我的童年記憶可以追溯到大約4歲左右，因為我清楚地記得我的第二個妹妹是在我們家樓上出生的。那時，我第一次清楚地看到了我父親的模樣。我記得他從高淳縣帶回了許多板栗，還有風幹的野雞，那野雞拖著漂亮的長長的野雞翎讓我終身難忘。那個時候，他從高淳縣調回了武進縣，從那時起，他就和我們住在一起。一開始，我有些害怕他，感覺有點陌生。
在我小的時候，我被認為是一個神童，因為我3歲的時候就在一次群眾大會上背誦了毛主席的三篇文章《愚公移山》、《為人民服務》和《紀念白求恩》。我至今仍然記得《為人民服務》中有關張思德的那一段。當時正值文化大革命，各種大會廣播中都在重複這些內容，由此，我機械地記住了這些。當然，也許我確實有一些語言天賦，因為在1981年我進入西北工業大學讀書，第一個學期就參加了全校英語競賽，我是一年級中唯一進前50名的，排在第22位。事實上，我在班裏是英語最好的，也許現在仍然是。目前，我擔任惠特曼大學的圖書館館長，每天處理大量的文本應用，並擔任多個英語期刊的審稿人，發表了數十篇英語論文。對我來說，寫作和審稿都是輕鬆的任務。
我從小就很敏感。介紹我父母結婚的呂老師是個喜歡說閑話的女人，她喜歡和城裏的一個老師一起說我媽媽的壞話。每當我從家裏吃完午飯走到學校（七八分鍾的路程，學校就在我們村邊上）進了幼兒園，他們就好像警覺起來，立刻停止了交談。但我媽媽總是讓我尊重呂老師，因為她是我幹媽的嫂子，我幹爹是呂老師的丈夫的弟弟。我的幹媽是一個特別善良的婦女，她生了5個孩子，2男3女，他們的孩子們也特別好，我都是叫他們哥哥姐姐。特別是最小的幹姐姐，總是帶我去割草，或者叫我去玩牌。我幹媽家都是農村戶口，有很多自留地，每天早上，他們就會送一大籃子的青菜或者蘿卜等蔬菜給我們家。我們是從小吃他們的菜長大的。他們家還養豬，每年殺豬後都要送一大塊肉給我們。每年大年夜都是叫我去他們家過，因為他們家有肉吃，特別是做得很好的豬頭肉。呂老師的丈夫也是很和藹的一個老頭，我們叫他無錫爸爸，他是市裏印刷廠的老技師，平時住在市裏的宿舍裏，隻有周末才回鄉下。我幹爹幹哥哥們還經常幫我家挑水，那時候都是飲用河水，直到七十年代村裏才挖了兩口井。農忙的時候還幫我家割麥子，盡管我家隻有一點點自留地。我幹媽現在還健在，已經92歲了。
我的堂伯父，也就是我爸爸的堂兄，也有5個孩子，4個女兒1個兒子。我的堂姐堂哥們也都很善良，他們稱我的奶奶為"奶奶"，我稱他們的爺爺（我爺爺的二哥）為"爺爺"。我上幼兒園的時候基本上每天都是我隔壁的三堂姐帶我去的。兩家的院子之間隔著一堵矮牆。我堂伯家也都是農村戶口，所以他們種了很多蔬菜，也常常把一大籃子蔬菜放在矮牆上送給我們吃。因為我爸爸身體不好，而我媽媽甚至舍不得買每斤三分錢的西紅柿，所以我們在生活上一直靠左鄰右舍的幫助，特別是日常所需的蔬菜。我堂伯的兒子也算是爭氣，他在鄉下讀北港中學，居然在1980年考上了西安冶金建築大學。他學的是冶金，在畢業後分配到揚州一家鋼鐵廠工作。
我上的是常州市最好的學校——常州中學。1981年的高考，我考了468分，按照那個時候的分數，足以進入北大或者清華。我之所以選擇西北工業大學有具體原因，這裏就不多說了。另外，我語文考試拿了90分，作文占總分的60%（100分），也就是60分。作文的題目是"毀樹容易種樹難"。也許是因為我平時的語文成績一直很好，我寫作文還算順利，用比喻的方式把國家比作一棵大樹，烈士們為共和國而獻身。"四人幫"則被比作寄生蟲，侵蝕和破壞這棵大樹。意圖表達得很清晰，政治上是正確的。再加上我漂亮的楷書，作文幾乎拿了滿分。其他40分中，有20分是古文，也是我的一項強項。我從小就在讀《古文觀止》，這本書是文革後我家僅存的幾本線裝書之一，所以我能認出繁體字，是自學的。1981年的常州高考，我同學張雷的語文成績隻有60多分。張雷在當時也是我的好朋友，現在是英國華威大學的經濟學教授和四川大學等大學的特聘教授。
在童年的記憶裏，親戚們也都很友好。舅舅阿姨們經常幫助我們。年底的時候，舅舅阿姨家會殺豬，小表弟小表妹們會給我們送肉。我大姨夫在菜市場工作，每年我表姐都會步行好幾裏地給我們送豆腐和其他豆製品。。
我們在童年的時光裏過得非常樸素。我一雙襪子能穿好幾年。我穿的外套是用我媽媽的舊衣服改的，經過改剪才合身。全家的鞋都是我媽媽用布做底的。盡管我們在經濟上很拮據，但我們在家庭中和睦相處。有時，我們的父母會爭吵，看到他們打架我們會感到害怕。在我們心裏，我們總是站在我們媽媽那一邊。但我父親脾氣很大，如果事情不順他的意，他會變得很倔強。
