Zhijiang Duck

No duck no Mid-fall festival

Since I left Zhijiang in 1978 to go to college, although I haven’t eaten all the famous Chinese and foreign dishes, I have tasted many famous and unknown dishes, and I have also eaten in many Western-style restaurants in the United States. But what I miss most in the past twenty years is the Zhijiang duck on August 15th in my hometown. Every August 15th, it is the traditional Midfall Festival in China, the squeaking sound of the duck being fried in every house comes to my mind countless times, the tangy duck fragrance, the soft duck meat, the green onions full of duck juice, and the toothless little brother. The naive attitude of chewing on a big duck leg...

In my hometown of Zhijiang, Hunan, where I spent my childhood and youth, besides eating mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, we also eat duck. For the people of Zhijiang, the duck feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month is second only to the reunion dinner on Chinese New Year. Family members living far away will rush back home to Zhijiang to eat the Zhijiang duck for Mid-Autumn Festival and reunite with their families. In Zhijiang, every household will prepare Zhijiang duck. If a family doesn't know how to make Zhijiang duck, they must be newcomers who just moved from elsewhere. But within two years, they will surely become skilled in making Zhijiang duck. For someone from Zhijiang not to eat Zhijiang duck on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month must be because they cannot return home. Even if they are away, the thing they most want to eat for Mid-Autumn Festival is Zhijiang duck. For the people of Zhijiang, whether or not they eat mooncakes on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month doesn't matter, but not eating duck would be a huge regret. Not eating duck means they haven't really celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival. Young men must bring a few ducks to their future mother-in-law's house before Mid-Autumn Festival, or else their engagement might be called off.

 

Duck Farming

"April 8, freeze the ducks." Every year after the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, in every street and alley of Zhijiang, duck vendors carry bamboo baskets about four feet in diameter that resemble steamer baskets, inside which are newly hatched fluffy ducklings covered with black gauze. Each basket can hold dozens of ducklings, with two baskets per load, and vendors can carry up to a hundred ducklings. You can hear the ducklings chirping from tens of meters away. Farmers buy hundreds or even thousands of ducklings. During the day, farmers wear bamboo hats and straw raincoats, tie a chicken feather duster to the front end of a two or three-meter-long bamboo pole, and drive the ducks to paddy fields, reservoirs, or small rivers to feed on insects, grass, and microorganisms. If any duckling falls behind or doesn't follow commands and runs around, the farmer will extend the bamboo pole and gently stroke the little one back with the feather duster. In the evening, farmers gather the ducklings on the grass and feed them grains or bran. They build a simple stove with stones and cook their meals. Then they set up tents and sleep by the duck enclosure. Some share a tent, while others sleep alone. They endure wind, rain, and sun exposure, living alongside the ducks day and night. With plenty of insects to eat in spring, along with sufficient grain and bran feed, the ducks grow rapidly each day. Their fluffy yellow feathers gradually fade, and curly feathers start to grow out. By the end of July, after harvesting early rice, farmers drive the semi-grown ducks into the fields to pick up scattered grains. This is when the ducks grow the fastest.

 

 

Ducks eat insects, and small fish in the rice field

 

Approaching Mid-Autumn Festival, the ducks weigh over a kilogram, the female ducks haven't started quacking yet, and the male ducks' wing feathers haven't fully grown. Farmers tie straw around the ducks' legs, put them in baskets, and transport them to towns or markets to sell to prospective buyers preparing for the festival. Almost every household buys ducks, with each buying at least one and most buying two or three.

 

Roasting Duck

To make Zhijiang duck, besides raising ducklings from that year, you also need Zhijiang-produced field sauce, freshly harvested ginger, and green onions. On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month after breakfast, the housewives get busy. First, boil a large pot of water. Then take a bowl, put some cold water in it, add salt, and use it to kill the duck, collecting the blood in the bowl. Put the duck in a basin, scald it with boiling water to remove the feathers, and pluck the down when it cools slightly. Open the belly, remove the internal organs, and keep the duck liver. Use scissors to cut open the duck's gizzard, remove the dirty stuff inside, peel off the yellow membrane, sprinkle some salt, rub it, and rinse it with water. Cut the duck intestines into two-inch pieces. Cut off the duck's head and legs, and cut the rest into pieces. Slice the freshly harvested ginger, slice the chili peppers, wash two or three Jin (1.1 lbs.) of green onions, and tie them into knots. Pick a dozen or so fresh Sichuan peppercorn leaves and wash them. Zhijiang people like to use Sichuan peppercorn leaves for cooking. For example, when stewing dog meat, frying lamb, or cooking duck, they will use Sichuan peppercorn leaves. Although Sichuan peppercorns are an essential spice for many dishes, they are not sold in the market. Because many households have Sichuan peppercorn trees, if you need them, just ask the owner, and they will surely let you pick some. If the owner is not around, and some Sichuan peppercorn trees extend beyond the fence, feel free to pick some leaves; no one will object.

