Comrade Feng

So, after I had finished talking with Melanie for the night in Yongfeng, I got a knock on the door. I immediately thought "this had better not be a prostitute....." - instead it was just a hotel worker who asked if I wanted to see the "old people perform upstairs". I had been wondering what all the noise was, and I didn't have anything to do anyways - plus there aren't many things more cool than watching old people perform - so I decided to go check it out.

It turned out that it was a 50th anniversary reunion of all the young people who had gone down to the countryside in the area around Yongfeng during the Great Leap Forward. The only reunion I've ever been to was a mission reunion a couple years ago, but let me tell you - these old people really know how to have a party. The moment I entered the room, everyone started freaking out about the foreigner, and I was immediately ushered to a seat at the front of the room, where everyone could get a look at the white guy. The MC of the evening announced that I needed snacks, so immediately, everyone started coming over to my seat (it was a setup where everyone was at a desk sort of theing), and dumping loads of bananas, watermelons, peanuts and pumpkin seeds for me to eat. I immediately protested that it was way too much (it was) and that I couldn't eat it all (I couldn't) and spent most of the evening trying to give the fruit and snacks back to people after they had run out.

They naturally asked me my name, and I told them Feng Xiaoshan (my Chinese name), and for the evening I became Comrade Feng (Feng Tongzhi). It was pretty interesting to see and hear the memories of these people when they went to the countryside. My impression of the Chinese people being sent to the countryside during Mao's era was previosly somewhat negative - I had this image of millions of intellectuals and professionals being hauled off against their will to work in what were essentially labour camps. However, these people obviously had quite fond memories of the experience. I don't know whether they were forced to go or volunteered (it's not exactly a question to ask at the party - "so where you forced to go to the countryside?"), but it was clear that it had a significant effect on them, probably somewhat similar to the LDS mission experience.

Anyways, after much prodding, I gave in and sang a nice patriotic song for the group (Gao Feng's "Da Zhongguo" - "Big China). It was a pretty fun evening and a very memorable experience. To top things off, the guy sitting next to me told me that he can sense people's destiny, and that because we fall under the same Chinese birth year (dog - really it was a pretty interesting coincidence), he was especially able to sense my destiny and that he could tell that I was going to do "great things"! I thought that was pretty cool. I don't know what "great things" those might be - but watch out world - a Chinese fortuneteller that I met at a reunion knows that I'm going to do great things.