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Archive for Chairman Mao

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Literary Starvation

by Beverley
October 16th, 2013

Chapter Twelve
LITERARY STARVATION

Forbidden City. And was it cold!

Forbidden City. And was it cold!

Another day I returned with the group to see what was allowed to be viewed of the Imperial Palace. Restoration was going on which was surprising in view of the political thinking of the cultural revolution in which art, books, anything intellectual or part of the glamorous imperial past was being destroyed. Our guide gave us a general idea of the layout, and strict instructions of which gate to exit to find our taxi, then turned us loose.

The Forbidden City was and is an overwhelming place. Where to begin? Listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world, it covers 7,800,000 square feet. Construction of the Forbidden City began in 1406 when the Yongle emperor Zhu di became emperor. More than one million workers labored for 15 years to complete the construction. At this point 980 original buildings survive. Peter and I covered only a small section of what we were allowed to see in 1975. And in my many subsequent visits the past 34 years I feel as though I haven’t really covered that much more. I still find it overwhelming.

Steve Allen center of attention at Forbidden City

Steve Allen is the center of attention in the Forbidden City

Needless to say, everyone had trouble finding that gate the guide had told us to use as our exit point at the end of our visit. After viewing fascinating buildings with lovely names — the Throne Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity, and the Hall of Imperial Peace — Peter from Denmark and I who had toured the Forbidden City together somehow emerged through the right gate and found the taxi. We tried charades to find out if others had already been transported back to the hotel. It didn’t work. When he delivered us to the Peking Hotel we thought he understood he was to return for the others. At dinner that evening an annoyed group of our fellow travelers were complaining about having to walk back to the hotel on feet weary from hours of wandering in the vast Imperial Palace complex. They couldn’t figure out where the taxi was that was supposed to pick them up. Peter and I listened, saying nothing.

It was strange having nothing to read. I’ve always been a two or more newspaper a day woman and still mourn the demise of afternoon papers and extras. How many readers remember coming out to the street midday, or leaving a night spot late in the evening and hearing a boy shouting “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” while waving a paper in one hand and carrying a batch of them under his other arm. A natural disaster, a train derailment, a murder, the outbreak of war were all extra fodder.

But our orders were, take nothing into China to read. No newspapers, magazines, books, and certainly not a Bible!! This was one country where you didn’t find a Bible in the bedside table drawer. So we had nothing to read. Although the miniscule wattage of the hotel room lights was more suitable for lighting a child’s doll house than illuminating a book.

There were racks of political propaganda pamphlets in at least ten languages in the hotel lobbies. And it was possible to find Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book in English everywhere.

I did stumble upon a small book store that had some English reading material one day in Peking. There were ten paperback volumes of Chinese Literature for 1975. The volumes were numbered one to ten and dated. They were quite comprehensive — comprehensive of art and literature during the Cultural Revolution. A featured story “A Sea of Happiness” in volume one concerns the adventures of Miao-miao whose dad and mum were building new boats and making fishing nets for the good friends in Vietnam. In the poetry section “Ah, Chungnanhai, Pride of My Heart” is political poetry about Chungnanhai. “From here (Chungnanhai) Chairman Mao directs our revolutionary course. Here Chairman Mao meets heroes from all our fronts. Storm centre of revolution where the red flag will always fly.” Not exactly Byron or Keats.

Color photos of paintings from the National Art Exhibition show included two smiling triumphant workers pulling tin buckets of water out of a hole in the ice, a snowy scene with oil wells in the background. “Where the oil is, there is my home” is what the title winning painter Chang Hung-tsan called this painting. A black and white woodcut, “The Slave System Must Never Return!” shows a very forceful group of young people surrounding a woman pulling a big metal chain between her hands.

Literary starvation proved to be comparable to food starvation. If you are hungry enough you eat roots and grass. So now as I see the wild modern painting and the traditional ink and watercolor scenes being produced in China today, I can appreciate how the world has opened up for Chinese artists since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. No one promised us China during the Cultural Revolution would be fun and indeed amusement was hard to find, even in the arts.

