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rmsmoni · 6 years

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April Lady Pt 1 Roger Taylor Series

She won our hearts the art she loved

Y/N was born in London, in an april rainy afternoon. She was known for being the daughter of a well known man in the neighborhood, an artist, a good one. Not only she was good as well, she would hang them around the streets, hoping and desiring for people to get inspired and to seek beauty.

Is painting pictures free

When she was done she hung them up

For all the children to see

The thing was she not only drew landscape, but the human body as well. Every single old lady of the town was disgusted to see the man and woman body on full display, less in a young girl drawing. Teens around town were known for stealing them, only conscious people knew what for. She would sign them right at the tip of the sheet, April Lady, a name very well known aroun town. Such a drama was made, she had been asked to take them out. To the young people´s dismay, she did.

Goodbye April Lady

It´s been good to have you around

Goodbye April Lady

You´ve done a lot for the folks in this town

As her main hobby had been taken away from her, she decided it was time to learn something else and that thing turn to be the piano. She studied for a solid four years till she entered college with nineteen, not knowing what was waiting for her. That’s were she met Roger Taylor. They were pretty good friends, going to pubs together, having mutual friends. Until one day everything changed.

Y/N had decided that apart from studying, she would give classes as a private teacher to earn money, things were going pretty well in her college room whlie she teached an older student than her basic biology, till Roger decided to interrumpt.

_Y/N! For fuck´s sake! Hear me out, you won´t believe this!- He shouted entering the room.

_Roger, not now!- She whispered shouted at him.

_They are making auditions for a band! Singers, pianists, drummers! That´s us!

_ What?! Really?

The student was just so lost by this point.

_There´s just a little thing, It´s kind of right now. So like...We gotta go.- Said Roger slowly.

You looked at him in disbelieve and turned around to talk to the guy who you were trying so agonizingly to teach.

_ Hey sorry, I will make sure we have another date, but I kind of have to leave now...

_Oh, fuck yeah- Said the dude trying to get out of there as fast as he could, not really wanting to keep studing.

_Ok, that was fast, let´s go.

They ran through the corridors, dodgin students till they made it to the streets, were they decided to walk as Roger was about to have an azma atack. Both of them couldn´t describe how anxious they were, if both of them ended having a part in the band, Roger was sure he would cry.

And he did. Not only him, but Y/N got in. They were ecstatic. They met this guy called Brian, pretty good guy, and Tim, a little obnoxious as Roger called him, but overall, everything was going more than perfect.

Children learned to read

She strung her beads

It´s sorry she was the one

As you can isn´t she good

She don´t leave nothing undone

After a few months of doing gigs together, everything was going well, or It seem to. You were helping Roger and Brian to load up the instruments in the truck after a gig, Tim was nowhere in sight.

_Do you guys want some beers?- Asked Brian, while we were finishing locking everything up.

Both Roger and you nodded your heads, to tired to formly answered. Brian just scoffed at your antics and walked away. To tired to do literally do anything, you and Roger sited in the backsite of the van.

_So, how did I do?- Asked Roger for the ninth time tonight.

_Rog, I´m pretty sure you got all those ladies swooning, you were amazing.

_But, what did you...

Seeing Brian walking back to you in the distance, you decided to joke Roger´s unsureness away.

_Oh, Brian, darling!- You shouted, watching how the curly tall man looked at you in weirdness after you call him out in a really exaggerated british accent.- Dear Roger here is being a little unsure about his performance tonight...- You dropped the act after some girls passed past you and laughed at your conversation, looking at Roger.- Oh, girlies! What did you think of Roger tonight?

_He was wonderful, handosome too.- Said one of them, making Roger chuckle.

_You know what I´m wonderful on too, Dear?

_Oh, fuck off Roger!- Said Brian and you the same time.- Thanks girls for your enthusiasm, but we will lift his spirit from now on.- Said Brian with a disaproving look in his face.

Brian took the sit beside you, living you in the middle of them. In was a cold night, but warm enought to survive with a jacket. Student of all ages came and went, rushing to take someone home or to just arrive to their houses before curfew. You were cleaning Roger’s pant, before someone interrupted you.

_Y/N leave it!- Said Roger puting your hand away.

_I don’t even know what that is, let me clean it!

Brian took a look at the patch in Roger pants.

_Is that the left over of your ham sandwich?- He Laughed.

Roger threw his head back.

_No, It’s not...

You were distracted by someone clearing their throat, your other bandmate, Tim. He had a sour look on his face, bass case on one hand. He opened his mouth, but rapidly closed it.He looked down at the floor and then at all of you.

_I´m leaving the band...- He said looking up.

_Tim..- You said shaking your head.

_I hope you are joking- Said Roger standing up with Brian, leaving you siting while watching the scene unfold.

_Don’t do it Tim.- Said Brian.

_It’s called Humpy Bong, they are going places. Uni gigs, pubs? We are not getting anywhere like this.