Set up the stove, heat the oil, add the field sauce when the oil is hot. Sauté the duck head and legs, add the sliced ginger and chili peppers, stir-fry briefly, add the duck pieces, and stir-fry over high heat. Add the coagulated duck blood to thicken the sauce. Add salt and soy sauce. After the duck is fragrant, add water and Sichuan peppercorn leaves, and simmer over low heat. If you have chestnuts, add one or two jin of peeled chestnuts, which would be even better. Simmer for several hours until the duck meat is tender. Ten minutes before removing from the heat, add the green onions. Once the green onions are cooked, the dish is ready. If you walk down the street in the afternoon on Mid-Autumn Festival, you'll catch a whiff of duck fragrance escaping from the cracks in every household's door. Some even set up small charcoal stoves at the door and cook duck openly on the street. It's hard not to drool. If you meet friends, you'll definitely be warmly invited to taste their duck. Children often can't wait and run to the neighbors who have already cooked duck to ask for a big duck leg to gnaw on.

 

 

Once the duck is stewed, it's served in a large bowl with the soup, placed on the table. Stir-fry one or two side dishes, open a bottle of white wine, and gather around the table with the family for this traditional annual duck feast. Some set up the table outside and enjoy the moon after eating the duck. The big duck leg is for the youngest children who couldn't wait any longer. Duck heads and bottoms used to be specifically given to the elderly as a sign of respect. It implies eating from head to tail. However, most people no longer adhere to this custom because there's not much meat on the duck head, and the elderly can't gnaw on it. But in some rural areas, this etiquette is still observed. Everyone's favorite is the thick gravy-soaked green onion knot, bursting with flavor in every bite. If chestnuts are added, they absorb the duck gravy and become tender and fragrant, very delicious. The tender and spicy stewed duck meat is delicious. Enjoying a few cups of good wine with family and chatting is true reunion, true Mid-Autumn Festival for the people of Zhijiang.

 

From Ancient Legend to Modern Legend

Why do the people of Zhijiang eat duck on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month? Since when did it start? No one can say for sure. But the old men with long beards will tell you an ancient legend they heard from their ancestors' ancestors. It is said that during the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the people were discontent with the rule of the Mongols and rose up in rebellion. The people of Zhijiang also prepared to rebel on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Some people put a small piece of paper in the mooncakes, on which was written: "Kill the Tartars on the fifteenth day of the eighth month." At that time, people referred to the Mongol soldiers as Tartars. Killing the Tartars meant killing the Mongol soldiers. People bought mooncakes, broke them open on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, saw the paper, and rebelled, killing the local Mongol soldiers and joining the anti-Yuan Dynasty forces. After the Yuan Dynasty fell, there were no more "Tartars" to kill. To commemorate "killing the Tartars on the fifteenth day of the eighth month," the people of Zhijiang have been "killing ducks on the fifteenth day of the eighth month" every year. Because "duck" sounds similar to "Tartar." The people of Zhijiang have passed down this tradition from generation to generation.

Zhijiang duck has been on the table of the people of Zhijiang for hundreds of years, but the outside world was long unaware of this highly distinctive local custom and delicious cuisine. Until about ten years ago, it is said that two young men and women from different villages in Zhijiang met while working outside and fell in love. They returned home together with great joy to tell their families the good news and get married. However, their hometown parents and relatives vehemently opposed their marriage. The reason was that they both had the surname Yang. In the countryside of Zhijiang, many people still believe that those with the same surname are relatives and cannot marry each other. But they were from different villages and had no blood relationship. The government also approved their marriage application. But their stubborn relatives refused to yield. So the young couple had no choice but to leave home. They drifted outside to work. Because working was unstable, they thought of opening a restaurant. Whether it was due to the difficulty of running a restaurant or out of habit, they made Zhijiang duck when Mid-Autumn Festival arrived. Their Zhijiang duck quickly gained fame in Changsha. Customers who came to taste it came in a continuous stream. Their business grew bigger and bigger. They eventually opened chain stores. This spring, when I visited a Hunanese friend in Boston, I even had packaged Zhijiang duck she brought from China. This indicates that their Zhijiang duck has entered large-scale production. Zhijiang duck, hidden for hundreds of years "in the depths of the boudoir," has finally stepped out of Zhijiang and is increasingly loved by more and more people.

