Changes on the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China
Sixty years can be said to be a blink of an eye! 60 years of personal experience have allowed me to feel the pulse of social progress. 60 years of reform and opening up have benefited the lives of every Chinese.
In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party was successfully held, ushering in a new historical period of reform and opening up. This was a great turning point with far-reaching significance in the history of our party since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The national economy has developed rapidly in the past thirty years, and our living and working conditions have also undergone tremendous changes in these thirty years. Food, clothing, housing, transportation, living environment, and working conditions have all been transformed.
I heard from my mother that during the planned economy era when vouchers were provided, you could buy at most two new pieces of clothes a year, and they were ordinary plain cloths. The expectation of "wearing new clothes during the Chinese New Year" was probably a wish shared by their peers at that time. If they could wear new clothes before the Chinese New Year, the satisfaction and pride they would feel when they were the envy of their neighbors would make today's young people unable to Understand, not to mention that every little angel now has at least multiple sets of clothing with good styles and textures and distinct seasons.
The supply of food is even more unforgettable for my mother. It is natural to buy meat with a ticket, but there is absolutely no choice between fat and thin portions, not to mention having to queue in an overcrowded open-air queue and having to wait for a meal. Worry about whether there will be any goods available when it’s your turn. The scramble to buy food caused adults to quarrel and even grab each other, which frightened the children. When my mother was a teenager, what she was most afraid of was having her parents yell at her to queue up. She often said stiffly when accepting this task, "I would rather not eat meat." Don’t stand in line.” Materials were extremely scarce in the 1960s and 1970s. A piece of brown sugar, fermented bean curd, or even chili noodles with a little salt were once shared snacks. The relish of eating them at that time was no less exciting than when children eat the latest food on the market today. To a certain extent, the pleasure after being numbed by chili peppers is no less satisfying than the pleasure after eating hot pot now.
Thirty years ago, many families had only one room. The almost identical layout was to put a bed or a large cupboard in the middle of the house, and draw a curtain to separate the room into two rooms. The front is the living room and dining room. My mother said that when they play, they can only sit on the bed. Those with better conditions can prepare one or two small horses or small wooden stools. Families with many children have to design it with bunk beds, and behind the bed is another room. Bedroom and storage room unified. Now that conditions have improved, most people live in three-bedroom apartments assigned to them by their work units and have their own independent kingdoms. The excitement is self-evident.
Not to mention how advanced the current automated office conditions are, how many types of water heaters have been replaced just for drinking boiled water. In the late 1950s, boiling water could only be done in the boiler room in the morning. Supply times are set to ensure demand throughout the day. Nowadays, when I sit at work, I can reach out to the water dispenser to fill up pure water, and drink hot or cold water by myself. It feels so uncomfortable.
There are also changes in communication tools. In the 1980s, hand-cranked telephones were used, which gave me a headache every time I needed to make contact. Not to mention that I had to get through to the operator at the post and telecommunications office first, and then transfer to a certain person. If the signal to the other party in a place or a certain unit is not very good, you have to make several calls, and sometimes it even takes a whole day to get through. In the 1990s, the pioneers of reform and opening up carried BB radios across their waists and used paging signals to call out at any time. Every time they called, they would deliberately pretend not to hear them and let them ring a few more times..., holder The pride is self-evident. By the turn of the millennium, Big Brother had become a status symbol. The holder not only had to shout in a voice that was disproportionate to his height, but also mixed it with local dialects at the same time to feel like he was a saint in front of others. Today in the 21st century, everyone has more than one mobile phone in their hand. No matter where they go, they are close to each other, achieving both work efficiency and economic benefits.
The changes in the past sixty years have made me deeply moved, but what I have experienced is only a small microcosm of the lives of millions of Chinese people. China's thirty years of reform and opening up have completed the course of hundreds of years of Western capitalist countries, and the great achievements it has made are hard-won. We live in such a beautiful golden age, and this happy, stable and harmonious situation also needs us to cherish and maintain it. Through our efforts and struggle, the motherland will become more prosperous and stronger, and people's lives will become better and better!