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Yu Lihua's uncle was the township head who was beaten to death during cultural revolution. In 1958, her father was sick, mother had bound feet, she and her younger brother and sisiter were too little, only her older brother can work in the filed. She said that the villgers worked from dawn to dark but had no food to eat, many died of starvation.

Yu Manmei (b. 1944) is a resident of Mafen Village, Guangdong Province. In this interview, Yu recalls the difficult life during the Great Famine. When eating at the communal canteen, if someone was late, they could only get rice with water. Due to the shortage of grain, people had to eat wild vegetables and tree leaves. Lots of villagers developed edema. They had to work even on the day of the Chinese New Year, and they only had a bowl of sticky rice as a treat for the new year. However, only those who arrived early could get a full bowl of rice, while those who were late couldn't even get the rice.

Yu Maoli (b. 1929-2010) is a resident of Changxing Village, Gaolong Town, Chaling County, Hunan Province. He was a cadre of the local People's Commune during the Great Leap Forward. In this interview, Yu talks about how people focused on constructing blast furnace while the crops were left uncollected in the field and got rotten in 1958. In 1959 some villagers were criticized for collecting sweet potatoes in the field to eat, and other villagers escaped to Jiangxi Province to survive the famine. Yu expresses his understanding of some villagers who stole grain from the People's Commune because of starvation, as well as his disapproval of the production team leaders, who gave themselves more stamps to buy meat and other non-staple food. One of the supporting documents for this interview has been translated into English.

Yu Meirong is a resident of Dameng Village, Linying County, Luohe City, Henan Province. Yu is the interviewer Guo Rui's great grandmother. Yu and her husband tried to feed Yu's sister's child (Guo Rui's great uncle) at home. They gave the child their own buns and ate wild vegetables or wheat seedlings. Yu had two daughters in her 40s. Yu says that her parents and older brother were starved to death in 1942 or 1958.

Category: Candies and Confections