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... . VOL. XXI NO. 6 JUNE 1972 PUBLISHED MONTHLY IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, SPANISH, ARABIC AND RUSSIAN BY THE CHINA WELFARE INSTITUTE (SOONG CHING LING, CHAIRMAN)

CONTENTS

EDGAR SNOW —IN MEMORIAM Soong Ching Ling 2

EDGAR SNOW (Poem) Rewi Alley 3

A TRIBUTE Ma Hai-teh {Dr. George Hatem) 4

HE SAW THE RED STAR OVER CHINA Talitha Gerlach 6

TSITSIHAR SAVES ITS FISH Lung Chiang-wen 8

A CHEMICAL PLANT FIGHTS POLLUTION 11

THE LAND OF BAMBOO 14

REPORT FROM TIBET: LINCHIH TODAY 16

HOW WE PREVENT AND TREAT OCCUPA TIONAL DISEASES 17

WHO INVENTED PAPER? 20

LANGUAGE CORNER: LOST AND FOUND 21

JADE CARVING 22

STEELWORKERS TAP HIDDEN POTENTIAL An Tung 26

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THE WORKERS AND PEASANTS Tsien Ling-hi 30

COVER PICTURES: YOUTH AMATEUR ATHLETIC SCHOOL 33 Front: Traditional sword- play by a student of wushu CHILDREN AT WUSHU 34 at the Peking Youth THEY WENT TO THE COUNTRY 37 Amateur Athletic School {see story on p. 33). GEOGRAPHY OF CHINA: LAKES 44

Inside front: Before the OUR POSTBAG 48 puppets go on stage. Back: Sanya Harbor, Hoi- nan Island.

Inside back: On the Yu- Editorial Office: Wai Wen Building, Peking (37), China. shui River, Huayuan county, Cable: "CHIRECON" Peking. General Distributor: Hunan province. GUOZI SHUDIAN, P.O. Box 399, Peking, China. EDGAR SNOW-IN MEMORIAM

•'V'^i»i .

Chairman Mao and Edgar Snow in north Shcnsi, 1936.

'P DGAR SNOW, the life-long the river" and seek out the Chinese that today his book stands up well •*-' friend of the Chinese people, revolution in its new base. This against the background of interven struck down by cancer, peacefully base had been reached after the in ing history. In the northwest he breathed his last on February 15, credible hardships of the Long found Chairman Mao and the other which this year was the Spring March over 25,000 li. In Red Star leaders of China's revolution living Festival, today's name for the New Over China Edgar Snow reported in loess caves like everybody else. Year according to China's old lunar his findings: that the Communist He interviewed Chairman Mao at calendar. In the first few days of Party and the leaders of China's length and in this way learned this "old" new year, President revolution — who had so often much about China's past, present Nixon came to China. Though it been "reliably" reported dead by and future. It meant a great en was not given to Edgar Snow to be the hirelings of imperialism out of richment for him — historically as around during this visit, his life's wishful thinking — had made this well as philosophically. work thereby came to a full cycle. trek a vibrant victory despite ter In his years of stay in China, Over forty years ago at the age rible loss of human life and were while teaching at Yenching Univer giving the Chinese people a new of 22, after graduating from the sity, Edgar Snow befriended the hope, showing them a new road school of journalism, Edgar Snow Chinese, learned their language and came to China and reported the forward through collective effort recognized as his life's work the and struggle. facts as he found them. For a while search for friendship between the he worked for an American weekly In his unquenchable thirst for people of China and the American in Shanghai and contributed arti truth and knowledge, Edgar Snow people. In those years he came in cles to various publications in the wrote down what he saw and heard contact with a number of under United States. In 1936 he had the and learned in China's northwest, ground Communists. His writings courage to go to "the other side of and it is a fitting epitaph for him of that period, including transla-

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS tions from contemporary short productive labor, the ravages and people said that a dialogue with stories, gave poignant glimpses of hardships they suffered. President Nixon was necessary to resolve the problems between the life of the Chinese people and His sympathy for the Chinese China and the U.S.A., led to the made them understandable abroad "Reds" gained Edgar Snow many opening of friendly contacts be although they had been callously enemies. During the witch-hunt tween the Chinese and American called "inscrutable". period in the United States he was peoples after an interruption of maligned and few papers or maga To me and a few Left-wing com more than twenty years. This was zines dared publish his articles. But rades who went to Hongkong after one of the objects to which Edgar nothing could change his deter Shanghai was invaded by Japanese Snow had dedicated his life's work. mination to bridge the gulf be militarists, Edgar Snow was a gr^t tween the peoples of China and In the midst of writing another help in starting the China Defence America. book, the most important one of his League, forerunner of the China life, illness relentlessly struck him After liberation Edgar Snow paid Welfare Institute. It was through down. The Chinese government three visits to the People's Re this organization alone that news of flew doctors and nurses to help public— in 1960, 1964 and 1970. the war in China was enabled to him, and he was much comforted. Indefatigably he retraced his steps spread abroad, and medical sup It is a tragedy that Edgar Snow did over all the areas he had visited so plies and other contributions for not live to see his endeavors guerrilla regions were requested long ago, faithfully recording the brought to fruition. But the Chi and received. These we sent with great changes he saw and how the nese people will always gratefully great difficulty to their destination most populous nation on earth was remember Edgar Snow, the tireless in the interior. He was also an en pulling itself up by its own boot partisan of friendship between the thusiastic co-initiator of Indusco, straps. Chinese and American peoples, and Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, or Although he did not know it future generations on both sides of the "Gung Ho" (work together) then, the long talks he held with the Pacific will be indebted to him movement during the war, which Chairman Mao in December 1970, for the legacy he left them in their helped people to overcome, through in which the leader of the Chinese researches on Chinese history. Edgar Snow

REWI ALLEY

Looking out at me the world in every major from the morning's paper language. the quiet steady face the understanding eyes He did not die rich this good American; never of the American dreamer with more than Just who saw how dreams enough to get by; yet ever could be made come true with ordinary people, and who caught some millions of them, of the fire of the Chinese hanging on his words Revolution and its leadership gaining through him so that along with them, new clarity. OS they so incredibly fought, did he fight with his pen Gone from us in body for all he came to believe in. his spirit living through Yes, he suffered all right, his writing is this man not simple to face those wild whose heart was with Northwest highlands in search fighters and to whom of the Red Army that youth of the future will look the then-world called bandits in gratitude for the classic only to be exterminated; "Red Star Over China" not simple to get their that ever remained his star, story and paint it so deftly his hope for a saner so that it rocked around cleaner world to be.

JUNE 1972 A Tribute

MA HAI-TEH (Dr. George Hatem)

HIRTY-SIX years ago Edgar Snow and I went into what was then the unknown land of Communist China. What we saw and heard Ed has written and ably interpreted time and again, com- mittedly and with great sympathy. Both of us were very young when we sat together with Chairman Mao Tsetung and heard the story of the immense struggle and problems facing the Chinese people, of how they were seeking to free them selves from the burdens of semi- feudal semi-colonial oppression internally and the growing aggres sion from abroad.

Ed, with his sense of historical appreciation, asked numerous ques Edgar Snow in Switzerland in 1969. tions night after night in the candlelight, painstakingly writing queries was always why were these The forces seemed so meagre, just out in longhand Chairman Mao's people so dedicated, why did this a few thousand dedicated men and brilliant delineation of the goals dedication encompass the people women, and aspirations of the Chinese peo of the whole world? ple. I learnt about China and com Ed turned to me and said, "They munism from these and many sub One bitter windy day I stood are immensely brave to take on the sequent interviews, and from travel with Ed on a log-supported plat whole world." with Ed throughout the communist form attending a special meeting From those early days, Ed was regions of Shensi, Kansu and Ning- in honor of "international friends". moved to an identification with the sia. Ed himself thought over, exam All the "red armies" assembled struggles of the Chinese people and ined and re-examined these new filled no more than a football-sized their leaders, especially Mao Tse and stimulating ideas, sometimes field. One after another, speakers far into the night, discussing them called for the downfall of imperial tung and Chou En-lai, and of course with me, then coming back with ism, abolition of exploitation of many others. He was a friend of more questions for Chairman Mao, man by man, liberation of the the Chinese people, an unremitting or comrades like Chou En-lai, He oppressed of China and the world. fighter for friendship and under put queries to everyone from com Spears, hunting guns, rifles of standing between the peoples of manders at the front to the buglers foreign make and ancient vintage, China and America. Speaking for aiid young orderlies affectionately bullet-starved ammunition belts one quarter of humanity, Mao known as "little devils", from peas hung with home-made grenades Tsetung on February .16, 1972 ants in the fields to workers in the and mines, here and there a rare wrote to Lois Snow: "His memory mini-guerrilla industries. The machine gun, automatic rifle or will live forever in the hearts of thread that ran through all his mortar — these were their arms. the Chinese people."

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS 1 saw Ed many times in the 36 stature can rise above his own friends were unstinting in their years which followed, but he never tragedy to think about the distress help. Literally thousands of mes changed. During his final illness ed people of the world. sages poured in with offers of sup when his strength was ebbing fast, port, an obvious testimony to the he still always thought first of 'T^HE past 36 years have witnessed high regard in which Ed was held. others. He asked repeatedly immense upheavals, starting The family showed remarkable whether the Chinese nurses and with the Japanese invasion of courage. Lois was untiring and doctors were being taken care of, China —World War II, the Cold selfless in her encouragement of fed, assured of proper rest. When War, the "American Century" with its Korean escapade followed by Ed. She hid from him the gnawing Chinese Ambassador Chen Chih- pain of knowing that the end was fang and his wife Wang Ching U.S. aggression in Indochina — all sandwiched in between the hysteria near, keeping up an admirable called to deliver a message from and reaction of the McCarthy courage which inspired us all. The Premier Chou En-lai and when crusade against communism and tender care lavished by Christopher Ambassador Huang Hua came es the people and the "containment" and Sian, their vigil at his bedside, pecially from the U.N. in New their small loving acts — these of China. York, Ed, by then very ill, were a comfort to Ed. The family, expressed his concern. "You've Ed was treated very shabbily by assisted by Lois' sister Kashin travelled so far," he protested. the U.S. press and officialdom Wheeler, helped to calm Ed's trou "You're much too busy to be visit during this period, victimized for bled body in a manner wonderful ing me!" his views. But he adhered tena to behold. And the support and ciously to his principles, at con concern of friends was invaluable. With Huang Hua and myself, siderable personal • and material It is a consolation to know that Ed's who had been with Ed in the Red cost. His interpretation of the family and friends will surely carry Star Over China days, standing by events in China, of their signifi on the cause for which he strove so his bedside, he referred to us cance to Sino-American relations faithfully all his life. jokingly as "three old bandits", and to world affairs, was ignored. harking back to the days when The U.S. policy of Cold War Con The Chinese doctors and nurses "bandits" was what his Chinese tainment nearly exhausted the res in attendance became deeply friends were called. He compli ervoir of good will existing be attached to Ed. They came on be mented Huang Hua on the great tween the Chinese and American half of the Chinese people, govern work he was doing in the U.N. peoples. ment and its leaders Chairman Mao Tsetung and Premier Chou En-lai, A man of immense courage, A true representative of what is hoping to bring Ed back to China will-power and dedication, Ed best in the people of America, Ed for care and convalescence. They fought his illness. "What are your was greatly distressed and fought found this no longer possible. On plans for me?" he demanded. "How to stem this tide. He began to pick request, they remained to help soon can I get back to work?" He up and nurture bit by bit the flick relieve the terminal pain and agony ering embers of this friendship, knew he was mortally ill, but he in an irreversible situation, in co painstakingly and unremittingly, steadfastly refused to let on to operation with Ed's devoted friend as much as any man could. He others. When, to encourage him, and family physician Dr. Robert lived to see the beginnings of a we said that his strength would Panchaud. The Chinese doctors rekindling of the friendship and return with the coming of spring, and nurses manifested in every mutual understanding between the that travelling to the mountains way through their tireless labors Chinese and American peoples the profound concern of the Chi with his close friends would make which he had fought for all his life. nese people. Ed's passing was a a new man of him, he squeezed my A great debt is owed by all to Edgar severe blow. They wept that it arm and pretended to believe me. Snow. had been impossible to save him. "How idyllic," he smiled. In the brief time after my arrival They wept in personal grief for his Ed continued to follow world in Geneva, I had the opportunity loss. events with intense interest. When to meet Ed's friends and the mem T ET us salute those people work- he could no longer hold up the bers of his family. I could easily ing for progress who live a full newspaper, he had Lois or Chris or see that he had influenced every life of accomplishment without Sian read to him about U.S.-China one around him by his generous relations, about the Indochina character, social awareness and sacrifice of principles. situation. Only a man of immense exemplary modesty. Many family Edgar Snow was one of these.

JUNE 1972 W^'Wm He Saw the ;i

Red Star

Over China i / •. "'^;

TALITHA GERLACH

Edgar Snow In the north Shcnsi revolutionary base in 1936.

^OON AFTER it was published roughly everything north and west the enterprising and untiring in 1937, I acquired a copy of of Nanking — turned out to be an young American journalist who Red Star Over China by Edgar intriguing account of the author's had been working in Shanghai, Snow. Fortunately this coincided own experiences, contacts, observa succeeded in penetrating the KMT with my winter vacation so I could tions, learnings from living and blockade and recorded for all to begin reading the book immediate traveling for four months in the read what kind of people the Com ly. What I had thought would be a north Shensi area where the Chi munists were, the program of the smattering of travel notes, impres nese Communists had settled at the Communist Party, the rule of the sions gathered here and there in end of their epoch-making Long Red Army, the immediate goal of wandering about the interior — the March in 1934-35. Once reading, I uniting the Chinese people in re interior to us who lived in Shang could not lay down the book until sistance to Japanese aggression and hai was any part of China beyond I had finished it. later the long-term objective of a the line of Japanese fighting, then For us foreigners who lived in genuine socialist revolution.

