Xujun Eberlein grew up in Chongqing, China, and moved to the United States in the summer of 1988. After receiving a Ph.D. from MIT in the spring of 1995, and winning an award for her dissertation, she joined a small but ambitious high tech company. On Thanksgiving 2003, she gave up tech for writing. Her debut story collection Apologies Forthcoming won the 2007 Tartt Fiction Award and was published in May 2008. You can buy the book here.
The stories in Apologies Forthcoming deal with the Cultural Revolution, which defined the generation now coming to power in China. Xujun departs from the more typical “victim literature” about the CR, and the stories show a broad range of perspectives, actions and responses to the turmoil of the period.
Lisa: Tell us about the title of your collection, “Apologies Forthcoming.” Why did you choose it?
Xujun: I had considered calling the book Men Don’t Apologize, but some writer friends objected. They pointed out that people would probably expect a feminist treatise, while I’m not a feminist at all. And the stories don’t actually have any agenda other than realistically portraying human behavior and psychology at a particular time. While that namesake story is about several men and a woman, the idea of apologizing for, or even acknowledging participation in, activities during the Cultural Revolution cuts across the sexes. Apologies Forthcoming was actually the publisher’s suggestion and I like it, though I am not sure we will ever see the apologies. ☺
Speaking about apologies, two years ago I interviewed a few ex-Red Guard leaders in Chongqing, who had been in jail for more than a decade and now are businessmen. I wrote a short journalism piece about this, which you can read here.
Let me just quote one of the men here – he said, “We castigated the capitalist roaders for two years. They punished us for many more.” He didn’t think he ought to apologize to anyone at all, and you have to acknowledge his point.
Lisa: Related to this question of apologies…my first time in China was in 1979, so the Cultural Revolution was still very present in peoples’ lives. At the time I felt like the country suffered from a massive emotional depression from the after-effects of so much mass trauma. And a number of Chinese people I met told me about some of their experiences during the CR – some very traumatic and personal things. I’m guessing this was because I was a young foreigner, not involved and therefore safe to confide in. Did you talk about your experiences with fellow Chinese? To what extent did people feel they could honestly speak about what had happened to them and what they had done during this time? Did you talk to anyone about your own experiences?
Xujun: Oh, plenty of people talk about their sufferings, but few mention their roles as participants. One representative example is the memoir Wild Swans. I admire the book’s writing, but as I mentioned in my Amazon review for it, I wish the author were more honest. Readers relish suffering stories, but suffering stories alone provide limited insights into human behavior.
It also occurs to me that few westerners know the subtleties and nuance surrounding the participating parties in the CR. I once did an informal poll among writers I workshop with on what they thought of the Red Guards, and the answers were pretty much uniform with the representative one being “pretty much the same as the Hitler Youth.” This is quite baffling and at the same time very interesting. As we know (I’m aware of the pitfall of generalization) Americans hate the communist government of China; but did they know the biggest thing the Red Guards did was to break China’s state apparatus? Should a communist hater applaud or condemn that? There is just no simple black-and-white answer.
Another thing is that the Red Guards consisted of an entire generation of students from middle school through university, and though viewed as a collective by westerners, there were many different factions emerging, converging, breaking down and reorganizing over times.
The Red Guards did have a hand in lots of violence, yet the individual members were often idealists. This complexity seems beyond the average outsiders’ comprehension. It is very hard for someone to understand another culture without actually experiencing it. But the real problem is not the limitation in understanding – everyone has limitations; it is failing to recognize limitations. Too many people are vocally righteous about other cultures they know little about, that is the problem.
As a writer, however, I am more interested in human behavior and the mentality that leads to it. I’m not interested in pointing fingers because what does that do to increase understanding? I think as realistic fiction the story “Men Don’t Apologize” departs from the usual victim literature and takes one step further in exploring human nature and the different behavior that manifests between ordinary and extraordinary circumstances.
I don’t want to digress too far on this topic, let’s just say that, as far as political conflicts are concerned, victims and victimizers can easily switch positions. The distinction between victims and villains is very unclear and my stories show a broader range of behavior beyond suffering.
Lisa: “Snow Line,” the opening story in the collection, is set in Chengdu, a city I’ve spent some time in and really love. Even in the immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, it felt a lot more relaxed and open to me than most of the cities I visited. It’s surrounded by a lot of natural beauty, and places like Qingchengshan, which is considered one of the birthplaces of Daoism.
I notice that flowers are a recurring motif in “Snow Line,” and I’m curious if this is something that connects specifically to Chengdu.
Xujun: Yes, Chengdu! My favorite city of all! (I hope my Chongqing townsmen will forgive me for saying this.) In the north it is Beijing and in the south it has to be Chengdu. Do you know a saying, “少不入川，老不出川” – “When young don’t enter Sichuan; when old never go out of it”? In this saying “Sichuan” actually means its capital Chengdu. Chengdu is such a relaxed and cultured city, a young man would only be spoiled there and never work hard, is what the saying means. But it is heaven for a relaxed and richly cultured life. Every year I go back for a visit, I can’t help but wonder how such a free and at leisure population make their livings. Yet they live leisurely on. All my close friends from Chongqing have moved to Chengdu by now.
And yes, Chengdu is a true flower city. Everywhere on the streets and in every season you see flower girls and flower stores. Even Chengdu’s air is fragrant and colorful. You don’t see or smell this in Chongqing for example. Don’t get me wrong, I love Chongqing, too, but that’s for its ragged hilly paths and two legend-filled rivers.
You can probably sense my love of Chengdu from descriptions in “Snow Line.” But the reason I placed “Snow Line” as the opening story is because of the artwork, “Dandelion.” The artist, Mr. Wu Fan, is a renowned “literati artist” in Sichuan, a very classic kind. “Dandelion” was his signature work and won a gold medal in the 1959 international block prints competition. During the CR the gold medal became a criminal indictment for him and nearly killed him.
Mr. Wu is a friend of my parents, and his daughter and I are friends. The genesis of “Snow Line” actually came from the daughter; she had modeled the little girl in “Dandelion.” I thought the artwork would add a nice dimension to my story, so I asked for permission to include it from Mr. Wu Fan, and he generously agreed. I ended up using three works from him, each fits nicely with one of the stories. His daughter did the sketch for “Men Don’t Apologize.”
When I was in college, every summer I would go to Chengdu and spend time with the Wu family. The mother, an oil painter, would bring her two daughters to paint from nature in Huanhua Xi – Wash-flower Brook, and I would go with them. Those were some happiest times of my youth.
Lisa: The first time I was in China, one of the phrases I learned right away was “work unit.” The idea that so many decisions about one’s personal life could be made by one’s place of employment was very foreign to me. “Snow Line” presents a typical situation in the China of the late 1970s to early 1980s, where a woman lives in the factory in which she works. The whole notion of privacy and personal space is very different from the West. So a two-part question – when you moved to the US, was this a difficult adjustment to you? And do you think that China as a society has moved towards more “Western” notions of privacy?
