth control. He wanted a big, powerful China, based on a large population. He said that if the Americans dropped atomic bombs on China, the Chinese would 'just go on reproducing' and reconstitute their numbers at great speed. He also shared the traditional Chinese peasant's attitude toward children: the more hands the better. In 1957, he personally named a famous Peking University professor who had advocated birth control as a rightist. After that, family planning was seldom mentioned.
那时绝育、流产甚至避孕都很困难。共产党在1954年曾开始推行计划生育。我母亲负责她所在地区的这项工作。就在那时，她怀小黑到了后期，挺个大肚子，经常幽默地在会议上自我批评说：“我是个犯了错误的人。”但是不久毛泽东转而反对计划生育，他要一个人口众多的强大中国。他说，如果美国对中国投原子弹，中国人只需再生产，就可以重新成为大国。他也像传统中国农民一样，认为“多子多福”。1957年，他亲自把一位北京大学著名的提倡计划生育的教授马寅初划为右派，此后计划生育就无人敢提了。
My mother had become pregnant in 1959, and had written to the Party asking for permission to have an abortion.
我母亲1959年曾怀了孕，她向党组织写报告，请求允许流产。
This was the standard procedure. One reason the Party had to give its consent was that the operation was a dangerous one at the time. My mother had said that she was busy working for the revolution, and could serve the people better if she did not have another baby. She was granted an abortion, which was dreadfully painful because the method used was primitive. When she became pregnant again in 1961, another abortion was out of the question in the opinion of the doctors, my mother herself, and the Party., which stipulated a minimum three-year gap between abortions.
这是标准的程序。必须经党批准的一个原因是，当时做这种手术很危险。我母亲说她忙于革命工作，如果不生这个孩子，她就能为人民作更好的服务。结果上面批准她动手术，手术方法很落后，痛得她死去活来。母亲在1961年再次怀孕时，医生和她本人都说不能再做人工流产了。党组织也不允许，因为规定说，两次手术之间最少需隔三年。
Our maid was also pregnant. She had married my father's former manservant, who was now working in a factory. My grandmother cooked both of them the eggs and soybeans which could be obtained with my parents' coupons, as well as the fish which my father and his colleague caught.
我家的保姆这时也怀孕了。她和我父亲以前的一位勤务员结了婚，此时他在一家工厂工作。我姥姥动用购物券买的鸡蛋、黄豆，并烧好多父亲同事钓的鱼，分给两个孕妇吃。
Our maid gave birth to a boy at the end of 1961 and left to set up her own home with her husband. When she was still with us, she would go to the canteens to fetch our food. One day my father saw her walking along a garden path stuffing some meat into her mouth and chewing voraciously. He turned and walked away in case she saw him and was embarrassed. He did not tell anyone until years later when he was ruminating over how differently things had turned out from the dreams of his youth, the main one of which had been putting an end to hunger.
我们的保姆1961年底生了个男孩，离开我家搬去工厂与丈夫同住。在她还没走时，每天都是她去食堂端回饭菜。一天，我父亲远远看到她在从食堂回来的小路上走，一边用手拈饭盒里的肉往嘴里塞，一边飞快的嚼着。我父亲怕她看见自己受窘，赶快转身从另一条路躲着她走开了。他也没告诉任何人，直到许多年之后，才告诉我。父亲讲这段事的原因是说明我们的保姆饿得多么厉害，他年轻时代让中国人不再挨饿的梦想，竟远未实现。
When the maid left, my family could not afford another one, because of the food situation. Those who wanted the job women from the countryside were not entitled to a food allocation. So my grandmother and my aunt had to look after the five of us.
保姆离开我家后，由于缺粮，我家就雇不起人了。愿当保姆的人都来自农村，在城里没有口粮。就这样，我姥姥和俊英娘娘只好照看我们五个孩子。
My youngest brother, Xiao-fang, was born on 17 January 1962. He was the only one of us who was breast-fed by my mother. Before he was born, my mother had wanted to give him away, but by the time he arrived she had become deeply attached to him, and he became the favorite. We all played with him as though he were a big toy. He grew up surrounded by loving crowds, which, my mother , believed, accounted for his ease and confidence. My father spent a lot of time with him, which he had never done with his other children. When Xiao-fang was old enough to play with toys, my father carried him every Saturday to the depa,hnent store at the top of the street and bought him a new toy. The moment Xiao-fang started to cry, for any reason, my father would drop everything and rush to comfort him.