China at that time, reports from Those months in the Yenan area Some editions of Snow's Red Star Over China and other books on China. the areas occupied by the Commu enabled the author to meet fre nists in the Chingkang Mountains quently and informally with a and Hunan and Kiangsi provinces number of the outstanding person were very sketchy, often entirely alities who were leading the revo false, for the Kucmintang exer lution, chief among whom were .. Bffl cised a rigid censorship and now Mao Tsetung and Chou En-lai, the I. that Mao Tsetung had successfully former granting interviews which led his valiant Red Army to the provided the first extensive bio barren regions of far-off Shensi to graphical account given by this fight the Japanese invaders, infor great leader to a foreign journalist, mation was all the more difficult to Thus Edgar Snow opened the door come by. But here in the pages of to an understanding of China and Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow, her people which has grown in

CHINA RECONSTUUCTS •depth and breadth through the on this one book alone. He has Edgar Snow was a genuine years. Red Star Over China was other books on China to his credit, friend of China and the Chinese translated into many languages as well as magazine articles which people. He was a keen and intelli and soon proclaimed a classic on from time to time brought the con gent observer, reporting accurately the Chinese revolution. cerned China student his most re and positively the trends he saw Since then Red Star Over China cent interviews with China's lead emerging in China leading to the has maintained its status as a ers and observations on the ever- historic Chinese revolution. Since classic on China-in-revolution„ for developing socialist society and its his writings are widely known the author revised the book on sub reborn people. Countless Amer abroad, it can be said that along sequent visits to the liberated areas icans— and people in other coun with the American people, thou and since liberation on three trips tries too — have read his 1970 arti sands upon thousands the world to the People's Republic in 1960, cles, foremost of which is his con over are indebted to Edgar Snow then 1964 and most recently in versation with Chairman Mao for opening the door to a real 1970, each time bringing the orig forecasting the invitation which understanding of the now rapidly- inal volume up to date, also cor brought President Nixon to China developing socialist China and recting insofar as possible errors in February 1972, and with eager friendship with the Chinese peo or inaccuracies. interest await publication of his ple. His passing is a great loss, but Edgar Snow's contribution to a most recent book, said to be the the friendship for China and the truthful accounting of the Chinese companion piece of Red Star Over Chinese people which he fostered revolution, however, does not rest China. will live on through the centuries.

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JUNE 1972 Tsitsihar Saves Its Fish

LUNG CHIANG-WEN

Tsitsihar, with apopulation of one million, second-largest city in China's northeastern province Heilungkiang, is a fast-growing industrial center. Flowing through it is the Nunchiang River, which originates in the Greater Khingan Mountains and goes 1,379 kilo meters southeast till it reaches the Sunghua River. Its clear waters abound in aquatic products, includ ing fish of some 60 kinds. The river's catch accounts for half the >1 output of the entire province. In the past several years, how ever, the number of fish in the Nunchiang near Tsitsihar dropped markedly. In winter when the river froze over, large numbers of dead fish were found in the 400-kilo < meter stretch above and below Tsi tsihar. The 1969 catch dropped to 17.9 percent of what it had been in 1960. What was the matter?

Polluted Water Finding out why fish died in great quantities. The old city of Tsitsihar had practically no modern industry. investigation teams and increased and finally became unconscious Large-scale construction through support to city departments already and floated downstream. Dissec three five-year-plan periods since treating waste water, liquids and tion and laboratory tests of the fish the liberation built today's city — residues. revealed no unusual morbid junction for transport routes from changes. If unconscious fish were the Greater Khingan Mountains, In early 1968 more than 40 scien taken out and put in river water the Hulunbuir Grassland and the tists and technicians from 14 re with plenty of oxygen, they quickly search organizations in the country plains of the Sunghua and Liao revived, indicating that the fish came to Tsitsihar and joined local rivers — into an industrial center were dying from lack of oxygen in with modern factories manufac workers, fishermen and technicians the water. turing sugar, paper, food products, in surveying the Nunchiang River. leather, medicine, chemicals and In the bitter cold they covered 450 The survey also found that be machinery. kilometers of the frozen river, tween December and April while visiting factories and villages along the river was frozen, a yellow It was found that industry was it and making detailed studies. sticky mass grew at the bottom of discharging a daily 250,000 tons of the river, giving the water a rank They found the following process sewage and water containing chem smell. icals into the Nunchiang River. taking place beneath the icebound Tsitsihar Municipal Party Com surface: First the fish, swimming Six months of investigation and mittee and the city's revolutionary sluggishly, tried to lift their heads, laboratory tests proved it to be committee went into action. It sent then they lost their sense of balance organic matter composed of an

CHINA RECONSTKUCTS aquatic fungus. Its growth was Working Out a Plan According to the principle of self- promoted by the presence of large reliance, they worked out several amounts of pulp, sugar-refining Once the cause of the death of fish was found, the Tsitsihar revo plans and placed them before the residue and nitrogenous sub masses for discussion. The final stance. Water containing this yel lutionary committee formed a team of workers, cadres and scientists to plan specified that factories manu low matter consumed 22.5 times seek measures to remedy the situa facturing sugar and paper should as much oxygen as normal water. recover the harmful matter in their The decline in oxygen became more tion. The team solicited widely for Ideas among the people. Industrial own waste and use it as raw ma serious in winter when the yellow terial for useful products, and that matter multiplied quickly and workers said the fundamental way to prevent pollution was for each sewage and waste water free of when the river froze over and did factory to recover and treat its own harmful chemicals should be stored not take in oxygen from the air. in reservoirs for irrigation. Tsitsi Tests of the oxygen content in the wastes. Members of the Lungsha commune outside Tsitsihar sug har medical workers urged that the river water made in January 1970 plan include digging of deep wells showed the following figures: gested diverting and storing the industrial sewage water and puri to provide clean drinking water for Tamin Bridge section fying it for irrigating farm land. the communes on the city's out (at Tsltsihar) 1.6 mg./liter Fishermen asked that measures be skirts, as the chemical water stored taken to protect the aquatic re in reservoirs might contaminate Fularchi Bridge section sources. underground water. With these (below Tsitsihar) 0.8 mg./liter improvements the plan, approved Tailai Bridge section These ideas helped the planners by the Heilungkiang province revo (below Tsitsihar) 0.4 mg./liter to establish clear principles to lutionary committee, was put into guide their work: Benefit to the operation. Fish require 4 mg. of oxygen per people should be their point of liter of water for normal existence, departure; with future generations Wastes Become Useful and perish when the amount falls in mind, measures should be long- below this. In addition, the small term ones and not mere expe In 1970 the city's factories car amounts of such toxic matters as dients; and the problem should be ried out mass campaigns to turn phenol, acid, soda, cyanogen and considered from all sides so that waste to use. Large amounts of heavy metal ions in the water also while eliminating one hazard they chromium, oil, acid, soda, pulp and hastened the death of fish. would not be creating another. silver were recovered.

Part of the project that diverts for irrigation sewage formerly discharged into the Nunchiang River. F

Tamin Bridge section 8.07 mg./liter Fularchi Bridge section 9.03 mg./liter Tailai Bridge section 9.47 mg./liter Both the yellow mass and the rank smell had disappeared. The number of fish in the river has been increasing since the win ter of 1970. From mid-December 1970 to mid-January 1971 the catch at the Shihjenkou fishing ground totalled 150 tons, three times the figure for the same period of the previous year, before the water was treated. Fish weighing over 2 kg. are common catches again.

The 400 hectares of fields irri gated with sewage are yielding good crops. The Lungsha com mune's Chienchin brigade got in creases of 1,500 to 2,250 kg. per The rate of survival of its fish has risen greatly since hectare. The commune's Aikuo measures were taken to halt pollution of the Nuncbiang. brigade had never grown spring vegetables because its soil was too poor. Irrigation with sewage has To manufacture by-products free of zinc cyanide, is an excellent improved the soil so much that the from its wastes, the Tsitsihar Sugar chemical fertilizer. brigade now has a spring crop and Refinery set up a number of new is getting better yields of its sum The Lungsha Waste Products shops, operated mainly by wives of mer vegetables. Purchasing Station in 1970 extract the plant's workers. From lime ed 70 kg. of silver from waste Tsitsihar's leaders view decon residue they produce 1,400 tons water from photo developing and taminating the Nunchiang River of low-cost, quality cement a the manufacture of mirrors. and keeping it clean as a long-term year. From cinders they turn out project for the benefit of the people. two million bricks annually, which Beginning in June 1970, under Not resting with the good results are being used to construct more the leadership of the Tsitsihar already achieved, in the hope of shop buildings. They also make Municipal Revolutionary Com completely halting pollution they alcoholic spirits from the tailroots mittee, the city's workers, peasants, are now working on problems re of sugar beets and distill alcohol armymen, students and neighbor quiring long observation and study, from waste honey, the latter hood residents joined in the con such as learning which crops do not averaging one to two tons a day. struction of a project to divert thrive well when irrigated with sewage for irrigation. Every day sewage, and purification of sewage A sedimentation pool near the more than 5,000 people were at the water in the reservoir so that it will Tsitsihar Paper Mill's water-dis work sites. In six months they not affect the surrounding environ charge outlet traps 150 tons of pulp built a reservoir with a capacity of ment and underground water. a year, which is used to make 20 million cubic meters, dug a 6- packaging paper. kilometer channel and erected a 6- The Hua-an Machinery Plant has kilometer-long dam, with the taken measures to recover practi workers from the auto plant CORRECTION cally all the harmful and toxic mat taking on the most difficult ter in its waste water. Since 1970 section of the dam. In the March 1972 issue of China Reconstructs, page 5, it has recovered more than 10 tons After the entire plan for treating line 10, the sentence should of chromic anhydride. wastes was put into operation, tests read: Last year over 2,000 The Tsitsihar Electroplating Fac showed an improvement in the brigades in the area raised their own hybrid seed of tory adopted a new process which water in the 350-kilometer stretch maize and sorghum. Areas did away with the use of toxic zinc of the Nunchiang below Tsitsihar. sown to them were eight cyanide. The cost is lower and Tests for oxygen in the water in times as much as in 1970. products of comparable quality. January 1971 showed a five to ten The factory's waste water, now fold rise over a year ago:

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS A Chemical Plant Fights Pollution

Staff Reporter

ALKING between the shops Of As production expanded, wastes few technicians were asked to work ^ the Liaoyuan Chemical Plant also increased till as much as 10,000 on measures of treatment. in Shanghai, one is surprised to tons of water containing chemicals find the air fresh and clean, practi was discharged daily into Soochow Masses the Key cally free of the acrid smells that Creek. The factory's exhaust poi usually characterize a chemical soned the atmosphere with chlorine In 1971 the Shanghai Municipal works. Its tall chimneys and and vinyl chloride gases. The plant Party Committee and the city's towers are silhouetted against a was rated as one of the factories in revolutionary committee called on deep blue sky instead of being the vicinity causing the most harm the factories in Shanghai to mobi lize the masses to carry out in veiled in smoke. to the environment. earnest Chairman Mao's directives "If you had come here a year Before the cultural revolution on the comprehensive use of ma ago," a member of the plant revo every year work was done to re terials and wastes. The entire plant lutionary committee's production form those technical processes responded. Every shop and section group told me, "you would have causing the most harm, and some formed groups to study the prob seen quite a different sight. 'Black steps were taken in" the direction of lem, composed of leaders, work and yellow dragons writhe around, making use of the wastes. These ers and technicians. Everybody in the sky and on the ground' was improved working and environ offered ideas and suggested meas what the workers used to say." mental conditions to a certain ex ures for dealing with the wastes That was before the plant's mass he was most familiar with. tent. But under the influence of campaign to reprocess the "three Liu Shao-chi's revisionist line wastes" — gas, water and residues From mid-March to the end of which put emphasis only on pro — to remove harmful substances. April 1971 more than 40 measures duction, more attention was given Polluting the air and streams, these were proposed. Many were quick to meeting the production targets had been very harmful to the peo ly adopted and have produced good ple and the crops. It also meant than to recovering wastes to end results. Improvements which had the loss of important chemical ma the problem of pollution. Only a once seemed possible only if whole terials. Now, instead of contam inating the area, these wastes are The air in the polymerization section is free of vinyl chloride gas. turned to use.

The Liaoyuan Chemical Plant stands on the south bank of Soo- chow Creek which runs through the city of Shanghai. It produces caustic soda and chlorine products such as hydrochloric acid, bleach ing powder and polyvinyl chloride. The plant's predecessor was the Tienyuan Chemical Works, a capi talist firm opened in 1929. With primitive technology and rotten working conditions, production was low. At the time of liberation in 1949 there were 160 workers and it made three products. Year by year expansion and technical reform was undertaken by the people's government. Today it has 2,700 workers and produces more than 20 basic chemical materials. Three and a half days of the present plant's production of caustic soda is equal to its entire 1949 output.