我爸給我規定了每天用毛筆寫一百個漢字的規矩。他給了我一本九宮格的字帖。可惜由於缺乏指導，我並沒有掌握，隻是盲目地練習而沒有抓住字形的本質。我父親精通書法，自1948年起就是農工民主黨的黨員。在解放戰爭時期，他曾是第20軍文工團的成員，主要負責寫標語。他參加過一些重要的戰役，比如渡江戰役和解放上海。
夏天的時候，我們會坐在木板上，他會給我們講孫悟空的故事，或者他在地下情報工作中的經曆。在抗日戰爭中，他曾參與過情報的傳遞。那時，他還是個高中生，經常穿梭於茅山新四軍基地和常州之間傳遞情報。有時，他甚至得步行到像鬆江（上海附近）和蘇北的地方傳遞信息。
值得一提的是，在南方地區，一個常見的消暑方式是拿掉門板，放在前院或庭院的兩個長凳上，做成一個臨時的床。在講故事的時候，我堂伯家和附近的家庭的孩子們會聚在一起。有時，甚至鄰裏的成年人也會過來聽他講故事。我父親不僅會講故事，還經常敘述一些科學家如楊振寧和李政道的經曆。根據我父親的講述，他原計劃高中畢業後出國留學，打算向上海的富有的舅媽借錢。然而，地下黨組織告訴他，全國解放即將到來。因此，他被派到中共華中地區地委幹部學校進一步學習。完成學業後，他被分配加入了第20軍政治部的文工團。
和他一起去進華中地委幹部學校的年輕人還有胡平等，胡平出身雇農家庭，屬於根正苗紅，胡平還做過福建省委書記。但我爸爸出身不好，因為我爺爺是國名黨下級軍官，生死不明。加上我爸爸被捕過兩次，所以我爸爸一直生活經曆坎坷，從來沒有得到過提拔。
我爸爸他參加完土改後，在縣法院做書記員，可在鎮壓反革命運動後就被調到了稅務局。起因是因為法院判處常州的國名黨中統特務頭子居一死刑。為此我爸曾經半夜到法院庭長家裏去為居一求情。因為我爸在做地下工作時候經常和居一來往，而且是結拜兄弟，我爸利用這層關係搞到很多有價值的情報，因此居一也算對革命有功。我爸有次被國民黨其他特務拘捕，居一曾經利用自己的身份偷偷放了我爸。但是居一最後還是被人民政府鎮壓槍斃了。這件事情可見我爸的政治幼稚性。
後來我爸就因此被調出了法院，被調到稅務局工作。盡管如此，他也沒有後悔，每月把有限的薪水支援居一的遺孀和孩子，每月都給10元錢。居一的孩子們都把我爸爸叫做舅舅。我爸因此事搭上了自己的政治前途，但他從來沒有後悔過，他是一個有情有義的男子漢。
我爸在五十年代中期感染了肺結核，因此他決定辭掉公職，那時候辭掉工作可以換一筆錢，換到錢後他到上海去接受治療。在上海期間，他住在楊浦區他表姐家裏，湊巧當時的楊浦區委書記是我爸在20軍政治部的老上級，在我爸康複後，這位老領導推薦我爸去上了江蘇農學院讀大學。這就是我爸早期的經曆。
他的辭職給他後來晚年申請離休待遇帶來了很大的不便和差別。如果不辭職，他可以享受抗戰時期老幹部的待遇。但他中途辭職了，公職生涯不連續。好在他48年加入的農工民主黨是鐵的事實，所以最後還是給了他解放時期參加革命的老幹部待遇離休。這些都是後話。
我爸爸的故事有時是反反複複的，所以我到現在仍然記憶猶新。每當聽完我爸爸吹牛，我們也早就進入了夢鄉。
My childhood memories go back to around age 4 as I clearly remember my second sister being born upstairs in our house. That's when I saw my father clearly for the first time. I remember that he brought back a lot of chestnuts and dried pheasants from Gaochun County. The pheasants had beautiful long pheasant feathers that I will never forget. At that time, he was transferred back to Wujin County from Gaochun County, and since then, he has been living with us. At first, I was a little scared of him and felt a little strange.