 

True Zhijiang Duck is gone 

However, packaged Zhijiang duck is far from being true Zhijiang duck, neither in taste nor in significance. Although the people of Zhijiang love Zhijiang duck very much, they only eat Zhijiang duck on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. No restaurant sells Zhijiang duck. For the people of Zhijiang, only Zhijiang duck made with ducklings raised that year, local Ma Zi duck, young ginger, field sauce, and green onions harvested that year is true Zhijiang duck. Zhijiang duck is a special dish for Mid-Autumn Festival, just like turkey for Thanksgiving, and it is also a symbol of reunion. Zhijiang was originally the land of the Dong ethnic group, with Han, Miao, and other ethnic groups living there. But the various ethnic groups lived in harmony, intermarried, used Chinese characters, and spoke Chinese. Most of the descendants of the Dong ethnic group do not know that they are Dong ethnic people. All the people of Zhijiang, whether Han, Dong, or other ethnic groups, must eat Zhijiang duck on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Zhijiang duck, like a cultural melting pot, has blended the customs and cultures of various ethnic groups for hundreds of years. This makes the people of Zhijiang appear generous, tolerant, and peaceful. To ease my homesickness, I once bought frozen duck, old ginger, and sweet bean sauce and tried to make Zhijiang duck, but the taste was far from that of Zhijiang duck from my hometown. It lacked the atmosphere of duck fragrance filling the streets and alleys. Recently, when I called my former neighbor Tang Jie, she asked if I had gotten used to life in America. I said the hardest thing was not being able to eat Zhijiang duck. She said, "Come back, and I will definitely make lots of Zhijiang duck for you, guaranteed to satisfy you." Only in Zhijiang, during Mid-Autumn Festival, among relatives and friends, eating Zhijiang duck cooked by family members can truly dispel the endless homesickness in my heart.

 

Written on August 2004

 

Postscript

Xiping Jing, my classmate and roommate in Peking University. He became professor at Peking University. He still remembers that my hometown is Zhijiang. He told me in a phone call, a few years ago, two restaurants selling Zhijiang duck opened in front of Peking University. He thought if Zhijiang Duck is from Lewei's hometown? He went to eat it sometimes and felt it delicious. He said that Zhijiang duck is now sold in many Hunan restaurants in Beijing and has become a signature dish. But he didn’t know the story of Zhijiang Duck. I told him the story on phone, he found it very interesting. Thinking that more and more people like to eat Zhijiang duck, I have written this article. After eating Zhijiang duck and savoring the duck aroma in your mouth, it will be interesting to taste its culture and history.

 

Master Gan’s secret of rice cooking

Mr. Gan may didn’t have good education, probably only a few years of elementary school, but he has experienced a lot and is very good at conversation. However, what impresses people most about him is his cooking skills, particularly in cooking rice. He is considered to be unmatched and unbeatable in this regard.

Most people in the world can cook rice, and almost everyone who eats rice can cook it. In the eyes of ordinary people, cooking rice is the least technical job in the kitchen, and cooking schools may not even teach how to cook rice. With the popularity of electric rice cookers, cooking rice has become no technical. However, in the past, when there were no electric rice cookers, especially when cooking with a wood stove, some skill and experience were required. But this was not the area where Mr. Gan displayed his skills. Mr. Gan cooked large pots of rice, enough to feed over a hundred or even several hundred people, using a wood stove, and sometimes even digging a hole in the wilderness to cook with a military pot. This is an experience that most people have never had.

A military pot is a pot used by troops to cook in the wilderness. It is round and tapered, with a flat bottom and a slightly smaller diameter, and an open top with a slightly larger diameter, about three to four feet high. Dig a hole about one meter deep in the wild, and dig a hole on the edge of the pit. Place the pot on top, burn local firewood underneath, and cook outside. One company has one cooking class, responsible for the food of over a hundred people. The rice used for cooking is fifty or sixty catties, thirty times that of a typical household. Inexperienced people either cook it into mush or leave it half-cooked.

 

Similar to the above but it was black iron pot

Before the Cultural Revolution, there was a cooking skills competition for cooks in the Qianyang District (formerly Huai Hua District). It is said that Mr. Gan won first place in the military pot rice cooking competition.