Xujun: Hehe, the phrase is still there, on everyone’s lips. And you ask an interesting question. When I am writing stories I wear the hat of the times, and this all seems perfectly natural. However, when I think about actually doing something like living in a printing factory it does seem pretty strange. It is curious how quickly I became accustomed to the easy (and private) life in the US. I don’t think I could make the adjustment in the other direction nearly so quickly. There is a Chinese word for that – xiguan – that would be used only in one direction.
China has changed a lot since the early 1980s, when I was in college. There is surely more privacy in people’s lives now. For example the question “How much do you make?” was as common as “Have you eaten?” in conversation when I lived in China. Now you hardly ever hear the former spoken. ☺
However I don’t think Chinese will completely adopt the Western notion of privacy – that would be very sad anyway. Neighbors still love to “chuan-men” (drop-by) without having to first set appointments, for example.
Lisa: “Feathers” tells the story of a girl losing her older sister. In a way it is a typically “Chinese” story, a Cultural Revolution tragedy. But on the other hand, the family dynamics transcend the cultural particulars and deal with universal themes of loss, denial and suffering.
Xujun: I think that is an important observation, and I think it may apply more broadly than just this story. People have a lot in common with one another, and a lot that sets us apart. “Feathers” is about family and dealing with tragedy, and this is an area where similarities are much stronger than differences. Still, the story tells a Chinese way of dealing with things, for example making up stories so the grandmother wouldn’t know about her grandchild’s death. I remember workshopping the story and some American friends just couldn’t understand why the lying was necessary. Some things that might stand out to a Western reader would simply be background to a Chinese reader.
You know, this story is close to my heart. And go back to your question earlier if I talked to anyone about my own experiences during the CR, I was a child when the worst thing happened to my family – my big sister’s death. She was a 16-year-old Red Guard. I had to safeguard my 75-year-old grandmother from knowing the bad news, just like in the third-person story “Feathers.” Imaging a 12-year-old girl running around bare her teeth like a fierce cat hissing at any gossipy neighbor who dared to mention the incident. That practice trained my habit of silence; for more than three decades I did not talk to anyone other than my diary book about the incident. I never shed tears either. I cried for the first time in 2002 when I began to write the memoir piece “Swimming with Mao”.
One question a reader raised was if my loyalty to my sister might have impeded my condemnation of the Red Guards. However, though my sister was both a participant and a victim of the CR, she foremost was my dear sister and no political identification could change that. This became never so clear after I started to write about her.
The story also reflects my aversion to heroism. When my sister died, her comrades called her a “hero.” As a child I was very confused by the notion that a life was tradable with the title “hero.” I just wanted my dear sister back – who cared what her title was?
Lisa: I particularly liked “Watch the Thrill,” with its two bored neighborhood boys who are looking for excitement. It’s not that they are bad or evil, they just seem to lack the capacity to make moral choices, and there are no adults around to guide them. This had a lot of resonances to me, both to kids growing up here and now without adequate parenting and to figures in classical literature – “Lord of the Flies” comes to mind.
Xujun: It is interesting you should mention this. There is a broader belief that youth and innocence should go hand in hand. In this story I wanted to portray not that the boys were bad, but that they really weren’t concerned about the concepts of good or bad, but just interesting or boring. Becoming invested in good and bad requires some reasonable landmarks of this type of judgment, and those landmarks were missing when these boys were raised. This makes the emergence of any sort of morality difficult.
1 Posted at www.pigmig.com
[…] Original post by The Peking Duck […]
June 7, 2008 @ 6:10 am | Pingback
2
By Tang Buxi
I have yet to read the book, but what little I’ve seen written by Xujun Eberlein has been absolutely fascinating, insightful… and I guess the term is, agreeable.
I completely agree with her opinion of Wild Swans, for example. As someone who also grew up with regular, terrifying, but balanced stories of the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, I’ve always been suspicious of those who can claim victimization at the hand of any specific “party” or “group” of persecuters.
In my family at least, we had both “victims” and “persecuters”. My ultimate judgment is that all were victims of the human condition, not victims of a carefully plotted political strategy.
I think some in the West misunderstand the implications of the Cultural Revolution. They see it as some sort of struggle between a parasitic Party and the host “people”, when that’s not at all reality. Without understanding the Cultural Revolution, I believe it’s difficult for anyone to understand that which has followed in Chinese history… ranging from 6/4 to today’s political leadership (both of whom suffered during the GPCR as well).
In one of the 6/4 articles we recently translated for our blog, for example, one eyewitness taking part in a march recalls seeing people in their 30s and 40s cry by the side of the road, afraid that the Cultural Revolution was again reborne.
If Xunjun Eberlein can do something to lift the veil of mystery on this critically important event (without intertwining herself into the dubious political activism of Jung Chang)… then she will certainly have served the cause of bridging the gap between China and the rest of the world.
So, cheers for my fellow Chinese (and my fellow alum).
June 7, 2008 @ 9:42 am | Comment
3
By Amban
I appreciate the need for a more complex understanding of the CR, but dismissing comparisons between the Red Guards and Hitler Youth out of hand will not take us anywhere either. There are chilling parallels between aspects of the PRC during different periods and Nazi Germany and we need to take that seriously.
June 7, 2008 @ 12:27 pm | Comment
4
By Wayne
The parallels between America’s foreign policy and that of the Third Reich are about 100 times stronger than that between Red Guards and Hitler Youth.
Keitel and Jodl were hanged, not for genocide or crimes against humanity, but simply for launching ‘aggressive’ war – something the US has been repeatedly guilty of these past 40 to 50 years.
June 7, 2008 @ 12:38 pm | Comment
5
By Lisa
Oh for god’s sake.
June 7, 2008 @ 2:01 pm | Comment
6
By Lisa
And I mean that in a non-religious way…
Just that it would be swell if people actually, you know, discussed the post instead of using it as yet another excuse to engage in your personal axe-grinding.
June 7, 2008 @ 2:15 pm | Comment
7 Posted at www.pigmig.com
[…] “Apologies Forthcoming†– A Conversation with Xujun Eberlein Xujun Eberlein grew up in Chongqing, China, and moved to the United States in the summer of 1988. After receiving a Ph.D. from MIT in the spring of 1995, and winning an award for her dissertation, she joined a small but ambitious high tech company. On Thanksgiving 2003, she gave up tech for writing…. […]
June 7, 2008 @ 3:57 pm | Pingback
8
By mor
@Tang Buxi
I’m just an ignorant European troll, but if I want to know about the Cultural Revolution I’d rather ask Jung Chang than you. She’s lived through those times, you haven’t. You were probably born about the time Jung Chang left China for Great Britain.
June 7, 2008 @ 8:35 pm | Comment
9
By Wayne
Mor: using your pathetic logic, Adolf Hitler’s take on WWII is more valid than Sir John Keegan’s (who was only 11 years old when the war ended). And John Calhoun’s description of slavery as a “positive good” should be accepted by all people under the age of 150 – after all Calhoun lived in those times and was familiar with the ‘peculiar institution’ far more than any of us will ever be.
