The story presents an ironic contrast between the idealism of Hsiang Tung, an overseas Chinese from the US (back 1973), of Taiwan origin, who initially read Mao with enthusiasm, and his gradual discovery that the writings on socialism and realities of socialism were two different things. The idea of reintegrating with the peasants contrasted with the reality of guarding against them by night duty because they were too poor and tended to steal. Also, the May 7th cadres' farm was unproductive, as obviously the cadres did not farm very well: a thorough integration between these urban intellectuals and the farm world was not successful.

1. The May 7th Cadres' School:

In answer to Mao's May 7, 1966 directive on integrating urban and rural work, almost every urban institution established their own farm, often called the May 7th farm or cadres' school, remote from them. Here cadres refer either to managerial personnel or simply state employees in contrast to employees of collectives, such as the commune. In the countryside, cadres refer to commune and party leaders. Employees of an institution were either regularly rotated to work on the farm or were on the farm full time for a number of years. This was true of all colleges and universities in China, since between 1968 to 1972, no new students were enrolled. Students who did not graduate in 1968 followed to the farm. This was a separate thing from the Red Guards being dispatched to the countryside. The Red Guards, at least at that time, were supposed to stay in the country for good. There was a term to refer to their stay in the country: zhagen (get rooted). Because there were no or few new students (1972 or 1973 were the first years new students were enrolled, so there were only one or two classes of students by 1974), many teachers were assigned non-teaching jobs. That was why when Hsiang-tung, the protagonist in the story "Night Duty" was assigned back to be a teaching assistant of mathematics, (pp.70-71) he aroused the envy of quite a few colleagues.

2. Politics vs. education, or red vs. expertise

Even though after Vice Chairman of the Party Lin Biao's death in 1971, China started to open up to the outside (see the next two stories: "A Big Fish," and "Nixon's Press Corps"), political movements picked up new momentum in 1974, which was probably the year when this story took place. Mao's wife, Jiang Ching, wanted to be Mao's successor (Mao was quite ill by now and was to die in two years.). In 1973, Mao had reappointed Deng Xiaoping, the number 2 "capitalist roader" during the Cultural Revolution, as vice prime minister. Deng's political rehabilitation was brought to an end in 1975 by Madame Mao who now wanted to use Mao's radicalism to combat the remaining "capitalist roaders" within the party, including Deng and Zhou Enlai, the prime minister. Eventually Zhou was to die of cancer in its last stage because of deliberately missed opportunities of treatment arranged by Madame Mao and her cohorts, called the "Gang of Four." Although college entrance examinations were reinstated in 1973, in 1974 they were suspended, replaced by a recommendation system, with students recommended from the factories, communes, and the army. These so called "worker-peasant-soldier" college students often lacked the basic background of education, some of them not having completed high school. Xiang-tung, a doctoral student from the United States, would be going back to work in the city, but this time only as assistant to teachers, of first year students, and could not even think of calculus (still doing 0.1+ 0.1) (pp.70-71). In the early 1970s, politics was still pitted against education, in the jargon "red vs. expertise." It was an either/or situation. The suspension of the college entrance examination system was preceded by a prospective student from a farm who submitted a blank examination paper, but on the back of it wrote a treatise denouncing book knowledge. His letter was then carried in all major Chinese newspapers and he was celebrated as the "blank examination sheet hero" (with no irony implied). Since one could not have political consciousness (red) and expertise, it was better to be red rather than expert.

3. The irony of integrating the rural and urban populations

One of Mao's ideals in the CR was to integrate physical and intellectual labor, the urban and rural China. The contrast between urban and rural China was the greatest blockade to China's economic development, and drew a deep rift within the Communist Party. But the reality did not always match up to the ideal. Not only was the farm unproductive, apparently the work was much lighter and life better than the farmers’, judging from the sneering remark of Wei-tung, the farmer basket weaver (76-7).

A second irony was the peasant Wei-tung, hired from a nearby farm to weave baskets for the cadres school. He did not live up to the ideal image of the model working class peasant whom the urban educated were to emulate. He was first of all lazy, because he was paid the same no matter how many baskets he wove, since salary was by day and not by piece (this itself is an exposure to the Communist system, showing even the working class, the "red" elements, needed economic incentives). Second he was poor: his poverty just reflected the poverty of the peasants in general. Although he received a salary perhaps higher than what he earned at home, it was bound to be much lower than what the cadres earned, as they continued to received their urban salaries when working on the farm. That was why they could afford to eat duck and other nice foods while Wei-tung the peasant could only afford vegetables (cheaper than meat). He must also be scraping up whatever he earned to save for home. That was why he often went hungry, driving him eventually to steal food from the kitchen, again, a very inglorious act from the model social class.

4. Contrast between the ideal and reality of socialism.

When Hsiang-tung was a student in the U.S., he was fervently defending China and Mao. One of the political activities he was involved in was the defense of Chinese sovereignty over the island Diao Yu Tai, one of the many islands near Okinawa, currently under territorial dispute between China and Japan. When he came back to China, he found many Chinese were politically indifferent and did not even know such a dispute existed. when referring to Diao Yu Tai, they were only aware of its namesake in southern Beijing as a resort for high cadres and foreign visitors.

Hiang-tung continued to discover political indifference--political studies meetings were formalities people felt obliged to go through (74). Communist China fabricated a lot of propaganda (what he did not mention was the many fabricated crimes of the capitalist roaders), including those about Taiwan and the U.S.--that people in the capitalist countries/regions lived in dire poverty, which were shocking to Hsiang-tung, who thought Communists should be honest and pursue ideals.(78-79)

The story of Lao Fu highlighted the gap between ideals and reality of the Cultural Revolution. While it was supposed to be a revolution that brought about total social and cultural transformation, individuals judged not at par with socialism because of their historical background were often subject to radical transformation, often through manual labor. Lao Fu was a talented student at central University in Republican China before Communist takeover in 1949 (81). Then not long after liberation became college lecturer, then senior lecturer, and almost promoted to associate professor when CR broke out. Suspected of being a member of the Three Principles of the People Youth Corps (a Nationalist Party youth organization in the Republic of China) while still a student (82) and never cleared. Wife tried to commit suicide.

The radical social transformation of the non-working class elements was accompanied by the confiscation of all non-socialist books in the CR, (87-88) aimed at complete ideological conformity. A talented young math teacher Lao Fu was reduced to a farmer who specialized in making kerosene stoves. And this was representative of millions of Chinese like Lao Fu who, if they did not lose their lives or personal freedom, lost their right to continue in their professional positions.