Sent Down to the Countryside in 1973: I Take Beijing's Educated Youth Back to the City

No pocket dimension, no special abilities, no golden finger, and no rebirth. Nor are there powerful benefactors from on high or saviors appearing out of nowhere.

In the autumn of 1973, Beijing sent-down youth Shen Shanhai hoisted his pack and boarded a green train bound for Shandong.

The son of a Foreign Ministry official, he was given all his father had to offer before leaving: a thousand yuan and a thousand jin of grain coupons. His father left him with just one instruction: “Don’t be too soft or too hard. Just survive.”

He settled in Haiqing Brigade, where the stone house leaked wind, the straw bed dug into his back, and rats scurried across the rafters every night. Life was already hard, but six months later it plunged into an abyss: his father was branded a capitalist roader, and Shen Shanhai was dragged onto the denunciation stage. He clenched his fists until they bled, but gritted his teeth and refused to bow his head.

Lu Zhining, a Beijing girl sent down with him, had lost both parents to political persecution. Quiet by nature, she still had a light in her eyes. They never said much, but understood each other without words: he found an extra piece of cornbread in his bowl, while she hid a warm egg in her pocket. In the darkness, they were each other’s only light.

When a local hooligan tried to assault Lu Zhining with a knife, Shen Shanhai fought like a madman against three men, wresting the blade away to protect her.

The village Party secretary’s daughter sighed. “A good man shouldn’t be left to rot here.”

No golden finger, no powerful backer, no heaven-defying lucky breaks.

The tide of the times crashed down upon them. They struggled in the mud and leaned on each other through the freezing nights, waiting for the day the tide would recede and the clouds would part to reveal the moon.