Yes, the military flight has an extra flight tomorrow. Look, this is the roster of new trainees from the cadre department; they need to leave first. The military district leaders have also given instructions; otherwise, they won't be able to leave at all. Besides, we can't delay the soldiers' future, right...
Some children coming to Tibet to visit their families also need to hurry back to school...
There are also a few people who need to rush back to handle the funeral of their immediate relatives. It's really hot in the mainland right now; we can't let others go back without even seeing the body, right? This kind of special situation shouldn't be considered as taking shortcuts...
There are also some work teams from the mainland that just come and go as they please...
How about this, you go to the Civil Aviation Administration, and I'll sign something for you; you can get reimbursed when you return to your unit. That should work, right...
So, men, women, and children rushed to the civil aviation ticket office, but unexpectedly, Director Yang's influence couldn't shine everywhere. The situation there was also very "oxygen-deficient." Eight flights had been canceled, and 1,200 people couldn't board according to their ticket dates. Some people started cursing, and a reporter threatened to write an internal report. The leaders of the Civil Aviation Administration had no choice but to show the drafts of two urgent telegrams to the travelers, whether they were reporters or not. The telegrams were sent from the People's Government of the Autonomous Region to the Civil Aviation Administration of China—
Since late August, the Chengdu-Lhasa flights have been extremely irregular, causing a serious backlog of travelers coming to Tibet, especially over 1,500 students who must leave Tibet for school in early September. We hope for normal flights and extra flights.
The Civil Aviation Administration of the Tibet Autonomous Region has twice telegraphed Southwest Airlines and the Transportation Production Scheduling Office of the Civil Aviation Administration, requesting extra flights, but the issue has still not been resolved. We earnestly request your bureau to adjust and increase the Lhasa-Chengdu flights in the near future to alleviate the conflicts of travelers leaving Tibet.
Two urgent reports have already been sent out, yet there is only one "Silver Swallow" flying desperately two trips a day. It turns out that four out of the five Boeing 707 "Silver Swallows" from Southwest Airlines are sick and hospitalized. A Tibetan female cadre in her fifties was holding a delayed telegram and telling the duty staff: her name is Zhuoga, her husband is an "old Tibetan" who came to Tibet with the 18th Army, and she has an 80-year-old mother in Guizhou who has no one to take care of her. From the time the telegram was sent until she brought her son to buy tickets, it had been fourteen days, and she didn't know whether her mother was alive or dead. Although her husband passed away in 1983, she still mustered the spirit to do what he couldn't finish, but her filial piety towards her mother must be respected...
Zhuoga, who cannot balance loyalty and filial piety, brought tears to the duty staff's face, who sobbed: No matter how many internal reports the reporters write, we must let you two board the plane tomorrow...
With the Civil Aviation Administration in such a situation, what are you cursing for? Living people won't be allowed to die from holding their urine, right? Some flexible cadres found other ways. For a time, many seemingly sneaky people were shuttling through the corridors of the hospital outpatient building, each nervously running with prescriptions given by doctors. It turns out that the prescriptions were for children's hospitalization certificates or sick leave notes.
However, the son of the female company commander, whose life is hanging by a thread, does not need these. Although the younger son does not like the female company commander, she feels heartbroken for him.
Last year, when the female company commander took leave to go home, she went straight to the kindergarten after getting off the plane. The younger son refused to go with her, finding every way to hide in the small restroom. You can't blame the younger son; he not only listens well but also has a good memory. On the first day of kindergarten, the teacher said that besides the teachers in the class, no adults, regardless of gender, could enter this small restroom. The female company commander cried like a little child and even took a toy pistol to squeeze into the small restroom. The younger son finally didn't finish singing the children's song that all the kids in the class could sing—
Shameful, shameless, no nose, no eyes...
I sympathize with the female company commander and understand her younger son. In the first grade of elementary school, my mother took a bus from Lhasa all the way to our school. I was really scared and couldn't believe that the woman with the "monkey butt" face would be my mother, so I couldn't go with her. I had heard the teacher tell the story of the wolf grandmother dressing up as the little rabbit's mother while still in the nursery. That story had been staged many times.
Not to mention the wolf grandmother, even if it really was my mother returning, I would still have to be cautious and take a good look to see if my mother looked like what I imagined. Later, I forgot many of my classmates' names, but I could never forget the name of the child who dressed up as the wolf grandmother. His name was Qiao Yu.
I mustered the courage to do something "oxygen-deficient" and found the military district commander Jiang Hongquan, handing over the prepared paper and pen while speaking. Commander Jiang is also an "old Tibetan," a very honest and kind old man, with his family in Beijing, living apart from his wife and children for a long time. He had once experienced the same feelings as the female company commander at that time and understood such matters very well. I never expected Director Yang to excitedly praise me for being so considerate, saying that this way, he resolved his two difficulties, as he wouldn't be criticized and also took care of the female company commander. The most righteous thing was that he only let the commander approve one ticket; if he approved another, it would cause trouble. He was willing to cooperate with me long-term.
I said no. There are so many people with special circumstances here; even a few kind-hearted commanders can't take care of them all. People sing that as long as it's the "Silver Swallow," there are no mountains that can't be crossed, and as long as it's the "Silver Swallow," there is no blue sky that can't be touched. But it has long been crossed, and it has long been touched, yet the issue of "difficult boarding" has still not been completely resolved.
Rabbit Mountain. You can't find such a mountain name on the map, but there are indeed many mountains called Rabbit Mountain in Tibet. It is a name given by the soldiers.
As the name suggests, there must be rabbits hidden in the mountain. Since they are rabbits in the mountain, they must be wild rabbits. Since they are wild rabbits, then... Following this reasoning, it can evoke a kind of... "salivating desire." Nevertheless, not many people are willing to visit Rabbit Mountain. The first time I heard someone talk about the rabbit mountain of Kunmuji, I couldn't help but feel distant and confused, and I instinctively concluded that it was a natural desert and a cultural desert.
First of all, the journey is too far and too dangerous, requiring crossing many famous or unnamed mountains, then passing through a very dry sandy area, and finally wading across a wide snowmelt river to see it from a distance. Once you arrive and see it, your "salivating desire" will also disappear. Moreover, a company of over a hundred soldiers from various parts of the motherland cannot even watch television programs from the motherland or from abroad. Besides the boundary markers on the border and Rabbit Mountain, there is nothing else worth seeing. If you want to see rabbits, it's not that easy. The company is dozens of miles away from Rabbit Mountain, and there are rules prohibiting unauthorized mountain climbing. So, it's not possible to see the rabbits every day.
The higher-ups understand the soldiers' feelings and instructed the military district cultural work station to provide a 20-inch television for the soldiers there to meet their cultural life needs and improve their cultural quality. Thus, the first television in the desert at an altitude of 5,000 meters appeared, which was historically significant and also color. This greatly encouraged the soldiers. The soldiers were eager to enter a new chapter of history with the television and hurriedly set up the highest outdoor antenna in the world, only to hear noise from another planet that was completely absent. The soldiers thus realized that "an army without culture is a foolish army" is the same as "a television without images is a foolish television."