Introduction
For People of My Generation
And for People Who Want To Know about My Generation

My dream always proceeds in this way...
>A few days have passed but no details come about the plan to send us back. A few weeks have passed, still we hear nothing. We begin to doubt the reliability of the news. Our joy fades and our anxiety grows. We can do nothing but continue our life as before. Every morning we go to the field, praying that this will be the last to labor in the field. Every evening we drag our tired feet home, overwhelmed with the thought that still another day must be gone through, perhaps another week, another month, another year...

This is where my dream always ends. I wake up feeling a catch in my throat, tears in my eyes and a heart weighed down by the old painful longings...
The nightmare of the "Cultural Revolution" has long been over and our days and nights in the countryside have receded into past memories. These memories, however, do not fade with the passage of time. We cannot forget them because we lived the years of our adolescent life toiling in the field, because we tasted what can truly be called "hardships," because we paid our youth--our precious youth--to learn the lesson or "re-education."