Author: Yun Wang

The Dictionary Compilation Office had two gentlemen (Mr. Wang Shuda and Mr. Sun Chongyi) who, under the recommendation of Mr. Li Jinxian, went to Hebei Beijing Normal College (now known as Hebei Normal University) in the 1960s to establish the Chinese department and engage in teaching and research. They experienced a unique period in Chinese history there and continued to tirelessly contribute until their later years. Following in their footsteps, I have come to Xuanhua, Hebei Province.

Xuanhua, located in the hinterland of the Yanshan Mountains to the northwest of Beijing, is a part of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, and is 160 kilometers from Beijing. For Beijingers, it’s an unimpressive place where people wouldn’t stop even if they passed by. This is my first time here, only to search for the traces of my grandfather’s life half a century ago.

In 1969, according to the political situation at that time, a movement to “relocate to mountainous areas, decentralized education, dig deep holes, store large amounts of grain, and not seek hegemony” swept across universities nationwide. Hebei Beijing Normal University, where my grandfather taught, was relocated from Beijing to Xuanhua as arranged by the state, and was renamed Hebei Normal University. My 65-year-old grandfather also moved here, beginning a life of hardship and displacement with the students and faculty.

The early summer in Xuanhua is quite comfortable. As soon as I got off the bus, I immediately experienced the saying, “A gust of wind in Xuanhua blows from spring to winter,” and I could tell that the wind was mixed with fine sand. However, the local people around me told me, “Today is a rare good weather.” No wonder the students of Hebei Normal University would have sand in their hair, ears, nostrils, and necks every time they returned indoors from outside. The sunshine was very brilliant, and everyone walking on the street had a touch of the simple “highland red.”

While dining at the most famous local halal restaurant “Chaoyang Lou”, I struck up a small conversation with the middle-aged man sitting at the same table and tentatively asked him where the “Normal University” was. To my surprise, he enthusiastically told me that the university was in the south of Yanghe River and had moved away a long time ago, but Bus No.4 still retains the “Normal University” stop. The Normal University used to be very famous here, and you could often see its students and teachers in the city. Indeed, it was just as the online “legend” describes. It seems that the Normal University still holds a considerable place in the hearts of the people in Xuanhua.

Back then, the Normal University built four campuses on the banks of the Yanghe River, 6 kilometers from Xuanhua City. They were called the University Village, Mathematics & Foreign Languages Village, Literature & History Village, and Family Village, respectively. The students from the Chinese and History departments, as well as teachers without families, lived in the Literature & History Village. All houses were rows of bungalows with a charming name “Gandalei + Gold Inlaid Jade”. The edges of the doors, windows, and corners of the houses were made of red bricks, and the walls were filled with adobe. The dorms were mostly two rooms with one door, and some were one room with one door. There was a round arch-shaped partition in the middle of the two rooms, dividing them into inner and outer rooms. Five people lived in the inner room and three in the outer room. The dormitories didn’t have bathrooms, running water, or heating. The toilets were at the corners of the yard, and the running water was in front or beside the houses. Each village was surrounded by red brick walls about 1.5 meters high, the lower half of which was solid and the upper half was a lattice wall. Male students often vaulted over the wall with a push of their hands. There were canteens and hot water rooms in the village, and only the University Village had a bathhouse. People had to walk several miles to the University Village to take a bath. The environment was not only tough, but teachers’ incomes were also low, and their lives were quite pinched for more than a decade. There was a popular local jingle: “From afar, they look like refugees; up close, they look like beggars; upon a closer look, they are from Hebei Normal University.”

