Clear-cut truths

The woodcut Learn to Transplant Rice Seedlings depicts two teenage girls who appear to be seasoned farmers cultivating a rice paddy. But a closer look reveals fair complexions and innocent smiles that betray the girls' true identities - those of urban youth zealously embracing the "rustification campaign", in which young urbanites were sent to the countryside for reeducation by peasants. Mao Zedong launched the decade-long campaign in 1968.

When this black-and-white woodblock print was discovered among a stack of old books, its creator, 53-year-old Wu Xiaokui, returned to the village where she had lived as a zhiqing - the term for educated urban youth sent to the countryside - some 30 years ago.

"I remember the rice paddy's water was lukewarm and the mud was soft when I first learned to plant rice seedlings," Wu recalls.