_The only thing you will be humping is each other, fuck off Tim.- You said angrily, making Roger laugh and Brian chuckle.

Tim shook his head.

_I´m sorry- He said before leaving.

You three looked stunned how Tim walked away from you. Brain and Roger sitted back down were they were before.

_I think he’s right- Said Roger- That show was a total disaster.

_Well, there was room for improvement, yeah- Said Brian.

_I got better things to do on a saturday night, i could give you her name.- Said Roger looking at you.

You laughted and winked at him.

_You wish.

Roger was gonna respond, before you wre interrumted again. This time was young man with long hair and strong jawline. You knew him, you have seen each other here and there, mostly in parties. He was a good dude, liked to coment on how good your outfits were.

_I enjoyed the show- Said, who you remember to be Freddie, traying to sound casual.

_Thanks man-Said Brian.

_I have been following you for a while actually. Smile. Makes sense for a dentist student- He said looking at Roger- Astrophysics- Pointing at Brian- And environmental sciences- Smiling at your way- Makes you both the clevers ones.

_Yeah, i suppose it does.- Said Brian looking at Roger with ego, making him roll his eyes.

_I study design. Also, I write songs- He said extending a piece of paper to Brian. Looking how he was not going to take it, you grabbed it. You have heard Freddie’s songs a long time ago, when he was still with his band, and they were pretty good. He looked grateful at you once you took them. Roger shook his head.

_You are five minutes too late.- Said Roger.

_Our lead singer just quit- You said, making Freddie smile.

_Then you will need some one knew.

That’s how the new band was formed. A few months later after trying with different people, John was introduced to the band. He was the only one who fitted in and everyone was more than happy to have him. So that´s how it begun. Their first performance together would be in the pub were they first met. To say they were nervous was an understandment, they have practiced in Brian’s basement, but being stressed on how the public was going to take them was eating them alive.

The day finally came. Brian, Freddie and John had already arrived to the pub to try and talk to the owner about the day of the week they will be coming and pay day, while Roger and y/n were in Brian’s house trying to get all the instruments in the van. You were saving the guitar on t’s case, while Roger was desperately trying to get all the drum set to fitt in the small place. With one bad movement, all of the cables of the amplifier fell on the floor at the same time that half of the drum set was slowly falling on Roger.

_Fuck! This is imposible!- He said angrily, trying to pick the cables on the floor, whil his other hand was holding the drum set.

_Here let me help you- You accommodated everything on it’s place and then took a look at Roger who was lighting up a cigarette. At not being able to light it up, he let out a curse. You came closer and light it up for him. He looked up at you with a face you hadn’t seen in a long time, fear.

_Y/N?- He mumured

_Yes?

_What if they don’t like us?- He asked looking at you eyes.

_They will love us, i’m sure of it. We have practiced, we can’t be that bad- You laughted. Still seeing his insecurity, you tried one more time.- Plus, we have one of the most beutiful man in the town, ladies will we swooning. - You said shaking your hips a little, making him laugh.

_Thank you- He smiled.

_Come on, loverboy. We got people to impress.- You said graving his hand.

Roger couldn’t describe the warm felling that grew in his chest everytime you talk om him. He started to feel them a few months ago, when he realised how important yo were in his life. He knew he was slowly falling and there was no way out. Starting the van to leave, he took a last glance at you. You look stunning and there was no way out of hell he could love you more.

After arriving, fighting with the boys and fixing up the instruments, the show was starting.

_Hello all you beautiful people!- There was a big silence, until Brian started with his guitar riff.

Both you and Freddie started singing and moving around, owning the stage. People seem to love it, they were shouting and singing along. The energy on the room was amazing, everyone could feel it, you were killing it. You were moving side to side on the stage singing, until it was your cue to stop, Roger drum solo was starting. You turned around, giving you back to the audience, facing Roger. He looked amazing, the red light’s hitting his face just righ, pointing out his face structure. His lips poking and his eyes focused on the drums, you couldn’t help but find him irresistible. He looked up and smiled at you with that look in his eyes, you just could’t help but smile back. He was your death sentence.

She taught them all to love

She was their cream

And we don’t want her to go

but we know too well

She fell in love

And there’s no stopping her now

#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #ben hardy #ben hardy imagine #bohemian rhapsody #Brian May #brian may imagine #freddie mercury #rami malex imagine #gwylim lee #gwilym lee imagine #John deacon imagine #joe mazzello #joe mazzello imagine #queen imagine

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shuttaapp · 7 years

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Skate to create: Neal Boyd

Neal Boyd, a.k.a Grimcity, has spent more than 30 years surfing on the concrete. Although he does it mainly for fun, he has accidentally compiled an enormous experience in this field.

In this interview, we talk with Neal Boyd about skateboarding, how we got his start, his Youtube channel, the pro skaters who influenced him most, and his thoughts about the skateboarding scene.