Mr. Gan's large pot of rice is fast and good, not too soft or too hard, each grain is fully cooked, and the texture is just right, not sticking to the spoon or bowl (which is important for serving rice). It is said that he had a record of success for over two decades of cooking, at least in Zhijiang, which was unprecedented.

There were about three to four hundred Zhijiang Normal School students, plus faculty and family members, making a total of about four to five hundred people eating. Assuming each person eats 200 grams of rice, it would require more than 80 kg – 100 kg (176 - 220 lbs) of rice. Most canteens would put the rice in tens of bowls, use steaming to cook for such a large number of people, but Mr. Gan insisted on cooking rice with pot.

At the Zhijiang Normal School cafeteria on Wood Oil Hill, there are two large firewood stoves built with a round, tapered wooden barrel on top, with a diameter of about four feet, two feet high above the stove counter, and one foot below the stove counter, and larger at the bottom than at the top. When there are many people, Master Gan uses both stoves to cook rice at the same time, but when there are fewer people, he uses only one stove.

 

Similar to this traditional stove, but at least more than double the size

To cook rice, Master Gan first puts enough water in the pot and starts the fire. When the water boils, he pours baskets of rice into the pot, then stands on the stove and uses a long shovel to stir the rice in the pot. It takes a lot of strength to stir the hundred or so pounds of rice, but Master Gan has big biceps, a round waist, and strong tendons all over his body. In the steamy water vapor, he concentrates on his work, skillfully flipping the rice in the pot non-stop. Even in the coldest winter without heating system in kitchen, Master Gan cooks rice in just a single layer of clothes and still sweats profusely.

After stirring for about thirty minutes, he checks the color of the rice and determines that it's almost done, then throws a large sieve into the pot to strain out the excess rice soup and pours it into a large wooden barrel. When he's finished scooping out most of the excess water, he stirs the semi-cooked wet rice evenly, covers the pot, and removes the fire below, leaving only the glowing charcoal. Even after the rice is steamed, the steam continues to escape from the gap between the lid and the pot.

After twenty minutes, the kitchen is filled with the aroma of rice. Master Gan lifts the lid, and a white, steamy aroma wafts into the air, with the fragrant scent of fully cooked rice. He hangs a large scale on a rope from the ceiling and attaches a large bamboo sieve to the hook. He uses a large ladle to scoop out the hot, plump, non-sticky rice into the sieve, pouring ten pounds of rice into a small wooden bucket. He knows from experience that 200 grams of uncooked rice should yield 500 grams of cooked rice, and one table of ten people requires 5 kg of rice. He weighs it accurately, usually just right, with the occasional last bucket being a little more or less. If he has too much rice, he puts it in a small bowl and adds a little to each bucket. If he has too little, he takes out a little from each bucket and adds it to the last bucket.

After the rice is distributed, he scoops out the crispy, fragrant, yellow-brown crust from the bottom of the pot, divides it evenly, and covers each bucket of rice with it. Every time, Master Gan calculates the time and prepares the rice a few minutes before mealtime so that the students can still enjoy the crispy crust on top of their rice.

Everything is clean, neat, and done in one go.

 

The Aerial Survey Team

The fever of the Cultural Revolution, which had erupted in 1967, showed no sign of abating.

In Zhijiang County, officials at every level had been branded “capitalist roaders” and brought down. But once the rebel factions had run out of officials to overthrow, they were left with a new problem: whom, exactly, could they rebel against?

The answer, inevitably, was each other.

Soon, the rebel groups turned on one another, each claiming to be the true Red Guards, the true followers of Chairman Mao. Each side was convinced that it represented the revolution and that the other side was made up of impostors.

At first, their confrontations were mostly symbolic—big-character posters pasted everywhere, competing slogans shouted from the streets. But in some places, the conflicts escalated into armed battles.

The situation was especially dangerous in towns with military factories.

In Chenxi County, more than a hundred kilometers from Zhijiang, there was an arms factory. One faction of the rebels broke into the factory, took out weapons, and distributed them to its own supporters. Before long, the two sides were fighting with real guns.

Zhijiang itself never descended into armed combat. But the rebels there were hardly idle. They sent people to Chenxi to join the fighting.

On January 13, 1968, some of those rebels were returning to Zhijiang after taking part in the battles in Chenxi.

They were riding in an open-bed Liberation truck, singing revolutionary songs as they traveled. Near Zhijiang, they came to Qili Bridge—the place where the Japanese surrender had been formally accepted at the end of World War II.

There was a sharp, almost ninety-degree turn just before a small bridge.