When I was young, I was considered a child prodigy because I recited three of Chairman Mao's articles "The Foolish Old Man Moves Mountains", "Serving the People" and "In Memory of Bethune" at a mass meeting when I was 3 years old. I still remember the paragraph about Zhang Side in "Serving the People". It was the time of the Cultural Revolution, and these contents were repeated in various conference broadcasts, so I memorized them mechanically. Of course, maybe I do have some language talent, because in 1981 I entered Northwestern Polytechnical University and participated in the school-wide English competition in my first semester. I was the only one in the top 50 in my first grade, ranking 22nd. In fact, I was the best English speaker in the class and probably still am. Currently, I serve as the Librarian at Whitman University, where I handle a large number of text applications every day. I serve as a reviewer for several English-language journals and have published dozens of English-language papers. For me, both writing and reviewing are easy tasks.
I have been very sensitive since I was a child. The teacher Lu who introduced my parents to get married was a woman who liked to gossip. She liked to speak ill of my mother with a teacher in the city. Whenever I walked from home to school after lunch (a seven-eight-minute walk, the school is on the edge of our village) and entered the kindergarten, they seemed to be alert and immediately stopped talking. But my mother always told me to respect Teacher Lu because she is my godmother’s sister-in-law and my godfather is the younger brother of Teacher Lu’s husband. My godmother is a very kind-hearted woman. She gave birth to 5 children, 2 boys and 3 girls. Their children are also very good. I always call them brother and sister. Especially the youngest god-sister, she always takes me to mow the grass or asks me to play cards. My godmother’s family has a rural registered permanent residence and has a lot of private land. Every morning, they will send a large basket of green vegetables, radishes and other vegetables to our family. We grew up eating their food. Their family also raises pigs, and every year after killing the pigs, they give us a large piece of meat. Every New Year's Eve, they ask me to spend time at their house because they have meat, especially well-cooked pork head meat. Teacher Lu’s husband is also a very kind old man. We call him Wuxi Dad. He is an old technician at the city’s printing factory. He usually lives in a dormitory in the city and only returns to the countryside on weekends. My godfather and brothers often helped my family carry water. At that time, we all drank river water. It was not until the 1970s that two wells were dug in the village. When the farming season is busy, I help my family cut wheat, even though my family only has a little private land. My godmother is still alive and well, she is 92 years old.
My father's cousin also has 5 children, 4 daughters and 1 son. My cousins are also very kind. They call my grandma "grandma" and I call their grandpa (my grandpa's second brother) "grandpa". When I was in kindergarten, my third cousin next door took me there almost every day. There is a low wall between the two courtyards. My cousin’s family also has a rural registered permanent residence, so they grow a lot of vegetables and often put a big basket of vegetables on the low wall for us to eat. Because my father is in poor health and my mother is reluctant to even buy tomatoes that cost three cents per catty, we have always relied on the help of neighbors in our daily lives, especially the vegetables we need every day. My cousin's son is also quite successful. He studied at Beigang Middle School in the countryside and actually got admitted to Xi'an Metallurgical and Architecture University in 1980. He studied metallurgy and was assigned to work in a steel factory in Yangzhou after graduation.
I went to Changzhou Middle School, the best school in Changzhou City. In the college entrance examination in 1981, I scored 468 points. According to the score at that time, it was enough to enter Peking University or Tsinghua University. There are specific reasons why I chose Northwestern Polytechnical University, which I won’t go into here. In addition, I scored 90 points in the Chinese language test, and the composition accounted for 60% of the total score (100 points), which is 60 points. The title of the essay is "It's easy to destroy trees but hard to plant them." Maybe it’s because my usual Chinese scores have always been very good, and my writing went smoothly. I used metaphors to compare the country to a big tree, and the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the Republic. The "Gang of Four" was compared to parasites, eroding and destroying this big tree. The intent was clear and politically correct. Coupled with my beautiful regular script, my composition almost got full marks. Among the other 40 points, 20 points are for classical Chinese, which is also one of my strengths. I have been reading "Guwen Guanzhi" since I was a child. This book is one of the few thread-bound books left in my family after the Cultural Revolution, so I can recognize traditional Chinese characters and learned it by myself. In the Changzhou College Entrance Examination in 1981, my classmate Zhang Lei’s Chinese score was only over 60 points. Zhang Lei was also a good friend of mine at the time. He is now a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in the UK and a distinguished professor at Sichuan University and other universities.
