24 City Page #3

So we couldn't stay long.

During the short stop, it was really...

Everyone went ashore.

We were a small community,

everyone knew each other.

So I was off-guard.

They sounded the first siren.

It meant that there was

half an hour to departure.

My husband and l

were buying some local specialties

and some oranges.

I suddenly thought about my boy.

He wasn't with me anymore.

I panicked and started calling him.

I called and called.

But I couldn't find him.

I panicked.

My husband tried to reassure me:

"Maybe he went back to the boat

with the other kids."

So we went to the boat

to see if he was there.

All the other kids were back.

All the other families were together.

Except us.

My husband panicked too.

He called his workmates.

They looked for him everywhere.

I was at my wits' end.

My husband and I rushed back ashore

to look for him.

But we couldn't find him.

And then,

the second siren sounded.

Some women comrades

dragged me back to the boat.

When we were transferred

from Shenyang to Chengdu,

we were working for the military.

Part of the war effort.

Everything we did had implications

for national security.

That made me all the more nervous.

They said Chiang Kai-Shek

was going to invade China.

So when that siren sounded,

it was like an army bugle.

We had to go.

Then

a big crowd of people

dragged me back to the boat.

I leaned on the railings.

The boat went farther offshore,

the houses turned smaller.

I felt that my child

got farther and farther away.

I hated myself so much.

My heart was flurried.

It was empty.

Jaguar! The Commies are taking the bait!

The Commies are taking the bait!

Captain Morgan...

Act in good faith!

Second!

A flotilla of small planes on the right!

Enemy planes in the south-west!

Enemy planes in the west!

It's clear, enemy tactics have changed.

They're using small planes as decoys

and surrounding us with big ones.

Very crafty!

Captain!

The bombers have crossed sector 2.

Captain!

Bombing as originally planned.

OBSERVE SAFETY, TREASURE LlFE

If the aeronautics factory

is like a huge eyeball

The laboring is its pupil

Poem by Ouyang Jianghe

Song Weidong

The money we get selling this land

will be used to build a new industrial park.

Our workshops will move there, one by one.

Our offices here will become

a five-star hotel.

Song Weidong, born 1966 in Chengdu

Assistant to General Manager

of Chengfa Group

Factory 420, the whole of it,

was quite large.

The whole place was a kind of world apart.

Take me, for example.

From kindergarten,

primary school, middle school, high school,

I always attended the schools

for the workers' children.

It was the same for all the other kids.

Within the factory precincts,

there was a cinema, a swimming pool.

In the summer,

the factory made its own soft drinks.

Each family took bottles

to bring them home.

We were proud of the factory.

with Chengdu City.

We thought

we didn't need the local people.

No need. We had a great life.

The only way we connected with local kids

was through fights.

The eastern suburbs

had a history of fighting

even before Liberation.

There were a lot of pitched battles here.

We took on the local kids,

there were non-stop conflicts and clashes.

Often near the double bridge.

We almost always won.

We outnumbered them

and were all from one place.

Whereas they were much less unified.

But they hit on a strategy.

Quite a strategy.

Ambushes. They'd hide somewhere

and if we were alone or in a small group,

they'd ambush us and beat us.

And then we'd counter-attack.

If you beat me today,

tomorrow I'll beat you back.

I remember one time in particular.

I was in grade three.

In 1976.

I'd just learned how to ride a bike.

One afternoon

I took my father's bike, a Phoenix 28.

I took it and rode it away.

I rode the bike a long way

and found myself in another sector.

I had left the zone of influence

of Factory 420.

I turned around at once.

Too late! A gang of boys trapped me.

They caught me

and escorted me to their base.

They had a leader, another kid.

His name is Zhou Chao.

I was taken before him fearing the worst.

The kids were jeering me.

As in some movie, they said:

"On behalf of the masses,

I sentence you to death."

I was sure they were going to beat me up.

I just wanted my bike, I had to get it back.

To my surprise, Zhou Chao said to me:

"I've thought it over,

"Premier Zhou Enlai passed away today.

"So I'll let you off."

Then he and his boys left.

I was amazed.

I rode home in a hurry. When I got there,

I found my parents making

little white paper flowers.

Premier Zhou had really passed away.

I went through puppy love too. I was 16.

In grade two of High School.

High School used to be two years.

When I graduated, I had a girlfriend.

Her family was also from the north-east.

She was offered a place

in South-West Medical College.

I wanted to go to university too

but my family didn't agree

because our factory offered

really good benefits to its staff.

And I might be assigned

to somewhere else after graduating.

So they insisted that I take

my father's place eventually.

I had to learn his skills.

So I stayed in the factory.

Back then,

our factory was really pretty good.

In 1978, after the Cultural Revolution,

there was a war against Vietnam.

They needed a lot of munitions.

But after that, there was a decline.

The factory profits went down.

So her family wanted her to break with me.

One day,

I remember very clearly,

she broke up with me.

I was roller skating.

She came to find me.

There was a wire netting

around the skating rink,

a wire-netting barrier. I was inside it.

She was outside. She had an ice popsicle.

She passed it to me over the railing.

I'd taken two bites from it

when she came out with it. She said:

"We're so young,

"our love is so immature."

I understood it right away.

I interrupted her and said:

"So it's over between us."

And she said:
"You said it first."

She implied it was my decision.

I said:
"Yes, I said it first."

Then she left.

She didn't look back.

I remember one thing very strongly.

There was a Japanese TV show

called Red Suspicion

with Yamaguchi Momoe

in the role of Sachiko.

I remember her hairstyle.

My girlfriend had Sachiko hair.

She left without looking back.

When she gave me the ice popsicle,

tied around her wrist, she had

a red handkerchief.

I remember it clearly.

A few days ago on Hunan TV,

they showed Red Suspicion again.

My wife...

She was the file manager in the factory.

She watches TV series every evening.

She loves them.

I watch them with her.

-Which year were you born?

-1970.

I was born in 1966.

Though leaves are many,

the root is only one

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun

Now I may wither into the truth

W. B. Yeats

Site for stage one of 24 City

(Former factory basketball court)

Buildings in basketball court

These machines will be moved

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