By Malcolm Moore
We have a series of four video interviews running on the Telegraph’s China page at the moment.
We did them for the 60th anniversary of Communist party rule in China.
We shot them in the streets of Shanghai, talking to some of the city’s older residents – the ones who could remember what life was like before the Communists took over in 1949. The participants were chosen entirely at random, but they all expressed strong support for the Party.
The subtitling on the videos, sadly, is a bit unclear, so I thought I would post the full transcript of each interview here, for anyone interested. There’s also an article which goes with them here.
Qian Xiuzhen 93
I was born in Dongtai County, Jiangsu. My parents moved to Shanghai when I was little. Life was very hard. My father did all kinds of small work and business. He used to sell bricks from the ruins left by bombs. I started to go to work at age of eight, at a Japanese textile plant. My younger sisters worked at a cigarette company in Pudong. We did not have enough food to eat or warm clothes to wear, we really lived an impoverished life.
The war broke out on August 3, 1937. The bombs landed on the streets of Shanghai and many people died. At the time, you could only buy 100ml of cooking oil per person a month and there was nowhere to buy rice. People had to queue for long time and they fought for rice for their families.
Policemen in the French Concession used to beat up the people scrambling for rice, and if you were lucky enough to get rice, you still might be robbed by other hungry people. It was a miserable life. During the eight years of the war with Japan, and during Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, people could not buy anything and basically had nothing to eat.
Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-shek’s son) set the price for all the products and people could hardly afford anything. Poor people had nothing to eat and the rich continued to be rich.
One month before Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945, I started a small business, selling eggs. And then Mao came and my life changed for the better. I was very happy with the change. Beforehand, almost every normal family faced the same difficulties that my family experienced. It was a world for the rich, not for ordinary people. I feel so sad now when I think about the past. Two of my family were killed during the Japanese invasion. My younger brother was mauled to death by a Japanese dog and my father was shot by Japanese soldiers.
After the founding of New China, on the first national day, I met the then Shanghai mayor, Su Yuchang. I gave a speech recalling how things used to be and I was very happy, very excited.
After 1949 I continued with my business, going to the suburbs to collect vegetables and then coming back downtown to sell them. It was hard work, but I was happy because it was a new society and people felt differently about hard work. People treated each other differently, and a bit of hardship was nothing. I kept my business going until 1982, and then when I retired I got a pension of 1,800 yuan (£180) a month. I have a good life now, a pleasant life, thanks to Chairman Mao.
In the past, this park was forbidden to Chinese. It was an exclusive park for French children, in this concession area. After the concession was reclaimed, and all the foreigners went home, the park became a public place and is now a nice park and very convenient for us old people.
My happiest time was after Mao came into power. Our social status improved. People were allowed to express their views. Before, people had no right to speak out. After the founding of new China, the first parade, I was on the front row during the first parade. Foreign journalists from America and the Soviet Union took lots pictures of me. I was carrying a flower basket, walking down Huaihai road, it was very festive, and there was much excitement. I went out during the parade every year for many years, rain or shine.
I have a monthly pension of 1,800 yuan and I find it sufficient. We have medical insurance and seeing doctor basically costs us nothing. I don’t have to worry about food, there is no need to scramble for anything. In the past, the Japanese mixed sand and stone in the rice we ate. It was hell then, and it is like heaven for me now.
Zhou Xingfen, 84
I was born in Chongde County, Zhejiang Province. My father was in the pelt business, mainly for export. They made lambskin coats for foreigners in Shanghai. Later the Japanese came, and the business ended. So when I was supposed to go to school, I didn’t get the chance to study much. My childhood was very hard in the countryside. No one in the area got a proper education. I did not even finish primary school.
I started to work after the founding of New China, during the Great Leap Forward, which called for women to start working. Before 1949, I stayed at home raising the children. Afterwards, I worked for a machinery plant in Shanghai.
In old China, women did not have a say, and the New China brought rights for women. In the old society, women were merely domestic helpers and stayed home doing chores. We were quite ignorant in the past. Nowadays, the kids get a college education, and some continue their studies abroad. For our generation, few received higher education or saw much of the world.