June 7, 2008 @ 9:55 pm | Comment
10
By Wayne
And by the way Jung Chang is a #$@#$^@ $%#$$! (this way I don’t get banned)
June 7, 2008 @ 10:02 pm | Comment
11
By Amban
@Lisa
I hope you are not referring to me, because I think we need to discuss similarities between the PRC and other repressive regimes such as Nazi Germany. When I read the post I felt that she wants to hide individual responsibility behind a reassuring curtain of complexity. I don’t think we should build edifying narratives on the fact that that totalitarian and authoritarian systems are cannibalistic – that is, at some point the regime eats its own supporters.
@Wayne
Offensive warfare is a feature that the Nazis share with a lot of other regimes – the PRC included. And in contrast to the US, which went to war under the invented claim of WMDs, China is threatening to conquer an island based on irredentist argument: restoring ancient territories to the motherland.
June 7, 2008 @ 10:37 pm | Comment
12
By mor
@Wayne
I was talking to Tang Buxi. Can’t you just shut put when grown-ups are talking?
Anyway your comparison Jung Chang/Tang Buxi – Adolf Hitler/Sir John Keegan deserves a prize for “dumbest comment ever”.
If my grandmother tells me that the Third Reich was a pretty bad time and some young Neonazi dimwit tells it actually wasn’t that bad, I’d rather believe my grandmother.
If Chinese people who have been born in China, grew up in China and live in China tell me that a lot of their compatriots admire Adolf Hitler as a great man and some pathetic little troll who claims to be Chinese but was born in America, grew up in America and lives in America tells me that that can’t be, I’d rather believe the former than the latter.
If somebody who’s actually been in Beijing in 1989 tells me that back then the Chinese army massacred unarmed civilians and an idiot called Wayne tells me they were only defending themselves, again, I’d rather believe the former than the latter.
That was my point and I think you understood me very well the first time. You just enjoy being an idiot.
June 7, 2008 @ 11:48 pm | Comment
13
By Tang Buxi
And what if your grandmother tells you that your grandfather, who was persecuted to an early death during the cultural revolution, partly at the hands of your (now loving) uncle… was the victim of the human condition, and that she still supports the Communist Party… would you believe her?
There are numerous stories from 6/4 veterans out there. Some still insist it was a massacre, and some now praise the Communist government for taking a strong stand against a destructive, anarchic movement. Do you believe the second group?
June 8, 2008 @ 12:28 am | Comment
14
By mor
The “victim of the human condition”, I love this phrase. But I digress. Dear Tang Buxi, or should I call you CCT, please tell me, why should I take your word over Jung Chang’s? Actually, isn’t it possible that her account of what she went through is as much true as Ms. Eberlein’s and your grandmother’s? Different people have different experiences. Is it maybe possible to praise Xujun Eberlein’s work without sneering at Jung Chang?
June 8, 2008 @ 12:45 am | Comment
15
By sinophile
The “victim of the human condition”, I love this phrase. But I digress. Dear Tang Buxi, or should I call you CCT, please tell me, why should I take your word over Jung Chang’s? Actually, isn’t it possible that her account of what she went through is as much true as Ms. Eberlein’s and your grandmother’s? Different people have different experiences. Is it maybe possible to praise Xujun Eberlein’s work without sneering at Jung Chang?
June 8, 2008 @ 12:47 am | Comment
16
By Richard
Tang, I don’t think any of the ones who were there and now praise the government deny that there was a massacre. That is a documented fact. They may say it was a necessary massacre, but none deny that it happened. Just like the demonstrator I interviewed, many have changed their minds, almost always in direct alignment with the growth of their checking accounts. And many are quite honest about this – the current government has done the right thing (in their eyes) by striking a balance, letting them get richer as long as they forget about the democracy argument. Very shrewd, and I give the party high marks for crowd control and having their cake and eating it too.
June 8, 2008 @ 1:04 am | Comment
17
By Richard
Wayne, by the way, is banned. I gave him every opportunity and he didn’t shape up. His reference to the demonstrators as “vermin” was the last straw. Straight out of Hitler’s playbook (referring to the Jews as a “bacillus”).
Lisa, if the IP banner doesn’t work, please feel free to delete whatever he posts. If he wants to re-apply in a few weeks I’ll consider, but he’ll have to be very careful.
Also Lisa, thank you for this wonderful post. Fascinating on many levels, and very touching.
June 8, 2008 @ 1:09 am | Comment
18
By mor
test comment
June 8, 2008 @ 1:13 am | Comment
19
By mor
As much as like the new look of the Peking Duck, there seem to be a few technical problems. Like sometimes I have difficulties to submit my comments. But it seems to be OK now.
June 8, 2008 @ 1:16 am | Comment
20
By Tang Buxi
Richard,
How do you define the term “massacre”? If you were on the scene of the LA riots in 1992, and threw stones + molotov cocktails at US National Guard sent to enforce the peace, what would you expect to receive in return?
6/4/1989 was a civil war. The current debate (amongst those who bother to debate the issue) is whether the Chinese government was foolish or guilty in sending in the military at all, whether there was a different alternative possible.
But as far as the events on the ground, most Tiananmen veterans agree that the unarmed soldiers who had their heads bashed in by rioters (have you seen the videos AC mentioned in that last thread?) were just as much victims as anyone else.
The irony is, 6/4 only escalated to the degree it did because Chinese propaganda had been too effective in previous decades. Just about no one in Beijing thought the People’s Liberation Army would actually use lethal force against them, under any circumstance. I don’t think many Americans operate under the same mistaken assumption about their own military. Whether it’s the Civil War, the Bonus War, or Kent State… average Americans understand that the American military is able and willing to use lethal force in order protect “law and order”.
June 8, 2008 @ 2:28 am | Comment
21
By Amban
@Tang
Just about no one in Beijing thought the People’s Liberation Army would actually use lethal force against them, under any circumstance.
I hate to ask you to prove a negative, but what is your evidence for that statement? I find that very hard to believe. The PLA had used lethal force against its own citizens both before and after that.
And completely separate from the question whether the government was foolish or criminal in sending out troops, if this was a “civil war”, then there would be no reason what so ever to hunt down and prosecute the leaders, most of whom absolutely opposed any violence on the part of the students.
June 8, 2008 @ 2:50 am | Comment
22
By Math
An Legalistic Analysis of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident
Many people’s discussions of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident revolve around the following questions:
1) Are the students’ actions a legitimate democratic movement, or is it a counter-revolutionary riot?
2) Are the students actions illegal?
3) Are the government’s actions illegal?
Of course you now will say “Math, the evil red communist Chinkna is a dictatorship, and the gov’t decides what is legal or not!!!”. Well, this post wants to take the perspective of a Western “modern” legal system.