Chapter 1: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 3: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 6: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 8: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 9: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 10: Part 1
Chapter 11: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 12: Part 1
Chapter 13: Part 1

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories Books, My Life

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution: Trouble In T’ien An Men Square (Part 2)

by Beverley
September 12th, 2013

Chapter Eleven
TROUBLE IN T’IEN AN MEN SQUARE
Part Two

Monument to the People's Heroes and the Great Hall of the People. 12/26/2004. By Jacob Ehnmark from Sendai, Japan (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Monument to the People’s Heroes and the Great Hall of the People. 12/26/2004. By Jacob Ehnmark, via Wikimedia Commons

While I’d been waiting for my box to be built earlier in this production, I’d been able to look outside through a window to the small back street below. There were rows of bicycle rickshaws waiting for Chinese customers. No way would we have been allowed to ride in one of them. The Communists would have considered this an example of westerners exploiting the poor Chinese, treating them like beasts of burden as they pedaled the westerners through the streets of Peking.

I’d also noticed a small side entrance through which people entered and left. So, when I finished, sure that my taxi/spy/driver was still lurking somewhere out front, I slipped out the side door.

I knew that I was somewhere in back of T’ien an men Square, the largest square in the world, and it wasn’t hard to find. This is one gigantic open area as the world now knows from the massacre films. Being totally on my own for once I was overcome with the feeling of exhilaration. The big Russian style buildings on three sides of the square weren’t of particular interest to me. The Monument to the People’s Heroes, a tall square granite obelisk on a raised platform right in the center of the square was more interesting. As with almost everything in China, there was a quote from Chairman Mao on the monument. I found out later that this quote, engraved into the marble in Chinese characters, translated in English to “The People’s Heroes Will be Remembered Eternally”. And carved into the base were relief depictions of historical events, starting only with the mid-nineteenth century Opium War. The highest section of that raised platform looked like a good place to take photographs so that’s where I headed.

As I found my spot and got the camera out, in the distance buses pulled up in front of the National People’s Congress Building and masses of young people piled out, unfurling big red flags as they went. They fell into formation and started going through elaborate routines with their red flags. This was a great photo op! Or so I thought as I snapped away, until I saw through my lens a frighteningly large group of young people wearing red neck scarves quickly and menacingly coming directly towards me.

I was frightened! No one knew where I was and there were so many of them coming at me. I had no idea what I had done to prompt this action. But I obviously was their target. Then just as suddenly as they started towards me, they reversed their direction and quickly returned to their training area. I had no idea what had intervened, but I was deeply grateful for their change of plan.

To be safe I moved down slowly and started taking lots of photos of some very cute colorfully dressed children near the monument. I wanted to appear innocent. I was innocent! And children were always an accepted photo choice.

playground-v2

I worked my way casually across the gigantic square, shooting pictures of children all along my route (all the while knowing I’d run out of film some photos before) heading towards the Gate of Heavenly Peace which is across from the square on the other side of An Chieh highway.

Having had enough independence for the day I walked on past the entrance to the old Imperial City and the site from which Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the People’s Republic of China back to our hotel. The taxi driver wasn’t there waiting for me as I’d thought he might be. No one was looking for me. In fact, it wasn’t until several weeks later that I figured out why no one was searching and why the angry Red Guards had had done such a quick retreat.

I found the answer while sitting in my Santa Barbara living room viewing the colored slides of my China trip that I’d just picked up from the photo shop several weeks after my return from China. In several of the photos I noticed a plain looking man in blue Mao suit and cap was walking across the square, directly towards where I had been standing. He had his hands behind his back and appeared to be out for a casual stroll. But in one photo he was turned towards the advancing Red Guard gang and one hand was raised. Obviously the taxi driver had returned to the hotel and reported me out on my own and party cadres had taken off quickly to find me. The older cadres were well aware of the violence towards westerners the young Red Guard were capable of, which was one major reason we were watched constantly while we were in China. The Communist Party government was most concerned that no negative incidents involving the visiting westerners take place. Belatedly I was most jubilant this time they had infringed upon my independence.

My alarming encounter with the Red Guard in T’ien an men Square in 1975 came particularly alive to me years later when on June 4th, 1989 I watched on TV as a lone young patriot faced down a gigantic military tank, one of many the Communist Party leadership had ordered into T’ien an men square to crush an unprecedented democratic peaceful protest. I watched the brave young women and men falling like toy soldiers in their battle with the well trained heavily armed army troops in what has come to be known as the Massacre of T’ien an men Square. The old men in power were tremendously frightened by the young students who yearned for democracy in China and gave orders to stop them at any cost.

