Anyone from cities of mainland China, if you had never been in the times when rationing system was applied to life necessity supplies, congratulations, you are at least 10 years to half a generation younger than me.
Real rationing, or sort of ? I am not sure. Certainly, in cities, it's far from any wartime rationing when supply was simply got cut off that everyone was forced to limit food consumptions. During the time, I mean when I was a child, alongside currency there were tickets for food, clothing, etc., basically, everything originated from agricultural products. No matter how much money you had you could only purchase the amount of food or clothing up to the tickets in your hand that were allocated to a family. The supply was sufficient for my childhood life style, I heard a lot but never saw or experienced starvation, my family couldn’t consume all our monthly ration, the leftover volumes were traded for equivalent food or clothing tickets. Anyone don’t know what I am talking about? Congrats again, young people.
In some areas with food shortage, porridge was important daily food. In order to feed more mouths, the meal was thinned down with a lot of water to make up the volume. Could this be called childhood 飯特稀?
National food tickets samples
assorted local food tickets samples
clothing ticket samples
