1963 Hubei, China

Zunyu Su

1951

Hubei, China

Interviewed on January 28, 2022

By Yaya Guo

(Translated from Mandarin)

The first movie that I watched that I can remember was Xiaobing Zhangga, Zhangga the Soldier Boy.

But to understand the experience, you need to understand the context of the time. The year was 1963 – I had to have been 12 years old. Our family was living in the countryside of the Hubei province in China in Su Jiawan (which translates to the little village of family Su). That entire road was pretty much related by either blood or marriage. Our houses were little more than bricks held together by dirt and clay, electricity was a luxury, and kids tended the fields instead of going to school.

Back in the 60s, nationalism was rampant. Chairman Mao was the head of the Chinese Communist Party – the true communists, not what China’s government is now. The first whispers of the Cultural Revolution were stirring, and it was becoming a time when love for country was more important than love for family. The Socialist Education Movement had just gone into effect, so that intellectuals were traveling to the countryside in order to “educate” us.

Every season, government officials would drive into the big dirt lot that we treated as the village center, unloading their old projectors and a flimsy white screen, as well as a roll with the brand new film. It was all propaganda, of course – but on Friday nights, once it was dark enough, people from nearby villages flocked to see the movie. There would be maybe three hundred people of all ages gathered in front of the screen on the trodden dirt. There were no ushers; there weren’t even seats.

The tradition became that I would walk the half mile or so into the lot with two or three of my friends who were in the same grade; they were my neighbors and also probably my second or third cousins. I can’t remember completely, but I think I watched this first movie with those boys – I still keep in touch with them today.

Xiaobing Zhangga is the story of a young soldier – he was probably the same age that I was when watching the movie – who fights in the Second Sino-Japanese War. You have to understand, in that time period, we, as a country, hated Japan. Any movie showing China besting Japan, especially a Chinese kid besting the Japanese army, was a source of national pride, and that was why the government officials brought it for us to see. It was a source of inspiration to act bravely for your country, a government message of recruitment into the Communist Army.

We all thought Zhangga was so intelligent and witty, especially for a kid so young. He was an underdog – small for his age, picked on within the military – yet he remained confident and nimble-minded. I remember thinking he was so good in nature – just the utter embodiment of an upstanding Chinese citizen. Us kids wanted to be just like him, and with the movie playing in the background, we pantomimed the action sequences with each other, fighting over who got to be Zhangga and the Japanese official. The big dirt field was perfect for these mock battles, and while half-watching the movie, we tried to live the life of the young soldier projected on the screen.

In the late summer, there would be the occasional packet of sunflower seeds, after the sunflowers were wilting and we could roast the seeds from the flower heads. Usually, no one really ate snacks – we barely had enough money to eat three proper meals every day. On the lucky nights when we had sunflower seeds, we would spit the shells right onto the dirt lot where we watched movies – it would fertilize the ground anyways. The cracking of the shells between teeth added to the ever present buzz of mosquito wings, complementing the occasional pops of static from the movie sound system.