Under such circumstances, Hebei Normal University resumed its enrollment in 1970, offering majors in Chinese, History, and Political Education. My grandfather, like all teachers, moved into the school and began teaching. In that particular era, the old textbooks could no longer be used, and new ones hadn’t been compiled yet. Teachers prepared their lessons very seriously before class, especially these old gentlemen. During class, they often read their pre-written drafts page by page. After finishing a page, they would turn it over and put it aside, then continue to the next page, daring not to deviate from the script. Although students did not like this rote teaching, they listened carefully and took detailed notes. Having gone through the Cultural Revolution, they treasured the opportunity to attend university immensely. At this time, the living conditions in the school were very poor. A perennial task for each dormitory’s duty student was to empty the chamber pot every morning, then place it on a slightly distant piece of land to cool. Due to the distance of the public toilets and the cold weather in Xuanhua, a chamber pot became standard equipment in every dormitory. The toilets were also quite rudimentary, with squat pits connected to outdoor latrines. When students met teachers in the toilet, they would nod politely and exchange greetings. Brick-built dining tables and clothesline ropes were at the dormitory entrances, and the courtyard was relatively bright. Meals were rationed, and there were almost no entertainment activities, but labor participation was a constant. Once, in order to build a road, the university mobilized students to pick up stones on the Yanghe river bank. Red flags were fluttering on the miles-long bank, and it was crowded with students from the university. Stones ranging from the size of eggs to fists were all collected.

The navigation quickly guided me to the “Normal University” stop of Bus No.4. The stop sign stood on a quiet tree-lined street, with the words “Normal University” clearly identifiable on a green adhesive paper. This was a T-shaped intersection. I asked some locals doing farm work by the roadside where the monument for the “Literature & History Village” of the Normal University was located, but their answers were all over the place. Finally, a middle-aged woman said she had seen it a few years ago, just up ahead, and casually pointed in its direction, but she hadn’t seen it in recent years. I walked in the direction she pointed, and the roadside was filled with low-rise bungalows made from red bricks and adobe. The houses were mostly in rows, and on the dilapidated walls, there were new blue and white doorplates reading “Teacher’s Institute Middle 14 Row”… This was indeed the old site of the Normal University! Searching my memory of the book “Past Events on the Yanghe River Bank”, I was certain that this was the location of the former University Village - with the low wall that one could vault over, what seemed to be a small grocery store, and the only bathhouse in the entire school. A few old men confirmed my guess, they assured me that the monument had been moved into the military compound, and suggested that I could inquire about it from the people at the compound’s gate.

Upon closer inspection of these houses, although some have been fitted with new doors, some have had their courtyards repaired, their original appearance is still visible. The houses are very low, feeling not much taller than me, and the windows are small, providing poor lighting. Just these features alone give me a sense of the hardships of life back then. It’s hard to imagine conducting academic work in such a place, let alone living a normal life, which for someone like me today, seems utterly astonishing, yet my grandfather and his colleagues managed to live and work here for a decade! It’s said that every time my grandfather returned to Beijing, my grandmother would always make lots of pickles for him to take back. Thinking back to the son of Mr. Sun Chongyi mentioning how his father, being a Hui Muslim, received special care and was allowed to cook porridge in a small kitchen. A dish of pickles and a bowl of porridge, this was the best treatment these old scholars could get. Apart from the hardships, the dullness and monotony of life were also undeniable. There were no libraries here, let alone cultural and entertainment facilities. My grandfather cared deeply about current affairs. It’s said that he purposely brought a transistor radio from Beijing, an American model. In Xuanhua, it could only receive three stations: Zhangjiakou station, Central station II, and Voice of America. The signal for Voice of America was exceptionally good, much to my grandfather’s surprise. Some of the younger generation joked that it was because his radio was American-made and thus had a better “relationship” with America, to which my grandfather nodded in agreement. The winters in Xuanhua were extremely cold, being the first stop for Siberian cold air. Even if you had a stove in these small adobe houses, it wouldn’t be very warm. My grandfather loved reading and was known in the school as a living dictionary of the Republic of China era. Not only did he know a lot about scholarship, but he could also give detailed accounts of current affairs during the Beiyang government period. Once, in order to read by the stove, he was on stove duty, sitting by the stove with a book. By the time he finished reading, the fire in the stove had also gone out.

