在中学的时候，每年农忙季节学校会组织学生下乡帮忙。大部分是干一些相对轻松，没有太多技术要求的活，比如搬运已经割好的稻子，或向准备插秧的稻田施肥，把牛粪，猪粪，或其他一些类似的扔到田里去。有时也干一些较难的活，比如插秧或割稻。插秧或割稻需要长时间的弯腰，很累人。尤其是插秧，一边插，一边在水田里往后走，要插的整齐，颇有难度。另外在水田里干活，最怕的是蚂蝗。因为干活时腿站在水里，要看脚上或小腿下部有没有蚂蝗，必须经常把脚抬出水面看看。如果发现有蚂蝗，就得把它拍下来，千万不能把它搞断了，据说蚂蝗断了，如继续钻进皮肤就麻烦了。还好我好像没有遇到过这种情况。农忙通常或在种植时分，或在收获时节。我记得我们在中学期间去过好几次。一般是早上去，傍晚回来，中饭自带。
虽然干这种农活很幸苦，但因为大家可以一起可以离开学校到外面去看看，过过短期的“集体生活”，也体验一下”谁知盘中餐，粒粒皆幸苦“。同学们还是高兴去的。
高二第二学期（春季），学校要组织一些学生去农村体验生活，要和农民百姓同吃同住，大约是两个星期。不太记得为什么要组织这样的活动了。可能是为马上大家毕业后要下放到农村去做些舆论准备。学校要组织两个小分队，10多人一队。每队有一个带队老师。我们年级有十个班，500多同学，所以能去的还是少数。学校让大家想去的就报名。不知道有多少学生报名。我是报了名准备去（也没有和任何其他人，包括家里人商量）。班主任老师为了这事还专门来家访，意在征求家长意见，是否让孩子去。（感觉学校对这事比较慎重。）略为遗憾的是我的父母都已下了农村了，舅外婆就是家长了！舅外婆说就让孩子自己决定吧。就这样我就决定和其他20来个同学一起去了离家大概40-50里地方的一个比较偏远的农村。公路只通到附近的地方。最后几公里是船行还是步行，有点记不清楚了。我们这一组十来个同学，男女各半（大致）住在两间百姓提供的屋子里。男生就睡在一家人家的客厅里。铺上干稻草，打个地铺，5-6个人一个通铺就睡了。我们在那里十多天，白天跟着农民一起出去干活。 当时应该是三月，农活并不忙。晚上就做”社会调查“，访问村里的百姓，包括几个知青。写调查报告。每天派两个同学留在家烧饭。两个星期下来和当地百姓，特别是几个知青建立了感情，后来在很长一段时间里都保持了联系。我不知道我们中间有没有人想过我们几个月之内很可能就会像这几个知青朋友一样去“扎根”农村了。体验生活结束回学校后，好像不记得为此做了什么专门的事，好像就不了了之了。
Experience Farming Life
In the middle school and high school years, we often go to countryside to help harvesting or planting during the busy farming season. When we go, usually we work on some light tasks with less technical work, e.g., moving the rice (with stems) from the field to the center of the village for next step processing, or distributing the fertilizer into the field. The type of fertilizer at the time was all “natural,” either cow or hog manure or some mix of them. Some of the farming work are more technical, e.g., planting the rice seedlings or cutting down the ripe rice. These work often require bending for a long time, very tiring. This is especially true for planting rice seedlings. One has to walk backwards and the seedlings have to be lined up squarely, pretty difficult to do. One of the big challenge or fear working in the rice field was the blood sucking leeches. Because when working in the rice field, one’s foot and lower part of the leg are in the water, in order to see if there is any leeches on your foot or leg, you’d have to raise the foot often to examine. If you find any, the advice is to tap the leg or foot at the location above the leech and shake it off the leg. Try not to cut it as it may stuck on your leg and may even go under the skin. I had a few cases of finding leeches, but I was able to get them off my skin. The time when students go to the countryside to help are either harvest time or planting time. I remember we went a few times during the middle school and high school years. We usually go in the morning (riding with a bus?) and come back before the sun set. The students usually brought their own lunch.
Though very tiring, we usually enjoyed going to the countryside to help these harvesting or planting because we got a chance to leave the school and had “field days” to be together with your fellow classmates outside the classrooms. This also gave us a chance to appreciate the fact the food doesn’t come easy.
Second semester in the second year of my high school (last semester in high school), the school was organizing a group of students to go living in the countryside for about two weeks. The students would live with the farmers. The students would also be responsible for preparing their own meals. Don’t remember exactly why the school wanted do this. It was probably to prepare the students for the life after high school, because most of us were expected to go to the countryside and become farmers after high school. It was said that the school was looking for two teams, about 10 in each, with one teacher to go with each team. We had 10 home rooms, about 500 students in the graduating class. So relatively few were able to go with these two teams. The school asked for sign-up for those who’d like to go. Not sure how many students actually signed up, I did sign up without consulting with my parents and grandma who we lived with. The home room teacher actually paid a visit to our house and intended to learn my parents’ view whether or not I should join this trip. I felt that the school took this decision very seriously (again, not sure why. Looking back I think the school may take this as a cue that a student is willing to go becoming a farmer after graduation. Will write about this a bit late.) It was unfortunate that neither my parents were home — they have been in the countryside themselves for a while. My brother, my cousin, and I were living with our grandma. So my grandma was technically representing my parents. She said she’d let me to make the decision. So I was able to join the group of 20 or so classmates to go to two separate villages about 40-50 km away. There was no direct vehicle road to the place. The public transportation only reached a place that was close to the village, the last a few kilometers had to be covered with foot or with boat (I don’t remember). The students were divided into two teams in two separate villages. Our group had about 10 students, roughly half boys and half girls with a teacher. The boys and girls lived in two separate houses. The boys stayed in a living room of a family. Everyone slept on the ground with dried rice stems as the base. During the days we went out with the farmers to do various farming work. It was during the month of March, so it wasn’t very busy. In the evenings, we would visit families and talk with them to do some social research. We wrote some reports to discuss what we found. Everyday when we went out to the field, we’d have two students staying behind to do the cooking for the group as we cooked all the meals by ourselves. After the two-weeks of staying, we made good friends with the villagers and the few city youths who came to the countryside after their schooling (some after high school, some after middle school). I don’t know if any of us were thinking that we could be one of them in a short period of time as we were a few months away from our high school graduation. We came back to the city after about two weeks. I don’t remember if we did anything such as reporting when we were back in the city.
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