First, people say that the students actions are not a counter-revolutionary riot, therefore it is illegal to suppress the students. But I believe that a riot is not the only conditition suitable for suppresion.
According to American laws, if a citizen obstructs and resists the police officer’s efforts at enforcing laws, then he/she can be arrested, using violence if necessary. I remember there are many cases in New York where an old man is stopped by the police on the streets, and has trouble hearing what the police is saying and yells back at the police and does not follow the police’s instructions, and he was pressed against the police-car and handcuffed, and as a result has a heart attack and dies. And the police officer is not punished, because the officer was considered to be doing a perfectly legal thing.
Therefore, it is easy to conclude that it is not necessary for your actions to reach the level of “rioting” for you to be “dealt with” by force. In fact, as soon as your actions create the effects of disturbing social order and resisting instructions from authorities, then you can be “dealt with”.
Now, I think it is clear that we can divide the 1989 Incident into two questions:
1) Is the gov’t suppression of the students legal?
2) Is the methods of suppression appropriate.
The second question is not a very precise and legal one, and if you want to discuss whether the gov’t is too rough or too gentle in their methods, then of course you can discuss it all you want.
But the first question is very precise and this post wants to focus on the first question. If you ask me “math, I want to talk about the second question!”. Unfortunately, I do not want to discuss the second question right now, maybe next time.
I think we can reach certain conclusions about the first question:
1) The students’ actions have created considerable inteferrence with the government’s daily affairs in running the city of Beijing.
The students surrounded the gov’t office buildings, refusing to leave and paralyzing traffic around the buildings and preventing the gov’t from working. Is this an illegal act, just by common sense? Of course it is. The students forced the gov’t to “dialog” and forced the gov’t to accept their “conditions”. In a modern society, a citizen does not have the right to “force” an authority to do anything, only authorities have the rights (police, judges, etc). to force citizens to do things. The students also built a massive statue of liberty in Tiananmen Square, constructing buildings without permit from appropriate agencies are also clearly illegal anywhere in the world. Finally, the students built road blocks to disrupt the police cars from travelling, this is is also highly illegal just by common sense.
Now you may say “The students are simply keeping order by themselves!”. Well, I’m sorry, but in any modern society, a citizen does not have the power to take the role of law enforcement officials and keep order in a city, unless he was delegated to do so (for example, a construction worker on a highway). Can you force a car to stop because the car was speeding? Of course not, even if the car was indeed speeding.
So the claim that “the students were keeping order by themselves” is in itself an indication of the students’ illegality.
Clearly, now we see that the gov’t decision to “deal with the students” by force is 100% legal, given the numerous illegal acts (some are very highly illegal, others are moderately illegal) by the students.
Now, perhaps you feel very angry and yell at me “Math! The students are simply demanding freedom and want democracy!”. Well first, I have said many times that I do not like the word freedom or democracy because I don’t know exactly what do you mean by them. But it is ok, because it does not matter what the students were demanding, they could be demanding for more dictatorship and less freedom. Whatever their “slogans” are, as long as they have conducted illegal actions, then the gov’t has every legal right to take actions to enforce laws. And those laws, like I said, are discussed from a Western’s legal perspective in case you believe China’s laws are arbitrary.
June 8, 2008 @ 3:15 am | Comment
23
By ecodelta
@Tang Buxy
I think that even CCP was, in a certain way, victim of its own propaganda and ideological delusions. Anti Riot police? That is only for capitalist, worker exploiter countries!
Mix that together with the CCP scared witless of loosing power after seeing the collapse in East Europe, and you get an explosive combination. In the end it is about power.
The only thing that make me not completely regret that the CCP government system did not ended up at that time in the dustbin of history, is that CH could have collapsed into chaos, but that is not a justification for that massacre in any way.
I personally, and many of my countrymen would think the same, would never obey the order to shoot our own people, least of all young students. And if forced by our officers to do it… well… I have a weapon in my hands… Guess what!
We obey orders… up to a point.
Until CH rulers faces that historical moment openly, it is going to haunt them, CH rulers will never occupy a place as equal in the international community, a murderous stink will follow them wherever they go, and even put CH future in jeopardy
June 8, 2008 @ 3:30 am | Comment
24
By ecodelta
@math
Try to compare May 1968 in France, with China June 1989.
June 8, 2008 @ 3:34 am | Comment
25
By mor
“How do you define the term “massacre”?”
“6/4/1989 was a civil war.”
“Well first, I have said many times that I do not like the word freedom or democracy because I don’t know exactly what do you mean by them.”
For all those who have problems with the English language I know a few very capable but inexpensive ESL teachers. They’ll also show you where to buy dictionaries and how to use them.
June 8, 2008 @ 3:36 am | Comment
26
By lirelou
Lisa, a really classy post, and I especially liked the inclusion of “the dandelion girl”. Thank you
June 8, 2008 @ 5:18 am | Comment
27
By Amban
@ecodelta
Mix that together with the CCP scared witless of loosing power after seeing the collapse in East Europe, and you get an explosive combination.
Eastern Europe had not yet collapsed in May-June 1989, all that took place in the fall of 1989. And save for Romania, most of it was peaceful…
June 8, 2008 @ 5:50 am | Comment
28
By ecodelta
@Amban
“Eastern Europe had not yet collapsed in May-June 1989, all that took place in the fall of 1989. And save for Romania, most of it was peaceful…”
I think you are right. Perhaps was T-Square too soon.
But I still think CCP was scared at that time. And even more afterwards.
June 8, 2008 @ 7:21 am | Comment
29
By ecodelta
Going back to the post. Interesting reading. May buy the book.
I find very interesting how she focus both points of views from both sides of the CR
June 8, 2008 @ 7:39 pm | Comment
30
By otherlisa
glad some of you actually enjoyed (and even read) the post. and do check out Xujun’s book. There is something in it for all sides of this discussion.
June 9, 2008 @ 2:56 am | Comment
31
By Tang Buxi
This is just one of those things that, again, reflects how ignorant the West remains of Chinese affairs.
I have a suggestion for verifying what I said: talk to someone who was in Beijing in 1989. Ideally a student protester, but if you can’t find one, just any average city-resident; they’ll confirm exactly what I said above. Maybe Richard can lend you contact info for the guy he interviewed. There are also 5-6 Tiananment student protesters who post regularly on our new blog… in addition to the 4-5 internet messages I’ve translated this week. You can also scan through CND or Boxun, which have gathered a plethora of eyewitness accounts from 1989.
As far as the PLA using lethal force against “the people” prior to 1989… care to give me an example? The cultural revolution? The great leap forward? If you think the PLA played a role in either event (*especially* the cultural revolution), you don’t know Chinese history.
June 9, 2008 @ 2:33 pm | Comment
32
By mor
“If you think the PLA played a role in either event (*especially* the cultural revolution), you don’t know Chinese history.”
