Thirty Years On

Considering the heavy price we paid, we must have committed some enormous blunder that we still find ourselves bearing such heavy burdens today.

By Xiao Lan

Thirty years ago, on the evening of December 22, 1968, I rushed out of the house in excitement to join thousands of other young people. Beating drums and cymbals, we celebrated Mao's latest instructions from on high: "The 'educated youth' are to go out to the countryside to receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants." Two days later, I boarded a west-bound train and like thousands of others I became an 'educated youth'. At that time, almost all city dwellers who had children of my age saw several of their kids go marching off into the countryside. Statistical reports indicate that some sixty million educated youth had this experience. The term educated youth became almost a synonym for our whole generation. The bitter-sweet experiences of the educated youth are difficult to describe, but even now thirty years afterwards we still find it hard to purge from our memories the years we spent in the countryside. Those years have become an integral part of who we are.

I was fortunate enough to get access to some memos and literary pieces that reflect the lives of the educated youth. Although I am excited to read these retrospective works of many of my contemporaries, I also feel extremely sad. Thirty years on is a long time, but our spiritual wounds are far from being healed. I am especially heart-broken when I read literature written in the life-blood and tears of their authors. Sometimes the main characters are heroic stereotypes, or they may be ordinary people, or even prisoners. Sometimes they are drowning in deep seas of remorse, or they may be simply striding on with no regrets. In them all what I am seeing is blood-drops from their hearts and what I hear are prayers and cries from those hearts' depths.

We have now lived half a lifetime, but our whole generation is still heavily burdened and bound by that historic wickedness and its spiritual wounds. We must have committed some fatal blunder to be still carrying such heavy burdens, considering the price we paid. Behind the strident stirring slogans like "a youth without regrets" there was wide-spread despair and aimlessness. Oh, my friends of the educated youth, are you unwilling to face up to your past, or do you just lack the courage? Are you just wanting to forget the past and to grasp hold of the future? But if you cannot face the past and truly repent, how are you going to be able to step out of the evil shadows of the past and walk confidently on into the future?

Our hearts may have been sincere and well-meaning; we might have striven with all our might towards our goals; we might have fought selflessly; our spirits might have been admirable. Nevertheless, it was a terrible mistake for our entire generation to give itself over to an absurd ideology and a treacherous man-made idol. As we remember those who were persecuted to death and the young people who died in wild fires, floods or landslides simply because of that empty ideology or because of human stupidity or deliberate wickedness, then who can dare tell the souls of the dead of "a youth without regrets"?

Perhaps some of us may feel a sense of pride that we had introduced some urban civilization into the countryside. Nonetheless, for the small amount of civilization and technology we brought to the rural areas, the price we paid was the youth and bitterness of an entire generation! If we compare that little bit of civilization with all the fundamental changes that have taken place in the countryside in the past twenty years since the Reforms, what do we have to boast about? The fact is that the educated youth went to the countryside because the then government needed a cover-up, a way to deal with the excessive workforce in the cities. We were deceived; but why should we deceive ourselves again now?

Some people have pointed out, not without a little self-satisfaction, that most achievers in China have been the "old educated youth", the ones who went through the hard times. So they conclude that the sufferings were not wasted. Suffering, however, is never a prerequisite for success. Our sufferings, in particular, were the kind of experiences that human beings have always tried to avoid or have been unwilling to put up with. It was human conduct that was the direct cause of our sufferings. That makes it all the more tragic that it was in a spirit of idealistic enthusiasm and with a strong sense of duty that we elected to march into the sufferings. Moreover the ones who have achieved great things later on are only a small minority of the educated youth. The great majority have had no opportunities of going to college, nor any chance of enjoying political power or economic strength. Their talents and dreams were shattered long ago. Furthermore, educated youth are easily identified among the ranks of criminals. As they are imprisoned, sentenced or sent to capital execution, whether they committed crimes because of their experiences or persecution in the past, or simply because of their desperation and pressurized lives, how can we not feel the pain in our hearts? We are of the same generation after all and our hearts used to be just as pure. But why have they become what they are now? Who can still speak of "a youth without regrets"?

Even those who have great achievements to their credit, no matter how high their rankings may be, how famous they are or how enviable their social status, nobody, not even they themselves, can tell what price they have paid for it all. There is a TV series called Debt which describes the abandoned children of the educated youth. These children are only a part of the story. Oh how many tears, how much desperation and how much evil lies behind all the individual achievements and successes of our generation!

Young people make mistakes and they should be excused. But if we are really serious about making the best out of the high price we paid, and if we are serious about making the sufferings we experienced worth something so that our next generation can benefit from them, then we indeed need to identify the mistakes we made and draw lessons from them.

Thirty years ago, we were all very young. We had too much enthusiasm and we gave ourselves over completely to a call from some sacred idol in our hearts and to an absurd ideology. No matter how harsh rural life might have been for us, we battled on without looking back. We did experience some spectacular triumphs, like fireworks shooting into the sky` - only to find ourselves slammed back to earth ... As we faced the harsh realities, I would ask the heavens, as many others did, "Why? Why?"

It was not until I came to know Jesus Christ that I realized it was all due to our ignorance of God.

In the wake of the ridiculous belief and idolatry came sufferings, degeneration and destruction. The idol which we were blindly worshipping in those days awakened an inner wickedness in ourselves and so led us down a path of destruction. As we closely followed Mao, shouting and yelling, destroying everything and eliminating everybody, we didn't realize that we ourselves had fallen into a pit of wickedness and suffering. This is the key reason for our fatal mistakes.

We pursued after our beliefs and ideology and fought for them. Even today, many including myself, think back nostalgically to the spirit of enthusiasm in which we carried on our pursuit and struggles. Nevertheless, our goal was wrong. And what is there left for us to boast about? When the foundation collapses, there is nothing left but rubble!

Thirty long years have failed to bring true peace of mind to thousands of the old educated youth. Their hearts are either still in an even more agonizing exile or they are still pursuing and searching.

My dear friends of the educated youth! Have you found your destination yet? Have you really obtained treasures of eternal value that can truly satisfy your spiritual needs? Perhaps you are already enjoying the power of a recognized social position; perhaps you already have wealth; or perhaps you have chosen to distance yourself from the vanities of the world. But have you recovered your long lost sense of reality? Have you obtained eternal peace? Jesus Christ said: "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mt. 16:26) We made a great mistake and we have paid dearly for our blunder. We should not commit another.

Friends, do not punish yourself for the your blunders, for Jesus can forgive all sins. Do not compromise in the face of worldly sufferings, for Jesus can turn bitterness into blessing. Do not stay out there in exile, for Jesus can give you spiritual peace and contentment in your hearts. All this will happen if you will only repent and accept him as your Savior.

Come back to the Lord! Do not continue to live in despair. Let the Lord break our bondage to sin so that our lives may show the beauty of the butterfly breaking out of its cocoon. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (II Corinthians 5:17)

The author was an educated youth in the rural area of Shanxi Province between 1968 and 1975. Having graduated from New Jersey Medical School, she is now a registered nurse.