Nowadays I enjoy my old age with my children. I live in quite a big house. In the past we had a difficult time, the eye operation I just had, which cost 4,000 yuan, would have been unthinkable in the past. We could not afford to go to hospital. Now my children all make good money. They often invite us to eat out, which was impossible in the past.
I regret that I only had four years of primary schooling. Now it is totally different and boys and girls have equal opportunities. They can all go to college if they are capable. All my grandchildren went to university. These are my happiest years. I can now enjoy my life. My children have invited me for dinner on the National Holiday, for a family get-together and a happy time.
Zhang Weimin, 77
I was born in Shanghai. My father was a doctor, so my family was relatively well off at the time. I basically lived on my parents’ money before the founding of New China. But when my parents died, I had to rely on myself, so I joined the army after the Liberation. After years of army service, I was assigned to work at Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company.
In the years before 1949 my cousin ran a pharmacy and I was an apprentice, learning some medical and business skills. I was 17 when New China was founded. I saw people singing and dancing in army uniforms, and I thought it was a good idea to join the army, so I went. I served in the army for three years. Afterwards the civil affair bureau arranged work for us.
Since I had some knowledge of Western medicine, from my days as an apprentice, I was assigned to the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company. The Company was newly-founded at the time and lacked experienced employees, so I was able to display my expertise. I worked there till 1993. I have two sons, one daughter. Life became even better when they started to work.
The biggest difference between the old and the new China is that life is now more stable and comfortable, especially for older people. Before, life was not secure. Now we have a pension and medical insurance so we feel relieved. That’s why people support Mao, because he changed the social system fundamentally. Thanks to Chairman Mao the living standards of ordinary people have improved.
My happiest time was during my military service, as a single man with no burdens, no responsibility, a free life. I received a third class award at the army for good performance too. After my army service, I got married. And soon afterwards, the kids were born, one after another. Life was no longer easy for me, there were increased family responsibilities and my living standards decreased accordingly. But as the children grew up, life became better again. I felt happy when my children were born, I thought I had something to look forward to.
Now I have a pension of 1,800 yuan a month, and my wife gets 2,400 yuan. Before we needed to pay for the children, but now we live on our own, and the money is the average pension here in Shanghai. We are satisfied with the current social system, birth, old age, sickness and death, all taken care by the government, but was unimaginable in the old society.
Before 1949, people who were 60 years-old were a rarity, now you are only a little brother at 60, people normally live up to their 80s and 90s. The change of social system, and the improvement of living standards have prolonged people’s lives.
My view is that people shouldn’t compare to those above them but to those below them, that’s where they find self content and ease and have a positive life attitude and good spirit.
Kuai Guoying, 86
When I was a child, we did not have much food to eat. My parents were peasants. They farmed on land that belonged to someone else. We had to give the good crops to the land owner and we only got to keep bad ones. I had five siblings but only two survived.
My father died at 46, my mom at 67. We did not get to eat meat. Meat for poor people? No way, we didn’t even have grain, let alone meat. My mother starved to death during the three years of the Great Famine. We basically ate sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots. We cooked a pot of carrots or potato soup in the morning and that would last a whole day. Life was hard, very hard.
I got married at 20. My husband was 19 at the time. Two years after our marriage, my husband came to Shanghai. I came to Shanghai in 1951 and one year later we had our first son. I had my first daughter when I was 23.
My eldest son is 58 now, eldest daughter 62. They did not have much food to eat either, not like today.
My husband first earned our living pulling a cart, and later worked at the railway for over a year. After that, he was sent to the remote Yunnan to support regional development. We were a family of six, plus a younger brother, a grandma, a sister-in-law and a younger sister. I had to support a total of nine people at home, on the 20 yuan my husband sent back each month.
How could a large family live on this 20 yuan? No way. So I went out, found a job, and got paid over 40 yuan a month. I basically supported the family. My husband later got transferred to Ningbo, Zhejiang. He asked me to move to his place but I refused to go since I had to support the elders at home.
Life has been much better now, much better, thanks to the Party, really. It started around the time of the reforms, when our children became independent.
