My Grandpa Is an Ordinary Man

My grandfather was born in the final years of the Qing dynasty. He lived through the famine and national weakness of the Republic of China, the War of Resistance against Japan, when the nation's very survival was at stake, and the flourishing years of the new People's Republic of China. He died peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety. Grandfather often said, "In that rotten society of the past, it was incredibly hard for ordinary people to make a living. Any good opportunities were monopolized by corrupt officials working hand in hand with capitalists and landlords. And it was hard enough for the children of ordinary families simply to survive and grow up. Some froze or starved to death; some died of illness because their families couldn't afford treatment; some were sold by human traffickers into brutal labor, worked to the bone and stripped of everything; and some were beaten to death at the whim of the powerful, landlords, capitalists, bandits, and bullies... I was lucky to survive in such a cruel society. It was no easy thing!"

Forced by poverty, Grandfather took on the burden of caring for his family at the age of eleven. At thirteen, he set out to beg for food with his younger brother, who was only six... Yet he never let hardship break him, nor did he bow to evil forces just to survive. Whenever we asked about his past, Grandfather would always smile and say, "Lots of people went through what I did. It was all very ordinary..." But I still believe that it is ordinary people like him, who dared to love and hate, and dared to stand by their actions, who uphold the best of human nature. So what did my grandfather, one ordinary person among countless others, go through in that dark old society? How did he face it? What was the outcome? And how would you, as a modern person, judge what he did?