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Zhang Chaomin (b. 1933) is a resident of Heiqi Village, Damiaokou Town, Dong'an County, Hunan Province. He is the interviewer's father. In this interview, Zhang talks about his family history: the death of his mother, the working experience during his childhood, and his two previous marriages. He also recalls how he guided the troops of the Liberation Army during the bandit suppressions. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Chun'ai (b.1933) is a resident of Dameng Village, Linying County, Luohe City, Henan Province. She and her mother went out to beg for food, later her father went to look for them and he died somewhere.张春爱（1933年生）回忆说她和妈妈出去要饭，她爹后来出去找她们，死在了外面。 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.

Zhang Dayi (b.1937) is a resident of Xiangzidian Village, Yinhua Town, Shanyang County, Shangluo City, Shanxi Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers life during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine. IN 1958, the mutual aid teams were established, and so was the mass canteen. People constructed blast furnace, built riverbanks, working overtime. While eating at the communal canteen, even tree leaves and wild herb roots were eaten, and many people starved to death. Some escaped to beg in Henan, and the canteen was not dismissed until 1962. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Spring 2015 title

Zhang Fenglan (b. 1949) is a resident of Shaziying Village, Yang Town, Shunyi District, Beijing. In this interview, Zhang recalls the life during the Great Famine when everyone had to eat at the communal canteen. During that time Zhang went to the communal canteen every morning to get thin congee for breakfast, and had only one bun for lunch. Zhang only studied at school for one and half years, during which time she always picked up firewood after class.

Zhang Gaosheng (b.1942) is a resident of Xizhai Village, Hanguguan Town, Lingbao City, Henan Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers experiences during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine. When constructing backyard furnace, all the pots were smashed. Because of the proneness to boasting and exaggeration, people didn't have enough to eat, but could only eat tree leaves and bark, and even competed for food with the cattles. Many people also got edema disease. He says, the local blocked information from the upper levels and didn't report the real situation. He also comments that this was not a natural disaster, but man made.

Zhang Guixiu (b. 1933) is a resident of Shuangjing Village, Shuangjing Town, Xupu County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province. In this interview, Zhang recalls her experience during the Great Leap Forward. Back then, she saved the food from the People's Commune canteen and what she found from outside for her children. If she went out working, the children would be left at home by themselves. One time, she carried her little son (who has died of illness) to the field when she was sick. The filmmaker's description of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Guiying (b.1947) is a resident of Baiyun Village, Fengqing Town, Yunnan Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers the difficult days during the Great Famine. The family of five (she has two younger brothers) hardly had enough to eat in People's Commune Canteen. Her father froze to death when he went to buy salt on one winter day. After losing the main labor, the family's life became even harder. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Guizhi (b.1931) is a resident of Jiaqiao Village Group 4, Zhangcun Town, Dengzhou City, Henan Province. In the times of blast furnaces, every household was searched thoroughly and anything that got attention would be displayed at the door and confiscated. Wrong-doers would be denounced and beaten up. Frequently, people had to leave their children at home to go to mass meetings. Old people had to work too. If they did not reap corns or look after children, they had nothing to eat. People were working day and night, following the production team's whistling. In 1958, the canteens still served noodles, but in 1960, only sweet potato leaves and brans.|张桂芝（ 1931年生）是河南省邓州市张村镇贾桥村四组村民。大炼钢铁的时候，家家户户都被翻查，有任何东西都被摆在门口，等着被收走。人做错了事就要被批斗、被打，还老得把孩子留家里去开群众会。那时候的老年人也得干活，拨包谷、照顾孩子，才有饭吃。人们每天白天黑夜都忙着干活，生产队哨一吹就得去报道。 58年的时候，食堂还有面条吃， 60年就只有红薯叶子和米糠了。|Transcripts for this interview and more may be available under the 'Documents' link above. 采访抄录和相关内容，请点击查看上面的'Documents'链接。

Zhang Jieshi (b.1934) is a resident of Dazhangzhuang Village, Linying County, Luohe City, Henan Province.He was a cadre in the village. He said that the canteen mainly servced yam, villagers mainly grew yam because it is high yield crop. Someone died of starvation in the village.