JUNE 1972 sets of new equipment were pur thick yellow smoke and stunk up mental way to eliminate harmful chased were solved more economi the place for hundreds of meters wastes. The chlorine shop's hydro cally when the masses demon around. chloric acid section used to dis strated their initiative and charge a daily 300 tons of water Some people maintained that a creativity. containing this acid. Pipes corroded small amount of such gas was in by it sometimes collapsed and In the polymerization section of evitable, saying, "You can't have a the polyvinyl chloride shop, the chemical works without smells any caused cave-ins on the streets or serious damage to the foundations unwanted vinyl chloride gas used more than a fish market that of buildings and installations at the to be discharged from nine poly doesn't stink of fish." Such think plant. merization reactors by 'compressed ing kept the problem from being air. Thinned by the air in this way, solved. From this water, originally used the harmful gas was difficult to to wash hydrogen chloride waste treat to recover raw materials. In the process of creating benefit gas, a certain amount of acid could for the people, socialist industry be recovered, but the quantity was Before the cultural revolution should not add to their hazards. not considered worth the cost of efforts had been made to recover This was the conclusion of a three- the expensive installations needed. this gas. One technician, after in-one group set up in the section poring through all available litera after they studied the problem in Last August workers and techni ture from abroad, had designed a the light of Chairman Mao's think cians in the section, after study of vacuum pump for removing the gas ing. Harmful wastes, they decided, advanced techniques used abroad, from the reactors. But it had not were not inevitable, and they re improved the inner structure of the been designed with reference to solved to eliminate them. absorption tower so as to raise its actual conditions at the plant and efficiency and cut the hydrogen proved unusable. An old worker remembered a chloride content in the discharged punch press he had seen at an gas. Then they worked out a new In the mass campaign last year, industrial exhibition which was process in which the water with workers and technicians in the stopped by signals from a photo the remaining hydrochloric acid is polymerization section proposed electric cell. He thought a similar sent back to the absorption tower many ideas and methods for re device might be constructed to for re-use in production. In addi covering the gas. On the basis of control the chlorine content in the tion to completely eliminating the these, in a month an experimental tail gas. He placed his ideas before acid content in its waste water, this group worked out a plan and sim the technicians, electricians and ple equipment for pumping water instrument operators. A month section now recovers 800 tons of into the reactors to force the gas and 20 experiments later they had hydrochloric acid annually. into a tank for storage and later re set up apparatus that serves the Much of the equipment for elim processing. Practically everybody purpose. It also automatically inating wastes has been made out pitched in to help install the piping, sounds an alarm to alert the of old pieces or scrap. Equipment and the whole thing was ready in operators of the chlorinator. The for recovering carbon dioxide for 48 hours. This method cut air whole thing cost less than ICQ yuan. use in making soda ash would have pollution and recovered enough Health department tests of the gas cost 60,000 yuan if built according raw materials to produce an addi discharged from the iron trichloride to standard designs. Technicians tional 250 tons of polyvinyl section's tail gas tower now reveal and experienced workers of the chloride resin a year. This success no chlorine content. spurred the workers in the poly caustic soda shop, with the help of merization section on to further Another waste product of this the maintenance department, pro efforts in treating harmful gas and section is a dark yellow water con duced it from scrap at a cost of only water. taining iron dichloride. It used to 6,000 yuan. It yields 800 tons of corrode the drainage pipes and soda ash a year, all the shop needs for purifying its brine — an annual Chlorine Gas poUute Soochow Creek into which they emptied. Now the workers saving of more than 100,000 yuan. Chlorine gas, of which the Liao- save this waste water and re-use it In the past year more than 30 yuan plant produces tens of thou as an agent for absorbing chlorine. projects for utilizing wastes have sands of tons annually, is impor Absorption of sufficient chlorine tant to chemical production, but gone into operation. Most of the turns this waste into the by Liaoyuan plant's waste gases, 90 when it escapes it is very harmful. product iron trichloride solution, of A particular problem was the iron percent of its solid residues and 60 which the plant now produces 200 percent of the discharged water are trichloride section of the chlorine tons a year. shop where scrap wire is turned now being decontaminated. In into iron trichloride in a chlorina- Thus two major hazards have addition, 10,000 tons of chemical tor. If the chlorinator is not loaded been turned into benefits. materials valued at over one mil just right, large amounts of lion yuan are recovered annually. A good beginning, say the plant's chlorine gas are released. Former More Fundamental Measures ly these discharged into the air workers, in a long-term struggle to above the plant through a tail gas Reforming technological proc reduce pollution for the good of the tower, filled the atmosphere with esses is, of course, the more funda people.

CHINA. RECONSTRUCTS 12 •« v ' •• s

i

;? The lond oj Bomboo Anchi county, Chekiang province, has been called "the land of bamboo" for Its abundant bamboo growth. More than 700,000 mu (47,000 hectares) of bamboo forests spread over the mountains of the county. Before liberation most of the bamboo forests were owned by the landlords. The laborers In the bamboo groves led a miser able existence. Bamboo growing and the economy of the entire area was on the decline. After liberation both land and forests were returned to the people. Collective growing and better care under the people's communes brought a new look to the land of bamboo. Today the area under It Is speedily being expanded.

Weaving bamboo baskets.

Bamboo growers on the way to work.

i .UV'&A . /

The new look of the land of bamboo.

With the aid of a scientific researcher, commune members manage the forests scientifically. Felling.

1^

ill-U Report from Tibet:

LINCHIH

TODAY

A bird's-eye view of the Linchih Woolen Mill.

A LL day long trucks pour local In the past, every year on horse years but could not buy her agricultural and livestock and mule-back, the manorial lords daughter even a dress of coarse products to be processed into Lin transported abroad great quanti wool. Little Tsering Yangzong got chih, a new industrial base in ties of local sheep's wool, and ex her first dress after a neighbor Tibet, and dispatch manufactured changed it for costly foreign luxury brought over several scraps of goods to the herding areas. fabrics and blankets — solely for sheepskin. their own use. But now the Linchih Known as "the pearl of the Woolen Mill, turns the local wool But people like her are now the plateau", Linchih is located beside into a wide variety of fabrics, masters of the country and she the Nyang River at the foot of the knitting wool, blankets and felt works with great energy. In the Himalaya Mountains. Ancient for the herdsmen and peasants of mill she learned how to operate trees grow on the river banks. the plateau. The herdsmen, who the machines in less than a month. Farther away are snow-capped before liberation lit their fires by An experienced hand, she now mountains. The climate here is the friction method, now get helps train new women to the mild and Linchih's fertile land is matches from a Linchih factory, work. good for crops. But before libera which not only meets local needs As the local industry develops, tion, it was a desolate valley over but also ships them to neighboring the life of the people in Linchih grown with brambles. The serfs provinces. were ground down by the feudal continually improves. Not only serf system, and many died as a Linchih's woolen and paper mills the county town has schools, result of heavy labor and brutal were built by the state and are stores, a post office and a hospital, punishment. When the river rose well equipped. Its paper-making even the factories scattered in the high water season, manorial equipment was made in Shanghai. through the valleys have their own lords often forced them at gun and The Chengtu battery factory sent shops and clinics. The factory sword-point to cross the river to some of its own equipment to the workers, both Tibetan and Han, fell trees, even though many never Linchih plant. Shanghai and the live in housing built of brick with reached the other shore alive. provinces of Szechuan, Shensi and tile roofs. The state provides Hupeh helped train technical per them with work clothing, gloves With the liberation of Tibet in sonnel and provided experienced and safety equipment. Medical 1950 Linchih gained a new life. workers. P.L.A. commanders and treatment is free. Women have Soon the Szechuan-Tibet highway fighters also engaged in the con maternity leave with full pay. reached this former isolated place. struction. Workers who live away from their The Chinese Communist Party led families have time off with pay, in the peasants and herdsmen to begin Most of the workers in Linchih addition to their regular weekly local industries. came from Tibet's farming and day off, in order to visit them. The herding areas. Since they entered The Great Proletarian Cultural factories have reading rooms and the factories, they have earnestly Revolution speeded up socialist frequently show films. congtruction. In the past few years studied Chairman Mao's works more than 10,000 people have and are trying hard to serve the "Before the liberation day and taken part in the building of local revolution. Helped by the Han night we longed for the paradise industries. Linchih now boasts a workers, they have rapidly raised of freedom," said Lhapa Tabgyae, dozen factories of small and me- their technical level. Tsering chairman of the Gold Star Peo diufh size for printing, power Yangzong, daughter of a serf and ple's Commune, who had spent his gerleration, processing grain, oil- now a weaver in the woolen mill, first forty years in the old society, seecjs and timber and producing was bom in a cowshed 21 years "but now our Linchih is better woolen goods, paper, matches, ago. Her mother, a herdswoman, than even imagined paradise could flashlight batteries and farm tools. slaved for manorial lords many be."

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS How We Prevent and Treat Oooupational Diseases

Comrade Tung knew what was on my mind. He led me to explore TN the heart of the chemical industry district in the northeastern more deeply the meaning of the city of Kirin stands the spacious four-story Kirin Chemical quotation from Chairman Mao, Industry Hospital. With 600 beds and a staff of 500, it takes care "This question of Tor whom' is of the health of the chemical workers and their families. An fundamental; it is a question of important part of its work since it was set up in 1956 has been to principle." He pointed out that I prevent and treat occupational diseases that workers develop had not really related the remold through constant contact with toxic materials like mercury, ben ing of my thinking to the question zene and chromium and their derivatives. How the hospital goes "for whom". My indifference to about this work is shown in the following conversation with the chairman of the hospital's revolutionary committee and several occupational diseases, my regarding of its doctors, as recorded by a China Reconstructs reporter. them as something out of my line showed that I lacked deep feeling for the working class — that what concerned me most was my spe cialization. Such a problem can TUNG WEI-CHIH (revolutionary order to discover better ways to only be solved by getting out of the committee chairman); We've deal with these illnesses. hospital and going among the always had a department for occu masses. SHEN HO-FEI (head of the depart pational diseases but before the ment of internal medicine): I was The day the first group left, the cultural revolution, because the one of the first group that went to hospital gave us a rousing send-off revisionist line promoted by Liu the factories in 1969. Although I with gongs and drums, and I re Shao-chi placed emphasis on treat had been with the hospital 16 years, ceived an equally warm welcome ment rather than prevention, we up until that time I had hardly from the workers at the dyestuffs did not give occupational diseases ever gone out of the building, and plant where I was assigned. I the attention they deserved. confined my efforts to treating learned its production processes on In 1968 during the proletarian patients who came. I felt that occu the job, and also taught the work cultural revolution the staff made pational diseases were the business ers how to treat common illnesses an intensive study of Chairman of that department and that my and trained some of them as shop Mao's instructions on health and medical personnel. Together we work did not have much to do with medical work in relation to our made extensive investigations into them. own work of serving the chemical the causes of occupational diseases. industry. We saw that a socialist My threefold aim in going to I discovered something I hadn't country like ours develops industry the factory was to be re-educated known before — that chemical ma for the welfare of the working peo by the workers, to train worker- terials in their semi-processed state ple. It is entirely different from medical personnel and to explore were much more harmful to health capitalist industry where the aim is the problem of preventing and than the finished products. Using profit and the workers are only treating occupational diseases. I this knowledge, I consulted with tools for realizing that aim. We re welcomed the opportunity to be the workers and proposed measures solved to make occupational with the workers and to learn to for eliminating some of the valves diseases one of our main tasks. see things the way they did. But in the piping, thus reducing the The staff was reorganized so that what I was supposed to do about possibilities for escape of toxic doctors from every department had occupational diseases I didn't fumes. My first-hand experience a chance to go to the factories in know. They just weren't my line. with their effects later led me to

JUNE 1972 17 to ask them in order to examine own occupational diseases. By them more thoroughly. And every being on the job with them we can f so often I feel I must go to the find out the methods of prevention factories again to keep in touch and treatment they have developed with things. among themselves. Then we can improve on these with the medical TUNG WEI-CHIH: We have learn knowledge we possess. ed from experience that we can do a good job only by working closely Workers in a shop of the with the workers. For instance, one dyestuffs plant often suffer from doctor who went to the catalytic eye inflammations caused by con shop of a fertilizer plant was ex tact with the variamine blue salt Hospital leader Tung Wei-chih (left) learns about herbal medicine for treating tremely moved to see the workers B they produce. At the hospital I a skin disease from dyestuffs workers. going ahead with production even used to prescribe hot compresses, though their nostrils became irri but the eyes only got redder and tated from contact with chromic more swollen. In my 14 years in anhydride dust, which affected the eye department I hadn't been them despite the fact that they wore able to find a real treatment for it. masks. He wanted to find a solu When I went to work at the shop tion immediately and pored over I found that some of the ex books and documents and made a perienced workers did not go any careful study of chromic anhydride where for treatment when they in the test tube. He racked his had this eye condition but still got brains for two months, but nothing over it. They told me that they came of it. Then Dr. Fang Ke-wei simply stayed in a dark place for a went to that shop and tried a dif while and then applied milk to ferent method. ... their eyes, and soon the inflamma Dr. Shen Ho-fei (right) doing some Investigation. FANG KE-WEI (ear, nose and tion was gone. I only half believed throat doctor): I didn't know any it. Then I myself developed this thing about this condition either, trouble. One of the workers treated though I've been working in the me by this method and soon my hospital's ENT department since I eyes were all right again. finished medical school in 1965. I After further investigation I had to learn about it from the found that when it comes into con beginning, so I asked the workers tact with light and heat variamine to explain the production processes blue salt B decomposes, and this is and found out why chromic anhy what produces the toxic matter dride dust affected the workers. I that irritates the conjunctiva. My found out the various ways they previous treatment had only aggra had tried to control its bad effects, vated the inflammation, but the Dr. Fang Ke-wei (left) tests and then we experimented till we darkness reduces decomposition a new method on a rabbit. produced an ointment that reduces and consequently irritation. The find other ways to prevent and the chemical activity of chromic protein content in milk protects the anhydride. When applied to the treat their harmful effects. conjunctiva from the toxic matter nostrils, it prevents the nasal mu Six months in the factory gave and cleanses the eye. Experiments cous membrane from becoming me a deeper understanding of the found that egg white was even irritated, and is also effective in need to deal with occupational better for this than milk, and that treating irritation. diseases more effectively. Now I coptis, a plant with a tonic and am back at the hospital but my CHIN FU-YU (eye doctor): The astringent effect, stops the inflam feeling towards the workers is workers have accumulated valu mation. We made very good eye different. I know what questions able experience in fighting their drops of egg-white and coptis. Now

