Interview with Cheng Zhongfu

Cheng Zhongfu (b. 1940) is a resident of Renjiagou Village, Shaanxi Provicne. In this interview, Cheng recalls his experience of eating at the communal canteen. The communal canteen of Renjiagou Village was established in 1958 and closed down in 1960. Life was the most difficult in 1959 and 1960 when the food they had was even worse than pigswill these days. Some people even stole the radishes in the vegetable garden that were just poured over by feces, and then washed them and ate them. Both humans and cattle were too hungry to climb up to the hill. The workload at the production team was very heavy too. Cheng used to boil urine to make fertilizer. The villagers had to work till two days before the Chinese New Year for a break. Although the life was quite difficult in those years, no one dared to question the cadres, otherwise they would have been arrested, criticized and even beaten up.

程忠福1940年出生，是陕西省商洛市商南县城关镇任家沟村村民。在这段口述中，程老人回忆了吃食堂的经历。任家沟村58年开始成立食堂，60年解散。59年、60年生活最苦，吃的食物还不如现在的猪食，菜园里浇过粪便的萝卜都有人偷偷拔了洗了吃，人和牛都饿得爬不上坡。当时在生产队的工作也非常辛苦，程老人曾熬尿做化肥。村民一直要干活干到农历新年前两天才放假。虽然那几年生活艰难，但没人敢提出异议，不然就会被抓起来批斗、挨打。

Transcripts for this interview and more may be available under the ‘Documents’ link above. 采访抄录和相关内容，请点击查看上面的’Documents’链接。