2. Passage of the Dead I recalled the second childhood scene that had left me with a deep and strange sorrow. I asked my mother, “Around the time you met with Mashbilig at the headquarters of the People’s Commune, an old man came to our house and cried at night. Who was that?” “That old man was Dorjinyanbuu. He stayed with us when he was en route to return to his home in western Uushin Banner after bringing his nephew Amarlingui’s ashes from Hangin Banner. It was the fall of 1969. Do you still remember in the summer of 1971 when we moved with our livestock to pass by Dorjinyanbuu’s family [and] he gave us a lot of yogurt?” my mother asked. (She would always diverge from the topic under discussion. Nomadic herders like Mongolians moved with their livestock from place to place depending upon the season. Herders always brought dairy food to passers-by, friends or strangers, to help ease their fatigue). Amarlingui (1927-1969), Qi Zhimin in …show more content…
In reality, it was dedicated to opium cultivation. Chinese peasants dug up numerous wells and reservoirs to irrigate opium, and some of this infrastructure still functioned up until the mid-1970s, when I was in Shabar Middle School (Yang 2003). The opium crops produced a large quantity of opium that financed CCP military expenses. While the Kuomintang Government engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Japanese Army, the Communist Party was busy producing opium.
It would have been less devastating if the opium was intended only for internal consumption. But the CCP mainly sold it to the Mongolians of the neighboring Ordos region, and the Kuomintang-controlled areas (Si Malu006). They even acknowledged that opium was also given to influential Mongolians as “gifts” from CCP spies who were active in the Ordos region. Mongolians who became addicted to opium were driven into