God bless the Cuban people who have eaten enough!

people living in a consumer society may find it hard to imagine that there are still people living under the food stamp system on earth.

Cuba, an island whose population has just reached half of Beijing, has established a food ration system since the 196s. Since then, the government has distributed a pamphlet on rations, which has determined the diet that a family can buy.

Nowadays, when some people on the earth are eating 24-hour takeout and indulging in a dazzling array of online shopping sprees, many Cubans still need to try their best to cope with the eternal question of food shortage: "Where can I find food today?" .

People shop in the supply and marketing cooperatives in Cuba. Francoise Guajour/photo

A Utopian experiment of ration distribution

Back in 1959, Fidel Castro, an old friend of China people, and ernesto guevara, a revolutionary idol, were in high spirits, overthrowing the pro-American regime by guerrilla warfare and establishing a state of public ownership.

like the utopian imagination of planned economy, Cuba announced that all employment relations would be cancelled, the government would allocate jobs, free medical care would be provided for all and children would go to school for free.

In 195s, three women were sitting in a bar in Havana nightclub. HERBERT C. LANKS/photo

Before that, Cuba had been a holiday paradise for American upper class. Luxury restaurants, nightclubs and casinos run by American capitalists are extremely luxurious

in p>1962, the United States government imposed a total blockade on Cuba, seeing that all the promised land had been nationalized.

It was then that the food ration system entered the historical stage.

every family's ration book says the family members and the date of birth. According to the manual, you can buy the prescribed food with very little money.

Although Cuba relies on imports for 8% of its grain under the agricultural productivity, it makes a decent living by exporting sugar and minerals to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.

people buy staple food in supply and marketing cooperatives. Early pamphlets also included different types of Italian sausages, seafood, meat, vegetables and fruits.

according to research, the monthly ration of Cuban families includes a bottle of cooking oil, a bag of washing powder, 8g of bread per person per day, 2.7kg of rice per month, 8 eggs, 9g of black beans, 9g of chicken, 1.4kg of sugar, 65g of coffee, 7g of chocolate powder, a box of soap, soap and matches, and milk powder for children under 7 years old.

In order to show humanity, you can get extra cakes or beer allowance on your birthday.

Cuban children's birthday party in p>199.

In order to show that he is better than the Americans, Castro even built the world's largest ice cream park in the capital, which can entertain 3, citizens every day.

In the hot climate, eating a bite of "socialist ice cream" with state subsidies has become everyone's happiness at your fingertips.

In order to commemorate the revolution that Castro launched on July 26th, 1953 to attack the Moncada Barracks, Coppelia brand ice cream sold in the park has 26 flavors. Patz, 72, recalls that these include black cows and white cows, that is, vanilla ice cream with coke or lemonade.

However, the good times came to an abrupt end with the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

In p>1991, Cuba lost 75% of its food imports, and the attractive list in the ration handbook plummeted. Overnight, only an empty wall was left in the supply and marketing cooperatives where beef, butter, rum, milk and even soda were used.

The country has declared that it has entered a "special period", which is vividly called "thin period" in the workshop, because everyone has lost 9 kilograms on average.

extremely empty supply and marketing cooperative shelves. Francoise Guajour/photo

The zoo also clearly witnessed the hardships of the current situation.

After Castro seized power in p>1959, Cuba joked that the slogan of Havana Zoo changed from "Please don't feed animals" to "Please don't take animal food".

In the "special period", jokes evolved again-the slogan became "Please don't eat animals".

in fact, there are indeed fewer animals. "Peacocks, buffaloes and even a South American bird like an ostrich have disappeared," said a Havana resident. "Hyenas have to be vegetarian, and tigers can only eat sweet potatoes."

Ariam takes the big fish home, which can be eaten by the whole family for two weeks. The first thought that many people wake up every day is how to get food today. William Martin/photo

Life has become the primary productive force on the island.

In p>1962, Cuba passed a bill stipulating that all cattle and horses belonged to the state, and farmers only had the right to use them. Because cows and horses work for the revolution, it is forbidden to kill cows and horses. When cattle and horses are old and old, they should be sent to the state for unified treatment.

But in the face of hungry people, precious cows can't be saved. In order to prevent illegal eating of cows, the government even stipulates that killing a cow will take 1 years in prison, which may be longer than killing a person.

Animals that are not protected by law may be even more miserable. Every night, children will hear the dark rumor that the domestic cat in the street appears at a table somewhere.

until today, beef is still a luxury for ordinary people. The quota of canned beef is 8 ounces per person for half a year. A butcher said, "I have forgotten the taste of beef."

By 1993, 3, Cubans had fled the country, and thousands of immigrants drowned or were killed by sharks in the Gulf of Mexico.

The lack of daily necessities has also become a struggle that almost every Cuban has to face, whether it is enduring power outages or looking for soap everywhere.

fortunately, this land has never lacked optimism. It seems that every Cuban has lived to be an inventor, using all kinds of strange tricks to resist the struggle in the world.

Some people say that the most useful mobile phone application in Cuba is flashlight, because power failure is so common.

the toilet paper is gone. Cubans take a page or two of the official Granma newspaper as a substitute when they go out.

the new clothes are gone. Parents make children's sandals with skipping rope, make suits with feed bags and flour bags, and decorate them with palm leaves.

Birthday cakes have almost disappeared from the island. To celebrate, the children began to blow condoms into balloons.

The housewives in Havana learned to chop up the cooked banana peel and put it into the stew, and told the children that it was meat from a "special period".