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Zhang Mingying (b. 1947) is a resident of Diaoyutai Village, Yindian Town, Suizhou City, Hubei Province. She is the daughter-in-law of the other interviewee, Yu Xiantang. Zhang recalls that people ate chaff, tree leaves, cotton leaves, bean and peanut leaves, and water grass. Many people died in Zijin Mountain, where people worked on mines for constructing blast furnace, so the Mountain was later called 'Mountain of the Dead.' In 1959, people who stole things were humiliated in a parade around the local villages while hitting a gong by himself. Those who held disagreements against 'the transitional period' were convicted for counterrevolutionary. Zhang's younger sister was named Siqing (meaning Four Cleanups), because she was born in 1964 when the campaign started. Zhang also talks about how people were beaten at the criticizing meetings during the cultural revolution.

Zhang Nianhe (b. 1948) a resident of Jimingqiao Village, Baiyun Town, Shimen County, Hunan Province. In this interview, Zhang recalls his experience during the Cultural Revolution. He was labeled as a counter-revolutionary and was sent to the countryside when working in the People's Hospital of Shimen County, for supporting the hospital head, Peng, who had been labeled as a capitalist roader. Later Peng became the head of the Police Department of the county, and revoked Zhang's counter-revolutionary record. The filmmaker's description of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Qiuyue (b.1937) is a resident of Zhengge Village, Duqu County, Linying County, Luohe City, Henan Province. During the famine of 1942, Zhang was only old enough to start to remember things. Her father sold clothes and bought Chinese bean pancakes back. They cut the pancakes into pieces to eat them. They relied on Zhang's uncle's help to survive. Later, Zhang's grandfather gave her some lands, and she ate food left by the Japanese people who lived there. When people ate at eating halls, Zhang cooked there and had enough food. She also brought buns to her mother from work. After people could work on their own, life became better. Zhang also recollects her family stealthily made baskets and went to sell them at night.

Zhang Qixiang (b. 1941) is a resident of Shaziying Village, Yang Town, Shunyi District, Beijing. Wang Shufeng (b. 1941) was married to Zhang and therefore moved to Shaziying in 1962. In this interview, Zhang and Wang talk about the life during the Great Famine. Because of malnutrition, many people had edema, but thanks to the two jins of soy beans assigned for each patient by the government, no one starved to death in their village. Many people went to pick up sweet potato leaves and other edible things in the fields so that they could send them to places like Sichuan and Guangxi where the famine was worse. For every four jins of such "foods", the government would provide 1 jin of grains in exchange. Those days, because of hunger people would eat anything. Once a horse died in the village, so many people rushed to eat the meat. However, it was a sick horse so many people got food poison and were sent to the hospital. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.