1. Where are you originally from?

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, raised in Jackson, Louisiana, and have lived in Hamond, Louisiana since 1995. I claim Hammond as my home. We're between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, so it's a perfect spot to be in.

2. What's your favorite quality in a person?

Honesty, ethics, and a really good sense of humor.

3. How and when did you discover skateboarding?

When I was 10 years old, I lived in a really small, rural neighborhood. One of my my neighbors had bought a skateboard for his kid, but it never got used. We lived on top of a hill, and as I played with it I eventually was given permission to use it whenever I wanted to. It was basically given to me. The year was 1985.

4. Where does your online name “grimcity” come from?

When I was in college, I self-published a comic book for a little over a year… It was violent, but also very, very comedic. The name of the city where all the action took place in was “Grim City.” I'd also created a comic strip character that I'd used for comic strips (and the comic book) named “Grim,” so in the relatively early days of the internet I just used “grimcity” as my online persona.

Some of my friends call me Grim in real life, though I'm completely the opposite of a grim person… I'm actually very geeky and goofy and I have a lot of love for everything. My nature is very positive, so the nickname “Grim” and “grimcity” is kind've a joke in and of itself.

5. What was your first board and your first memory of skateboarding?

The first board I can claim was the one my neighbor (Mr. Tom) basically gave to me… It was a Variflex he'd bought for his own kid, but he let me ride it as much as I wanted to. I feel in love with it more than his little one did, so I really owe him a lot... He literally exposed me to skateboarding.

After that I had a Nash from a a department store (due to not having any money), but my first pro board was a Jeff Grosso from Santa Cruz. He's a living legend, and I've been fortunate enough to hang out with him. Really love that guy.

My first memory of skating was really just being a little 10 year old kid going really fast down the hills surrounding where I lived. We were a small town, and this was pre-internet, so I didn't even know how big skating was back then.

6. You created a Youtube channel which already has more than 4.000 subscribers and a 100 videos. Tell us a little bit about it. What is the main purpose of the channel?

The channel has actually been around for a while now… A little over 10 years I think? When I first started it it was simply to store videos because my hard drives were running out of space. After that, I got into doing really in-depth skate product reviews, and though I've slacked on that a bit, my focus lately has been making self-filmed skate videos with a focus on composition, color, and framing. If you look at my later videos with the eyes of a photographer, rather than a videographer or even a skateboarder for that matter, it makes more sense.

7. Who has been your biggest influence on your skateboarding?

When I was a kid, everyone was an influence… I wanted to ollie as high as Natas Kaupas, become an all terrain guy like The Gonz, skate fast like Tommy Guerro, float in the air like Hosoi, be as funny as Grosso, and skate as raw as all of the Sick Boys, who were a group of guys from San Francisco (some already mentioned) that included Jim Thiebaud, Julien Stranger, Ron Allen, Mickey Reyes, Archimedes, and a huge list of other people.

These days I'm a lot older, but I'm still influenced by a lot of people. Jim Thiebaud and I wound up becoming really good friends several years back, as well as my man Mickey Reyes. They run my favorite skateboard company (Deluxe) and even if I'd never met them, I'd be riding everything they make, including Real Skateboards, Thunder trucks, and Spitfire wheels. They have a huge influence on me because the company uses skateboarding to help people in need, from helping hurricane victims to providing money to facilities that help kids beat cancer.

I'm also heavily influence by the younger skaters that I roll with here in my city. I've seen them develop from wobbly-legged beginners to absolute skate machines over the years. I thrive on that. Many of these kids have tricks that I will never, ever be able to land, but that's part of passing the torch. I love my Hammond locals, and they push me as hard as I push them to progress in our own respective ways.

8. What's your favorite trick and who do you think does a perfect version of that trick?

I have two: the first one is the Ollie Impossible, and the perfect ones were done by Dylan Rieder who sadly passed away in 2016. Secondly, I love doing simple little kickflips, and to see them done perfectly, I stare in awe whenever Dennis Busenitz does them (or any variation of them).

9. Are Pro skaters role models?

Pro skaters are just like everybody else. If they are role models, I don't think they mean to be. Having said, they're definitely influential. I think kids try to emulate the tricks and styles they see from pros, but as with everyone, we have our good and bad sides. If I were to direct a kid towards someone who might be a role model both in the act of skateboarding as well as just being a good person, I'd list them as follows:

1. Daewon Song: He's the embodiment of progression, and he's a genuinely good person. He's about as old as I am, and like me, he's still a kid at heart that just wants to skate.

2. John Cardiel: His energy, positivity, and drive are the embodiment of what skateboarding is. He's a legend, and if you were to ask most pro skaters who their favorite pro was, they'd say Cardiel. He suffered a catastrophic injury which was supposed to make him unable to walk again, but he defeated it. When you watch any of his old footage, it compels you to get up, grab your board, and go for it.