In my childhood memories, relatives are also very friendly. Uncles and aunts often help us. At the end of the year, my uncle and aunt’s family would kill pigs, and my cousins would give us meat. My eldest uncle works in a vegetable market, and every year my cousin walks several miles to deliver tofu and other soy products to us. .
We lived very simply during our childhood. A pair of socks lasts me years. The coat I wore was made from my mother's old clothes and cut to fit. My mother’s shoes for the whole family were made with cloth soles. Even though we were struggling financially, we lived in harmony as a family. Sometimes our parents argue and we get scared when we see them fighting. In our hearts, we always side with our mom. But my father had a very bad temper and would become very stubborn if things didn't go his way.
My dad set a rule for me to write a hundred Chinese characters with a brush every day. He gave me a copybook with a nine-square grid. Unfortunately, due to lack of guidance, I did not master it and just practiced blindly without grasping the essence of the glyphs. My father was proficient in calligraphy and had been a member of the Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party since 1948. During the War of Liberation, he was a member of the 20th Army Art Troupe and was mainly responsible for writing slogans. He participated in some important battles, such as the Battle of Crossing the Yangtze River and the liberation of Shanghai.
In the summer, we would sit on the wooden board and he would tell us stories about Sun Wukong or his experiences in underground intelligence work. During the Anti-Japanese War, he participated in the transmission of intelligence. At that time, he was still a high school student and often shuttled between Maoshan New Fourth Army Base and Changzhou to deliver intelligence. Sometimes, he even had to walk to places like Songjiang (near Shanghai) and Northern Jiangsu to deliver messages.
It is worth mentioning that in the south, a common way to cool down is to remove the door panels and place them on two benches in the front yard or courtyard to make a temporary bed. During story time, children from my cousin’s family and nearby families would gather together. Sometimes even adults from the neighborhood would come and listen to his stories. My father not only tells stories, but also often recounts the experiences of scientists such as Yang Chenning and Li Zhengdao. According to my father’s story, he originally planned to study abroad after graduating from high school and planned to borrow money from his wealthy aunt in Shanghai. However, the underground party organization told him that national liberation was coming. Therefore, he was sent to the Central China Prefectural Committee Cadre School for further study. After completing his studies, he was assigned to join the art troupe of the Political Department of the 20th Army.
Among the young people who went to the Central China Prefectural Committee Cadre School with him were Hu Ping. Hu Ping was born in a family of farm laborers and belonged to Genzheng Miaohong. Hu Ping also served as Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee. But my father’s background was not good, because my grandfather was a junior officer of the Kuomintang Party, and his life and death are unknown. In addition, my father was arrested twice, so my father has always experienced ups and downs in life and has never been promoted.
After my father participated in the land reform, he worked as a clerk in the county court, but after suppressing the counter-revolutionary movement, he was transferred to the tax bureau. The reason was that the court sentenced Ju Yi, the leader of the Central Unification Secret Service of the Kuomintang Party in Changzhou, to death. For this reason, my father once went to the court president's house in the middle of the night to plead for Juyi. Because my dad often interacted with Ju Yi when he was working underground, and they were sworn brothers. My dad used this relationship to get a lot of valuable information, so Ju Yi can be considered a contributor to the revolution. My father was once arrested by other agents of the Kuomintang. Ju Yi used his identity to secretly release my father. But Juyi was eventually suppressed and shot by the people's government. This incident shows my father’s political naivety.
Later, my father was transferred out of the court because of this and was transferred to work in the tax bureau. Despite this, he has no regrets and uses his limited salary to support the widow and children of the first family, giving him 10 yuan every month. The children in Juyi all call my dad uncle. My father's political future was hampered by this incident, but he has never regretted it. He is a man of love and justice.
My father was infected with tuberculosis in the mid-1950s, so he decided to quit his job. At that time, he could exchange his job for some money. After getting the money, he went to Shanghai for treatment. While he was in Shanghai, he lived at his cousin's house in Yangpu District. It happened that the secretary of the Yangpu District Party Committee at the time was my dad's old superior in the Political Department of the 20th Army. After my dad recovered, the old leader recommended that my dad go to Jiangsu Agricultural University. College and university. This was my dad’s early experience.
His resignation brought great inconvenience and difference to his subsequent application for retirement benefits in his later years. If he does not resign, he can enjoy the treatment of a veteran cadre during the Anti-Japanese War. But he resigned midway and his public career was discontinuous. Fortunately, the fact that he joined the Peasants and Workers Democratic Party in 1948 was an ironclad fact, so he was finally given the retirement benefits that a veteran cadre who participated in the revolution during the liberation period received. These are all things for later.
My dad’s stories are sometimes repetitive, so they are still fresh in my mind. Whenever we listen to my dad bragging, we fall asleep long ago.
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