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS anyone who suffers from contact pail by pail the polymerized matter with this dye can treat himself that had stuck to the tank wall. The .right in the shop. long contact with the chemical sub stances in the hot tank gave the TUNG WEI-CHIH: As doctors, our workers an almost intolerable itch. main job is still to give treatment, I suggested they wear rubber suits but since we have been working in which covered the whole body ex the shops we have discovered that cept for the head, but they said many occupational diseases ,arise these were too cumbersome and from spread or leakage of harmful that the toxic gas could still get to substances due to imperfectly- the body through the opening at welded equipment or irrational the neck. work processes. We must also help make technical improvements to After talking the problem over with the workers I suggested eradicate such sources of illness if changing the opening of the tank we are to carry out the policy for Eye-doctor Chin Fu-yu (left) medicine and health care of "pre to the side so that they could clean leams the production process, out the poljrmerized matter with a vention first". Of course technical innovations are mainly made by long-handled scraper without going the workers, but we should con into the tank. This method, adopted by the shop, has greatly tribute our ideas too. Dr. Sun Wei- sheng has had some experience on reduced the hazard. that. This experience taught me that if we doctors of occupational SUN WEI-SHENG (doctor in the diseases are going to do our job occupational diseases department): well, for a period we must do the When I worked in the acrylonitrile work that causes these diseases shop of a calcium carbide factory, I and develop measures in close found that to clean out a certain cooperation with the workers. tank the workers had to crawl in through a hole in the top and from TUNG WEI-CHIH: The day-to-day a depth of three meters haul out tasks of prevention are now han-

Dr. Sun Wei-shenff (left) encour Testing the air near an industrial plant. ages worker-medics to test their knowledge of acupuncture needle- m treatment points on his own body.

died by 300 worker-medical person nel which we have trained in co operation with the factory clinics. A 20-man team of doctors with a lot of clinical experience goes reg ularly to the factories to give phys ical checkups, investigate inci dence of disease and study meas ures for prevention. There is still a lot to be done. Things that have proven effective in practice must be studied and theoretical conclu sions must be reached. We are planning to make a thorough study of the pollution of air and water, so that we can offer our medical opinion on measures to eliminate it.

JUNE 1972 ! H

—%',ty \x]f

Soaking bamboo Cooking

*«W> fi

Beating the pulp Pressing Drying Papermaking in Ancient China (lilustrations from an ancient book)

Fora long time in China the in Shensi province. The largest was of the method resulted in the wider making of paper from fibrous about 10 centimeters square. Ex use of paper. matter was attributed to Tsai Lun, amination proved them to be made The Chinese method of paper- a court official in the Eastern Han from hemp fiber. Other relics un making soon spread to Korea and dynasty (A.D. 25-220), who was covered in the same tomb showed through Korea to Japan. Westward supposed to have invented it in it to be no later than the time of it travelled to Samarkand in central A.D. 105. In later centuries he was Emperor Wu Ti (140-87 B.C.) of Asia, and further to Baghdad, memorialized by temples and stat the Han dynasty, about 200 years Damascus, Egypt and Morocco. ues of him. earlier than Tsai Lun. The production of paper from Abundant evidence, therefore, plant fibers was an epoch-making During the past half century invention in the cultural history of fragments of paper made from shows that the art of papermaking already existed in the time of Tsai mankind. Back in the Shang plant fibers dating from before the dynasty (1600-1100 B.C.) characters Lun, probably the creation of the time of Tsai Lun have been exca had been inscribed on pieces of tor working people of an earlier day. vated. In 1933 a piece of coarse toise shell or animal bone. Later, paper made from hemp and dated As court official in charge of sup inscriptions were carved on stone 150 years earlier than his time was plies for the emperor, Tsai Lun had tablets and bronze, or written on found at Lop Nor in Sinkiang. In ample opportunity to come into strips of bamboo and silk. These 1942 some fragments of plant-fiber contact with the advanced handi processes were always laborious, a paper dated several years earlier craft products of the time and the fact which greatly limited the methods for making them. Clearly than Tsai Lun's were unearthed in spread of knowledge. The inven Chuyen in western Inner Mongolia. it was on the basis of the ex tion of paper, and later that of perience of the working people that printing during the Tang dynasty In 1957 several dozen pieces of he was able to propose that the em (seventh century) contributed im coarse paper were found in a Han peror make paper from rags, bark, measurably to the spread of dynasty tomb in Pachiao near Sian hemp and old fishnets. The success culture.

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS 20 LANGUAGE CORNER

i Wii Gui Yuan Zhu Lost and Foiiucl

— ^ — ^'J A/v itif i #41 X 4e. A A Yi tian, zki yi Hi c6ng Ndnning qii Beijing de tgbie jiaogeile xu^xido. ?Xuexido ydu ba shoubiao zhiianjlao One day, at a from Nanning go Peking special gave to school. !School again wrist watch turned over

_L, iKt MU ku^iche shang, yi w6i lUk6 bu liuyi ba ylku^ ddo le chezhan. express train on, a passenger (was) not careful a to station.

i± T J T shoubiao diaojinle bianchi. Shoubiao liu d^to Gu6 ie iiang t nd wdi lukd shoudaolc wrist watch dropped (into) toilet. Wrist watch slipped After two d that passenger received 4km Xi 7 ;*4. to. -f 4. ti&Iii shang qii le. Ta shifeo zhdoji. Lidche ziji de shoubiao. railroad (track) onto. He (was) very worried. Train (his) own wrist watch. T— M, d&oddle xi^ yi zhdn, ta jimdng xiang chezhan qu Translation arrived next stop. hurriedly One day, on a Nanning-Peking special express train, a passenger 414- 'A M. was not careful and dropped his watch into the toilet. The watch passed baogao shi biao de jinggud. Chezhdn de rdn dui through out onto the roadbed. He was very worried. When the train report losing watch experience. Station's people to pulled into the next station, he hastened to report the loss of his watch. The people at the station told him, "Comrade, don't worry. We'll -few.! "r=i,t-, ii; —A do our best to help find it." ta shuo: "Tongzhi, ni buyao zhdoji, wdmen yidlng After the train had left, the clerks immediately telephoned the him said: "Comrade, you shouldn't worry, we certainly three stations up the line and asked them to help look for the watch. f it' 4k " The next day a station called back saying that four students of the jinii bang ni zhao dao." railroad primary school who had gone to the mountains to collect exhaust effort help you find (it)." medicinal herbs had found a watch among the stones near the station on their way home. They handed it in to the school, which had turned Xf A iSS- IKJ M Xk'l it over to the station. Lilche kai zou hdu, zh&H de zhiyudnz lik6 Two days later the passenger received his watch. Train departed after, here clerks immediately

Explanatory Notes dadlanhua gSi qidn sange chezhan, qing tamen telephoned to previous three station, asking them 1. The suffix le 7 shows an action completed and is often used to express the past tense. Xudsheng zhao dao biao le (the students found the watch). W6 xudxile ylfin w^njian 7 — bangzhh xunzhao. (I studied a document). help search. 2. Shying Jl and xi^ T usually mean "up" and "down". E.g. I6ush4ng ijkX (upstairs), 16uxla (downstairs); shan shang (on the mountain), shan xia T (below the mountain). But x and T Di'er tian, yige chezhan hui le dianhua, shuo can also denote the order of time or place. E.g. sh^g xingql j:.3:4Fi Next day, a station returned telephone (call), saying (last week),xi^i xlngqlT ^ (next week); shangyi zhiui x—ji (previous stop (station)), xia yi zhan T—iA (next stop).

tielu xuesheng shang 3. Literally da 4r means "beat", out the meaning varies with the object taken, e.g. dadianhua .Ir "li "to telephone", dashu! "fetch railroad primary school students up water", and daqiu "play ball". a, 4. The word ba it if directly translated would read "take", but shan caiji caoyao, huijta lushang zdi chezhan it requires a verb or other words to make the meaning complete. A mountain collecting medicinal herbs, homeward route at station sentence with ba it is arranged in this order: subject — ba — object — verb — other elements. Wii -Sf.5 l'<] T -4^ E.g. Ta — ba—biao — diaole (He dropped the watch) fujin de sulshi jian shiddole yikuai shoubiao, Xu&heng —ba — biao — jiaogeile — laoshi (The students gave near crushed stone among picked up a wrist watch, the watch to the teacher).

JUNE 1972 After liberation the People's Government set up jade studios JADE CARVING in Peking, Shanghai, Tientsin, Kwangchow (Canton), Yangchow (Kiangsu province) and Chinchow (Liaoning province) which brought together carvers who had given up the craft and those working on their own. Each was encouraged JADE has always ranked among Jade carving in China has a the most valued of stones in history of 3,000 years. Many to develop his speciality. The craft took a new lease on life. In the China. prized works are preserved in the Palace Museum in Peking. Jade Peking Jade Studios alone there Jade stone is a mineral of com carving was already a specialized are now 1,500 carvers, young and plex chemical components. Differ profession in the 16th century B.C. old. ent compositions result in stones of Relics uncovered at excavations of With the liberation, jade carvers different colors. The more com Shang dynasty civilization (16th to were emancipated politically. Now mon ones include white jade, dark 11th centuries B.C.) included a they no longer need worry about green jade, yellow jade, veined jade large variety of jade ornaments and employment and a decent liveli and emerald-green jadeite. Fine utensils of very high artistic order. hood. Tragedies of old craftsmen jades are valued for their waxlike The Chou dynasty (11th to 3rd cen starving to death after their ap luster and tough structure. turies B.C.) set up the Jade Office prentices mastered the art have specially for collecting fine jade become a thing of the past. Once Long hard work goes into a piece stone and employing skilled crafts of finely-carved jade, from several closely-guarded professional se men to make jade objects for court crets are being passed on to the months for a simple object to use. younger generation. The late Pan several years for an intricate work Ping-heng of the Peking Studios of art. This is because jade is so Jade artistry reached new was a past master at gold and silver hard that it can only be cut with heights during the Han dynasty inlay, a skill he jealously guarded belt-driven lap wheels using abra (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) with the carv in the old society. After liberation ing of animal and other ornamental sive sand. Strictly speaking, there he offered to make his technique fore, a worked object of jade is cut motifs. Celebrated jade carvers ap known and taught it to his appren and polished rather than carved, as peared in large numbers during the tices. Another skill requiring years testified by the old Chinese saying, Sui and Tang dynasties (6th to 10th to master is carving from a single "A piece of jade is nothing with centuries). The opening line of a block of jade a vase decorated out cutting and polishing." famous war poem by the Tang poet with chains of interconnecting Wang Han speaks of "A luminous links. The links are carved with When creating a work of art the goblet of fragrant grape wine". the spiralling method. Today not jade carver first studies the piece This luminous goblet was fashion one or two, but many carvers, are of raw material to decide what can ed from jade quarried in the Chi- able to do this. best be made of it according to its lien Mountains. The making of particular size, shape, coloring, tex designs based on the natural color Chairman Mao's policies for the arts — "Make the past serve the ture and grain, and then makes his ing of the stone was initiated by present and foreign things serve design to fit his piece. A block of the imperial carvers of the Sung China" and "Let a hundred flowers black jade becomes a sleek black dynasty (960-1279). Artists of the donkey. A jade stone with several blossom; weed through the old to Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) began bring forth the new" — are guiding colors becomes a bird with colorful inlaying gold and silver wire onto carvers to create new works with plumes. In both cases the natural jade objects for ornamental effect. their traditional techniques. Ex coloring of the raw material is Carving, mainly of objects of art, periencing life in factories and utilized in the design. developed further during the Ming communes, the designers have ex and Ching dynasties from the 14th Experienced and highly-skilled tended the scope and significance to 19th centuries. jade carvers are good at bringing of their themes. Some of the new out the fine qualities and disguis In the semi-feudal, semi-colonial works include "Spring Comes ing the defects of the raw material. China before 1949, industry of all Early", "Bumper Harvest", "The Jadeite, for instance, is prized for kinds went into decline and people Boat on Nanhu Lake"* and "Fish its green markings. In carving a had a hard time making a living. ing". In composition, arrangement, piece of jadeite, the artist makes Jade carvers were poor and looked design and workmanship, each full use of the green parts as an down upon. Many turned to other piece is highly appreciated as an important part of his design. trades to eke out a subsistence. Old individual creation. Again, a flawed piece of jade does craftsmen were frequently reduced •When the Chinese Communist Party's not worry or discourage the carver. to begging and sometimes starved first national congress, held in secret in By careful designing he turns the to death in the streets. The art of Shanghai on July I, 1921. learned the police were searching for it, it adjourned imperfections into natural features jade carving was on the brink of to a boat on Nanhu Lake in Chiahsing of his work of art. extinction. county in nearby Chekiang province.

