Famine in the 1960S: Surviving the Hard Years With My Pocket Dimension

Yan Gui Village: Six Years of Highs and Lows on the Loess Plateau of Northern Shanxi In a semi-arid mountain region eighty li from Datong, the cave dwellings of Yan Gui Village were embedded in the loess slopes like eyes gazing out from the earth. At the height of the famine in 1960, the grain pits in the caves were empty. Even so, the descendants of those who had gone west clutched their last handful of oat flour and gathered together to make kaolaolao, as tradition dictated. Steam carried the fragrance of grain out of the caves, but it could not warm the bitter winter of empty stomachs. When the spring breeze of 1962 first turned the mountain peaks green, the boundaries of the villagers' private plots quietly expanded. At dawn, they shouldered their hoes and turned the soil, burying their hopes in newly reclaimed land. In 1964, the call to learn from Dazhai agriculture echoed through the valleys. Hoes broke through the hard mountain crust, and terraces spread along the slopes. Sweat dripped into the loess, and green shoots sprang up. Just as life began to look promising, news came in 1965 that the educated youth would be returning to the cities. Beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, they tied up their bedding rolls. The bonds of mutual support passed down from those who had gone west moved the villagers to fill the departing youths' bags with oat flour, heavy with unspoken reluctance. But who could have guessed that the following year, 1966, the campaign against feudal superstition would reach the village? The shrines the elders had hidden in the corners of their cave dwellings were uncovered, and even the patterns on their kaolaolao seemed to take on an indescribable tension. Over those six years, the loess slopes of Yan Gui Village bore witness to the torment of hunger and the unease of changing policies, as well as the warmth of mutual aid and the drive to build terraces. The fragrance of oat flour held the resilience of survival; the depths of the cave dwellings concealed the secrets of the years. In a semi-arid mountain hollow, the descendants of those who had gone west turned their lives into a book woven from the scent of grain and the yellow earth.