Chapter 1: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 3: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 6: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 8: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 9: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 10: Part 1
Chapter 11: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 12: Part 1
Chapter 13: Part 1

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories Books, My Life

A Front Row Seat for the Cultural Revolution:We Had The Great Wall To Ourselves (Part 3)

by Beverley
July 6th, 2013

Chapter Six
WE HAD THE GREAT WALL TO OURSELVES
Part Three

Beverley Jackson on the Great Wall of China, 1975.

Beverley Jackson on the Great Wall of China, 1975.

The tombs of 13 Ming emperors are North West of Peking, at the foot of T’ien-shou Hill where the low mountains overlook the flatlands. A great deal of modern construction had taken place around the tomb that was opened to the public. In 1975 only one tomb had been excavated. We toured that tomb, deep under the ground, and visited the museums adjacent to it that housed many of the treasures that were brought out after the tomb was located and opened.

The tomb museums were filled with treasures and propaganda. The propaganda was already all too familiar, such as endless quotes from Chairman Mao which of course everyone already knew from the little Red Book of Mao sayings that all Chinese were required to have. The treasures included two magnificent kingfisher feather headdresses inlaid with jewels that particularly intrigued me.

When asked for a translation of banners with Chinese writing, sometimes we got an answer, sometimes we didn’t. The big white characters on red background hung on the lofty wall of small moss-covered stones in front of the Ming tower at the tombs prompted me to try one more time. “It calls for the support of the North Vietnamese,” came my reply. I was to later ask about the larger orderly red graffiti painted on the beautiful carved
Chu-yung Barrier Gate we passed on our route to the section of the Great Wall on our way to visit. “It says this was built in 1343,” was the answer this time. I very much doubt if 1343 had anything to do with that recent graffiti!”

On this part of the journey we rode beside railroad track that was particularly well tended and armed guards were stationed at switch points. Our guides explained that this was the route of the legendary Trans-Siberian Railroad. Just the mention of it brought a tremendous thrill to all. However, he told us it only ran one day a week and we would not be seeing the famed train.

Suddenly we took a hairpin turn on the narrow climbing road, and far off in the distance I spotted the shiniest green train in China. “Today must be the day!” I shouted optimistically running to the back of the bus where I’d left my camera case. And it was. For at least five minutes we rode beside the world’s most famous train, adorned with red medallions on alternate cars, as it wound through the hills of north China on its journey to Russia.

Only a very small section of the Great Wall had been restored at the time we were there. We’d seen pictures of President Richard Nixon on that short strip of wall three years before. We’d seen Henry Kissinger there. In fact, any photo of anyone on the Wall was taken there. So we knew what to expect. But we weren’t prepared for the emotional excitement of actually walking on the Great Wall of China.

President and Mrs. Nixon visit the Great Wall of China and the Ming tombs. Photo by Byron E. Schumaker.

President and Mrs. Nixon visit the Great Wall of China and the Ming tombs. Photo by Byron E. Schumaker, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Everyone climbed the steep incline of the Wall at their own pace. Two-thirds of the way up I stopped and stared out over the mountains and plains of China, and the length of the Great Wall that was within our sight. It would be difficult for people only familiar with today’s photos and films of the Great Wall of China, with thousands of tourists from all over the world, vendors hawking Coca Cola and tee shirts, graffiti, to grasp the emotion of being there in February 1975. I was in China, walking on the Great Wall. Tears started to blur my vision. So I sat down to allow the emotion of the moment to subside.

He was in my lap before I was aware of his presence — a tiny toddler in bulky quilted clothes protecting him against the intense cold winds blowing off the Gobi Desert so close to us in that location. A dear little boy who didn’t yet know about strangers and East and West and cultural revolutions and distrust. Even his parents watched fascinated from a short distance, for a few moments not thinking of possible consequences from those who were always watching them as well as us since the average Chinese citizens were not supposed to have any contact with Westerners.

Chapter 1: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 2: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 3: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4
Chapter 4: Part 1
Chapter 5: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 6: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3
Chapter 7: Part 1
Chapter 8: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 9: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 10: Part 1
Chapter 11: Part 1  Part 2
Chapter 12: Part 1
Chapter 13: Part 1

By The Way
This blog was started to sell my new book and I keep going off on other topics. Please do check out The Beautiful Lady Was A Palace Eunuch at Amazon.com
Acknowledgement:
Kathleen Fetner, Technical Advisor and Friend
Categories Books, My Life

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