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS DesigQiQ?

f rtwj I Egrets and Lotus, white jade.

Flower Basket and Chains, green jade openwork. JADE CARVING The Boat on Xanhu Lake, hsiu jade.

Harvest, vase, Jadeite. ipe-twined vase, Jadeite.

u P Steelworkers Tap Hidden Potential

LI Shao-kuei (right) with young workers.

4 ^ •

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M

^ _.<'vM - •*'•••• —'•>♦'?& "S-t- -i-' '•

Steel-smelling plant.

The Anshan Steel Works, Chi ganized them to study Chairman bate the workers realized that the na's oldest iron and steel com Mao's writings with reference to two views were really a reflection plex, is still setting new records. In the problem. Within a few days a of two different lines for industri 1971 output of all main products hundred thousand big-character alization. They agreed to try the showed substantial gains over 1970: posters had been put up in the self-reliant way. steel 8.68 percent, iron 4.95 percent, combine's various plants. The great The Takushan Iron Mine had rolled steel 16.59 percent — all- majority of them argued that An originally wanted five more drill time highs for the complex. shan Steel had developed to what it rigs, two electric shovels and more was today because of the concern To meet the zooming demands of electric locomotives. The workers, of Chairman Mao and the support however, said that the present industry and agriculture for steel, of the people. Such a big enterprise early in 1971 the state proposed a equipment was not inadequate, it should not add to the burden of the only seemed so because the work set of revised targets for Anshan state by asking for more men and Steel. Among the workers and ad was not organized well. This could equipment, especially since these be overcome, they felt, if they took ministrative personnel there were were badly needed for construction two views on how to meet them. the initiative in rationalizing the elsewhere in the country. Instead, work organization. The mine's One view held that more men it should rely on its own efforts. and equipment were needed. Many leaders accepted the criticism and Some added that this idea that An welcomed suggestions. As a result old workers didn't agree. They shan could not increase production were for tapping the complex's the mine overfulfilled its 1971 plan unless it got more men and equip without adding men or equipment. own potential. ment was actually a reflection of the "Anshan has reached the limit Reforming Old Equipment Mass Debate of its production" thinking spread Anshan Steel has more than a To help the masses sort out their by Liu Shao-chi's henchmen in the ideas, the steel works' leaders or steel industry. Through mass de thousand three-in-one groups en-

JUNE 1912 gaged in making technical innova 25 percent, and output went up 15 Exchange Technical Know-how tions. These are composed mainly percent. The steel mill is like a battle of workers. Along with technicians The high-speed annealing fur ground. The glowing furnaces, the and plant leaders they comb the nace is an important link in the swinging arms of the mechanical shops, checking over every piece of tube-making process. The metal loaders loading at high speed. The machinery. Under their guidance, bearings next to the furnace walls workers in their visored caps and old equipment is reformed to bring used to burn out about once a week heat-proof clothing wielding their out its full production potential. because the water-cooling system shovels, working intensely. All in The Seamless Steel Tubing Mill could not cool them adequately. order to make more steel, better had difficulty in producing certain Production had to be halted while steel. large hard-alloy steel tubing which they were changed and constant re Liu Kuang-jung, a veteran work was much in demand for construc placement used up a lot of steel. er, though he is now head of one tion. An innovation group headed An innovation group solved the of Anshan's open-hearth shops, still by Han Shih-chi, an old worker, problem by making the bearings of spends much of his time at the made a close examination of the a material containing resin. furnaces. While at the No. 5 whole process and found that the At the Tunganshan Iron Mine, 80 furnace, he learned that the C main trouble was that the piercing percent of the principal equipment shift was turning out a heat of steel machine was not powerful enough. has been reformed by such groups, 36 minutes faster than the A shift This could be remedied by increas a fact which enabled the mine to and 1 minute faster than the B ing the speed of the motor and put register a record output last year. shift. He found that in order to ting in two new gears, but it would More than a hundred technical in speed up smelting in the old take a long time to get the gears novations at the Steel Cable Plant, furnace, the whole shift had been from the manufacturer. The inno an old one built in the 1930s, mobilized to make constant obser vation group decided to make its helped it top its 1970 output vation so as to be thoroughly own, first experimenting on a small figure by 25 percent last year. acquainted with its performance model and then producing them in In all, Anshan workers made more and then make necessary adjust the required size. They increased than 3,000 technical innovations, ments. The C shift was then asked the power of the piercing machine 300 of them of major importance. to demonstrate to other teams the way they worked. Finally the plant revolutionary committee or ganized a mass campaign in which Technical Innovation eroup at work. steelworkers throughout the plant demonstrated their high-speed smelting techniques.

Li Shao-kuei, a member of the Anshan Municipal Party Com mittee, is a seasoned smelter who has been received by Chainnan Mao six times. He works regularly in the plant and always seems to show up where there's trouble. When he heard that the No. 6 furnace was taking unusually long to turn out a heat of steel, he work ed alongside the crew to find out what was the matter. A thick layer of slag accumulated around the charging-mouth and air flues was keeping the furnace from main taining the necessary temperature. He demonstrated to the crew a way of charging that in his own ex perience had kept the slag from accumulating. Using it the work ers eventually cut the time for a heat of high-quality steel from 9

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS One of Anshan's iron mines overfulfils its production quota.

the track on the ground and hoist down to 7 hours. Last year the the Anshan workers have under whole plant overfulfilled its target taken to build these themselves. ing them into place. Later he im by 300,000 tons. Now they have overcome initial proved on the idea by adding two problems of lack of experience and ropes hung from the top of the The movement to exchange ad proper equipment and are getting section which helped the crane vanced technical experience has good results. To build the 75- operator adjust his angles and ease now spread to the whole complex. meter-long inclined track for the track exactly into position. The the charging cars to run up, first incline was built in a month. Seizing the Hour a scaffolding used to be set up "We'll stand by self-reliance," Cutting down on the time needed and then the track was installed say the steelworkers. "That's the for construction and new installa from the ground up piece by piece. way to get what you don't have, to tions is another way of getting This took at least a month and a more steel faster. Instead of wait half. To save putting up a scaffold get big things when you have only ing for construction firms to build ing, Lin Hou-kuang, an old work small ones, and to speed up steel new blast furnaces and converters, er, proposed assembling sections of production."

JUNE 1972 What I Learned from the Workers and Peasants

TSIEN LING-HI

T AM an intellectual froni the old •*- society andhave beenteaching A? • science for thirty years. You might say that my position at the Talien Polytechnic Institute — where I have been for most of these twenty-two years that the country has been under the leadership of the Communist Party and People's Government — was an ideal job for me. I have had good working condi tions and have been accorded honors, both politically and profes sionally.

Yet, for quite a long time, though I had aU these opportunities to be 1 useful, I still kept running along % rather like an automobile without a steering wheel. Consciously or unconsciously I was under the in fluence of the old ideas —I viewed my knowledge as my private pos session to be used for my own good, and behind closed doors pursued purely theoretical research whether or not it had any relation to prac tical needs or problems. The fact is that I hadn't completely solved the fundamental problem: knowledge, research — for whom? fT^HE Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution gave me quite a jolt. I learned a lot from the revo lutionary criticism of such ideas by the masses. Reviewing my past experience, I realized that the rea son why my work had fallen short of the needs of the new society was because I had not taken the road for intellectuals pointed out by Chairman Mao; I had not got close to the workers and peasants. I de cided I had to change, I would go

TSIEN LING-HI, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics at Talien Polytechnic Institute, Is a deputy to the Third National People's

Cong'ress. He has taken part in design TV* .• * 1 work for some important construction projects, including the bridge over the Yangtze at Wuhan. The author (center) and commune members search for water sources.

CHINA RLCONSTUCCTS ing 800 kilograms of steel re inforcing rods. I thought this about as economical as possible. But after looking at it the commune members asked that I cut the reinforcing rods down to 500 kilograms. I went home and studied the draft from every angle and finally added a pier which would cut down on the steel. I thought that certainly they would approve of this, but then some people raised a new request — "Old Tsien, could you look at it again? Would it be possible to build the bridge without any steel?" Their question stumped me. Of course it is possible to build a bridge without steel, but I wonder ed whether it could be done with the brigade's construction condi tions and equipment. I consulted Tsien Ling-hi (center) in the workshop. with stonemasons and bricklayers and learned from them, and also did som.e investigation in the Luta city department of architecture and out among them, breathe some The members of the Miaoling design. At last I produced a plan fresh air. brigade wanted to use the sewage for an arched cement bridge that from our school to irrigate their could stand the weight of a tractor In 1967 I asked for a few months hillside fields. I worked with them and could be built without steel to work in the Miaoling production on drafting a plan for the system, rods or wooden supports. Using lo brigade near our institute. The walking with them all over the cal materials, the commune mem commune members were very glad mountains surveying. It was hard bers completed it in a very short to see me. "All those years you've for me because my legs and back time. been working in that big building are not good, but when I saw how and we've never seen you," they eager the commune members were Reviewing the whole process said. "This is a good start." They to change their mountains, it gave afterwards, I didn't feel comfort encouraged me. I lived with a peas me new strength. In three months able about it. If the commune ant family, worked with the bri of hard work their irrigation plan members had adopted the first gade members. They taught me was realized. I was so happy to see draft it would have meant a waste about the farm work and told me the sewage water flowing into the and an economic loss to the state. of the class struggle in the country wheat fields that I scooped up a This once again showed me that side. I joined in their political handful and smelled it, causing the even though one wants subjectively study sessions and discussions on commune members to smile under- to serve the laboring people, he how to build the new socialist standingly. countryside in answer to Chairman cannot do it well unless he has a Mao's call for agriculture to learn Gradually I came to have a real understanding of their life and from Tachai. I found that when common language with the the way they feel. I saw that they worked hard from early morn peasants and they often came to through this process of laboring ing till after dark it was not for talk things over with me. In the with them I had really come to personal fame or profit but for the spring of 1971 one production team feel the way they did and be con revolution. In the past when I had asked me to design them a bridge cerned about the things they were. engaged in scientific research, I had with an eight-meter span. To tell ONE DAY in April 1971 the always put first promoting my own the truth, in the past I would have thought such a small project teachers and students of our school of thought in my special institute went to a production bri field, and my own fame and gain — beneath me, and, furthermore, the commune members would never gade in the Lingshui commune to not what the cause of the prole plant trees. When we finished I tariat needed. When I compared have sought me out about it. Now myself with these people I found things were different. They trusted did not go right back to the school, there was a great difference in our me, and I accepted their request but, even though it was raining, thinking. I resolved to get rid of with pleasure. walked a few kilometers over the the idea of viewing knowledge as mountains to see a reservoir the one's private possession and to use Utilizing the hours after work, I commune men.bers were construct my technology to serve the people. very quickly drafted a plan requir ing.

JUNE 1972 I learned that they had quite a thought of myself as one who thinking that book knowledge few unsolved problems. The plan should learn from them. In this could solve everything. It showed for the project had been made respect, one incident taught me a me that only if I conscientiously without taking local conditions into great deal. learned from these workers with consideration. The dam was higher TJ^HEN our institute was in the practical experience would I ever than necessary and this would have the kind of knowledge that " midst of the educational rev waste a lot of labor. Judging from could serve the people. the pace of construction thus far, olution in 1969, I went to a ship the project could not be finished yard with a group studying reform TN May 1970 I was sent by our before the flood season'. The peo of teaching in order to find ways institute to help unravel a ple were busy with spring"sowing, to carry out Chairman Mao's direc knotty problem in the shipbuilding so they could not afford to transfer tive that education must be com industry. When I got there I found a lot of labor power to the dam to bined with productive labor. One it was something with which I was speed work on it. Yet, if it were day I went with a worker to repair completely unfamiliar. I cudgelled not finished in time, the uncom a machine. During the course of my brains all one night but still pleted dam might be destroyed by the work he was called away on couldn't figure out where to start. other business. This is not diffi I thought that perhaps I wouldn't floods. The commune members cult, I thought, if I go on the way be able to do the job. The next were very worried. he's been doing it, I'll have no day when I went among the work I went to the office of the bri trouble. But things were not so ers to investigate, while they told gade and suggested that perhaps simple as I had imagined. I dis me about the situation they gave the plan could be revised to cut mantled and cleaned one part of encouragement. "Don't worry if down the height of the dam from it, but after I put it back together, it's something new to you. We'll 11 meters to 9 meters. Then it the machine wouldn't move. In do it together," they said. could be finished ahead of the flood fact, a part that originally should I talked with workers and other season. The secretary of the Party have been stationary had become personnel engaged in building, branch was very happy with my loose. This was clearly a problem maintenance, salvage and shipping proposal. "Good, now you're think of mechanics, but neither my and from their practical experience ing the way we are," he said. "We strength nor my book-learning was collected a lot of data. Then, with had the same idea, but haven't of any use. the workers and members of the carried it out because we couldn't I couldn't rest that night. I was group responsible for solving the agree on the final plan." He called afraid that people would make a problem, I carefully analyzed it a meeting of the Party committee, big to-do about the matter and the and discovered some pattern to it. and after talking it over they great professor who couldn't do We found that good conditions agreed to revise the original design. this little job would become the existed for our design work to A new target date was set for the laughing stock of the plant. The break with foreign conventions on construction. With hard work, the next morning I told the worker this point and develop our own commune members finished the what had happened. He had way. reservoir project in two months, in another look at the machine, did time for the flood season. During; this period I frequently the job again methodically and lived, worked and studied with the That year there were extraordin soon the machine was turning workers, told them what was on my arily heavy rains, but the dam smoothly. I felt that maybe a self- mind and really made an effort to stood firm. The peasants were criticism was in order, but instead learn their revolutionary thinking overjoyed. This matter may seem of blaming me, the worker told me and good ways of working. They like something beyond my line of in detail what I had done wrong were happy to have me and often duty, yet it was just at this time, in the operation. He pointed out helped me by pointing out my as I got out of my narrow circle of that I had used too much force individualism and plunged into the when putting in the fixing pins so ideological faults or weak points. revolutionary work of serving the that the part was in too tight. And This kind of contact with them in practical work enabled me to learn people, that I began to realize the then I had neglected to give it a many things I could not get from breadth of life and the far-reaching few taps to loosen it a bit. His books. It also led me to a gradual opportunities for my own future. direct, sincere words brought home understanding of the technology of to me the idea that theory divorced the problem we were to solve, so Of course, before the cultural from practice was one of my seri that I could work out an initial revolution I had also had occasion ous shortcomings. to go to the factories and villages. plan for it. In three months of But then I went in a car. I was This incident also showed me hard work we unravelled the knot the "professor", the "expert". I that I should learn from the work in production. In the process I had never thought there was any way ing class not only politically, but a good tempering in practical work in which the workers and peasants also in the professional sphere — and another opportunity to see could re-educate me. Instead, I that I must get rid of the ideas from my own experience the bene looked down on everyone and was fettering my mind such as placing fits of getting close to the workers always making criticisms. I never theoretical work above all else and and peasants.