The truck was going too fast.

The driver became distracted and failed to make the turn.

The truck smashed through the wooden railing, flipped over, and plunged into the little river below.

Some of the passengers were thrown into the mud at the bottom. Then the overturned truck came down on top of them.

The survivors struggled for a long time to rescue them, but there was nothing they could do. Eventually they went back into town, brought the leaders of the county Armed Forces Department to the scene, and forced them to search for the bodies in the nearly freezing water.

Six bodies were eventually recovered.

They were laid out in a row in front of the county auditorium.

This became known throughout Zhijiang as the “1-13 Incident,” named after the date on which it occurred.

At the time, I was living with my mother in her dormitory at the county government compound. The county auditorium was directly across the street.

Like everyone else, I went to see the dead.

The six bodies lay side by side, their faces uncovered. They were all so young—around twenty years old.

From loudspeakers nearby came the songs and slogans of the Cultural Revolution. One quotation from Chairman Mao was repeated again and again:

“If we are going to struggle, there will be sacrifices. Death is something that happens frequently…”

A few days later, the rebels held a grand funeral for the young men, now honored as “martyrs.”

They drove through town in a long procession, firing guns into the air and singing the same revolutionary slogan:

“If we are going to struggle, there will be sacrifices.”

And yet, on the eastern edge of town, only a little over a kilometer from the memorial marking the Japanese surrender, another world seemed to exist.

There, at Muyoupo, stood the former American air base built during World War II—the site that would later become Zhijiang Normal School.

It was remarkably peaceful.

The Red Guard students had already left. A handful of teachers who had been denounced during the Cultural Revolution remained behind, watched over by a few people. Every day they were made to perform manual labor.

Before long, even those teachers were dispersed, and the students were gone as well.

By spring, the school had become almost deserted.

And with fewer people came an even deeper quiet.

That was when an aerial survey team arrived.

There were more than twenty people in the group, and they moved into the school.

At that time, the Zhijiang airport was unusually important.

Across virtually all of western Hunan—including western Hunan's Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture and Qianyang Prefecture, which is now Huaihua City, as well as parts of the neighboring Changde and Shaoyang regions—there were almost no other airports. Large areas of eastern Guizhou had no airports either.

Although the Zhijiang airport had officially been abandoned, its location still made it strategically valuable.

The aerial survey team came back every year or two, sometimes every year, even during the Cultural Revolution.

Most of the time they used airplanes for surveying and exploration. Sometimes they conducted artificial rainmaking. Occasionally they sprayed pesticides.

When they were conducting aerial surveys, the airplane simply circled overhead.

But when they were making artificial rain or spraying pesticides, we could see a long trail of mist streaming from the rear of the plane.

At a time when our school had essentially stopped teaching us anything except quotations from Chairman Mao, the aerial survey team opened a window into another world.

A world of science.

A world of airplanes.

A world of people who seemed to know what they were doing.

It was the first time I had ever seen an airplane up close—a primitive old biplane with propellers.

 

By today's standards, the aircraft must have been hopelessly outdated. But to us children it was magical.

How could something so enormous possibly fly?

We thought the people on the aerial survey team were extraordinary.

They could fly airplanes!

There was only one airplane, and most of the people on the team were ground crew, geologists, or other scientists. We never actually knew which one was the pilot.

But to us, they all seemed remarkably sophisticated.

They were confident and intelligent. They carried themselves with an air of knowledge and competence. And they spoke beautiful, standard Mandarin.

We were children, and we were impressed.

The school had only about twenty teachers left by then. With so few people eating there, the school gave its better-equipped dining hall to the aerial survey team.

The teachers moved into a small kitchen in another building.

Naturally, I became curious about what the people on the team ate.

The cook was a man everyone called Master Liu. He had been transferred from the county government's kitchen and was responsible for baian—the flour-based foods such as noodles and steamed buns.

I knew him from the county government compound. I often ate the noodles and buns he made there.

He was an adult and I was only a child, and we never actually talked. But he knew who I was. He knew I belonged to one of the families connected with the county government.

Sometimes I would creep quietly to the doorway and peek inside.

If he noticed me, he never chased me away.

But neither did he invite me in.

What fascinated me most was the flour.

The flour in the aerial survey team's kitchen was incredibly white.

I had never seen flour so white in my life.

The steamed buns were large, perfectly rounded, and wonderfully fragrant.

In those days, food was rationed and had to be purchased with coupons. We children were almost always hungry—never quite starving, but never quite full either.