Are you implying the PLA (as in People’s Liberation Army) played no role in the Cultural Revolution? None at all? I’d say you are the one who doesn’t know Chinese history. And that’s the guy who thinks he can criticize Jung Chang for her “dubious political activism”. You gotta be kidding, man.
June 9, 2008 @ 3:01 pm | Comment
33
By Michael Turton
First, Lisa, the post is fantastic. I’m trying to do that on my blog, interview interesting people doing interesting things. Of course, the trick is catching up with them….because they are busy.
The problem with the comments section here is that it is always the same shit over and over again. I think perhaps it is time to moderate, and ruthlessly excise the crap. Really. I do it on my blog, and though I get far fewer comments than you, their quality is usually good. And then I let in a few trolls now and then, just for the contrast, to remind people how idiotic the other side is.
Comments can be sooooooo useful in correcting errors — my commenters jes’ love to do that! — and in fleshing out stories and leaving ideas, etc. Shame to be missing that.
Michael
June 9, 2008 @ 3:30 pm | Comment
34
By Michael Turton
Also, the Duck seems to be running slow today. Server trouble, or something more serious?
Michael
June 9, 2008 @ 3:37 pm | Comment
35
By mor
Back on topic: Lisa said:
“glad some of you actually enjoyed (and even read) the post.”
Yes I read it and I enjoyed it, but after all the praise, it might be time for a few critical remarks. I don’t want to get into this whole Xujun Eberlein vs. Jung Chang discussion yet, I’ll first have to do a little reading for that. One of the statements in the interview which I found remarkable is the following:
Ms. Eberlein said:
“As we know (I’m aware of the pitfall of generalization) Americans hate the communist government of China; but did they know the biggest thing the Red Guards did was to break China’s state apparatus? Should a communist hater applaud or condemn that? There is just no simple black-and-white answer.”
First of all, calling Americans communist haters, isn’t that exactly the black-and white thinking that we like to criticize in others, Ms. Eberlein? Secondly, did the Red Guards really break the whole state apparatus? To me it looks like they never touched the top level of power, nor did they ever think about touching it. Besides, as I see it, the biggest thing the Red Guards did was destroying the better part of the cultural heritage of China, apart from making some amongst them even turn against their parents. That is what I find the most shocking part of the Cultural Revolution, that in a country where filial piety is considered one of the most valuable virtues (if not the most valuable one) and “you know, we Chinese people love our parents very much, not like in the West”, that in this country it was possible that children turn against their own parents. But I digress.
What I find most interesting about Ms. Eberlein’s statement is her implication that since Americans are communist haters and since the Red Guards were trying to break the state apparatus, Americans might actually have reason to “applaud” them. Now, I know there are many aspects to the Cultural Revolution, including some that are inconceivable to an ignorant European like me, but I’ve never thought of it as an anti-Communist movement, and I don’t think anybody will ever convince me to do so. For all I know, the different groups of Red Guards tried to outdo each other in “being revolutionary”, in other words, they tried to outdo each other in destroying what they regarded as outdated traditions and values. And I cannot imagine (not even in my wildest dreams) the majority of the population of the USA (especially the communist-hating part of it) as applauding to that. So there won’t be a “black-and-white” answer, but there is a clear one: No, American communist-haters don’t applaud “that”, and yes they do condemn “that”.
June 9, 2008 @ 3:40 pm | Comment
36
By otherlisa
@ Michael Turton:
The problem with the comments section here is that it is always the same shit over and over again. I think perhaps it is time to moderate, and ruthlessly excise the crap.
Oh boy, I could not agree more. I don’t know if you’ve noticed how cranky I’ve been lately with the comments. I am so heartily sick of the same BS posted over and over and over again, regardless of whether it has anything to do with the post topic.
I sum thusly:
“Tibet!” “Taiwan!” “Baaad China!” “Baaad Western Imperialists!” “NAZIS!!” “STOP STEALIN’ OUR WIMMIN!!!!”
Anyway, Richard and I have been discussing this. I’m just a part-time moderator here, and it really isn’t up to me. Richard is so consumed with his work that it’s a tough issue for him as well.
But it would be a shame if the Duckpond continues to be polluted by this inanity, especially considering the snazzy new site design, which I just adore.
@Mor – I suggest you read Xujun’s book. I do agree with you that it’s a bit of a contradiction to talk about how Chinese culture reveres parents in the context of the CR, which was in part a rebellion against “the Olds.” But the book is very far from a polemic.
Perhaps Xujun would care to respond to this point?
June 9, 2008 @ 3:56 pm | Comment
37
By Amban
@Tang
If you think the PLA played a role in either event (*especially* the cultural revolution), you don’t know Chinese history.
The PLA did not play any role during the cultural revolution? Wow, I guess Lin Biao Wu Faxian just sat around playing mahjong while the whole thing was going on, until Mao told Lin to go to Mongolia.
June 9, 2008 @ 8:57 pm | Comment
38
By Xujun Eberlein
First, thank you all who commented on the interview in a relevant way.
Mor –
Thank you for the comments and questions.
First, let me give you the link to my Amazon review for Wild Swans, so you can see my point more clearly: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3S4CQK0SQ938L/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm. Note that I gave the book 4 starts on Amazon. IMO it is a way better work than “Mao: the Unknown Story.”
And it is not my intention to have an “Eberlein vs. Chang” discussion here. Forgive me but I’m not interested in such a discussion at all.
Re: the generalization about Americans – it was meant ironically. Generalizations are always dangerous, as I’ve noted in the conversation above. On the other hand, without using the pitfall means of generalization, an answer might go as long as a dissertation, which I’m sure is not suitable for readers of a blog. So please forgive me for pointing out the problem of a means while still using it in this particular circumstance. Certainly there is no shortage of Americans who are vocal in their dislike of communism.
Re: the Red Guards’ destruction of the state apparatus – I believe any clear-minded reader would see that I do not support either applauding or simple condemnation of the Red Guards. That comment was clearly meant to be both humorous and to demonstrate the complexity of the situation. And I hope I don’t have to explain myself again because I don’t enjoy doing that. I enjoy trusting my readers’ comprehension level. And please, don’t impose such distortion as “Ms Eberlein implies that Americans might actually have reason to applaud the Red Guards” on me.
On a particular argument, contrary to your “belief” that “they never touched the top level of power, nor did they ever think about touching it,” even the top government was broken, as China’s President Liu Shaoqi was “struggled” and beaten up by the Red Guards without (of course) any legal permission. When you used the words “top level power,” if you meant the top government in its normal function, then you were clearly wrong that it wasn’t touched. The only thing that was not touched was the power of Mao himself and his wife. But that is a different concept than state apparatus. It was the breakage of all levels of government in China that led the country into such chaos – that much should be clear by now.
Please read more research before forming firm opinions on topics you think you know but don’t really know, this is my advice to everyone including myself.
