I am from China and I am sixty-nine years old. Fifty years ago I got my first job as a low grade official in a government department. From a student I became an official, I was very happy.

At the beginning for the first few months, government officials didn’t get any money for their labor. But the government ensured that they provided officials with the necessities of life, such as free meals in a public dining room, public health services, a quilt, a mosquito net and two uniforms made of rough material. Life was hard but I was proud that I had become an independent person.

My main job was as an outworker. That was the hardest job. Mostly I stayed in strange villages and worked seven days a week, no weekends, no holidays, no time to relax. I lived with a peasant family as their family member. He gave me a place to sleep and fed me. After a meal I would give him a ticket and he would hold onto these so he could change the tickets for money from the government.

At this time, the Chinese countryside was a backwards area, the worst in the world. There were no vehicles, no electricity, no films and no radio. Most people were illiterate and they were very poor, cold and hungry. There were no pens for the livestock and the animals lived with the farmers inside their houses. Everywhere filled up with rubbish, and flies and mosquitoes were everywhere, buzzing day and night. It was a terrible place, but I had no choice because I had to obey orders.

Every time we went out to the country we had to take a lot of things with us; a rifle with bullets for safety, a bundle of clothes for warmth, and a pot of clean water for drinking. The total weight for these things was twelve kilograms, and it made it difficult for me to walk.

One night we passed by a mountain and during this time there were many bandits living in the mountains and sometimes they attacked government officials. In order to avoid an attack we tried every way to keep silent and no-one turned on a flashlight - no-one smoked and no-one chatted or laughed, we just walked lightly, quietly. This was the first time I lived in these conditions and it frightened me. It felt like as if my heart had stopped beating and I was breathing hard. When we left those mountains, I took a deep breath of relief and said "AHHH I am safe!".