Zhang Jinying (b. 1924) is a resident of Zhanggao Village, Heguan Town, Qingzhou City, Shandong Province. In this interview, Zhang talks how her father died of starvation, and her brother-in-law escaped to Fujian Province because of the famine. The filmmaker's description of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Jiuping (b. 1957) is a resident of Shaziying Village, Yang Town, Shunyi District, Beijing. In this interview, Zhang talks about her lifelong hardship. Categorized as rich peasant and landlord, Zhang's family suffered a lot. Her mom had to take care of four kids while her dad worked at a factory in Beijing. Because of poverty, Zhang had to quit school in the second grade to take care of her younger sisters. At the age of 13, Zhang replaced her mom and went to work in the production team with her elder brother while making mats in the evening for extra money. When working at the Jinji River in 1977, her brother developed mental illness. After sparing no effort to help him get cured and get married, Zhang herself was eventually able to get married with the boyfriend she had dated for years. In 1984 when Zhang was pregnant with her son, the one-child policy started to be strictly carried out in the countryside. To hide from people from the government, Zhang had to travel to relatives' places on a tractor. Worried about being forced into abortion, she did not dare to go to the hospital even though the baby was due soon. After all kinds of hardship, she finally gave birth to the son at home. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Jiuxi (b. 1949) and Rong Shunzhi (b. 1949) are residents of Shaziying Village, Yang Town, Shunyi District, Beijing. In this interview, they recall the life during the Great Famine. In 1958 when people could eat whatever they wanted at the communal canteen, food went gone very quickly, so the officials from the production team went to everyone's home to check if they were hiding any food. To make space for the communal canteen, many people had to move, including Zhang's family. One of Zhang's uncles was a deserter from the army, so in order to protect this brother, Zhang's dad gave away one of his sons to the cadre of the production team. Zhang Jiuru, who is Zhang Jiuxi's relative, reported his own family members to the government so that he could become the accountant of the production team. He even changed the categorization of Zhang Jiuxi's family from middle peasants to rich peasants. However, because of corruption, Zhang Jiuru was later arrested and sentenced with 12 years in prison. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Kuixiang (b. 1942) is a villager of Zhangzhuangzi Village, Tianjin. In this interview, Zhang talks about the life during the Great Famine. Zhang was still in middle school back then. Due to the lack of staple food, the school organized the students to pick up vegetable stems at weekend so as to grind them into powder and make steamed buns for the students. The school also planted some vegetables for the students. Zhang once stole some garlics from the vegetable garden because of hunger. Sometimes at weekends, Zhang and his classmates would walk for over 6 miles to cut grass so as to sell it for tuition and living expenses. The family of one of Zhang's classmates cooked a goat to eat after it died. However, the classmate in the end died of overeating. One of Zhang's younger brothers died of starvation during the Great Famine too.

Zhang Kuizun (b. 1956) is a resident of Zhangzhuangzi Village, Tianjin. In this interview, Zhang recalls his childhood experience during the Great Famine. There were five people in Zhang's family back then. He had a brother who was born in 1960 but soon died of starvation. Villagers died almost every several days. Over 20 households fled to northeast China because there was more food there.

Zhang Liang (b.1939) is a resident of Wanbaochang Village, Tongchang Town, Yimen County, Yunnan Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers life during the Great Famine. He recalls eating at People's Commune canteen for paying back loans to the Soviet Union. Food was not enough, so they ate wild herbs. Women had no breast milk after giving birth due to starvation. One man called Li Chunfu died of poisonous honey.

Zhang Liangxing (b. 1927) was born in Songlin Village, Xupu County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province. In this interview, Zhang describes the situation of too many people with too little food during the Great Leap Forward. He remembers the method of calculating work points when working on the mountains and the amount of food different people got at People's Commue Canteen after 1959. Due to lack of food, people looked for all kinds of things to eat; those who stole would be struggled and criticized. Four or five people living in his courtyard starved to death as a result of edema disease. The filmmaker's description of this interview has been translated into English. The filmmaker's description of this interview has been translated into English.

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.

Zhang Wenbin (b.1933) is a resident of Heiqi Village, Damiaokou Town, Dong'an County, Hunan Province. In this interview, Zhang talks about his bitter days after the Liberation, and commented on the policy mistakes during the People's Commue canteen time and the Cultural Revolution. Because he was born in a landlord family, he quitted school after the Liberation. At 18 years old, he became a major labor force and had to do all kinds of work. The entire family relied on him. It only got better after collectivization in 1955. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Xiaofa (b. 1935) is a resident of Huanlingqiao Village, Longquan Town, Xintian County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province. In this interview, Zhang recalls how the people's commune canteen was first established in production teams, and later in villages, when the villagers began to suffer from hunger. A few died of starvation while many suffered from hunger-related diseases.

Zhang Xiaogeng (b.1930) is a resident of Xizhai Village, Hanguguan Town, Lingbao City, Henan Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers experiences during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine. Due to the proneness to boasting and exaggeration at that time, tens of thousands jin of wheat and sweet potatoes were reported while the actual yield was only two or three hundred, and otherwise they would be criticized. When constructing backyard furnace, the village was organized into military units. Starvation began in 1960, because too much food was collected, the peasants didn't have enough to eat. He recalls eating corns and all kinds of leaves, eating grain seeds secretly while planting them as long as the cadres didn't know. At that time, peasants were divided into two classes, and landlords and rich peasants were struggled and beaten up.

Zhang Xiaomei (b.1928) is a resident of Baiyun Village, Fengqing Town, Yunnan Province. In this interview, Yang remembers the experience of eating at People's Commune Canteen and working for the collective during the Great Famine. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Xirong (b. 1936) was born in Zoujia Village, Shangdian Town, Binzhou City, Shandong Province. In this interview, Zhang talks about eating at People's Commune canteen and at home during the Great Famine. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.

Zhang Xiuxia (b.1948) is a resident of Qujia Village, Yuqiao Town, Jingyang County, Shaanxi Province. In this interview, Zhang remembers life during the Great Famine. She recalls that once there were only two eggs left at home, and nothing left after she ate them, and her mother brought her to the grandmother's grave and cried. After getting married, they were so poor that she and her husband only had one comforter. The transcript of this interview has been translated into English.