My Detention in 1970s

Once I was personally detained in China 54 years ago, when I was only 18 years old. During that time, all the middle school students in towns and cities were sent to the countryside for farming. I was sent to No. 93 Farm in Nenjiang County , northern-west Heilongjiang Province on Oct. 20, 1968.

Due to my childish joking in private about great leader Chairman Mao\'s wife Jiang Qing, I was reported and

suspected as an anti-revolutionary, and was soon secretly detained by the local CCP security branch in mid

April, 1970.

In the farm\'s security branch, two staff members interrogated me. I was questioned for several hours until late at night. They asked me something nonsense as why I wrote a sentence birds cannot fly high in my diary. While I not knowing how to answer, one of the staff members said: that means you wanted to escape from us but failed.

Later I was sent to sleep in a closed farmhouse. There were several criminals being detained there, among whom some were thieves and an old man committed raping.

One interest crime was committed by a man surnamed Shi, who said one day that so bright as it is, why the red sun cannot shine upon my small black room?

Soon later Shi was reported as attacking socialism and detained.

Being watched by some guard, we had to do all the dirty and bloody work everyday, such as cleaning toilets and butching pigs. One day we were ordered to kill a pitiful ill horse.

In the meantime, I heard that the two security branch members went to my hometown to investigate my family, my relatives, my friends and other backgrounds. One of my friends told me later that he was asked why we so enjoyed the French impressionist painting rather than learning Chairman Mao\'s works.

The staff\'s tour of my hometown found nothing, because I had done nothing in terms of anti-revolutionary. Therefore after 58 days\' detention, I was released.