This morning, Paul and I arrived in New York the second time this year. We were soon picked up by Yvonne and her husband. We are going to stay with them in Brooklyn today and leave for Atlantic City tomorrow mid-morning.
It will be a true reunion for all of us. For the first time, Paul will see my college mates of 35 years ago, even though only half of us will gather in New Jersey. Th other half are in China either working or engaged in their projects.
In March 26, 1975, 600 of us were selected to study English, French, Japanese and Russian by three universities in Shanghai. There were two grades before us. Two hundred students went to Congming Island, east of the city. I was one of them. For three and a half years we stayed on the island. Some planted rice, cotton, and wheat. Some grew vegetables, and raised pigs and goats. Still some manned the kitchen to feed us with our home-grown vegetables, rice and pork.
In addition to farming, we studied our selected languages, with the ratio of 1/3 the first year, 1/2 the second yeah, 3/1 the third year and full time the fourth year. Being Class 3, English was our major (Classes 1-4 were English, Class 5, French, and Class 6, Japanese). We never finished the 4th year.
With the fall of Gang of Four, the temporary education system established by the radicals was forever replaced by a more permanent one, i.e., high school graduates take entrance exams and go to universities, instead of having to farm or being factory workers for two years, before they could be eligible to become perspective candidates.
In the new era, our hybrid experiment also failed as a regime change. Some classmates might not understand it then, they felt resentful towards our instructor, who in fact was a victim of time himself. A lot of water has passed under the bridge; we have been scattering along the two sides of the Pacific. Now we are going to meet and time will stop for us for a while.
Before our reunion, we are going to see Hui, Ying & Mama for a dinner in Brooklyn this evening. I am so happy that Hui's plan worked: Ying happens to visit home at the moment.
