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墨書 Inktalez
Since the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, my family had to engage in "Double Grab," and as the primary labor force among my parents' children, I spent almost all my summer vacations working hard, which made me somewhat dread the summer break.
However, the summer of 1986 was a bit different. My younger siblings were growing up and had joined the workforce over the past two years. Although they were still small and inexperienced, they could help out to some extent. What made this summer particularly special was that my cousin, Ye Yun, came to stay with us.
Ye Yun's arrival had a bittersweet background: my aunt had passed away due to a medical accident the previous winter, leaving my uncle to care for three children on his own. He remarried and brought along a son and daughter from his new marriage.
Six people were crammed into two rooms (my uncle's house was a wooden structure with six rows and five rooms; my grandparents lived on one side, and after my aunt's death, my grandmother took care of my youngest cousin, Ye Fei. This lively little cousin would later fall ill suddenly and pass away due to delayed treatment. At that time, he had been eager to come to our house, and even now, whenever my mother talks about this history, her eyes fill with tears and regret). Conflicts often arose in their crowded home.
My aunt had been very close to my mother, and since Ye Yun was the same age as my sister and would be entering middle school after this summer, my mother decided to bring her to our house so she could study with my sister and escape that chaotic environment.
Ye Yun was the eldest daughter in her family, ten months older than my sister. At that time, she was blossoming into adolescence, having developed earlier than most girls her age; she was almost as tall as I was. However, she hadn’t participated much in labor at home. After arriving at our house and seeing my sister heading out to work in the fields, she joined the "Double Grab" team. The workload that used to be shared by three people was now divided among six, making it a bit easier and more enjoyable.
As usual, the first phase of "Double Grab" was "harvesting." Every morning, my parents would spread out mats to dry the rice harvested the day before while I took my three siblings to the fields to cut rice. I would organize the sickle, basket, and shovel while they slowly rubbed their sleepy eyes awake. Impatiently waiting for them took too long; I would often set off alone to the edge of the rice field, swiftly swinging the sickle and venting all my frustrations on the rice stalks. By the time I had cleared a large section of waterlogged field, my siblings would finally arrive.
Once everyone gathered—thanks to Ye Yun’s presence—I couldn’t scold them; instead, I had to find ways to speed up our harvesting. The production team had divided land among households; my idea was “dividing rice among people.” As the eldest, I took on the most tasks: I handled six rows while my younger brother managed four rows. My sister and cousin together tackled seven rows. With tasks assigned, everyone began doing their best against the rice before us. When our parents finished drying the rice and came to the field's edge, we could start threshing.
In rural areas during rice harvests, I hadn’t experienced using a "Fortune Barrel." Since land division began, we primarily used a "Manual Threshing Machine." Two people would pedal to drive the threshing plate while feeding in grain sheaves; this task usually fell on me and my brother. My sister and cousin were responsible for supplying us with grain sheaves. Since Ye Yun was taller than my sister and I worked faster than my brother, she typically assisted me. My mother followed behind the threshing machine to remove debris from the storage bucket before packing the grains into baskets; meanwhile, my father transported grains back home or occasionally pedaled for a while or bundled straw.
Not long after I graduated from college, rural areas began using "Power Threshing Machines," which utilized diesel engines to drive threshing plates—making things much easier for those responsible for threshing—but by then, I had little time left for "Double Grab."
Around 2010, a single-person-operated Power Threshing Machine appeared in rural areas; it still used a diesel engine but featured smaller threshing plates with an added blowing system that directly blew grains into woven bags. This eliminated the need for subsequent cleaning processes with windmills. During this decade when many young laborers migrated south or north for work opportunities, elderly farmers in their sixties or seventies became key players in rice harvesting.
In recent years, "Combine Harvesters" emerged: during harvest season, machines from Henan and Anhui would arrive via trucks on rural roads before heading into fields for harvesting. Charging between 100 to 200 yuan per mu (about 1/15th of an acre), they could collect all grains within about an hour with just one driver—almost eliminating all other manual labor. The only downside was that these large machines couldn’t access some waterlogged fields in hilly areas like ours. On my mother's seventy-first birthday, we siblings had no choice but to use a smaller Power Threshing Machine to harvest over six mu of land; even our nephew Long Zhongzhu participated in transporting grains with a wheelbarrow.
If harvesting was fast-paced physical labor, then transplanting seedlings required more skill and wasn’t as urgent as harvesting. During this time, our family put on a comedic show unlike typical farmers:
Both my sister and cousin were girls new to farming; they were initially scared of being in waterlogged fields during transplanting when maintaining about an inch of water was necessary. Floating insects and small animals often appeared; leeches particularly liked their delicate legs. Thus, many times I and my brother had to help them remove leeches clinging onto their legs. After several attempts at catching them ourselves, we finally revealed our secret weapon against leeches: regularly checking their submerged calves for leeches and quickly rubbing them off with seedling roots from above.
Once we solved the leech problem, we faced another issue: uneven rows of seedlings during transplanting. Both girls were doing it for the first time; their pace wasn’t fast enough already but they often strayed off course while planting seedlings. My brother and I took turns keeping an eye on one of them each while trying hard at our own tasks; if we noticed any gaps too wide or narrow between seedlings through our peripheral vision, we’d shout reminders or splash mud from nearby onto problematic spots—inevitably splattering some water droplets onto their clothes along with dealing with leeches or bending over tiredly in muddy fields until everyone ended up covered in mud spots.
While Dad transported and dried rice grains and Mom prepared meals three times a day, us four siblings became the main force behind Double Grab. Being at such an energetic age meant laughter filled our workdays as we often shared jokes or stories to relieve physical exhaustion.
I recounted stories from classics like "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Water Margin," "Journey to the West," and "The Tang Dynasty," breaking them down into snippets for everyone’s entertainment—characters like the One Hundred Eight Heroes or Eighty-One Challenges became topics of conversation among us siblings while Mom occasionally chimed in.
Once during a discussion about rankings of famous generals from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," I mentioned “One Lu,” “Two Zhao,” “Three Dian Wei,” “Four Guan,” “Five Ma,” “Six Zhang Fei,” explaining that “One Lu” referred to Lü Bu while “Two Zhao” meant Zhao Yun; when Mom misheard it during her retelling as “One Lu Two Bu…,” everyone burst into laughter—I nearly fell over laughing in the paddy field!
As dusk fell and darkness enveloped us due to increased manpower—we no longer needed night shifts for transplanting—we tidied up tools before washing off mud from our feet in a canal. My sisters slipped on sandals while my brother and I remained barefoot as we walked home.
In our drying area, Dad was gathering up rice that had been drying all day—some went directly into baskets for storage while others were loaded onto windmills for cleaning before drying again; some needed sifting through to remove fine chaff. My brother and I helped out while Mom had already prepared dinner in the kitchen where our sisters assisted with lighting fires.
Dinner spread out like our harvested rice—though lacking big fish dishes there was plenty of meat! Four or five large bowls filled with steaming vegetables adorned our square table alongside a big bowl of pickled vegetable soup—a daily staple! We’d drink a small bowl before eating which not only chased away fatigue from working all day but also whetted our appetites and soothed our throats—far more satisfying than today’s extravagant feasts!
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