Cases redressed
At that time only four out of the 30 households in Hongjiang Village were pure Chinese. All of the others were mixed blood.
"We dared not talk to each other around other people, for fear of trouble," said Xu Yingjie, 74, a half-Chinese similar to Xu Weiyi. "We were haunted by fear every day."
His wife was arrested when their daughter was only two years old.
The injustices were finally addressed in April 1979. Charges against 70 percent of the villagers were dropped, and a memorial meeting was organized for Zhang Yunshan, which announced publically that he had a clean record.
Russian blood diluted
In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, nearly all the villagers became reticent and sensitive about their appearance.
Humiliated after being called "er mao zi," a discriminatory name for mixed-blood people, they were desperate to change their looks and became "real" Chinese. The only way to achieve this was by marrying Chinese people and diluting their Russian blood.
"People like us have suffered from criticism. What are we going to do if our marriage to people of the same lineage causes another Cultural Revolution?" said the elders to the younger generations.
Fortunately, that day never came. Now the lives of the younger Russian-Chinese have changed significantly; some even work for the government.
Xu Yue'e, daughter of Xu Yingjie, is now the director of the grassroots women's federation as well as a deputy to the county-level people's congress.