3. Rodney Mullen: He invented most of the street tricks we do today, but more importantly to me, he's always continuing his education in other areas, including higher maths and architecture. It's one thing to simply become a better skateboarder, but it's also important to expand your knowledge base with other subjects, from the arts to astrophysics. Knowledge is easy to access today, and if you're not skating, I recommend reading a good non-fiction book or at least listening to an academic lecture on any given topic on You Tube. Lots of universities post lectures online, so there's no reason not to get a better understanding of the world. I watch or listen to at least one lecture a day, and on weekends I try to get at least two.

10. What's your go-to spot?

I live right around the corner from the concrete park I shoot video at in my YouTube and Instagram videos, but one of my favorite places (which I've documented a lot online, including Shutta) is a yellow parking curb next to a fountain. It's simply a curb in a secluded location where I can go and clear my head.

11. Who do you usually skate with?

Our local park is a family… The Dreamland squad. We have a couple of crews inside that family, namely the Therapy crew and the False Teeth crew. I also skate with a ton of friends from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.

12. Have you ever joined a competition?

I have, but I'm not really a competitive skater. Most of the contests I've entered have been here in Louisiana, so for us it's not so much about winning as it is an opportunity to see everyone you know and have a really good time. Our contests are more like family reunions.

13. As one of the best skaters in the app and winner of one #ShuttaMission, explain to us how has your experience been when taking photos with Shutta.

I'd hate being known as one of the best skaters using the app! I prefer thinking I'm the best at having fun at skating, which is hopefully a sentiment shared by every skater!

I sincerely love the app, and am working on a video about it to get some more skaters involved with it. I started using Shutta before the user interface was redesigned, and still use it when I'm out recording. It's better at getting precise screen captures from videos than taking stills directly from the iPhone, the wheel tool that allows you to scrub through the timeline is brilliant. A lot of skateboard tricks are less than a second long (like jumping over something), and the “peak” part of that trick is probably down into the milliseconds… So being able to easily get to the exact moment you want to capture is just the best. I also like that I get an image saved to my camera's library, and simultaneously get to share it with an international community of people that get hyped when they see something new.

I'm also very appreciative that Shutta picked me as a winner for the “Freeze” contest. I'm a geek by nature, and the Tomtom Bandit camera is really well made. I've been using it a ton! I still can't believe I believe I won something like this by just going out in my town and skating like I always do. There are aspects of it that I prefer over my GoPro and my iPhone, so it's with me everywhere I go, even if I'm not skateboarding.

14. Any views on the skateboarding scene?

On a local level, I'm extremely happy that skaters today have it easier than my generation did. Skateboarding in the states wasn't looked at positively by a large swath of society for a long time, it was all underground, and growing up, I got into a ton of fights with people who would literally walk up to aggressively and instigate violence. We were punk rock/hip hop street kids that skated and ate concrete for fun, so we always had to handle confrontations as best we could. These days, there's been a mainstreaming of skateboarding that has allowed it to progress in ways I never thought it would, but I'm a bit conflicted, if not hypocritical of it. On one hand, I love that there are skateparks popping up everywhere, but on the other I hate seeing the media portray skateboarding as a sport, and I don't like the idea of it being in the Olympics. I'm glad that there's a boost of revenue for the pro skaters and skate companies that benefit from all of this exposure, but the old sentimental side of me still kind've misses the anti-establishment nature that skating had when I got into it.

15. What do you have planned for the near future?

My plans today are the same as they always have been… I want to push myself in whatever direction skateboarding takes me, and I want to do what I can at being a better person in general. I just want to be a good global neighbor, be the best at what I do professionally (computer geekery), and hopefully help the up and coming skaters in my area know more about the roots of skateboarding. The main goal is to ensure that the kids I skate with now become really old skaters like me.

Go follow Neal Boyd on Shutta and subscribe to his Youtube channel to see more!

All pics by Neal Boyd.

#skateboarding #skate #skatelife #skateboard #girls skateboarding #urban #sports #skatepark #street skating #skating #skater #longboarding #ollie #interview #shutta #shutta app #photography #skate photography

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tenyearsapeasant · 8 years

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38. Newspapers and Broadcasts

"Media," when translated into Chinese, is literally "the medium for spreading." It includes newspapers, magazines, books, and other "planar media", as well as news broadcasts, television, movies, blogs, microblogs, WeChat, etc. Its definition will surely expand in the future.

When I was a peasant in Libeishang, my main media contact with the outside world was through the newspaper and news broadcasts.

1. The newspaper

For as long as I can remember, my family had ordered newspapers in Shanghai. It was either the Liberation Daily or the People's Daily. I had even made an extra large mail slot to make it easier for the postal worker to deliver the paper. This mail slot was used from 1962 all the way until the building was demolished in 2006.

When I moved to Jiangxi, my mom advised me to order a newspaper when I got there. If I read it often and thought about it, I wouldn't say anything wrong. No wonder she was always poring over the newspaper at home - she had to teach my father what to say when he went to work the next day.

