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墨書 Inktalez
Not long after returning from the Loess Mine, my mother is also going to change jobs. Since I can remember, my mother has always been a farmer in the countryside. However, she graduated from high school in 1966 as part of the "Old Three Classes," which made her one of the most educated individuals among the farmers in our Production Team and even the entire Platoon. Her job has undergone many changes over the years.
My mother told me that in the year she graduated, due to the storm of the Cultural Revolution sweeping across the country, she did not receive an official diploma like her classmates before her but instead stayed at school waiting for assignment. During this time, her third junior high school in Dongkou County was severely understaffed, so she and some other outstanding students took on roles as teachers in the middle school department. As the movement further expanded and deepened, fearing persecution and being implicated, my mother did not continue and instead returned to her hometown to farm until early 1969 when she married and moved to Zhu Shan Bay, continuing to work the land.
Having once worked as a teacher, my mother later became a substitute teacher multiple times at the district's junior high school, the Commune's junior high school, and the platoon's joint elementary school. However, for reasons unknown, her teaching positions never lasted long; at most, she would stay for half a year, and sometimes just two or three months before returning home to work as a farmer. My grandparents told me that some leaders from the platoon were undermining her efforts. They claimed that since our family already had a father receiving state support, it was unfair for us to take all the good opportunities. They would always find ways to block her at critical moments, completely extinguishing her hopes of becoming a formal teacher.
As a farmer in the Production Team, my mother stood out. Her abilities extended beyond merely handling agricultural tasks; she also possessed exceptional skills in calculation, logic, and management. Although the platoon prevented her from becoming a full-time teacher, the Production Team did not allow her talents to go to waste. She successively held leadership positions such as Youth Leader and Record Keeper within the Production Team.
The Record Keeper in the Production Team, while not technically a leadership role, required fairness and an excellent memory to track what each person did daily and for how long. At the end of each month, they had to calculate each farmer's work points and conduct an annual summary. At that time, there were no calculators; the entire Production Team had only one abacus. Keeping track of work points relied entirely on mental arithmetic and written calculations—tasks that most people simply could not handle.
As a timekeeper, my mother still had to work like everyone else every day. When everyone finished work and went home, she would rely on her memory to record the work points of all the farmers in a large ledger. This meant adding an extra half an hour to an hour of work every day. Initially, this extra work was unpaid, but later she was compensated with an additional 20 work points per month.
This time, my mother took on a new job - as a midwife. In the past, there were no specialized midwives for rural women giving birth. Most of the time, it was the mother-in-law helping the daughter-in-law prepare hot water and some clothes and bedding for the baby. Some women even had to endure the pain and manage on their own. Only in difficult births would they seek out experienced elderly women to act as midwives. Many expectant mothers and newborns lost their lives as a result.
Upon arriving in New China, each platoon was equipped with a midwife, who worked like everyone else in the Collective. When a woman in the community became pregnant, her family would notify the midwife. She would take some time to check in and inquire about the situation, estimate the expected delivery date, and advise the family on what to watch for. They were instructed to inform her when certain symptoms appeared, at which point she would bring her delivery tools to assist.
For taking on this role, the Production Team would calculate work points collectively, and the family of the new mother would send small tokens of appreciation as thanks; there were no other forms of compensation. The decision to have Mother serve as a midwife was influenced not only by her higher education level but also because the previous midwife had aged and could no longer perform her duties.
To become a midwife, one had to undergo a period of training at the county hospital. Mother entrusted us siblings to our grandmother's care and set off with heavy luggage. We had no way of knowing how long she studied or what she learned. Instead, we felt that with Mother away from home, we had more freedom without her watchful presence. After her training, Mother worked for a while at the Commune Health Center before officially taking on her responsibilities as a midwife in the platoon.
From then on, my mother often went to other courtyards in the platoon after finishing work at night. Most of the time, she went to conduct inspections. The original midwife was elderly and reluctant to move around. When a villager was pregnant, she would only visit once before delivery and would wait for family members to call her before assisting with the birth. My mother had just taken over, and with both the awkwardness of a novice and the enthusiasm of a beginner, she made it a point to visit any family with a pregnant woman at least once a month. If there were issues like an improper fetal position or discomfort in the pregnant woman, she would visit every two or three days.
While my mother was busy, my younger brother was attending elementary school in Suining with my father, leaving me at home with my young sister. Our house was built on the mountainside, and there were various sounds coming from the back mountain that made me very scared. I could only close the front door tightly early and wait for my mother to come home as I did my homework. On days when a pregnant woman was about to give birth or when situations were more complicated, my mother might not return until the middle of the night. I would sometimes fall asleep on the stool without even realizing it.
As time passed, my mother's midwifery skills improved significantly, earning praise from all the elderly women and pregnant mothers in the platoon. However, she began to feel an inexplicable fear: most of her work as a midwife and inspector took place after dark, and our hometown was a typical hilly area. Each time she went out, she had to pass through various hills, many of which seemed remote and eerie. Although she had become accustomed to death as a midwife and understood life well, my mother remained haunted by superstitions about ghosts and spirits, always fearing that a ghost might jump out from some grave or corner. At this time, I was assigned the important role of "ghost repeller." Whenever my mother went out for inspections, she would take me along, saying that little boys have strong yang energy that would make wandering souls and ghosts avoid them.
About two years later, my mother’s midwife role evolved into that of a semi-retired Barefoot Doctor. Previously, our platoon had only one Barefoot Doctor, my cousin Deng Jisong, who had inspired me to create a Homemade Fountain Pen. Perhaps he was simply too busy, or maybe the rising living standards led to increased demands for medical care. It could also be due to strict regulations from the county and Commune above us. My mother, with her basic medical knowledge and midwifery skills, was the obvious choice.
The journey to becoming a Barefoot Doctor was not much different from her initial training as a midwife; the only distinction was that the training and apprenticeship lasted a bit longer. Once she became a Barefoot Doctor, however, her work underwent significant changes because this new job was semi-retired. Our platoon had a medical room, which was initially located in the courtyard across the street but had since moved to the Production Team's headquarters in Chang Tang Chong Courtyard.
In Chang Tang Chong, there was a large drying yard in the middle. To the west lay a mountain pond, while to the south were several houses, which served as our passageway to Chang Tang Chong Courtyard. To the north stood the Production Team's warehouse, and along the east side were a row of single-story buildings that housed the platoon's consignment store, medical room, and rice milling facility.
After becoming a Barefoot Doctor, this became one of her workplaces. Except during the busy farming season, she would come here every day, either sitting in the clinic waiting for patients or carrying a medicine box to a certain yard in the platoon to treat farmers' illnesses. Sometimes she would even take bags and venture deep into the mountains to collect various herbs.
My mother's new job lasted for many years. Later, when the rural areas implemented the household contract responsibility system, she remained a genuine doctor. It was only after rural healthcare became largely privatized that she gave up this work to avoid competing with friends and relatives, occasionally just feeding a few pills and giving vaccinations to her family's chickens and ducks.
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