Newman Huo
ZENG FANXIN, a retired army officer, donated to the Shenzhen Museum in March some rare historical documents related to the PLA troops sent to help in the construction of Shenzhen in the early 1980s.
These included an order issued by the State Council and the Central Military Commission in 1982 discharging the PLA troops engaged in construction work in Shenzhen, as well as some early maps of Shenzhen made by the troops.
“The Shenzhen Museum called me the other day, telling me that the new museum at the Citizens’ Center is still looking for a basin and a mug used by troops in the early 1980s. So I decided to donate the basin and mug I have kept for years at my home this weekend,” Zeng, 56, said in an interview Tuesday.
Born in Yingde County in Qingyuan, Guangdong Province, in 1952, Zeng joined the construction division of the PLA in the winter of 1970.
As a staff officer in 1982, he received an order to lead more than 300 soldiers from Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, to Shenzhen.
“When we traveled by train from Guangzhou to Shenzhen, many soldiers from the north couldn’t help crying because they couldn’t see any people or roads outside,” Zeng said.
“But I was very happy to be able to help build Shenzhen because I had kept a close eye on its development even when I was in Jinzhou,” he said.
After arriving in Shenzhen, the soldiers found there was no place to stay, and had to build huts using reeds in the area that has now become Coco Park in Futian District.
Zeng said the huts were destroyed in a typhoon July 13, 1983, and the city government immediately sent bread and canvas tents to the troops.
“At the beginning, the living and working conditions for construction soldiers were so bad that many soldiers from the northeast demanded to be transferred back to their hometowns,” Zeng said.
All the soldiers took off their uniforms Sept. 13, 1983 and became ordinary civilian residents of Shenzhen.