Everyday Strategies for Survival During the Great Famine in China

Abstract

In contrast to other modern famines, the massive mortality caused by the famine during Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) and its aftermath is relatively unnoticed. Recording oral histories of ordinary survivors, now in the last stages of their lives, this paper documents how rural Chinese coped with the famine. The central questions will be how individuals and community mediated traditional practices with public health advice. What/how did they eat? How does the devastation of famine survive in cultural memory and continue to structure everyday life in the countryside? It will describe ordinary people’s survival strategies and responses to state policies and political indoctrination. The paper will shift focus from dry statistics to lived experience, most poignantly for women and children. Intentionally eliciting family knowledge and practice of healing and nutrition, this paper will use Chinese obsession with food talk, their remedies and recipes, to explore and record vivid accounts of those difficult years. Villagers were forced to sacrifice their homes/ possessions to build socialist collectives, but today many survivors are left without home, health care and sometimes food, despite an economic boom in the cities.