I almost forgot that today is father’s day thanks for my friend’s mentioning. Someone says that father’s love is too deep to be felt and too inward to be moved. I’m 100% agree on this statement for I found it’s so difficult to have a warm chat with my papa. But today, the Father’s Day, I want to write about my papa, about his old days he once told me when I was taking care of him in a hospital. That was a night we talk most, also a night I began to rethink my papa’s life experience.

My papa was born in the 50s and grew up in the 60s in the last century, a century I know little about. He was forced to quit from school and was send to a small poor village to work with farmers there when he was still a teenager. At that time, “all the young people have to work and live with farmers so as to be re-educated”, which was Chairman Mao advocated. My papa was just one of the young people then. Papa said that he couldn’t clearly remember at which age he was send to village but all he knows is that the live in village, for him as a young boy grown up in city, was so painful and miserable. Speaking of this period of his life, tears choked his words.

“My youth was ruined by such ridiculous plan by the government. I learnt nothing. Everyday I just grazed cattle, mowed grass and fertilized field. I was in no mood to read any book. An oil lantern was the only light at night then,” papa sobbed.

For the first time in my life I saw my papa sob over his own experience. I was slightly shocked, but I didn’t know what to say as a decent response.

During the 60s, known as China’s Cultural Revolution, the whole country was crazy about political activities. Young people doing nothing but moved all around the country doing so-called revolution.

“It was free to take trains anywhere in the country as long as you told people that you’re a revolutionary. So I went to many places with others. I’ve been in Shanghai, Beijing, Anhui, and so many other places I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I just moved all around with other also aimless people. I’ve wasted so many years wandering about,” recalled papa.

“After that, there were people from different units recruiting worker like me. I joined one but it’s not a good unit. You see, that’s why I quit and later started my own business with your mom.”

I listened and listened, trying so hard to imagine his life at that period which I’ve never experienced myself.

To my papa, life is so uncontrollable and hard. Before that night talk, I never know what papa had been through. He is wordless most of the time like a black cave which I don’t know how deep it is.

Talk to your papa, my friends. You’re bound to know him more thoroughly and more profoundly. Talk, just talk.