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS 32 Youth Amateur Athletic School

The rhythmical sound of a piano "The question of *for whom' is brought about rapid improvement fills the spacious gymnasium fundamental" to his own situation. in his skating, but also in his of the Peking Youth Amateur He realized that his aim had been studies. Athletic School as, to the count of wrong. Resolving to make his Tan Kuo-ho is a sixth-grader at "One, ... two, ... three, ... sports activities part of his service the No. 2 Primary School. He has four, ..." a coach puts a group to socialism, he practised harder been fond of sports since he was until he made himself capable of of young girls through their paces very small and once won the 100- in the basic gymnastic movements. topping the highest world record. meter dash in his primary school's Elsewhere boys are jumping over The story made a deep impression sports meet. After he was chosen the vaulting horse, turning on the on Kuo Hsiao-chun and his class for the athletic school, his mind horizontal bars or wielding their mates. was full of the idea of always being swords practising the rudimentary Now, with his aim clear, Kuo the winner. With this attitude, he techniques of wu shu (Chinese tra trained rigorously in the severest didn't want to put in the work ditional exercises). winter cold, and continued his needed to master the basic move Located beside scenic Peihai physical fitness program even ments, so he had a poor basis for Park, the school was set up in through the hottest summer, Once, making progress. Aware of the 1958. Today it has over 50 coaches though he did not feel well, in the situation, teachers in his primary and 1,000 students between the same spirit that Ni Chih-chin had school and the athletic school ages of seven and sixteen, recom defied the difficulties that con talked with him and helped him mended by the primary and mid fronted him, Kuo still insisted on see that the idea of pushing one's dle schools they attend daily. In finishing his full practice session. self forward should not be the the athletic school's classes four He blacked out. The coaches and reason for taking up sports in so times a week they get special his classmates tried to persuade cialist society. He came to under stand that athletes must temper coaching in nine sports, including him to rest, but he refused. He got themselves for the revolution. basketball, volleyball, . football, up and continued the practice, not After a period of hard training for table tennis, track and field sports, stopping until he had done as much basic body-building, he greatly im wu shu, skating and ice-hockey. as on any other day. Approaching things in this spirit not only proved his physique. From being Lesson Number One Some of the youngsters, when they first come to the school, see Young athletes before class. it simply as a good place to have a bit of fun. Others are pleased with the idea that with their new skills they will outshine others. One of the former was Kuo Hsiao- chun, a second-year student at Yuyuantan Junior Middle School who is enrolled in the athletic school's speed-skating class. How ever, on the first day, the coach told his group the story of Ni Chih- chin, the Chinese athlete who in 1970 set a new world high jump record of 2.29 meters. Ni, too, at first had no aim other than to win fame for himself. But this in itself was not enough to provide him with the strong will needed for constant practice, or to keep him from becoming easily discouraged when things did not go as he had hoped. Later he began to relate Chairman Mao's teaching,

JUNE 1972 Children at Wu Shu

"Wu shu, a traditional form ii of physical culture, is a popu lar sport in China. It includes both shadowboxing and ex ercises with weapons such as broadswords.

Every gesture and position shows strength.

Practice On the basic movements. w Exciting encounter. Fencing with broadswords.

Swordplay under the guidance of a coach. she won the girls' singles at the city junior table-tennis tourna ment.

Many Ways to Learn Aware that the people they are coaching are very young, the school's teachers adapt their meth ods to the psychology and phys ical characteristics of their pupils. The young athletes sometimes have the chance to see well-known sportsmen in action, in order to learn their good points. On holi days they frequently go to fac tories, country villages and army units to themselves give exhibition performances.

In addition to activities on its own premises, the athletic school sponsors classes in factories and schools, providing both coaches and equipment. Over the years In the gymnasium: How's her position? the school has trained thousands of physical culture activists. In 1971, 528 people studied in its 32 able to do the squat-and-straight- methods of play too monotonous. one-year courses, and 4,800 re en-up exercise with a 45-kilogram Later, visiting some factories with ceived training in 210 three-month barbell on his shoulders, he has other young players, she was courses. Now back at their more now progressed to a 100-kilogram deeply impressed by the enthu than 200 primary and middle siasm and hard-working spirit of schools and 16 factories in Peking the workers. She made up her and its suburbs, they are helping They Advance Together mind to practice the basic move to promote physical training The school teaches the young ments more rigorously and be more among their schoolmates and co- players the principle "Friendship conscientious in helping her class workers. Some of them have be first, competition second". In the mates. In a short time she im come members of national or city table tennis room a group is intent proved her skill greatly. Last year teams. on practising attacking. At table No. 5 a girl using the hand-shake grip is sending over chopping balls The ice hockey teams. to give another girl using the pen holder grip practice in returning with top drives. Every so often the server goes over to the latter and gives her a few pointers. She is Hsieh Ching-hung, a student at Peking's No. 74 Middle School. Training at the sports school since her primary grades has brought about an all-round development in her skill. A good student in middle school, at the sports school she has been chosen as a model for uniting and helping her classmates, and serves as a good assistant to the coaches. She often gives up her own practice or rest time to help the others. When she first came to the sports mm school, she was bored with con tinual practice on the forehand drive varied only with sideline or diagonal shots. She thought these

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS They Went to the Country

In 1969, 20,000 young people left Peking to make to the people back home on progress and problems in their homes in the mountain villages around Yenan, the new commune members' re-education. They re the old revolutionary base in Shensi province (see ported that 2,300 of the group had been elected to report on them in China Reconstructs No. 6, 1969). positions of leadership in communes and their bri They had gone there, on finishing junior or senior gades or teams, or in local government. A far larger middle school, in response to a call from Chairman number are working as teachers in primary Mao. He said, "It is highly necessary for young people and middle schools, barefoot doctors,* accountants, vi'ith education to go to the countryside to be re supply stewards, tractor drivers and agronomists. educated by the poor and lower-middle peasants." China Reconstructs asked some of them and the com Three years later a 100-member representative mune members who came with them to tell of their group of the young people came to Peking to report experiences.

'WE WELCOME THEM' the revolution, they had to inte grate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers. HAO SHU-TSAI, Communist Party secretary of the Tanshihyuan brigade, I recalled how, inspired by this Chiaokou commune, Yenchang county. talk, thousands of young people During the anti-Japanese and liberation wars he was a Labor Hero of the Shensi- from all parts of the country had Kansu-Ningsia Border Area. broken through the blockades set Three years ago when we first up by the Japanese imperialists heard that 20 young people from and the Kuomintang reactionaries Peking were coming to our village, and came to Yenan. Here they we were as happy as if we were studied Marxist-Leninist theory welcoming new daughters-in-law, and writings of Chairman Mao, and getting houses ready and stocking learned to grow crops, build cave them with rice, flour and firewood. houses, raise pigs, spin and make On the day they arrived we walked paper and writing brushes. They also learned to fight in war and do ten kilometers over the mountains Hao Shu-isai in a snowstorm to the commune political work among the masses. headquarters to welcome them. Thousands of them matured to be We heard that these youngsters come cadres for the revolution, from other places, driven by from the big city had never climb serving at the battlefront in the famine. My own grandfather ed mountains before, so we helped anti-Japanese war and in the worked seven years for a landlord. newly liberated areas. them up the slippery mountain He died after the landlord had him paths with their bedrolls till all got The 20 young people pledged to beaten on some pretext because he to their village homes safely. carry on this revolutionary tradi didn't want to pay the wages. My father fell ill while working and This was the first time the young tion and we must do our part to people had been away from their help them. Since they grew up in the landlord kicked him out. Then parents and their city homes. We the new society, they didn't know he injured his leg and could not work any more. My mother went felt we should care for them like what a hard life was like. They our own children. We taught them didn't pay much attention to out begging. I was sent to tend how to light the fire in the kang thrift, sometimes were downright sheep for a landlord when I was (brick bed) and how to cook. On wasteful, throwing away leftovers eight years old. Until I joined the holidays and festivals our families from meals. I asked them to a meal Chinese Workers' and Peasants' often sent over specially-prepared of husk and wild roots. They Red Army in 1935 I had never had dishes. couldn't swallow it. I told them a decent meal or warm clothing. this was our daily fare in the old We asked them to study The days. • Barefoot doctor is the name given Orientation of the Youth Move medical personnel selected from among ment, a speech given by Chairman "Was the old society as awful as the peasants for a short Intensive training course to enable them to treat common Mao at a mass meeting of youth this?" they asked. "The poorest diseases. They labor just as the other in Yenan on May 4, 1939. He told people didn't even get to eat commune members when not giving treat ment. The term comes from the south, the young intellectuals of the day these," I said. All the families in where peasants work barefoot in rice that if they wanted to contribute to our village except two had come paddies.

JUNE 1972 fi

B V-

ii Aq old peasant tells how much better life is today than in the old society.

Only when Chairman Mao came them how to work properly. They ist line for education, I concen did we poor people see the light learned fast and pretty soon were trated on book learning and seldom of day. on their own. thought of doing anything prac tical. I seldom did hard manual My accounts brought tears to the These young people have had 9 to 12 years' schooling and they labor and could not tell one kind youngsters' eyes. After that they of grain from another. But in these never wasted food again and have should be given a chance to use it for building socialism. We asked past three years I have had a learned to be frugal about every chance to make use of my book thing. them to teach literacy classes and help the commune members study knowledge in mechanizing farm We wanted to cultivate in them Chairman Mao's works. We got ing. a love for labor and the spirit of them to work with experienced We young graduates all had big hard work. These youngsters are peasants on mechanization and ex ideas when we first came to the full of pep. A few days after their periments in scientific farming. countryside. With our education, arrival they started to work with They got good results very quick we thought, we'd soon be doing big us on a water conservation project. ly. Now farm work in our out- things. When we found ourselves They took off their padded jackets, of-the-way mountain village is pushing around lumps of dirt all rolled up their sleeves and threw partially mechanized. day long, our enthusiasm cooled themselves into the task. It made down fast. us glad to see such drive. But soon they all had blisters on their hands. MECHANIZING FARMING The Party secretary saw what I tried to make them do something was wrong with us. One day he lighter as a start, but they said, took us a long way over the moun "We've come to learn from you. LI CHIEN-KUO, Tachuangho brigade, tains to visit a charcoal kiln. It Wangping commune, Kanchuan county. We're going to do whatever you was the place where Chang Szu- do." Good spirit! We assigned a Through my 12 years in school, teh, the soldier Chairman Mao had commune member each to show because of Liu Shao-chi's revision memorialized in Serve the People,

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS had worked. I thought about how ~rmn longer available. We tried making he, a veteran of the Red Army's our own parts, going to factory famous Long March, was really workers for advice about the draw "somebody". Yet for the revolu ings. We finally got an engine that tion he was ready to do whatever ran. task had to be done. He was burn ing charcoal there when the kiln It turned the husking and mill collapsed and killed him in Sep ing machines, but its strong vibra tion was hard on them. Electric tember 1944. As I looked at the kiln and the portrait of Chang Szu-teh power would be better, but a 10- placed there in memory of him .1 kw. generator cost more than two thousand yuan. We came up with realized that what this soldier rep the idea of converting an electric resents is something truly great — having service to the people and motor into a generator. the revolution so in his heart that It was no easy job with our he was willing to do the most or little technical knowledge. But the dinary work if it was needed. Party branch backed us up and we went ahead. We bought capacitors Our village is deep in the moun Li Chien-kuo of several different sizes and, start tains. Liu Shao-chi's line was ing with the smallest one, connect against building up the mountain ed them one after another to the areas. Production in this locality bodies were worn and battered and motor. The needle on the testing developed slowly; most of the farm many parts were missing. We instrument did not move. Com work was done by hand. Every thought maybe we could make one mune members who were watching day before the cocks crowed, the good engine out of the two. We urged us to go on. Finally the women were already at the mill, consulted books ard took it apart needle moved. The current was driving the donkey that turned the and put it together many ./ times. J passing through. The motor and millstone. Months passed but the engine still other fittings cost no more than wouldn't work. We heard some The commune members had long 600 yuan, saving 1,500 yuan for the wanted to change such backward people say, "What a waste of time! brigade. It's simpler to buy a new one." methods and we newcomers were The generator enabled us to put eager to help. Several of us pre Should we give up? The Party secretary encouraged us. "No suc in electric lighting and a loud sented the Party branch with a speaker system. We designed and plan for mechanizing some of the cess comes easily," he said. "You'll not only be restoring a scrap en built our own equipment for work. The Party branch was all purifying honey, cutting medicinal for it. With some of the commune gine to use; in doing it you'll be learning the Yenan spirit." pellets and tamping earth. We also members we set up a mechaniza set up a small foundry and made tion group. We kept on. As the engines were screws and other parts for our When we bought a 5-h.p. diesel very old models, parts were no machines. engine and brought it back from the county town the peasants were Relaxing after work. all excited. The trouble was we didn't know how to install it. We nailed it to the ground with -V wooden stakes but as soon as we started it, up it danced away. We :A\V ijm tried weighing it down with big !,Air stones but that didn't work either. v.fl Finally we brought a discarded n/ ' stone tablet from a ruined temple, ,1 cut a well in it, placed the engine in the well and set the tablet firmly i;: 1••iiJ in the earth. That engine certainly 1 livened up the place. Then the brigade bought some ill corn-shellers, and rice husking and milling machines. But one diesel engine could not turn them all. We learned that two 10-h.p. diesel en I .. - gines had been scrapped and were sitting in the county town. We de cided to repair them. Both were in pretty poor condition. The

JUNE 1972 SCIENCE FOR HIGH YIELDS the main thing." We read some had been too much rain at planting books on fertilizer and after asking time, making the subsoil too wet, around, according to local condi and that the female seed had CHENG CHIH-HSING, Chingchia- wan brigade, Chuangping commune, Yenan tions, composted grain stalks and been planted too deep. We spent couniy. weeds. a week replanting the vacant spots.

