a modern global phenomenon that the economic and social differences between cities and the countryside tend to be substantial. This was certainly true in China in the 1960s as it also is today. Certainly the living standard in Chinese cities in the decade of the 1960s was not great, but it was still much better than the abject poverty of most of the countryside. Despite coming into power in 1948 on the back of the country’s peasants, the Communist Party had failed to raise the living standard in the countryside for the past two decades. In fact, with the commune system in place as the main land and agricultural reform, people living off the land could barely eke out a subsistence livelihood.
We can imagine that the young people forcibly sent to the countryside must have been feeling quite miserable spending their first night in the darkness of their caves, over a thousand kilometers away from their families. Add to this that they had no knowledge of when their re-education would be over or even when they could go home for a visit. Yet this was just the start.
China’s future leader Xi Jinping had not prepared to see this turn of events in his young life. He might not be able to fully comprehend or explain it, but he could certainly tell there was something wrong in this so-called socialist country. Nobody could feel easy seeing Chinese peasants, so loyal to Mao and the Communist Party, living under such wretched conditions. It might be easy for a naïve and privileged teen from Beijing to look down upon the locals, but he could not deny that he was the same Han Chinese as them. How had the Communist Party made the peasants so poor or at least not lifted them up after decades of so-called land reforms? Now thousands of privileged young Chinese people would start to think one thing for sure; they wouldn’t have much positive to say about Mao’s campaign. This wasn’t exactly the re-education Mao had in mind in sending them away from Beijing and the other cities in the first place. But these seeds of doubt had now been planted in the rural landscapes across China in thousands of bright young minds, and they would bear a thousand different fruit in the years to come.
Of course the city people needed to know the reality of the Chinese countryside; it was just the harsh and knee-jerk it was implemented that made the way they saw it very unpleasant for the youngsters and their families. And of course it was Mao himself who forced them to go; they had no way to escape. So the reality was that they were here in this small rural, impoverished village of cave dwellers. They had to make a living for themselves by sheer hard, backbreaking labor. Of course they were angry. These sons and daughters of high ranking military and political inner-circle families had no intention of becoming peasants as Mao had told them. They were determined to leave as soon as they could find a way out.
These kids weren’t the only ones perplexed by their situation. In fact the local peasants were surprised as well. Suddenly city kids had been sent to them. They didn’t know what to do with them. Unfortunately, Mao’s rhetoric and the Beijing youths didn’t come with any instruction manual. Not that the peasants could read it even if one had been provided. Their life was totally defined by living off the land. The land they relied on was limited enough; now more people were added. That meant they had to share their meager subsistence with even less to go around for their own families. Tensions were bound to erupt.
Also, most of the families who took the Beijing youth into their small single room caves had no facilities to look after them. Not just food, but space and basic necessities were already stretched to the limit. A far cry from the initial excitement of hosting exotic Beijing visitors, the youth turned to be burdensome for them. As time went by with no hope for improvement or any end in sight, the situation in many villages become very nasty. Especially when the hungry young people had nothing to eat, they would grab what they could. Very soon the few chickens and dogs were not safe anymore.
1969 was a catastrophic year for all Chinese teens and especially anyone who was above 16 years old. Once graduated from the three years of high school studies, they were left with no choice but going to the country. So it was for Qi Qiaoqiao, the elder sister of Xi Jinping as well.
Qi Qiaoqiao was born in 1949 in Yenan, the first child of the veteran couple after Xi Zhongxun’s remarriage. When she went to high school her father changed her family name to his wife’s. It was quite common at the time that the children of high-ranking officials followed their mothers’ name. One of the reasons was protection, but also a sign of the gender liberation that the Communist Party had introduced to China. Chinese men were certainly quite generous with their names.
When Cultural Revolution broke out, Qi Qiaoqiao was already twenty. Qi Qiaoqiao had to follow the mainstream. Like millions of young people she was caught up in the turbulent revolution at an awkward age. Her tragedy was that she was old enough to decide what she was going to do, to be brainwashed or not.
Qi Qiaoqiao was already a model student at her school holding an enviable membership in the Communist Youth League. When the Cultural Revolution broke out, because of her father she couldn’t join any Red Guard organization; instead she had to face the scrutiny of the Red Guards who would challenge her over her father’s misfortunes. Mao’s critique against her father was well-known to everyone by then. She wasn’t alone; many descendants would be facing the same problem, they had to show their loyalty towards Mao by denouncing their own parents.
Qi Qiaoqiao was sent to “Mao’s Thoughts Study Group” as a child of the “Black Gangs”, another terms for the anti-revolutionaries. As she remembered, she didn’t behave correctly according to the Red Guards. The overwhelming propaganda at the time would have no mercy on her and she could be easily carried away by the sheer madness of it all. To resist this massive assault on her family, she needed strong political insight. But how could she survive it all at the age of twenty? There are no records about her at this time between 1966 and 1968.
But the political environment definitely left its trace on her. In 1969 she volunteered to go to China’s semi-autonomous region of Inner Mongolia to follow Mao’s call of going to the countryside, which was a gesture that she wanted to be singled out as dutiful and loyal. She chose a place which was well-known for its harsh winter. She recalled:
“At that time I desired the harsh life, because I thought the harsh life could bring us closer, make people forget I was a descendant of the Black Gangs. I felt the harsher the better to show my values, more chance given to me, to reduce the impact of my family background.”
Qi Qiaoqiao was certainly quite aware of her problem associated with her father. Did she hold any grudge for it? We don’t know. As she has said, she didn’t ask permission to go to Inner Mongolia; she made this decision on her own. Obviously she wanted to be different. On her journey she carried Mao’s statue with her to Inner Mongolia. The place where she was heading off to was Urad Houqu, some 600 kilometers from Beijing, and only 200 kilometers from the border with Outer Mongolia, then still under Russian control.
The life in Inner Mongolia was not any better than in Shaanxi where her brother was sent. Here the winter lasts five months and the temperature often plunges to minus forty degrees Celsius as strong winds sweep across its vast plains. Just the cold and desolation in the region could drain away the strongest spirit. But Qi Qiaoqiao had to make her living there.
Five hundred young men and women came to the region. They were organized in military style. The dormitories they lived in once accommodated prisoners. On the walls there were slogans to read. “Confession would bring pardon, Resistance the strict hand”.
The winters in Inner Mongolia were particularly harsh while Qi Qiaoqiao was there. She stayed roughly two years and suffered tuberculosis, arthritis and myriad other infections. Her physical condition was deteriorating badly and into an alarming state. Like many other passionate young people, Qi Qiaoqiao paid a high price for her naïveté. They wanted a revolution and Mao offered them one. They never expected that the revolutionary train ended in the most remote areas far away from Beijing. They were deluded and their passion soon turned toward a great escape, if they could manage one.
As Qi Qiaoqiao has said she was saved by Ulaan Hüü’s daughter. Ulaan Hüü was a true Mongolian Communist. Dubbed the ‘King of Mongolia’, he was another Vice-premier of the People’s Republic and a friend of Xi Zhongxun. Ulaan Hüü was also under house arrest at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, but his situation was certainly not as bad as Xi Zhongxun’s. As least he was able to