In my childhood, our family was almost self-sufficient in food, clothing and shelter of these basic necessities of life. At that time, agricultural co-operatives were well under way across the countryside. Every day father, mother, elder sister and brother would go to work on the collective farm with other laborers to earn their workpoints and share of grain in the harvest seasons. When the grain distributed to us was less than we needed, we had to buy some from the market to fill the gap. Because my native land could grow cotton efficiently, mother would spin and weave it into cloth for making clothes and quilts for our family. Even now some of her products are among our possessions. We consumed salt produced by our own for our land was rich in saline-alkali soil. We made earthen bricks forming most of the walls of our house only with its surface laid with burnt bricks. From the descriptions above, you could conclude our land was barren. But it is the life there that laid a solid foundation in my mind to cope with the difficulties later and in the future with ease.