The first job the 20 of us did Next we built waterlocks and Scarcely had we finished when a when we got to the village was drainage ditches and diverted a hailstorm beat the fields as hard as turning up the soil on the hillside mountain stream into the fields. a board. So we had to loosen the fields with picks. The slope was We figured that the plant humus soil around each seed, one by one. steep and the soil very hard. I and silt dropped by the stream The shoots came up. But be asked a commune member how would gradually improve the hard cause of unseasonable weather the many hundred jin of wheat they soil in our field. stamens did not grow well and we got per mu. "How many hundred!" had to remedy this with artificial he exclaimed. "We're doing fine if We also decided to breed better pollination. We young people and we get one hundred." How far strains of kaoliang seed, a high- the commune women were given behind the thousand-jin-per-mu yield crop suitable for the local the job. Some of us felt this was areas they were here! We new soil. The first winter when some very easy and breezed through the of us went to visit our families in comers wanted to experiment with work, blithely knocking each kao getting high yields. Peking, we consulted specialists at liang stalk as we walked down the an agricultural science institute. The botany we had studied in rows. We left the commune mem They gave us some basic informa school turned out to be of little bers far behind and thought we tion and some good strains of seed. use in the face of reality. One of were quite efficient. But when Back at the brigade we tried cross us had read something in a maga comparing notes at the end of the breeding with a local variety, but zine about getting high yields of day, we found that the commune things did not turn out as we had corn — cut the top of the main members had collected much more hoped. Only the male parental stalk when the corn shoot was pollen than we had. They had held form sprouted. Disappointed, we three inches high and give it plenty their plates against the wind when of fertilizer to stimulate branch were ready to give up. catching the pollen, something they ing. Each of the many resulting The Party branch and many had learned through experience. branches would bear an ear of commune members encouraged us They also did much better when corn. This sounded like a good way to go on with the experiment and pollinating. That's how we finally to increase the yield, so my school helped us find out the reason for learned that the working people mate planted a small plot near our failure. We learned that we had actually knew much more about house and experimented. Two not stored the seed well, that there production than we did and that weeks after he cut off the tops of the main stalks, not one crotch had A lesson in rice-transplanting. appeared, probably because the weather was too cold. Some com mune members said, "Even if your experiment works, it's not of much practical use. We plant corn on ...... hundreds of mu and don't have the time to cut the stalks one by one." ft . •• " In a huff my schoolmate pulled up the corn and planted sunflowers instead. When the Party secretary heard t. *"4 1 what we had been trying to do, he got us together and urged us to try I . further experiments. "We'll try and get you whatever you need," he said, and suggested that we work with several experienced J -u. W. V farmers. L. A _ An old saying goes, "With field \ ''V-" • '• » crops as with flowers, fertilizer's

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS s

Cheng Chih-hsing we should be modest and learn from them. \C We kept a record of the growth of the kaoliang, observing carefully in order to weed out inferior plants. The experiment was a success and the new strain is now used widely in our county. GRADE SCHOOL TEACHER 3 SHEN FENG-YING, Shangshayuan production team, Hsienkou commune, Yi-> chun county, member of the Yichun county Party committee.

Before the cultural revolution the children in our village had to go to another village to attend school. In March 1969 the moun r-.-r tain village where I went decided to set up a grade school and asked me to teach it. M I was nervous. Imagine me, a An experiment for high yields of corn. young student myself, teaching others. The very first day I ran "Who wants to study anyway!" society not one person in our fam into trouble. I was writing some he said, and picked up his school ily could read or write." thing on the blackboard when sud bag and ran out. I didn't know denly I heard cries behind me. I I looked at her and the people what to do. I started for the turned around and saw Chen Pao- around me and I thought of a day brigade headquarters to resign the sheng, nicknamed Little Mischief, not long after we arrived. Coming job. pushing and hitting another boy. I back from a market town, a school flared up. "If you don't want to Many commune members came mate and I lost our way among the study, you can get out!" I shouted. up and surrounded me. Chen Pao- tall peaks. We were frightened be I thought this would frighten him sheng's mother said to me, "Do cause we had been told there were into behaving himself. stay and teach my child. In the old wolves in the mountains. Then we

JUNE 1972 heard people calling our names and mune members and we must let saw a group of villagers with the blossoms grow so that they . torches. ... I resolved to do all would bear as many pears as pos I could to build up this mountain sible. Why did you break the village. branches off the tree?" The day after the school episode I did not know what to say. Even I got up early and went around to the children knew it was hard the homes of the children telling work growing pear trees, while I them to come to school. - I went to only thought about having the Chen Pao-sheng's home and blossoms to look at. The fact that brought him myself. the child said this to me showed he I tried to make the boy under had proletarian feeling for me. stand that he should try and study When I fell sick, the children hard. I asked his mother to tell him came to see me and went with what she had suffered as a maid me to the clinic. Every time I went servant in the old society and how to the county town for meetings, much she wanted him to have some Shen Feng-ying some of the children would accom schooling. The boy broke into tears. pany me along the 10-kilometer Later he became an attentive pupil some fun," he urged. Much as the mountain road both going and in class. children loved firecrackers, this coming back. I also looked after the children's made them even more suspicious. The adults were very eager about well-being. When it rained, I went "Who wants your stinking fire studying Chairman Mao's writings, and fetched them myself. In the crackers! Come to the commune but found it difficult because they cold winter I kept a good fire going headquarters with us!" The man knew too few words. I opened a in the classroom stove. I cut their started to run away. Some of the night class, arranging for the men hair when it grew too long. I vis children pursued him while others and women to come on different ited sick pupils. Enrolment grew ran to get the militia. The man was nights so that at least one parent from 19 to 50. All children of caught and turned out to be could be at home to look after the school age are now in school. engaged in illegal profiteering. children. I try to follow the policy of For arithmetic I taught the chil making education serve proletarian dren how to measure land. In the politics and combining education countryside the fields are of all BAREFOOT DOCTOR and productive labor, so that the shapes. I took the children and children will grow up to be laborers asked the peasants to demonstrate SUN LI-CHE, Kuanchiachuang brigade, with socialist consciousness and how they measured, which they did Kuanchuang commune, Yenchuan county. culture. with a tape or a piece of rope or When I graduated from the just by pacing. When X explained We had one lesson entitled "The junior middle school attached to the lesson on measurement later, Old Doorkeeper", about an over Tsinghua University in 1969 I the children understood readily. thrown landlord who pretends to be never thought that one day I would mad in order to secretly carry out In order to cultivate a love for be giving treatment to sick people. disruptive activities. After the les labor in the children, I helped them I have been able to do it because I son I took the children to a meeting open a two-mw experimental plot. have drawn close to the masses. In where the villagers exposed the We did everything — plowing, these three years I have come to wife of a former landlord who stole sowing, applying fertilizer, weed realize deeply that the central public property and tried to disrupt ing and harvesting. problem for young intellectuals is production. This helped the chil class feeling towards the worker From the children I have also dren to be better able to tell the and peasant masses. If one devel learned some of the fine qualities bad people from the good. ops this one will know what they of the working people. One day I want and need and from the heart Some time later, a peddler came saw some beautiful pear blossoms. find ways to serve them. to our village selling firecrackers. I broke off several branches and Some of the children thought his put them in a bottle on my desk in When the peasants invited us to prices were strangely high. When the classroom. A child came up to their homes for our first Spring they surrounded and questioned me and said seriously, "Teacher, Festival in the village I met Aunt him, he tried to give them some my father often tells me that the Kao. She had given birth to eight firecrackers. "Take them and have pear trees are grown by the com children, six of whom had died

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS from illness in the old society. Our first patient was a peasant time. A few minutes later he got "Wouldn't it be nice if each village woman who had been ill in bed for up from the kang and said, "Amaz had a doctor!" she said. several days. She seemed in serious ing! And it didn't cost a cent!" condition and we asked her why Medical care in the area had im Through practice we also found she hadn't gone to the clinic. proved tremendously since libera ways to treat with acupuncture "There's so much work in the tion, especially after Chairman Mao such illnesses as chronic bronchitis fields," she said, "I wish I could do called on medical workers to stress in elderly people and inflamma the work of two." health and medical work in the ru tions of the intestinal tract. Her deep sense of responsibility ral areas. In addition to the Once a woman was brought to us and spirit of self-sacrifice moved hospital in the county town, a from another village. Examination us. We examined her and found number of other hospitals serve showed that she suffered from she was running a high tempera groups of communes located near acute intestinal obstruction. As ture, her tongue appeared white them. Each commune also has its none of us knew how to operate we and thick and she complained of own clinic. But the mountain vil sent her to the commune hospital nausea and a tightness in the ab lages are far apart and not every 15 kilometers away, but she died domen. There were faint red spots village had a doctor. Many com on the way. Deeply distressed, I on the body. The symptoms indi mune members had to walk at least wondered if I could learn to do cated typhus. We gave her some five kilometers to the commune some surgery. At the training class chloromycetin tablets and watched clinic for treatment of some minor I had watched the army doctors over her day and night. On the injury or illness. Sometimes be operate on peasants in simply- fourth day she was on the way to cause of the delay a minor illness equipped rooms. Lack of teachers recovery. After this more com would develop into a serious one. and facilities should not stop me mune members came to us for from learning. I had learned something about treatment. medicine from my sister who is a 1 practised sewing up incisions in When a touring P.L.A. medical doctor. Now, I thought, if some of my own clothes, quilts and bed- team came to our village, it gave us could learn to be barefoot doc sheets. When I heard that some us a short training course on treat tors, we could help improve med family was going to kill a chicken, ing common diseases. ical care in our village. (Continued on p. 48) One night I was called to the My schoolmates were all for it. bedside of an 11-month-old baby "Fine! The peasants are so good to suffering from toxic indigestion. Sun Li-che us — like we were their own chil From vomiting and a running dren. This will give us a chance to bowel he was seriously dehydrated be useful to them." and in a state of shock. Besides We put together all the medicine drugs to counter acid poison, he and drugs we had brought with us needed intravenous fluid therapy and started a small clinic. We immediately, but we didn't have bought a copy of Handbook of Ru the equipment. I saw the look of ral Health and Medicine and spent expectation on the faces of the par our spare time studying it. When ents and decided to administer the we heard that someone was sick, fluid through injections by hand. the whole group of us would take After 48 hours the baby came out our handbook and medicine and go of shock and uttered a cry. Then I to see him. Some people laughed fed him a drug solution. Three and said, "Whoever heard of five days later he was out of danger. or six people visiting one patient, As acupuncture needle treatment and with a book tool" The peasants is a convenient method that costs responded warmly to our eager practically nothing, we all practised ness and always let us examine hard to master it, experimenting on them. ourselves. Once a commune mem We would ask the patient about ber suddenly had gastric spasms. his illness, then we would consult He sweated and rolled about on the the handbook and discuss the case. hang in pain. I inserted needles at Finally we would make a diagnosis several points on his hands and and leave some medicine. legs. The pain subsided in a short

JUNE 1972 geography of china

'S-'

MMtf

Chinghai Lake

The vast Chinese landscape is Plateau, in the Inner Mongolia- alkali. The lakes southeast of the dotted with lakes, not only in Sinkiang area and the northeast. diagonal line are mostly fresh the warm flatlands of the east, but water ones with abundant water If a diagonal line were drawn also in the cold high regions of the and outlets through rivers. They across China from the southern west. Those of fair size number are a boon to water transport, irri section of the Greater Khingan around 370, of which 130 have an gation, fertilizer collection and Mountains through the Yinshan area exceeding 100 square kilo fish-breeding. Some are the sites meters. There are also many man- Mountains and the eastern section of health and pleasure resorts. of the Chilien Mountains to the made lakes—reservoirs. Kangkar Tesi Mountains, most of Fresh-water Lakes Lakes are most numerous along the salt lakes would fall northwest the middle and lower Yangtze of it. These inland lakes do not Best known among the fresh River and on the Yunnan-Kwei- have much water and have no out water lakes along the middle and chow Plateau, but there are also lets, but they are rich in chemical lower Yangtze are Poyang Lake, quite a few on the Chinghai-Tibet raw materials such as salt and Tungting Lake, Hunghu Lake,