After I had settled into Libeishang, I went to go find the Lugang postman, Old Xu. I wanted to order a subscription to the Jiangxi Daily. Old Xu said, "The higher ups just announced that each production team needs to order a copy of the Jiangxi Daily. It costs 12 yuan a year, and the production team is supposed to pay for it. We plan to deliver them to the residences of sent-down youth if possible, and the higher-ups seem happy with that course of action."

Perfect! I would be able to read the news in just a few days. Newspapers that had been read found another important use as toilet paper. We Chinese have a tradition of respecting paper that has words on it, but these were desperate times. If we didn't use the newspaper we'd have to learn the ancient practice of using bamboo strips, rocks, or straw instead. The only thing to remember was to make sure that there were no pictures of our leaders on the paper - that could be very problematic if someone were to report it.

The Jiangxi Daily. The heading uses the calligraphy of Chairman Mao.

After a few months, the only villager who could read the paper complained. He said that us sent-down youth were monopolizing the newspaper. I agreed, so I went to the store and bought some wire. Then I asked the villager Zhang Meifa to help make a clip for the newspaper. I put up the paper by the storehouse, so that anyone could stop by and read it. I was responsible for changing it out every day.

That villager was quite pleased, and went to read the newspaper almost every day. He'd sometimes come visit me to talk about current events. Even though I had only a few years of schooling myself, I was disappointed by his understanding. Many events were very difficult to explain to him.

I didn't expect the other villagers to start making fun of him after a month. They said that, just because he could read a little, he thought he was so much better than everyone else. They said he was pretending to read the newspaper every day, just to show off. His wife said they were running low on firewood at home - he should be spending that time gathering firewood instead of reading the paper. At some point this got to him, and he got in an argument with someone. Then he stopped reading the newspaper.

Since no villagers were reading the Jiangxi Daily anymore, hanging it up by the storehouse was not particularly helpful. The villagers suggested I just take it down.

In about 1975, Old Xu told me that production teams could choose to order Reference News. This was a Chinese newspaper, an "internal publication." It had lots of international news, but individuals were not eligible to order it. Only offices could order it, as a group. In Shanghai, my father's office had a subscription. He'd often bring it home during lunch-time, and bring it back to the office in the afternoon. I could only skim it during his lunch breaks.

I told Old Xu, the villagers were already upset about being forced to pay for the Jiangxi Daily. Since the Reference News had to be ordered by the production team, and I was the team leader, would it be possible for me to pay for it myself? Old Xu agreed to my proposal.

The Reference News; the calligraphy of Lu Xun graces the heading.

From the Reference News, I could see the news printed by foreign newspapers such as the New York Times. I could also see headlines from Pravda, and many other countries' newspapers besides. All in all, despite being heavily filtered by the Chinese government, it still reflected the state of the world somewhat accurately.

2. Magazines

Magazines are quite similar to newspapers. As I was growing up, my mother ordered several subscriptions for me: Children, Children's Times, and Youth Literature and Art. When I think of these magazines now I feel a rush of nostalgia.

In 1975, after learning the basics of agricultural machinery repair in Lugang, I bought a few books on the subject in Shanghai. Not long later, I felt that I needed to keep up with new developments in the field, so I went to find Old Xu. I asked if he could help me order a subscription to Agricultural Mechanics. This was a monthly magazine. When I went back to Shanghai, I went to Lugang Commune and canceled my subscription.

Later, when I got to Shanghai, I began to read Dushu (trans: Reading, one of the most influential literary magazines in China), which was also a monthly magazine. I was one of its earliest subscribers. After I moved to America, I asked my little brother to continue my subscription. When my friends visited Shanghai, I would ask them to bring my backlog back to America. I keep it by my pillow and read it every night. There were a few articles about the new advances in astrophysics that took me several tries to understand.

Dushu magazine, first published in 1979.

Telegraphs could also count as "media." I remembered an article about when the victors of World War I wanted to give the German-occupied province of Shandong to the Japanese at the Treaty of Versailles. As a weak country, the Chinese delegate was unable to influence the matter. He told Liang Qichao, who was outside the meeting area. Liang Qichao then ran to the telegram station and sent a long, eloquent telegram back to China. This kicked off the May Fourth movement.

In the following decades, many major political and military figures in China would publish long telegrams in the newspapers.

Even during the Cultural Revolution, people would send "tribute telegrams" to Chairman Mao, reporting good tidings. These would be simultaneously published in papers. And after Chairman Mao's passing, people sent "mourning telegrams" to Beijing to show tsuccessor loyalty. I never really figured out if you were supposed to go to the newspaper or the telegram office first. And if you were posting the message in a newspaper already, why even send a telegram?

