Evening star., 1954-11-16

Now at last I met this man
face to face. Is he a slave? Yes,
because the state has told him
to open his doors to me whether
he likes 1t or not.
Is he free? Yes. free from
hunger and poverty.
Suits Replace Tatters.
Above all things though. he is
a human being and he lives ON
the outskirts of the ashen gray
cities of industrial Manchuria.
This is a land which gave up
its rags to put on boiler suits.
but a land which also lost much
that was rich in color.
The boiler suits bring warmth
and protection to millions who
only knew tatters. They also
bring uniformity to those once
inspired to build China's tenn
plies and courts, to weave her
brocades and to dress some of
her people in the worlds love-
liest silks and satins.
So long as Chairman Mao
Tse-tung wears his spotless uni
form of the engine driver, SO
will his courtiers and every one
else. So long as the government
surrounds the incredibly beau-
tiful forbidden city with minis
tries five stories high and fea-
tureless as army blockhouses, so
will this simple peasant seek
the day when his village looks
like jampot factory.
Today it is a cluster of low
rooted dwellings at the end of
a muddy yellow lane. Some
houses have roofs of tiles, others
Of straw. There are thick walls
of mud to keep out the Siberian
winds and hold the drifting snow
outside.
Pigs and Hens i'm Yards.
The walls inclose earthen
courtyards with a house on each
of three sides. There are pigs
and hens in the yards. Beyond
are fields of the tan Kaoliang
grain.
Those walls between the
fields must CO." says the old
peasant. "They are not eco
nomical. We can grow more
food in the space they occupy"
His name is Chao Heng Yu.
He has a few Wisps of beard and
he smokes dried tobacco leaves
In a long -stemmed pipe. His
padded trousers are tied with
string at the calves. His wife
offers cigarettes and smokes one
herself to silently illustrate she
no longer occupies the tradi-
tional status of household drudge
with no other right than to
bully her daughters-in-law.
Fire Heats Stone Bed.
We sit on the edge of a kang,
the stone bed which occupies
most of any peasant home. A
fire burns under it, fed with
straw and wood from outside.
It is covered jim straw mating.
On the other bed are yellow
grains of wheat. All windows
look into the courtyard. Some
are covered with rice paper.
others with glass. Paper pasted
on the wall and over the ceiling
fight out the cold. A candle
illuminates the cracked stone
floor.
There Is a wooden bracket on
the wall where joss sticks were
once burned to paper effigies OF
dead ancestors. A faded por-
trait of Mao replaces the an
cestors. perhaps as much in
fancy as in fact.
''I do not read Mao Tse-tung's
books says the old man, stand
ing obediently with hands be-
hind his back. II am only learn
ing to read now after go years.
Two government teachers were
billeted here for a while and /
learned from them. Now ! go
night school whenever ] can"
New School Erected.
The school is one OF several
new buildings erected by the TOO
villagers spurfed on by a tough
little village headman and his
production leaders," Commu-
nists all with training on Rus
sian collective farms.
Over in one corner of the viii
lage are the deposed landlords
living in a kind Of purgatory.
"They must do i've years. before
they can be reclassified," says
the headman. meanwhile they
work and are undergoing re-
education"
But are all landlords neces-
sarily wicked and therefore 10
be punished?
"How can there be. anything
else but wicked 1andlords?" the
headman asks innocently.
There are more than 1000
mows of land in. the village, six
moWs making an acre. The land-
lords. says old man Chao, owned
all but 20 NOW. Five, years ago
the land was redistributed and
each family received d share In
accordance with its size. Esti-
mates were then made on the
amount of crops each piece of
lard should yield On the esti-
mates, taxes were based.