CHINA RECONSTRUCTS Taihu Lake, Chao Lake and Yang- ularly-indented shorelines. It re tumn and Warring States periods cheng Lake. Along the Yellow, ceives the flow of the Kan, Fu, (770-221 B.C.) this whole area on Huai. and Haiho rivers are Pai- Hsin and Hsiu rivers. Its waters the border between Hunan and yangtien Lake, Weishan Lake and enter the Yangtze through only one Hupeh provinces was one big lake Hungtse Lake. On the Yunnan- channel. During the flood season, called the Yun Meng Tse, or Cloudy Kweichow Plateau, Tienchih Lake retarding and storing the waters of Dream Marsh. Continuous silting and Erhai Lake. In the northeast tributaries to the Yangtze, Poyang since that time has filled in most most well known are Chingpo Lake helps keep down floods on of the ancient lake, leaving only Lake, Hulun Lake and Hsingkai the big river. the present-day Tungting Lake — Lake which straddles the Sino- named after the hill on its north The climate in the Poyang Lake Soviet border. The Chinese ex east — and a number of smaller basin is warm and humid. On the pression "five lakes and four ones. seas" — meaning all corners of the fertile lake shore, rice, soybeans, land — refers to lakes Poyang, jute and wheat grow luxuriantly, Of the three sections (the eastern, southern, western lakes), the east Tungting, Hungtse, Taihu and making it one of Kiangsi province's ern one is the largest. The waters Chao. important farming areas. The lake is a rich source of aquatic products of the Hsiang, Tzu, Yuan and Li Poyang Lake is in Kiangsi prov and is excellent for water transport. rivers flow into the lake from the ince just south of the Yangtze. south and west, while the Yangtze With an area of 4,000 square kilo Tungting Lake south of the enters from the north and goes out meters, it is China's biggest fresh Yangtze in northern Hunan prov at the town of Chenglingchi on the water lake. In the low-water sea ince is next in size to Poyang with northeast. The lake thus serves to son the lake resembles a river with an area of more than 3,000 square regulate the waters of the five many branches because of its irreg kilometers. In the Spring and Au rivers. Unfortunately, continuous

DISTRIBUTION OF CHINA'S LAKES

HQUIHIAHI

/ \ POHAI SEA m ^ rMsmrufs

m mm VHINA Flood Diversion

K I Region of lakes with I / /\ no outlets Region of lakes with river outlets

Lakes Pearl Kiver

Line dividing the two regions 7 foUTH CHINA 200 400 600 800 km Hainan Island

JUNE 1972 45 shore juts out in several points. fwipp In the eastern section there are two •- /X •- "r" iV). M peninsulas and some 90 islets, most r. '7 -'!• '* ^ "A of them covered with huge jagged / r V' •'" k A rocks. The biggest islets are the East and West Tungting Hills and Machi Hill, located off the north 4 ^ •' ••- v v,a west shore and covered with bay- berries.

The Taihu was originally part of 1« a shallow sea. Encroachment by sand bars in the Yangtze and along ia;;;2i¥; the coast enclosed it to form the „V. :y:,4, present-day lake with water emp tying into the Yangtze through \\V-^'i'- • 4m-' many outlets. ;'• • - i •. ./1-I ^ • ' •• For a thousand years water con Taihu Lake servation in the Taihu region re ceived relatively more attention than elsewhere because the feudal rulers wanted to ensure their in silting and the wanton reclamation ties into the Yangtze except for a come from rents and tribute rice of scattered shoals by landlords and small part that goes through the from the area. But from the time officials before liberation gradually North Kiangsu Irrigation Canal of the Opium War in 1840 to the cut up the lake, reduced its area into the Yellow Sea. The lake re liberation in 1949, conditions and dislocated the water courses. gion grows rice and wheat and the deteriorated. Landlords on the Then, whenever the Yangtze and lake itself teems with fish of some the four rivers rose, the water shores erected their own dykes to 40 kinds, including the common reclaim land, thus reducing the size flooded over to cause untold misery carp, black and silver carp and big- for the people on the banks. of the lake. The inflowing water head. Other products are shrimps, did not drain away freely, and sea After liberation the Ching River clams, water chestnuts and lotus tides often surged in so that the flood diversion project* reduced roots. lake flooded over about every ten pressure on Tungting Lake. Before In ancient times this lake was a years. they enter the Tungting, flooding shallow bay which later became cut waters of the Yangtze are diverted After liberation many reservoirs off from the sea when sediment were built in the hill regions to into a detention basin. Other anti- gradually filled the outlet. As a flood measures included recon reduce flooding. Drainage chan lake it deteriorated steadily because nels and harbors were dredged and struction of lake dykes and water the feudal rulers through the ages locks were built to hold back the courses and the opening of storage and the Kuomintang reactionaries areas. tide. Within the basin the people before liberation paid little atten strengthened dykes and dams and The climate in the Tungting tion to water conservation. Silting built electric irrigation and basin is temperate and rainfall is raised the bed of the Hungtse drainage stations. plentiful. The alluvial plain around above the surrounding ground so the lake is good for rice and cotton. that the lake spilled over in flood A warm climate, plenty of rain, This lake too abounds in aquatic and dried up in drought. fertile soil and clearly-defined sea sons make the Taihu basin an im products and is good for water In 1950 Chairman Mao called on transport. portant farming area producing the people of the region to harness rice, wheat and rape-seed. A Hungtse Lake in the western the Huai. As part of the project the wealth of mulberry trees makes for part of Kiangsu province is China's dyke on the lake's eastern shore a flourishing sericulture. The re third biggest fresh-water lake with was strengthened. Construction of gion's famous scenic spots are big an area of 2,500 square kilometers. the North Kiangsu Irrigation Canal attractions for tourists. Beautiful It is irregularly shaped, like a swan and boat and water locks greatly Soochow lies to the lake's east and in flight. increased the lake's volume of Wusih to the north, with metropoli water, converting it into an asset tan Shanghai only 80 kilometers The average depth of Hungtse for irrigation and transport. away. Lake is less than four meters. The biggest river flowing into it is the Taihu Lake in southern Kiangsu Tienchih Lake lies just south of Huai. Most of the lake water emp- province has an area of 2,200 Kunming, capital of Yunnan prov square kilometers. The lake is ince. Formed by a fault in the

•See the October 1970 issue of China shaped like a half moon except for earth's crust, it has an area of 330 Reconslrucis. the northeastern part where the square kilometers and depths vary-

CHINA RKCONSTKUCTS ing from five to eight meters. The Chingpo Lake, or Mirror Lake, and Chilin Lake (Ziling Tso) all surface is 1,800 meters above sea is situated on upper Mutan River located on the Chinghai-Tibet Pla level. The lake is shaped like a in Heilungkiang province. It has teau, Lop Nor in Sinkiang and the crescent, with long narrow flats on an area of 90 square kilometers and Chuyenhai Lake in Inner Mongolia. both sides. Hilly terrain runs down many good bays. The uneven lake close to the western shore, making- bed rises above the water in many Chinghai Lake (Blue Sea), is it very steep. More than 20 rivers places in small rocky islets. The situated 80 kilometers west of discharge their water into the lake water rushes through outlets on Sining, capital of Chinghai prov whose outlet is the Putu River on the north of the lake, in twin ince. With an area of 4,400 square the north. Sharp head drops pro waterfalls, each about 20 meters kilometers and a depth of 38 vide rich potential for hydrdelec- high and 40 meters wide.* A meters at the deepest spot, it is tric power. hydropower station has been built China's biggest salt lake. It was nearby. formed when a fault occurred On the lake shores rice grows about a million years ago. At that luxuriantly in the year-round Salt Lakes time it was the source of the Huang springlike climate. The lake is River, a tributary of the Yellow known for its brisk water transport The principal salt lakes are River. As the climate in the region and the carp and other fish bred Chinghai Lake (Koko Nor), Char- turned dry and the terrain around there. han Lake, Namu Lake (Nam Tso) the lake rose, its outlets became blocked.

Tungting Lake Mountains rise to the north, east and south of the lake. More than 50 rivers flow into it, the biggest being the 200-kilometer-long Puha River. The lake shore is of sand and pebbles, except on the south which is a steep cliff washed clean by centuries of pounding waves. Along the bottom of the lake a mountain ridge runs from east to west. Of the four peaks that rise above the surface as islets, the big gest is Haihsin Hill.

The lake abounds in scaleless huang fish and pike. Livestock and crop farms set up on the lush lake shores promise a future of flourish ing agriculture. Lop Nor on the eastern edge of the Tarim basin in Sinkiang covers Heavenly Lake in Sinkiang 2,000 square kilometers. Its area and shape are continually chang ing. Three times in the past two thousand years the lower Tarim River has shifted its course, and with it the lake shifted its site back w- ''-• and forth between 39''-40°N. and 40°-41°N. latitude.

As Lop Nor is created by the SdLf -'A ' flooding of a river, the volume of water fluctuates and its shoreline shifts frequently in the salt marshes. Around it are numerous sand dunes and white salt crusts. Though the lake does not have prospects for water transport or service to agriculture, it yields use ful saline and alkaline compounds for chemical use.

•Pictured on the back of the March 1972 issue of China Reconstructs.

JUNE 1972 (Continued from p. 43) me to have interne practice in the lem that might come up. The I would hurry over and cut it open surgical department of a big hos operation took two hours and to practise dissecting. Once a dog pital. I had the opportunity to do everything went well. When we appeared to have some gastric ail some simple operations. finished, the commune members ment, so we opened its belly and In the spring of 1971 a peasant waiting outside the house broke removed an infected section of the woman came to us suffering from into cheers. intestine. It got well. a perforating peptic ulcer, and in Since then we have performed To give the other barefoot doc need of immediate surgery. I had more than 30 major operations tors more practice, I asked .them to only watched at two such opera without a single case of infection. remove a black mole on my back. tions at the hospital, but the wom We also learned to give acupunc They hesitated, but I said, "Go an's husband was afraid that ture anesthesia and made an elec ahead, you can do it." They gave something might happen on, the tric needling instrument for it. long journey to the commune hos me local anesthesia but made the In three years in the countryside incision the wrong shape so that pital. He insisted that I operate on we have learned more than we did her right there. they had a difficult time sewing it in ten years in school. I am deter up. But I was happy that they had Could I do it? Death has oc mined to move ahead along the a chance to operate and the curred even In well-equipped hos course pointed out by Chairman experience gave us all more pitals in such cases. We barefoot Mao and dedicate my youth to confidence. doctors discussed the matter, work building socialism in the country When I went to visit my family ed out several operating plans, try side, and I'm sure all my comrades in Peking, my sister arranged for ing to be prepared for every prob feel the same way.

learning from the peasant cultivators are Conquering the Sand DUR POSTBAG very inspiring. K.V.A. One of the articles which impressed me Vellankulam, Ceylon the most was the one about the superhu man efforts of the people's commune in Wuwei county, Kansu province. These Revolutionary Women were peasants sweating from hard work. They accomplished incredible feats. Day Now, a Happier Time I enjoy all the articles but especially and night the peasants boiled in hot those in the No. 5 issue, 1971. Take the desolate country never giving up, answer As one brought up in a Chinese village attitude of team leader Tien Li-jung, a ing every challenge mother nature could it is very good indeed to see so many who woman aiming high, overcoming any dif offer. might be one of those I was with so many ficulty in the frozen wilderness in order C.T. years, now in a happier time. It is good to be a revolutionary bridge-builder. She Wembley, Australia to see so much industry that will lighten has followed the thought of Chairman Mao the load of the farmer and of the machine who says, "A good comrade is one who is worker also. more eager to go where the difficulties New Generation I. P. are greater." Philadelphia, U.S.A. O.A. Imagine how overjoyed we were to read Oshogbo, Nigeria your report of the kindergarten of the Peking No. 3 Cotton Mill in the November From the article, "North Vietnamese 1971 issue. We know that such facilities Wants Art Works Fighting Women" (May 1971) one can learn are plentiful in socialist China and that that the building of a strong and united all are run, as is this one, with the greatest I am most Interested in medical devel nation does not depend on men alone but care for the health and happiness of the opments resulting from the cultural on everybody. The picture on page 33 of children and the greatest concern for the revolution. the same issue also proves that what a children's mental, physical and ideological man can do a woman can do. development. Also, you must continue including works T.O.A. M.K.B. of Chinese art, since it constitutes one of Ibadan, Nigeria Hemel Hempslead, U.K. the pillars of the culture of a people and the source of their history. 0.L.0 Medellin, Colombia CHINA RECONSTRUCTS Peasants' Efforts I am much impressed by the article an illustrated monthly of general coverage published "Sugarcane Goes Up the Hills" appearing in your esteemed journal of August 1971. in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish

The approach to the problem, namely Distributed by GUOZI SHUDIAN (China Publications the debate and discussion of the subject, is fine. The determination to withstand Center), Peking discouragement is to be commended. Order from your local dealer or write direct to The description of the details, including Subscription Department, CUOZI SHUDIAN, the painful effort of carrying water up the hills, killing aphides by insecticides pre P.O. Box 399, Peking, China. pared by the peasants from local herbs, intercropping for shade and the habit of

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