For most people, telegrams were fast but expensive. Each character was three cents, with an additional half a cent for coding the characters into numbers. So they were only used for urgent situations. For example, "For Some Name at Some Address, Some Road, Shanghai mother gravely sick return quickly" was eighteen characters. That would be sixty-three cents, plus a twenty cent flat fee. It came out to eighty-three cents, which was ten times more than the eight cents it took to send a piece of mail. But the telegram could arrive the next day.

A telegram envelope from the 1970s.

There were nearly ten families living in our building in Shanghai. In the seventies, we sent over a dozen children to various villages. Latermy little brother told me that every year the telegrams would come pouring in before the new year. If you heard a motorcycle, odds were that it was someone delivering a telegram. The contents were mainly about when and where to pick them up at the train station.

When I went back to Shanghai, I never sent my parents a telegram. I would bring all my luggage back on my own with my carrying stick so I could surprise them!

3. Radio broadcasts

The leader of the sent-down youth in Libeishang was Cui Yinghui. He was very smart. He had a perfect score on his middle school placement test; before the Cultural Revolution, during "educational reform", he even taught Chinese to other classes as a seventh grader. He was famous throughout the school for his academics.

During the Cultural Revolution, he was quite ambitious, and joined the biggest Red Guard group in his school. He worked alongside a group of smart and hardworking high schoolers. According to him, when they met, they were afraid of being overheard by other groups. So they took chairs to the middle of the sports fields and met there. There was nowhere to hide, and they could know exactly who was listening.

In the village, he was also very active. Soon after we received our resettlement fees, he took out three months' worth and bought a radio from the general store for thirty-five yuan. This was the first radio in Libeishang history.

That night, we four boys huddled around the off-white radio, twiddling the tuner and scanning for radio stations.

The one with the best signal was the one run by the People's Liberation Army in Fujian. This station had to be quite strong to send messages across the strait to Taiwan. Among other things, this often broadcast parents who were on the mainland asking tsuccessor children to come back for dinner. I thought to myself, if my father had gone to Taiwan in 1949, maybe my mother would be on the radio right now asking for his return. But then I wouldn't even be here to listen, since I was born in 1950.

The Central People's Broadcast and the Jiangxi People's Broadcast were also quite clear. Of the Shanghai stations, we could only occasionally make out whatever was at 990 kHz.

Surprisingly, we could also hear the Voice of America broadcast. This was an enemy station. "Receiving enemy broadcasts" was disallowed - if someone caught us, we could go to jail. The signal in Libeishang was very good, since, unlike in Shanghai, there were no specialized jamming stations.

Outside of the Voice of America we received two other enemy broadcasts.

One was the Sound of Free China, broadcast by the Republic of China in Taiwan. The signal was not particularly strong. Despite imposing martial law himself, Old Chiang Kai-shek was still claiming to represent "Free China". This channel was unique in that, every once in a while, it would ask someone in some region to take down a series of numbers. This was obviously some sort of coded message for American or Taiwanese spies in China.

Were there really this many spies in China? I thought this might just be a bluff by Old Chiang. But many years later I read something about the KMT war hero Dai Li. He was tsuccessor head of intelligence. In the fifties, several years after his death in a plane crash, KMT operatives allegedly extracted his family members and brought them to Taiwan. I guess spies really did exist! Later I learned that, even before the revolution, the KMT spies were very effective. They were able to target Chairman Mao's residence for bombing, and ambush Zhou En-lai's caravan.

The other enemy station was one that only broadcast from 7:30 to 8:30 at night. This was the Voice of the PLA, had quite a weak signal, and had different frequencies night to night. This radio station kept talking about the "Mao-Lin cadre" as the "Bureaucratic military establishment." It spent a lot of time defending the disgraced Liu Shaoqi.

We also received the Soviet broadcast, Sound of Peace. It was very clear. Once considered a "friendly station," as relations with Russia deteriorated it became an "enemy station." Despite criticizing the Cultural Revolution, it seemed to take a warmer tone than other stations.

In any case, we couldn't receive many stations in Libeishang, and about half of those were enemy stations. When we first heard these broadcasts it was very exciting and novel, and we would listen until late at night. We knew this was forbidden, so we were always a little scared when we were listening. We sat in silence while we listened, and never discussed what we heard afterwards, as if it hadn't happened at all.

After a few days, both because the novelty had worn off, and because staying up late was beginning to affect our work, we cut back drastically. After Cui Yinghui left, I bought a nice radio from Shanghai and brought it back to Libeishang. I only listened to it occasionally, mostly to tune in to the Voice of America.

The Voice of America was broadcast for a large part of the day, and had a large variety of content. Not only did it have news and interviews, it had the "900 sentences in English" educational program that later swept the nation. This program was where I heard of the radio announcers Zhou Youkang and He Lida. The news was also reported in Cantonese.

In the middle of September of 1971, I turned on my radio. I heard a report from the Voice of America that there had been an incident at a military airport near Hangzhou. The artillery company tasked with defending the airport was now pointing its guns at airplanes within the airport, and no airplanes had flown at all in Chinese airspace for several days. Something important must have happened within the Chinese government.