Life has changed for the better, bit by bit. My husband moved to Jiaxing, much closer to Shanghai, so he could come back home every night. His salary went up too. When our children were little, they did not have enough food or clothes. We bought back fabric and sew at night by the light of the lamp hanging from top of the mosquito net. We could not afford to go to the tailor’s. We mended all our clothes and shoes. Then the children grew up and got jobs.
My younger daughter married at 31. My two sons too. My elder daughter was the earliest, at 29. My younger daughter’s husband went to the United States first while my younger daughter stayed with her son in Shanghai for three years. She did not want to go to the States at first. “It costs too much”, she said, “at least 100,000 to 200,000 rmb”. I told her to go, “The family should stay together. All three of you. Money is not the issue, your brothers, sister and us can pull in some money.” She finally got to go and has lived there for around ten years now.
We used to live in a tiny house, over ten people all together, just a place of over ten square metres. Now I often say to my husband that life has been totally different for our grandchildren, not only from ours, but from their parents too. They have nothing to worry about, no need to worry about food, clothes. In the past, one had to work really hard to support four people, and now just the contrary.
Now we don’t have to give money to our children. We don’t need support from them either, they have their own family to provide for. We have enough. We can’t eat much now. Not like before, when there was no food to eat when we desperately wanted to eat. Now my only wish is to live with my younger son’s family. They have a son who has not set up his own family yet. I hope they would buy a bigger house so we can live together, so I don’t have to worry about the food, the cooking. My daughter-in-law is very good.
Tags: 60th Anniversary, Communist party
Why the Chinese support the Communist party – Telegraph Blogs
---
It's popular, fundamental, and even religious, in West to curse CPC, because without showing your bad part, it can’t prove my good part.
This is the same logic the Chinese are employing: without knowing the bad part of the past caused by democratic Western countries + semi-westernized Japan, they could not have appreciated the CPC, in general.
There is certainly a reason for both sides.
We have a series of four video interviews running on the Telegraph’s China page at the moment.
We did them for the 60th anniversary of Communist party rule in China.
We shot them in the streets of Shanghai, talking to some of the city’s older residents – the ones who could remember what life was like before the Communists took over in 1949. The participants were chosen entirely at random, but they all expressed strong support for the Party.
The subtitling on the videos, sadly, is a bit unclear, so I thought I would post the full transcript of each interview here, for anyone interested. There’s also an article which goes with them here.
Qian Xiuzhen 93
I was born in Dongtai County, Jiangsu. My parents moved to Shanghai when I was little. Life was very hard. My father did all kinds of small work and business. He used to sell bricks from the ruins left by bombs. I started to go to work at age of eight, at a Japanese textile plant. My younger sisters worked at a cigarette company in Pudong. We did not have enough food to eat or warm clothes to wear, we really lived an impoverished life.
The war broke out on August 3, 1937. The bombs landed on the streets of Shanghai and many people died. At the time, you could only buy 100ml of cooking oil per person a month and there was nowhere to buy rice. People had to queue for long time and they fought for rice for their families.
Policemen in the French Concession used to beat up the people scrambling for rice, and if you were lucky enough to get rice, you still might be robbed by other hungry people. It was a miserable life. During the eight years of the war with Japan, and during Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, people could not buy anything and basically had nothing to eat.
Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-shek’s son) set the price for all the products and people could hardly afford anything. Poor people had nothing to eat and the rich continued to be rich.
One month before Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945, I started a small business, selling eggs. And then Mao came and my life changed for the better. I was very happy with the change. Beforehand, almost every normal family faced the same difficulties that my family experienced. It was a world for the rich, not for ordinary people. I feel so sad now when I think about the past. Two of my family were killed during the Japanese invasion. My younger brother was mauled to death by a Japanese dog and my father was shot by Japanese soldiers.
After the founding of New China, on the first national day, I met the then Shanghai mayor, Su Yuchang. I gave a speech recalling how things used to be and I was very happy, very excited.
