Gobi Desert: A Tale Of Survival
Kellett School, Amelia Harvey, Fiction: Group 3
T
he labour camps in the Gobi Desert were introduced under the rule of Mao Zedong in
1957 as part the Anti-Rightist Movement. Many people who were opposed to Chairman
Mao’s idealistic movements were sentenced to either work in the camps or sometimes
even death. The camps were horrible, punishing places and often people did not survive
their sentence. The boy in the story has been wrongly accused of being a Rightist after a careless
comment at school and is therefore sent off to a labour camp as punishment.
I remember the day like it was yesterday. The men… in their official looking uniforms, the
graven look on my father’s face, the horror-stricken look from mother – speechless – and the
coursing anger streaming through my body. It was not their right to take me away. They couldn’t
do that! In my rage, I had a fit – yelling at them obscenely, as if possessed – but they ignored my
deranged cries of protest, yelling at me to be quiet.
My father gave me a stern look. One that, without him even speaking, I knew was my signal
to calm down. My father was like that. Had a way of being so calm and collected but stern at the
same time. He motioned me toward him discreetly with a quick dart of his eyes. He took me into
the study – tears streaming down both of our faces – and immediately removed a small book.
I still have that book – refer to it occasionally when I need to – it’s red cover and sleek golden
writing symbolizing the Chinese flag. Through my tears, it was hard to make out the characters
engraved into the tattered red cover – but I made out the words “Cantonese-English Dictionary”.
He looked at me and nodded, silently handing over the small book. I swiftly pocketed the book in
my trousers, calmed myself down and resolutely walked back to our small kitchen in which the
meeting was taking place.
Two days later, I was in the camp. There were many other boys my age – some of them I
knew, but they did not acknowledge me, for fear of punishment; something we were all unsure
about. I was put in a farm on the very edge of the Gobi Desert along with five other boys. The
farm itself was only small in comparison to the actual desert – the entire desert, so I’m told, is
1 300 000km2 – a giant in comparison to many other villages and deserts in China. My size
always restricted my ability to do the work the older boys did – I was only just 16 when I was
taken away whereas most of the other boys were around 18 or 19; fully grown men! Due to the
fact that I was so small, I was forced to work with the younger boys handling small tasks such as
cleaning the toilets and occasionally moving some of the lighter stones for construction works.
An absolutely humiliating occupation!
My only joys at this farm were the small red dictionary my father had entrusted me with
and the radio, which broadcast English channels. Each day, I read a little part of the dictionary,
processing the words in my head – trying to remember as much as I could. I also listened to
the broadcasts to understand and grasp the pronunciation of the complicated looking words. I
remember one day in particular when I felt so sick, I could barely stand. We hadn’t eaten for 48
hours and I was incredibly tired, parched and hungry. But with my dictionary in my pocket and
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