If this was all true, then something very big was happening.

After about ten days, I heard a rumor that Lin Biao wanted to usurp power, and ended up dying in an accident.

Though I knew something was coming, I was still shocked by the news. Vice-Chairman Lin Biao was Chairman Mao's designated successor. It had been written into law already. His previous successor, Liu Shaoqi, had been purged only five years prior - what happened with Lin Biao? Chairman Mao was already 78, and Lin Biao was only 64. And his ascension was already in law. There was no reason for him to jump the gun.

A few weeks later, we all congregated in the Lugang Commune to listen to a reading of the official documents. They announced that Lin Biao had committed the treasonous crimes of opposing Chairman Mao, opposing the party, and betraying the country. I heard that in some other places, the militia stood guard outside the meeting-rooms where this was read.

Soon, it was the end of the year. A party official in Lugang told me something about the Lin Biao incident.

The story went that after the official line was announced, even the old ladies in the villages knew that Lin Biao was a bad man. When two of them were chatting, one said, "Have you heard of Lin Biao?"

The other replied, "Yes, he's a bad man, I think he was the Vice Premier."

"No, I think he was the Vice Chairman. He did many bad things, have you heard?"

"I heard he stole three chickens (trans: three chickens, 三只鸡, san zhi ji, sounds like the Trident plane (三叉戟, san cha ji) that Lin Biao was on)."

"No, I heard he stole a whole flock! (trans: a flock, 一群, yi qun, sounds like Lin Biao's wife Ye Qun 叶群)."

The thrilling political machinations at the nation's top level had become the butt of a joke for those at the bottom level.

From another point of view, this sort of satire would not have been possible, let alone popular, even a few years earlier in the Cultural Revolution. This would have easily gotten you labeled a "counter-revolutionary." But the existence of this joke showed that the people had begun to tire of constant political turmoil.

When the Gang of Four was destroyed in October of 1976, I first heard about it through the Voice of America. It reported that, despite not having official confirmation, there were already celebratory parades springing up in the streets of Beijing.

Later, the Voice of America interviewed a founder of the CCP, Zhang Guotao, who was living in Canada. He asked if this would cause a split in the party. His response was that the earlier split was because they were too young, and the party itself was too young. Now that the party had matured, it would not split.

Two years after the destruction of the Gang of Four, the Voice of America ran an analysis on who would be the new Premier. They believed that Li Peng and Tian Jiyun were most likely, and gave the edge to Li Peng. At the time, neither of them were famous or high-level party officials, so the Voice of America ran profiles on both. Later, Li Peng did become the premier. I guess the American intelligence agents were pretty good at their jobs.

Beginning in 1974, Shanghai assigned a large number of party officials to support its various sent-down youth across the country. They were stationed in the various prefectures. A party official by the name of Chen was assigned to Yongfeng. He was a member of the public security bureau in the Hongkou district of Shanghai.

One day in 1976, he came to Libeshang looking for me. After some chitchat and dinner, he formally suggested that I should go to Shaxi Production Brigade to lead a sent-down youth farm. I was skeptical. First, bundling all the sent-down youth together might make it easier to administer, but could we really understand the people in village that way? Besides, I was already deeply familiar with Libeishang, and had no desire to switch villages. So I found all sorts of excuses.

I told him that there was a local saying that "the Jiangxi soil is light; if you walk five li (trans: a mile and a half) you'll hear eighteen different languages." For example, Ma Liping's village, Gaokeng, was about five kilometers away and the dialect was already noticeably different. If I went to Shaxi, ninety kilometers away, I would surely have trouble understanding the local villagers. Would he really make me re-learn a local dialect from scratch?

This was the first reason I found. It seems kind of childish or unreasonable now.

People are hard to persuade, and I didn't really want to persuade him. We talked until eleven at night, him always attacking and me always defending. In the end he was unable to persuade me. He was tired, and I let him sleep on my bed. I went to the next door over.

He saw my radio, and turned it on. Suddenly the Voice of America was playing. After a few minutes he turned it off.

A transistor radio much like Jianfeng's.

I found it hard to sleep after that.

Many sent-down youth listened to the Voice of America broadcasts. It was common knowledge, we just didn't talk about it. The Lugang Commune even accidentally re-broadcast it once, making the entire commune "receive enemy broadcasts." No punishment came of that incident. Besides, ever since President Nixon visited China in 1972, relations with America had been warming up.

But Mr. Chen was a member of the public safety bureau. Did he know that many people listened to this broadcast? Would he confront me about it tomorrow, or use it as leverage to force me to go to Shaxi?

The next day, when he got up, I had already made breakfast. He didn't say anything, and left after breakfast. I sighed with relief.

In 1989 there was a great deal of political turmoil in China. From the beginning of martial law in Beijing to the massacre, the situation was in chaos. It was hard to know which of the many rumors were true. AT this time, many families in Shanghai would get their news from the Voice of America. They seemed only to fear that others wouldn't know this, and turned up the volume. Maybe they were sympathetic to the students' cause, and used this as a small act of political expression.