我最小的弟弟小方出生于1962年1月17日。他是我们兄弟姊妹中唯一由我母亲喂奶的孩子。在他出生前，我母亲曾想把他送给别人，但当他出世后，她就和他难舍难分了。小方成了母亲的宠儿，我们大家也很喜欢和他玩，拿他当大玩具。他在充满爱的环境中长大，我母亲相信这是他成人后为人轻松自如、充满自信的缘故。我父亲总是围着他转，对其他孩子都没有这样过。小方能玩玩具时，我父亲每周六带他到百货商店买一件新玩具。小方一哭，我父亲就好像天塌下来一般。
By the beginning of 1961, tens of millions of deaths had finally forced Mao to give up his economic policies. Reluctantly, he allowed the pragmatic President Liu and Deng Xiaoping, general secretary of the Party, more control over the country. Mao was forced to make self-criticisms, but they were full of self-pity, and were always phrased in such a way that it sounded as if he was carrying the cross for incompetent officials all over China. He further magnanimously instructed the Party to 'draw lessons' from the disastrous experience, but what the lessons were was not left to the judgment of the lowly officials: Mao told them they had become divorced from the people, and had made decisions which did not reflect ordinary people's feelings.
到了1961年初，数千万人死亡终于使毛泽东不得不放弃他的一些灾难性经济政策，让务实的国家主席刘少奇和共产党总书记邓小平管理国家。他作了一些“自我批评”，但里面充满了自怜，听起来好像代人受过，他在为全国不胜任的、胡作非为的干部担当罪责，他进一步宽宏大量地指示全党从灾难的经历中吸取教训。但是，吸取什么教训呢？干部们是不能自作主张的。毛泽东明白地告诉他们，教训就是他们脱离了群众，擅自做决定而没有反映老百姓的意愿。这些由毛泽东带头所作的不痛不痒的自我批评掩饰了真正的责任，也没有人去追查责任。
Starting from Mao, the endless self-criticisms masked the real responsibility, which no one pursued.
Nevertheless, things began to improve. The pragmatists put through a succession of major reforms. It was in this context that Deng Xiaoping made the remark: "It doesn't matter whether the cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice." There was to be no more mass production of steel. A stop was put to crazy economic goals, and realistic policies were introduced. Public canteens were abolished, and peasants' income was now related to their work. They were given back household property, which had been confiscated by the communes, including farm implements and domestic animals. They were also allowed small plots of land to till privately. In some areas, land was effectively leased out to peasant households. In industry and commerce, elements of a market economy were officially sanctioned, and within a couple of years the economy was flourishing again.
但情况毕竟开始好转。务实主义者进行了一系列重大改革，就是在这种情况下，邓小平说了那句著名的话：“不管白猫黑猫，捉得住老鼠就是好猫。”大炼钢铁停了，疯狂的经济指标取消了，一些切实可行的经济政策也开始推行。农村公共食堂废除了。农民的收入现在与他们的劳动有关了。被人民公社充公的私人财产还给了农民，包括小型农具和家畜，农民有了一小块自留地。在一些地区还实行土地分租，在工业和商业方面，官方认可了市场经济的一些方面，结果短短两三年内，经济又繁荣起来了。
Hand in hand with the loosening up of the economy, there was also political liberalization. Many landlords had the label of 'class enemy' removed. A large number of people who had been purged in the various political campaigns were 'rehabilitated." These included the counterrevolutionaries from 1955, 'rightists' from 1957, and 'rightist opportunists' from 1959. Because my mother had received a warning for her 'right-wing tendencies' in 1959, in 1962 she was raised from Grade 17 to Grade 16 in her civil service rank as compensation. There was greater literary and artistic freedom. A more relaxed general atmosphere prevailed. For my father and mother, as for many others, the regime seemed to be showing it could correct and learn from its mistakes and that it could work and this restored their confidence in it.
随着经济管理的松动，政治也放松一些了。许多地方被摘掉“阶级敌人”的帽子，以前在各种政治运动中被整肃的人也平了反。这些人中有1955年的“反革命分子”，在1957年的“右派分子”，有1959年的“右倾机会主义分子”。因为我母亲在1959年曾遭批评为“右倾”，在1962年时，为了补偿她，就把她的级别从十七级提到十六级。文学和艺术方面也有了相对的自收，气氛较为松弛了。我的父亲和其他许多人一样。认为这个政权还能够吸取教训改正错误，而且能把中国搞好，这使他们又恢复了信心。
While all this was going on I lived in a cocoon behind the high walls of the government compound. I had no direct contact with tragedy. It was with these 'noises off' that I embarked on my teens.
这一切发生时，我一直生活在省委大院的高墙内，我没有直接遭遇过悲剧，外界只是一些隐约的墙外音。正是在这样的世界里，我开始了我的少年时代。