There is another thing – that is beyond “Apologies Forthcoming” but will be described in my next novel: In Chongqing, the earliest radical faction of the Red Guards was called “8.15,” born in Chonqqing University. Its birth was triggered by the suicide of the university’s beloved president, Zheng Siqun. Zheng was a victim of the Party’s inner faction struggle, and his unjust death fomented the anger of the students against the city’s Party Committee, and that was the prologue of Chongqing’s Cultural Revolution. The “8.15” later involved in lots of violence, however its birth had more just reasons – again showing the complexity of things. Note that I actually opposed 8.15 as a child.
Believe me, many of the Red Guards understood the problems with the Communist Party much more deeply than you and I do.
To the more fundamental issue of passing judgment on those involved in the Cultural Revolution, I am going to reiterate what I have said before. Just because lots of bad things happened does not mean that each individual action was bad. It is actually a western, and not a Chinese saying, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Very few people, and certainly nobody I would be interested in conversing with, think that the Cultural Revolution was a good thing. To have 10 years of chaos following the already horrible great leap forward was bad for everyone inside of China. The question is, how can we look at the behavior of individuals and understand why things happened they way they did.
There are important lessons to be derived from this history. People are continuing to do incredibly cruel and horrible things around the world. From ethnic cleansing to prisoner abuse, there is no shortage of individuals inflicting incredible pain on others. To have any hope of making this less common we need to do more than judge, we need to understand. That is one of the purposes of my writing. What I call the “victim literature” supports judgment but does not build that understanding as fully as is needed.
(All: please forgive me for the long post – I will try not to do it again.)
June 9, 2008 @ 11:07 pm | Comment
39
By snow
Dear Wayne,
You want to defend a party that kills and lies and at the same time you want to criticize and sacrifice innocent people? What motivates a person to be so morally backward? is it because you only believe in the material stuff and you will do anything to anyone for the sake of a higher GDP? Is that what you come here to defend?
You think right and wrong is decided by people under a mafia dictatorship who feel they have benefitted financially from the murders of thousands, millions of innocent Chinese over the years? You think YOU should decide if they should be murdered and whether or not their deaths were crimes, because of whether their deaths are perceived to have benefitted people financially by safeguarding corrupt totalitarianism in China? I mean, if the people were terrorists, or they were criminals or if they were really doing something wrong, I could understand your point of view, but these people who the CCP has waged attack on over the years are people with some moral authority who seem to give the party the feeling of being threatened ideologically. Thats not fair to the innocent people who do have moral authority which just happens to highlight thestupidity of the CCP.
June 9, 2008 @ 11:29 pm | Comment
40
By Tang Buxi
Despite Lin Biao’s personal involvement at the highest ranks of politics, the PLA is probably the only institution in China that largely stayed out of the Cultural Revolution. In numerous, numerous cities the PLA was the only line of stability when civil war broke out in the streets between factions of Red Guards.
Have you read Lin Biao’s very important directive to the PLA, published in 1967?
http://www.stnn.cc/global/wg/wg10/t20060511_210459.html
This part of history isn’t disputed. And even if Lin Biao’s aborted coup (571 project) had actually been carried out, it still wouldn’t have involved the PLA facing off against the “people”.
June 9, 2008 @ 11:33 pm | Comment
41
By snow
few comments on the post at hand indicates that the Cultural Revolution is pretty out of mind. The movement is hugely significant. It was a systematic movement to purge all “old” ways. They wanted to purge everything that was not complacent with the cult of Mao and didnt have a submissive enough nature to succumb to the partys taking over of their minds. People with ideas, strong consciences, success in business, moral leadership, traditional skills, anything that represented the strong human spirit (old traditions, old ideas, old religions… whatever) was to be crushed. mao thought he could make a pure China of robots who all worked and lived like animals and had no thoughts that strayed from i love Mao and i love Mao and Mao’s China and we are Maos people.
Ever seen that horrible movie “the Island”, or 1984?
To have people commit themselves wholeheartedly to the new China with no old concepts and 100% devotion to Maos cult of totalitarianism, he had people commit all sorts of heinous atrocities in the name of the new order. How can the people ever be normal again after cursing humiliating, murdering and eating their neighbour for being a rightist? If they came to terms with it they would be able to admit that they had been convinced and deceived, but they are not allowed to come to terms with it, they have to still support it , a la Wayne.
What Mao wanted was to replace tradition with Maoism, love for Mao was to be the state religion instead of traditional notions of right and wrong, justice and law. So the cultural revolution encouraged killing innocent people, cannibalism, things traditionally understood as not good, creating a new race of people with empty hearts.
Putting greed, stability, money, and most of all the party ahead of justice is still the prevailing religion in China.
PS Mor is right that Xujuns comments about the red guards breaking communism and American commie haters is off the mark. It was communist psychosis that created the red guards in the spirit of allowing oneself to commit all evils against innocent people for the sake of a greedy fanatical future. Mao was afraid of everyone, so he used violence to scare everyone and break the country’s spirit. The Red Gueards were to crush all dissent within and without the ranks of the CCP, since Mao was so scared of everyone and wanted all morals and “old thoughts” gone from his China. Of course the kids thought they were helping. But no apparatus was broken by the guards. They did find corruption and badness toward the upper ranks and thats when mao thought things got to far. They were told to challenge authority EXCEPT for the upper ranks. When they started to challenge the upper ranks, they were sent off to the country for so called reform, after they served mao purposes.
June 9, 2008 @ 11:38 pm | Comment
42
By snow
oh, Xujun, you were making some jokes? Sorry, I didn’t get them an even after you explain them ,I still don’t. But I like what you say about understanding and making things better…
June 9, 2008 @ 11:48 pm | Comment
43
By Xujun Eberlein
More irony than joke.
June 10, 2008 @ 12:43 am | Comment
44
By Amban
@Tang
…the PLA is probably the only institution in China that largely stayed out of the Cultural Revolution.
No, that is not correct, the situation was much more complex. At a national level, the PLA was indeed instructed to support the “left” at the height of the cultural revolution. But in many regions, the PLA openly supported “conservative” militias and supplied them with weapons, which escalated fighting. This is the immediate backdrop of the Wuhan incident in 1967. Furthermore, the PLA played a key role in the “cleaning the class ranks” campaign that took place in 1968-71, during which most of the bloodshed of the CR may have taken place, according to some historians.
June 10, 2008 @ 1:38 am | Comment
45
By ecodelta
“Americans hate the communist government of China”
I rather say that people, not only American, hate an authoritarian regime however it is called. Specially despotic ones.
I myself hardly consider the regimes of East Europe, Russia and China (to name few) as communist or socialist. I am closer to the idea of Trotsky of failed state or failed revolution, where an oligarchy (better a plutocracy), perverted and instrumentalized the ideology to took and hold power. This dynamic is very well described in the “Animal’s farm” from Orwell.
Specially distasteful of those regimes was, and is, the level of thought and opinion control they enforce on the population; and the level of social/economic destruction they produce.
