Day 9: 18 June, 1997

Yanan Sheng Di Hotel 延安聖地賓館

Work in the field 做農活 (9 a.m.)

Visit farmers' homes 探訪農家 (11 a.m.)

Yanan University 延安大學 (2 p.m.)

Yanan Sheng Di Hotel 延安聖地賓館 (10:15 p.m.)

Yanan railway station 延安火車站 (8:15 p.m.)

Train number 661 towards Xi'an 第661列車往西安 (10:30 p.m.)

We had our breakfast in Yanan U, then we travelled to different farms separately to work with farmers.

9 a.m. Work in the field 做農活

The fields were beside a main road, not far away from Zao Yuan we visited yesterday. We divided ourselves into three groups. Joe, Frennie, Jo, Wai-Loi and I worked together, Mr. Yang of Yanan U was with us too. We were told to remove the grass 雜草 beside the fruit called "Small Melon 小瓜", which were green in colour. We worked in bare hands and after a while we had a hoe 鋤頭. The fruits were covered with plastic sheets to preserve water, when we remove the grass, we had to tear the plastic sheets. The soil was wet, and there were insects inside. We had to bend down to work, so it was energy consuming. We found that the farm also grew other things such as apples, grapes and vegetables. After we had worked for about an hour, we were quite tired and sweat a lot. We experienced the hard life of farmers very much.

We gathered together again and went to a group of houses in a village. Some village official (幹部) from the farm welcomed us. We went into a large meeting hall, and the village official talked about the present situation of Yanan. We were served tea, cigarettes, pine seeds 松子 and red jujube 紅棗, I never thought of eating red jujube uncooked, but they tasted good. The pine seeds were also delicious. Then, we went to "caves" beside the hall, and saw the photos displayed there which were about the history of Yanan.

11 a.m. Visit farmers' homes 探訪農家

We were in our groups again, and led by farmers to their homes. Their homes were "caves" 窯洞 up in the hill. The farmer leading us had got 3 connected caves: one was the dining room, one was the bedroom and one was a kitchen. The farmer's family were fiendly. In the middle cave, we saw a "brick fire bed 炕", I read many novels mentioning it but never saw it. It was made of bricks, black in colour, and people could make a fire at the bottom and could sit or sleep on the top in winter. The caves were very nice. We saw the farmer's girl who was very good in school, won many prizes. There were several bags of flour stored in the "bedroom". We sat in the middle cave. In the cave, the temperature was lower than outside. We looked around and saw a calender with a poster of Andy Lau beside the brick fire bed.

We had our lunch there, including congee made of Xiao Mi 小米 (much smaller than the kind of rice we had in Hong Kong. They were white and round-shaped, even smaller than a bean), and also shreds 條 of potatoes. They were very delicious, much better than the food in the university. There were dishes of vegetables and spicy sauces used for adding tastes to potatoes. I ate many bowls of potatoes and congee. Then, we had a walk outside the caves. We saw a small black pig kept by the farmer in a big and shallow pit 坑. It was very cute and if I produce some noise like a pig's noise, it responded to me, so that we could talk to each other. There were pigeons wondering around, and I saw piles of red bricks used for construction. There was a hole two meters deep which was used for storing food. I climbed down with a ladder to have a look. I reached the bottom, bent down and saw two large holes extending horizontally. In the hole, the temperature was at least 10 degrees lower than the ground surface, and it was suitable for keeping the potatoes inside, what a natural refrigerator.

We took photos with the farmer's family. Some of us wanted to buy some "small rice" and red jujubes, and the farmer led us to Zao Yuan 棗園 again to buy. We went there along a road in the hillside, so, we did not pass the main entrance, and did not need to buy tickets. I bought an ice stick to eat. Then, the farmer led us back to our van to meet the others.

2 p.m. Yanan University 延安大學

We had a rest in the hotel and went to Yanan U again. Every time we had a rest, some of us were late at the gathering time since we were sleepy. We had some food in Yanan U and then went to Run Run Shaw Building again. There we attended a lecture about the history and development of Yanan and the party. The lecturer talked so excitedly and he gestured a lot, using his hands. But we were tired, and some of us looked sleepy. I sat beside the lecturer and watched him. He talked about the "spirit of Yanan" which means do not rely on others and work hard. It was related to the geographical characteristic of Yanan. The soil there was not fertile and water was precious, one had to work very hard in his farm to earn a living. Maybe this kind of spirit helped the Communist Party to their success.

It was about 4:30 when the lecture ended. We were back to the hotel to have a rest. We had card games to kill time, and we also ate our biscuits brought from Hong Kong. Most of the time, we were full after having our meals, so we didn't need the snacks very much, and lots of biscuits were not eaten. An hour later, we went to Yanan U again to have dinner. After that, we had a walk around the campus. We played table tennis with the kids there. There was a table, and bricks were used to be the net. Mr. Cheung and Mr. Tung were very good at table tennis. We saw a group of kids playing football, so we played with them although their language wasn't quite understood by us (football is an international language). "Our team" included Mr. Cheung, Kelvin, Fat Boy, Wai-Loi, Faye, Kam-Yan and I, while the other side had more than ten kids. There was almost no organization in our game, and we relied on Kelvin to play the ball. It was difficult since all of the kids surrounded Kelvin or any of us while we had the ball. Kelvin was very skillful and delivered many passes to us. Mr. Cheung had several attempts on goal with his head, and the kids' attempts did not succeed because we had Fat Boy (a volleyball player) as the goalkeeper. I wasn't skillful enough to face the crowd of kids, but finally, Kelvin crossed perfectly and I had a volley (窩利) and scored. So, HKU won in a match against a primary school in Yanan by just one goal.

We returned to the hotel and had a bath (luckily there was water supply) and packed our belongings. We left the hotel in our van, rode around the centre of Yanan and saw many cooked food stalls and many people and shops, we didn't know there was such a busy area in Yanan.

8:15 p.m. Yanan railway station 延安火車站

Yanan railway station was a simple station. There was one big hall and that's all. All travellers waited in the hall. We preferred walking around the station and took photos. Then, we were led to the train, this time we were in the compartment of "Hard beds 硬臥", in which there were no rooms and there were 3-decker beds and was congested. Some ropes were hanging from the roof and tied to the beds so that people would not fall to the ground when they were sleeping. The beds were called "Hard beds" but were not hard, just a little bit harder than "Soft beds" we experienced when we travelled to Yanan. I had a cup noodles and wrote my travelling diary (I wrote diary every day, that's why I can write these things now). Then, I played UNO with Jo, Mr. Tung and Frennie when the train departed. At about 12 a.m. the light of the train went off, and we used our torches. We had to speak softly to avoid disturbing the others. I slept on the top-decker of the bed, fortunately the train was steady. I had a good sleep till the next morning.

Continue to Day 10 !

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