After 1949 I continued with my business, going to the suburbs to collect vegetables and then coming back downtown to sell them. It was hard work, but I was happy because it was a new society and people felt differently about hard work. People treated each other differently, and a bit of hardship was nothing. I kept my business going until 1982, and then when I retired I got a pension of 1,800 yuan (£180) a month. I have a good life now, a pleasant life, thanks to Chairman Mao.
In the past, this park was forbidden to Chinese. It was an exclusive park for French children, in this concession area. After the concession was reclaimed, and all the foreigners went home, the park became a public place and is now a nice park and very convenient for us old people.
My happiest time was after Mao came into power. Our social status improved. People were allowed to express their views. Before, people had no right to speak out. After the founding of new China, the first parade, I was on the front row during the first parade. Foreign journalists from America and the Soviet Union took lots pictures of me. I was carrying a flower basket, walking down Huaihai road, it was very festive, and there was much excitement. I went out during the parade every year for many years, rain or shine.
I have a monthly pension of 1,800 yuan and I find it sufficient. We have medical insurance and seeing doctor basically costs us nothing. I don’t have to worry about food, there is no need to scramble for anything. In the past, the Japanese mixed sand and stone in the rice we ate. It was hell then, and it is like heaven for me now.
Zhou Xingfen, 84
I was born in Chongde County, Zhejiang Province. My father was in the pelt business, mainly for export. They made lambskin coats for foreigners in Shanghai. Later the Japanese came, and the business ended. So when I was supposed to go to school, I didn’t get the chance to study much. My childhood was very hard in the countryside. No one in the area got a proper education. I did not even finish primary school.
I started to work after the founding of New China, during the Great Leap Forward, which called for women to start working. Before 1949, I stayed at home raising the children. Afterwards, I worked for a machinery plant in Shanghai.
In old China, women did not have a say, and the New China brought rights for women. In the old society, women were merely domestic helpers and stayed home doing chores. We were quite ignorant in the past. Nowadays, the kids get a college education, and some continue their studies abroad. For our generation, few received higher education or saw much of the world.
Nowadays I enjoy my old age with my children. I live in quite a big house. In the past we had a difficult time, the eye operation I just had, which cost 4,000 yuan, would have been unthinkable in the past. We could not afford to go to hospital. Now my children all make good money. They often invite us to eat out, which was impossible in the past.
I regret that I only had four years of primary schooling. Now it is totally different and boys and girls have equal opportunities. They can all go to college if they are capable. All my grandchildren went to university. These are my happiest years. I can now enjoy my life. My children have invited me for dinner on the National Holiday, for a family get-together and a happy time.
Zhang Weimin, 77
I was born in Shanghai. My father was a doctor, so my family was relatively well off at the time. I basically lived on my parents’ money before the founding of New China. But when my parents died, I had to rely on myself, so I joined the army after the Liberation. After years of army service, I was assigned to work at Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company.
In the years before 1949 my cousin ran a pharmacy and I was an apprentice, learning some medical and business skills. I was 17 when New China was founded. I saw people singing and dancing in army uniforms, and I thought it was a good idea to join the army, so I went. I served in the army for three years. Afterwards the civil affair bureau arranged work for us.
Since I had some knowledge of Western medicine, from my days as an apprentice, I was assigned to the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Company. The Company was newly-founded at the time and lacked experienced employees, so I was able to display my expertise. I worked there till 1993. I have two sons, one daughter. Life became even better when they started to work.
The biggest difference between the old and the new China is that life is now more stable and comfortable, especially for older people. Before, life was not secure. Now we have a pension and medical insurance so we feel relieved. That’s why people support Mao, because he changed the social system fundamentally. Thanks to Chairman Mao the living standards of ordinary people have improved.
My happiest time was during my military service, as a single man with no burdens, no responsibility, a free life. I received a third class award at the army for good performance too. After my army service, I got married. And soon afterwards, the kids were born, one after another. Life was no longer easy for me, there were increased family responsibilities and my living standards decreased accordingly. But as the children grew up, life became better again. I felt happy when my children were born, I thought I had something to look forward to.