It is funny, they all claim to create a new and better human. What I saw after the fall of iron curtain were no new humans, but a people that seemed to has been put of a freezer for 40 year. No evolution at all
With respect to the Red Guards, I think that they were really instrumentalized by Mao when he felt his hold to power in danger after the failure of the big jump forward. He played well with the emotions of young people and they desire for quick solutions to improve the country and blaming conspirators for all problems, but in the end they were just pawns in Mao’s game for power.
That they allowed themselves to be so manipulated says much of the god like status of Mao in their minds. A father like figure?
A great connoisseur of the Human mind this Mao. Not very uncommon feature in psychopath persons.
June 10, 2008 @ 3:15 am | Comment
46
By ferin
where an oligarchy (better a plutocracy), perverted and instrumentalized the ideology to took and hold power.
The American government is not exempt. It’s ruled by a tiny minority (the super rich).
June 10, 2008 @ 4:50 am | Comment
47
By snow
Evidence that people are still indoctrinated by the ideals of Mao the Commie revolutions? You dont have to look far, thats for sure, unfortunately.
“”what if your grandmother tells you that your grandfather, who was persecuted to an early death during the cultural revolution, partly at the hands of your (now loving) uncle… was the victim of the human condition, and that she still supports the Communist Party… would you believe her?”” Wayne.
Wow, what a feat of twisting and mind melding, so sick. The commies tell people that evil is just a human condition, thats why the Chinese have no standards to the point that the argument ‘America does it too’ satisfies them in thinking no matter what the CCP does, its still good because they are only human beings and can never surpass pure greed. I really disagree with this ideal. I think people are much better than the CCP preaches. They taught that killing is good and can be excused for this or that propaganda reason so that they could get away with it and it worked.
“”The Red Guards did have a hand in lots of violence, yet the individual members were often idealists. This complexity seems beyond the average outsiders’ comprehension. It is very hard for someone to understand another culture without actually experiencing it. But the real problem is not the limitation in understanding – everyone has limitations; it is failing to recognize limitations. Too many people are vocally righteous about other cultures they know little about, that is the problem.””” Xujun
I may be failing to understand well, but here it seems like she is referring to the CR as culture. But the CR was the systematic eradication of culture. What they did was contrary to their culture. Hitler was an idealist, Bin laden was an idealist, satanists are idealistic probly, the columbine murderer kids were probly idealists, so to say that the red guards are idealist s and people just dont understand them, well, again, making excuses for killing innocent people. I do believe their are some black and whites and killing innocent, relatively good people in the name of some freak killing religion for a so called better future is really bad.
June 10, 2008 @ 6:59 am | Comment
48
By mor
@Xujun Eberlein
Thank you for your reply.
I’ve read your review or Jung Chang’s “Wild Swans”. And yes, you gave her four stars. But here’s what you wrote:
“Even still, I have mainly admiration and not criticism for the writing; it is the content that concerns me.”
This is a polite way of saying: She can write very well, but what she writes is crap.
I can see your point that “it was simply impossible for a Party cadre like the author’s parents not to be an active participant in the movements, until they themselves become victimized”, and it sounds very convincing, but do you have anything concrete to back up your claim that Jung Chang has been dishonest about her own family’s involvement, other than the incorrect translation that Ms. Chang herself pointed out, although I agree with you that her explanation is not satisfying.
The irony of your statement about American communist-haters lies in the context. First you talk about westerners having a too simplistic view of the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards and the next moment, still in the same paragraph, you show yourself as having a very simplistic view of the American people.
And forgive me for imposing distortions, but if this statement:
“As we know (I’m aware of the pitfall of generalization) Americans hate the communist government of China; but did they know the biggest thing the Red Guards did was to break China’s state apparatus? Should a communist hater applaud or condemn that? There is just no simple black-and-white answer.”
does not imply that “since Americans are communist haters and since the Red Guards were trying to break the state apparatus, Americans might actually have reason to ‘applaud’ them”, then I don’t know what. I guess I’m just not up to your average reader’s comprehension level.
You are right that “the top government in its normal function” was broken, but the Great Helmsman Mao Zedong was untouchable to the Red Guards, and he was at the top level of power or, in other words, sitting on top of the state apparatus he was getting destroyed, except for the army which he still needed. “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” Isn’t the army also part of a state apparatus?
You write:
“President Liu Shaoqi was ‘struggled’ and beaten up by the Red Guards without (of course) any legal permission.”
There might not have been a “legal permission”, but I seriously doubt the Red Guards would have dared to attack Liu Shaoqi without Mao Zedong, the chairman at the top level of power, denouncing him first. Call me an ignorant European, but I still believe that nothing happened to Liu Shaoqi that Mao Zedong didn’t want to happen to him. And on another note: I bet there also was no “legal permission” by Deng Xiaoping to massacre those students in Beijing 1989.
“Please read more research before forming firm opinions on topics you think you know but don’t really know, this is my advice to everyone including myself.”
I’m trying my best and I’m already looking forward to reading your book.
June 10, 2008 @ 5:17 pm | Comment
49
By ecodelta
@ferin
Hi ferin.
“The American government is not exempt. It’s ruled by a tiny minority (the super rich).”
I do not agree with your statement, but even if it were true, they have made the country far richer than CH. 😉
And even if they have some sort of control over politics, they have to put a good show to pull through their agendas.
Yes, if you are rich, you may have an influence in politics. The richer you are, the more influence you may have. But in CH, no matter how rich you are, you have not much influence, sometimes none.
You may consider that a positive feature. I consider it negative.
June 10, 2008 @ 6:50 pm | Comment
50
By ecodelta
“”The Red Guards did have a hand in lots of violence, yet the individual members were often idealists.”
Ah Idealism! Such a dangerous thing, the more you believe in your ideals the more dangerous your actions become when it turn your mind blind to what other fellow humans think, and find yourself justification to violence as a way to a future paradise that will never become true.
A strong brew, more potent than some drugs, to be taken with lot of caution, specially among the young.
Also very easy to confuse idealism with egotism. Many times one is used to justify of cover up the other. Another common sickness of youth.
Like many other youth sicknesses, it heals with age.
(as you grow old you get… other sicknesses, but that is another story 😉
June 10, 2008 @ 7:01 pm | Comment
51
By Lindel
It would be unwise to read Faulkner’s fiction and believe one has learned anything about the history of racial segregation in the Deep South. Nor would it be wise to assume Faulkner’s abilities as writer of southern fiction qualifies him to render opinions on the historical accuracy or honesty of another’s autobiographical work on life experience’s in the south.
June 10, 2008 @ 11:36 pm | Comment
52
By otherlisa
Actually, Liu Xiaoqi was handled by the “Special Case Examination Group” – the order to struggle against him came from the highest levels of government. I’d have to review my Great Wall of Books for details as it’s been a while since I’ve studied this stuff. But the order to struggle against him was given by the Gang of Four and approved by Mao.
Zhou Enlai signed the order for Liu’s arrest, though as is typical of Zhou, it’s not clear to what extent he approved of this or whether he felt he had no choice in the matter. He did warn Liu’s wife about what was coming but did not help Liu himself, who died of medical neglect in prison.