After arriving in America, I found that the American people don't know that the Voice of America even exists. It's a government-run radio station, and many major broadcasts in America are run by private corporations. When the Voice of America was created, these corporations were worried about their market share. So they lobbied in Congress until a law was passed.

The law stipulated that the Voice of America would only be broadcast outside of the United States, with the purpose of spreading American values and allowing the people of the world to understand the truth about current events.

American natives were thus unable to hear the Voice of America.

4. Wired broadcasts

Around 1972, we began to receive another kind of broadcast in Libeishang. In contrast to the wireless transmissions of radio, these were wired. The Lugang Commune set up a wired transmission station, and requested every household in the commune to install a loudspeaker in their home for one yuan and fifty cents.

Hooking up the loudspeakers was not difficult. We chopped down twenty or so cedar trees and stripped off their bark. Then we dig pits every fifty to sixty meters and set the poles. We bought two big spools of wire - over two hundred yuan - from the store in Lugang and attached to the broadcasting station. We then nailed it to the telephone poles all the way back to Libeishang, and attached it to a terminal on each family's speaker. The other terminals we just connected into the ground.

A speaker for the wired broadcast.

Because the wire was bare, when it rained the sound would be quieter, and there would be some static noise. The villagers said it was the sound of the rain.

The speakers would come on every night at seven. First, the song "The East is Red" would play. After that introduction, the announcer would announce, in Shanghai-tinted Mandarin, "This is the Lugang Commune broadcast station. We are beginning broadcasting now. Next, please enjoy some music about the revolution." Then "The Dan Flowers Bloom a Bright Red in the Mountains," a folk song about the successful conclusion of the Long March, played. The broadcast station rarely had their own programs. They mostly either played revolutionary music, or re-broadcasts from Yongfeng or Jiangxi or Central stations. When it was done, the announcer would say, "This is the Lugang Commune broadcast station. Today's broadcast ends here."

Unfortunately, most villagers in Libeishang couldn't understand Mandarin. So the broadcast didn't reach many people.

Once during a rainstorm, there was a loud thunderclap which broke some households' loudspeakers. Since they couldn't understand it anyways, they didn't spend the money to buy replacements. The new ones were over twice as expensive. In the end over half of the speakers had broken.

5. Floating balloons

Speaking of enemy broadcasts and media warfare, we once received a special kind of media in Libeishang. These were floating balloons from Taiwan.

Some time after the destruction of the Gang of Four, my friend Zhang Shouren came up to me with two sheets of paper. He had a strange expression on his face as he said, "Look, Old Xia, I found these in the fields." These were about four by six inches each. The paper was thick and glossy.

On one there was a caricature I'd never seen before. Chairman Mao had been drawn like a pig, ferocious and repulsive. On the other was written "The Mao-Zhou conflict is beginning again." There were two groups of people depicted beneath it, all of whom were very ugly. On the left was Hua Guofeng leading Wang Dongxin and others, while on the right Ye Jianying was leading Deng Xiaoping and the rest. The two groups were arguing about something.

I went to the production brigade, curious to know more. The secretary said that they'd received many of these over the past few days. Yushan Production Brigade and Cunqian Production Brigade also had received these. He then asked me what I knew about this.

I said that I knew that we were still at war with the KMT in Taiwan. The artillery in Fujian would still fire frequently. I had heard that they would launch balloons with propaganda, which would then float over here and release their leaflets. I heard that the big balloons could carry several hundred pounds!

Later, I learned that we sent balloons to Taiwan, too. Beyond propaganda, we also would send small bottles of Maotai liquor. The idea was to get them to drink the Maotai and become homesick. The Taiwanese balloons once made it to India, which raised ire about a Republic of China invasion of India.

I had only ever seen Chairman Mao depicted with a benevolent smile. I had never imagined that our enemies would draw him in this way. That night, I dreamed of that piece of paper, and woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding. I thought about it some more. Hadn't I only seen dehumanizing pictures of Chiang Kai-shek? Beyond being ugly, he also always had a bandage on his head.

Only after communications resumed between the two sides did I learn that Chiang Kai-shek was actually quite good-looking. I had read some numerology book which started off like this: "Southerners who look like northerners are prized; men who look like women are prized." It only got to various divinations about how to get a government position or how to get rich later. I analyzed the two leaders with this framework. Mao and Chiang were both southerners, but they were tall like northerners. But Mao was also a man with feminine features, so he was one notch above Chiang in that respect.

Over a month later, villagers were still finding these sheets of paper in the fields and turning them in to me. This damnable paper was such high quality! It had been sitting in water for over a month but was still as good as new, the pictures still clear as day.

I don't know how the quality of our own propaganda stacked up. I'm sure it wasn't worse.

#mass media

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