Now I have a pension of 1,800 yuan a month, and my wife gets 2,400 yuan. Before we needed to pay for the children, but now we live on our own, and the money is the average pension here in Shanghai. We are satisfied with the current social system, birth, old age, sickness and death, all taken care by the government, but was unimaginable in the old society.
Before 1949, people who were 60 years-old were a rarity, now you are only a little brother at 60, people normally live up to their 80s and 90s. The change of social system, and the improvement of living standards have prolonged people’s lives.
My view is that people shouldn’t compare to those above them but to those below them, that’s where they find self content and ease and have a positive life attitude and good spirit.
Kuai Guoying, 86
When I was a child, we did not have much food to eat. My parents were peasants. They farmed on land that belonged to someone else. We had to give the good crops to the land owner and we only got to keep bad ones. I had five siblings but only two survived.
My father died at 46, my mom at 67. We did not get to eat meat. Meat for poor people? No way, we didn’t even have grain, let alone meat. My mother starved to death during the three years of the Great Famine. We basically ate sweet potatoes, potatoes and carrots. We cooked a pot of carrots or potato soup in the morning and that would last a whole day. Life was hard, very hard.
I got married at 20. My husband was 19 at the time. Two years after our marriage, my husband came to Shanghai. I came to Shanghai in 1951 and one year later we had our first son. I had my first daughter when I was 23.
My eldest son is 58 now, eldest daughter 62. They did not have much food to eat either, not like today.
My husband first earned our living pulling a cart, and later worked at the railway for over a year. After that, he was sent to the remote Yunnan to support regional development. We were a family of six, plus a younger brother, a grandma, a sister-in-law and a younger sister. I had to support a total of nine people at home, on the 20 yuan my husband sent back each month.
How could a large family live on this 20 yuan? No way. So I went out, found a job, and got paid over 40 yuan a month. I basically supported the family. My husband later got transferred to Ningbo, Zhejiang. He asked me to move to his place but I refused to go since I had to support the elders at home.
Life has been much better now, much better, thanks to the Party, really. It started around the time of the reforms, when our children became independent.
Life has changed for the better, bit by bit. My husband moved to Jiaxing, much closer to Shanghai, so he could come back home every night. His salary went up too. When our children were little, they did not have enough food or clothes. We bought back fabric and sew at night by the light of the lamp hanging from top of the mosquito net. We could not afford to go to the tailor’s. We mended all our clothes and shoes. Then the children grew up and got jobs.
My younger daughter married at 31. My two sons too. My elder daughter was the earliest, at 29. My younger daughter’s husband went to the United States first while my younger daughter stayed with her son in Shanghai for three years. She did not want to go to the States at first. “It costs too much”, she said, “at least 100,000 to 200,000 rmb”. I told her to go, “The family should stay together. All three of you. Money is not the issue, your brothers, sister and us can pull in some money.” She finally got to go and has lived there for around ten years now.
We used to live in a tiny house, over ten people all together, just a place of over ten square metres. Now I often say to my husband that life has been totally different for our grandchildren, not only from ours, but from their parents too. They have nothing to worry about, no need to worry about food, clothes. In the past, one had to work really hard to support four people, and now just the contrary.
Now we don’t have to give money to our children. We don’t need support from them either, they have their own family to provide for. We have enough. We can’t eat much now. Not like before, when there was no food to eat when we desperately wanted to eat. Now my only wish is to live with my younger son’s family. They have a son who has not set up his own family yet. I hope they would buy a bigger house so we can live together, so I don’t have to worry about the food, the cooking. My daughter-in-law is very good.
Tags: 60th Anniversary, Communist party
Why the Chinese support the Communist party – Telegraph Blogs
---
It's popular, fundamental, and even religious, in West to curse CPC, because without showing your bad part, it can’t prove my good part.
This is the same logic the Chinese are employing: without knowing the bad part of the past caused by democratic Western countries + semi-westernized Japan, they could not have appreciated the CPC, in general.
There is certainly a reason for both sides.
So far I am disappointed in the sense that I hear more clanking of the pot than detecting the aroma of freshly made basmati rice.
to 
plutocracy - who eats his rice, and bang other people's empty pots. 