Nowadays, the best buildings on the streets of Xuanhua are all owned by the military, and this place is no exception. The high gates, large courtyards, and slogans such as “Fierce Tiger Division” and “The sanctity of sentries is inviolable” all inspire awe. I walked towards the gate, and a young soldier looked at me incomprehensibly through the bars, looking like a confused middle school student. I asked him if the memorial of the Teachers’ College was in the courtyard and expressed my wish to visit. An older soldier came over and confirmed that the monument was indeed inside the courtyard. I expressed my sincere desire and earnest emotions, and after hesitating for a while, he said that since it was a holiday, he would have to ask for the leader’s permission.

After a while, the soldier returned and informed me that due to the holiday, my request to enter was not approved. He also said that there were often people like me who came from other places to visit, but now they were not allowed in. I could only drive around here in hopes of discovering something. Unfortunately, I could see nothing. Apart from the former college village, everything else had been leveled to the ground, enclosed within the military compound, and left barren for many years. A few years ago, people could still see the memorial pavilion and monument of the Literature and History Village, but now they are all enclosed within the high walls of the courtyard, and traces of this part of history are being slowly erased.

Back in the day, there was a farm two or three kilometers away from the school, which was the most important classroom for the students. Every year in April and May, when the earth warmed up and the land on the Yanghe bank melted, it was the season for transplanting rice seedlings, and both teachers and students had to participate in the labor. The weather in Xuanhua was extremely unpredictable. One moment it could be a clear sky, and the next, it could turn into a dense cloud cover with the arrival of a storm. Although the mornings and evenings were somewhat freezing, the midday sun directly hit people’s heads and backs bent from planting seedlings, causing bouts of pain. More terrifying was that soaking legs in water made the cold penetrate the bones like needles. There were leeches in the rice fields, which were disgusting and scary. Every time people worked on the farm, they couldn’t return to school at noon, and lunch was delivered by the school to the fields. The rush for food after work was the most exciting part of the experience.

Autumn was the harvest season. Endless golden rice fields and calamus growing in water ditches and river banks made for a beautiful picture. Whether it was harvesting or planting seedlings, it was something my grandfather had never done before, and he shouldn’t have been doing it at his age. But he had no other choice. The students at that time were very simple, they would try to let the elderly do what they could, and most of the elders also did not want to accept too much care. One year, my father went to Xuanhua to visit my grandfather. From a distance, he saw him in plain clothes and a straw hat, sitting on the edge of the field, blowing the wind from outside the Great Wall, indistinguishable from the local farmers. A scholar studying writing and ancient Chinese was thus turned into an unqualified farmer.

After a long drive, I didn’t find the rice fields and people planting rice seedlings. The Yanghe River today is far less beautiful than I imagined. Without clear water, it loses its spirit and is full of desolation. Uncoordinated construction along the river bank resulted in newly built residential communities and messy repair shops. Some river channels were dug up chaotically, and some were fenced off and charged for entry. The withered reeds in clumps were shaking with the wind from beyond the Great Wall. Yet the former Yanghe River bank, despite being a poor area, was picturesque and filled with boundless vitality by a group of happy young people and their teachers. It was once the pride of the people in Xuanhua.

Xuanhua does have culture, be it traditional or borrowed, whether it’s the heavy city walls or the food that still tastes good. The older people on the streets can teach me history or Chinese. They miss the Hebei Normal University and regret its departure. Young people have no feelings about this history. They don’t understand, nor will they explore. Their lives are simple enough not to think about anything, and so rich that they have no time to think. When the Normal University moved away, most of the campus was indeed sold to the military. The memorial erected by the teachers and students of Wenshi Village with deep affection is also in vain, as it is now hard to find.

The Hebei Normal University in Xuanhua is not much in the long history of China, just like my grandfather and Professor Sun Chongyi, they are just a speck among many Chinese scholars. How many descendants will still seek to trace and visit? In today’s Xuanhua, what is worth seeing is still those old buildings, but what is exaggerated is what I can’t understand, full of restlessness and disorder, leaving only simple people in the cultural desert, reminiscing about the civilization they once had.

June 2023, in Beijing