Family story: Pick 20 cucumbers and 15 tomatoes for Chairman Mao

In 1975, 64-year-old Li Molin passed away. In 1978, Beijing reinstated him.

In the 1980s, the greenhouses and farmland began to disappear quickly in Sijiqing, and mechanics, foundries, boiler factories and other factories were set up. In 2000, the Li family’s old house would be demolished, and the place would become a new residential area. Li bought a new house in Wenquan outside the north Fifth Ring Road with the compensatory payment.

At present, Sijiqing has become just a place name near the West Fourth Ring road, and the agricultural cooperatives and greenhouses which were famous all over China have also gradually disappeared. The pictures and letters about Li Molin and his wife have all become historical relics and have been preserved by the Haidian Archives.

Things that happened in my family

In 1939, my father and mother got married. After their wedding, my father went back to Beijing and worked as a stevedore.

In 1942, my father worked as a long-term laborer in a rich vegetable cultivation family business outside Xibianmen and learned to cultivate greenhouse vegetables there.

In 1952, my parents and six other farming families jointly founded the “Li Molin Greenhouse Production Cooperative”.

In 1954, the name of the cooperative was formally renamed Sijiqing Vegetable Production Cooperative.

In 1956, I was born. I’m the fourth of my family’s five children.

In 1968, my father was persecuted and labeled a “fake model worker”, a “secondary landlord” and a “capitalist roader”. He was dismissed from all his posts and expelled from the Party.

In 1975, my father passed away, wronged. Three years later, Haidian District of Beijing reinstated him.

In 2004, the old house was demolished. I moved out of Sijiqing and bought a new house near Wenquan. My sisters still live in Sijiqing, and they have all retired.

Translated by LOTO