So that smell was almost impossible to resist.

I would find myself lingering around the kitchen, again and again, drawn there by the aroma.

And there was another smell.

Something unfamiliar.

A rich, distinctive fragrance that seemed to come from the food the survey team was eating.

I remember thinking:

They must be eating something very nutritious.

Decades later, I bought some coconut oil for cooking.

The moment I opened it, that smell came back to me.

Suddenly I was a child again, standing outside the aerial survey team's kitchen.

So that's what it was.

Coconut oil.

Back in those days, coconut oil wasn't something you could simply buy in a store. Today, of course, it is widely sold and promoted as a cooking oil.

Funny how memory works.

Sometimes it is not a face or a photograph that brings the past back.

Sometimes it is just a smell.

---

There was a young man on the team named Meng.

We called him Uncle Xiao Meng.

He was probably in his twenties, with a round face, a medium build, and a slightly plump figure. He spoke fluent Mandarin and had a cheerful, easygoing personality.

Most of all, he loved children.

Whenever he went swimming in the nearby river, he would pick us up and throw us into the water. Sometimes he would have water fights with us.

We adored him.

He was the youngest member of the aerial survey team, but his colleagues clearly liked him too. They always called him affectionately, simply, “Xiao Meng.”

He was from northern China and couldn't handle spicy food.

That was unfortunate, because in Zhijiang, a cook could hardly prepare a meal without chili peppers.

Poor Xiao Meng would eat something spicy and his whole face would turn bright red. The redness would stay for ages.

His colleagues would tease him:

“Xiao Meng, look at your nose! Even your nose has turned red from the chili!”

---

The team had several trucks and an old-fashioned Beijing Jeep.

To us, the Jeep looked brand-new.

It was just like the green military Jeeps we had seen in movies.

Whenever the team went into town, they traveled in the Jeep.

If we happened to be walking into town or coming home when their Jeep passed by, we would wave.

Most of the time, they stopped and gave us a ride.

And if Uncle Xiao Meng was driving, we knew for sure he would stop.

We would pile into the Jeep, delighted.

In those days, even the smell of gasoline seemed wonderful to us.

---

One day, several of us children found some cigarette butts lying on the grass.

We decided to imitate the adults.

We smoked them.

It was our first experience with cigarettes.

The smoke was hot and bitter and made our throats burn.

But we wanted to look grown-up, so we endured it.

Just then, Uncle Xiao Meng happened to walk by.

He saw us smoking.

He didn't say a word.

He simply walked over.

One by one, he grabbed us under the arms and began spinning us around, like a discus—or a hammer being thrown.

Around and around we went.

Dozens of times.

Then he tossed each of us onto the grass.

When he was finished, he wasn't even out of breath.

He simply walked away.

At the time, I thought:

He must be a pilot.

Otherwise, how could anyone spin around like that dozens of times without getting dizzy?

We certainly couldn't.

Every one of us was completely disoriented. The world was spinning. We couldn't stand up. We lay on the grass for a long time before we could even get our feet underneath us.

And then there was the cigarette smoke.

After being spun around so many times, the smoke we'd just inhaled suddenly seemed to come rushing back up.

We nearly vomited.

We felt absolutely miserable.

But that little episode stayed with me.

In fact, it may have been one of the most effective anti-smoking lessons I ever received.

I never became a smoker.

---

Life in town had become less violent than during the early years of the Cultural Revolution, but it was by no means normal.

From time to time there were still public struggle sessions.

Landlords, rich peasants, “counterrevolutionaries,” “bad elements,” and rightists were paraded through the streets for public humiliation.

Propaganda trucks drove around town with loudspeakers blaring slogans.

But at Muyoupo, everything seemed utterly calm.

We heard frogs calling from the rice fields.

Farmers shouted as they worked their land.

Birds sang from the bamboo groves.

Children laughed as they chased one another across the grass.

And overhead came the deep, throaty roar of the aerial survey team's airplane flying low across the sky.

It was a strange little island of peace in the middle of a turbulent time.

The aerial survey team was like a flock of migratory birds.

They came in spring.

They left in autumn.

The next spring, they returned.

And in autumn, they disappeared again.

The pattern repeated itself.

Then, in the third year, my family moved back into town.

We never saw the members of the aerial survey team again.

But every summer, whenever I looked up and saw one of those old-fashioned biplanes flying across a blue sky filled with white clouds, I knew:

The aerial survey team was back.

And perhaps, just perhaps,

Uncle Xiao Meng was up there flying it.

Written September 15, 2021