The forgotten "Dingxi Orphanage"

When searching for Yang Xianhui's "Chronicles of the Dingxi Orphanage" on the Internet, there are only a few second-hand books for sale. Compared with the books of the current "Internet celebrity scholars" and "inspirational writers", there are only a few second-hand books for sale. The cover is so tacky and out of place.

More than ten years ago, when I first read this book, I shed tears while reading. But he couldn't hold it back and read it in one breath and one night. Yang Xianhui's book has almost no rhetoric, simple and straightforward text, and a straightforward writing style, but behind each story is a series of tragic lives.

Some readers left a message on Douban: After reading Yu Hua's "Life", I felt that the protagonist Fugui was the most miserable person in the world; only after reading Yang Xianhui's "Chronicle of the Dingxi Orphanage" did I realize how rich Fugui is. happiness.

This book records the stories of all kinds of orphans admitted to an orphanage in Dingxi County, Gansu Province during the "Three Years of Natural Disasters" from 1959 to 1962. A rough record of how several of the children became orphans? How did you survive after becoming an orphan? How to be sent to an orphanage? How did you live after arriving at the orphanage?

We searched for "Three Years of Natural Disasters" on Baidu today, and the explanation given is: China's serious "Left" deviation from 1959 to 1961 due to the "Great Leap Forward" and the people's commune movement Mistakes, coupled with the fact that from 1959 to 1961, China's farmland suffered from large-scale natural disasters for several consecutive years, resulting in a nationwide food and non-staple food shortage crisis. Some people say that 10 million people died of starvation, others say 30 million. There is no way to verify it.

In the impoverished Dingxi, Gansu Province, these farmers were first "big pot rice" smashed into the "small pot" at home, and then "grain search teams" took away the "surplus grain" at home. Finally, when the "big pot meal" could only bring back some rice soup without rice every day, large-scale famine occurred. At first, everyone went to "pick up soft soil" and dig "Guanyin soil". Later, people began to starve to death on a large scale. The door of so-and-so's house was "closed", and the whole family starved to death. So much so that there is the story of "Kua'er Niang". No one knows whether Kuo'er Niang ate her own child. They just saw Kuo'er's braid hanging on the water tank, and the strange smell of cooking meat came from the house. There are also mothers who knelt on the kang and hanged themselves to death in order to send their children to the orphanage; there were also grandfathers who died at night and could not find anyone to carry and bury them, so they moved to the kang; later, the father also passed away, and there was still no one to carry him. Buried and moved to the kang; later, the mother also passed away... The children and grandma put on the thickest clothes, guarded a room full of dead people, and sat on the kang to wait for death...

I don't want to repeat this book The story in the book is so tragic that if you are interested, you can buy it and read it for yourself; I don’t dare to explore the root cause of this hell on earth, just as the lyrics sing: There is no one in the world whose life is not like a purgatory. I just want to talk about a few small things that extend to me from the story described in this book.

The first thing is that my uncle, who is 70 years old this year, traveled from Shaanxi to Hainan in 2010. I prepared some instant noodles. I said, uncle, you often eat noodles at home. The group meals on the Hainan tour are all brown rice. You may not be used to it. The uncle said: You don’t need to bring anything, I came here in 1959. I didn't understand this sentence at the time. After reading "Chronicles of Dingxi Orphanage", I suddenly realized that for people who lived through that era, as long as they could eat enough, there was nothing unpalatable in the world.

The second thing is that my grandma, every time she eats steamed buns, she has to carefully pick up the crumbs that fall on her or on the table, and put them into her mouth one by one. Frugal; but when grandma was still strong enough to cook, she always made too much. She could barely make enough food for two people for eight people, but she was reluctant to throw away the rest and ate leftovers one meal at a time. . I think that picking up steamed bun scraps is because I am afraid of hunger, so I instinctively want to save food; cooking too much is also because I am afraid of hunger, so I have to prepare more. Just like now, we can't understand why our elders always like to keep the refrigerator full and like to keep everything. I am afraid of hunger, and I am afraid of shortage.

Meng Yuanlao, a native of the Song Dynasty, wrote in the preface of "Tokyo Menghua Lu": When meeting relatives recently and talking about the past, future generations often make mistakes. It is a pity that if a servant is afraid of being immersed for a long time and discusses his customs, he will lose sight of the facts.

I also hope that "Notes of Dingxi Orphanage" can attract more people's attention. When we read history, we are not trying to "expose scars" or discredit anything, but we must always stay awake and remember Grandpa Xiaoping's "development of talent". is the hard truth", cherish the hard-won peaceful era and happy life.