June 11, 2008 @ 12:22 am | Comment
53
By Lindel
It seems like a legitimate avenue to compare the Red Guard (also today’s fenqing) to the Hitler Youth movement in Nazi Germany. There are similarities and differences. The Hitler Youth had a lot more formal organizational structure and more of a military intent to prepare and recruit soldiers, but there was a political movement element and it was a political tool of Hitler and the Nazi’s. Promoting “ideological purity” and attacking perceived political threats and bringing others in line with the ideology of the leader was a goal of both, but Mao appears to have had less direct formal control over the Red Guard than Hitler did over the Red Guard. Differences between the two point to issues of different cultures and different historical context. I would suggest that the Hitler Youth movement was more successful than the Red Guard, but then maybe that was because the goals of Hitler and Nazi germany were more simple and direct, promoting the “superiority” of the Aryan race and world domination. The Hitler Youth was organized much like an ROTC military unit and it’s primary purpose was to train children to grow up to be good soldiers. Other than maintaining party control and weeding out those who disagreed with him or were threats to his power, the goals of the Red Guard seem to have been more vague. Attacking the “Four Olds” of society of old ideas, cultures, habits, and customs and attacking “capitalist roaders” is pretty broad compared to the “exterminate jews” and “train the aryan people in military operations for world domination” goals of the hitler youth. What exactly is a capitalist roader anyway? Communist Party ideological purity is rather vague and abstract compared to the Nazi’s. Any one who was not stupid or lazy with some abitions to improve himself could have been labeled a “capitalist roader” Having some practical understanding of economics would put you at odds with Chairman Mao and brand you as a capitalist roader.
June 11, 2008 @ 1:11 am | Comment
54
By Lindel
It would be interesting for someone to study the Post 6-4 Young Pioneers organization and the current group of fenqing. I suspect a lot of the one china, heart china, sacred flame, and other activity have a link to young pioneer membership and activity. How much direct input to the Young Pioneer organization is there by the central planning committee. The Dalai lama is the new “capitalist roader”, but then being a capitalist roader is a good thing now, infact most of the fenqing are themselves the children of highly successful capialist roaders, hence the need for new labels for the dala lama clique and “splittists”
I wonder how many fenqing first heard about the western splittism attack on china in a young pioneers meeting?
June 11, 2008 @ 1:20 am | Comment
55
By ecodelta
@linden
“Communist Party ideological purity is rather vague and abstract compared to the Nazi’s.”
That makes it easier to direct the attacks to any new perceived enemy, no matter which one.
The Nazis got fixated on the Jews, some said event too much for their own good, it would have be too difficult for them to shift their attacks to other new enemy.
But with a vague definition.., you can make anyone fit in. You only need a good sounding epitome, four olds, gang of four, splittist, capitalist roader, revisionist, clique, etc.
In the end, it is all about qualifications without content to hide true intentions and manipulations
June 11, 2008 @ 1:41 am | Comment
56
By McLovin
“The Red Guards did have a hand in lots of violence, yet the individual members were often idealists. This complexity seems beyond the average outsiders’ comprehension.”
You are confusing yourself.
News flash – Most of the participants were probably just thrilled that they were able to kick an ass and totally get away with it, Red Guards or not.
Another news flash – This is human nature. That’s right. This is the part of us that is so dark and violent that some educated members of this society feel so ashamed of that they’d go such a long way and make up all types of theories to complicate it up.
Hungary, depressed, and sexually frustrated teenagers are the easiest to let go of their animal selves.
This has nothing to do with idealistic beliefs. They just wanted to kick ass, when they got a chance, that’s what they did. Nothing complicated.
June 11, 2008 @ 2:34 am | Comment
57
By McLovin
This is why almost all of those who came to establish a new rule throughout China’s history were never formally educated, including Mr. Mao himself.
Their instincts weren’t messed up by the so-called formal education, and therefor allowed them to see and use all aspects, including the dark ones, of human nature to rule.
And yet our poor scholars spend their whole lives in vain trying to understand the answers in their little maze.
June 11, 2008 @ 3:36 am | Comment
58
By snow
agree with McLovin. Of course the upper ranks in the party knew what they were doing, but the fenqing was a tool their idealism and dark side harnessed by the party to seize the country through terror. No matter how it seems that China has changed, the people are still used as tools in this exact way, they are still deeply imprinted with the fear of the ever present party and have infinitely lowered their standards to accommodate the party.. the young generation does not know that all this is going on, the party is just waiting for the people who know to die off, then they will have the final product of their false reality incubator, like in that movie, the Island, but it wont work like in the movie…I hope people in the world won’t let this carry on, but I guess the Chinese will have to deal with it somehow…
June 11, 2008 @ 5:54 am | Comment
59
By Serve the People
Chinese Chick Lit.
Great post. Hats off to otherlisa.
There is a name for this genre of Wilde Swans, Joy Luck Club, and countless iterations: Chinese Chick Lit. This is how HWEE HWEE TAN describes it:
A feisty, exotically gorgeous woman suffers hell. Hell comes in the form of an oppressive regime (usually the Cultural Revolution) or through abuse inflicted by male power figures (heartless fathers or cruel husbands).
June 11, 2008 @ 10:28 am | Comment
60
By otherlisa
@ Serve:
Ouch. But do they work in pink high heels somehow? 😉
June 11, 2008 @ 3:09 pm | Comment
61
By ecodelta
@Serve which people?
😉
IMHO.. a somewhat misogynistic that post or yours Don’t you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogyny
June 11, 2008 @ 3:47 pm | Comment
62
By ecodelta
@serve which people?
😉
IMHO your opinion is somewhat misogynistic. Dont you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogony
June 11, 2008 @ 9:05 pm | Comment
63
By Dan Harris
Lisa,
Great post. Really great post.
Only makes me want to read the book more.
June 12, 2008 @ 1:28 pm | Comment
64
By kenneth
http://www.hkhappens.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=1119
Hilarious
June 12, 2008 @ 3:24 pm | Comment
65
By ecodelta
@serve which people?
😉
In my humble opinion your post is somewhat misogynist. Dont you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misogony
June 12, 2008 @ 5:24 pm | Comment
66
By mor
@ecodelta
Misogyny seems to be fairly well accepted on this blog-site. Serve-whatever-people’s remark is rather harmless compared to Ferin’s “smart” comments. The only one who is not allowed to make that kind of comment without being called a sexist is nanhe.
June 13, 2008 @ 12:29 am | Comment
67 Posted at www.mkt-china.com
[…] A conversation with Xujun Eberlein: The Other Lisa interviews Xujun Eberlein about her new story collection, Apologies Forthcoming: It also occurs to me that few westerners know the subtleties and nuance surrounding the participating parties in the CR. I once did an informal poll among writers I workshop with on what they thought of the Red Guards, and the answers were pretty much uniform with the representative one being “pretty much the same as the Hitler Youth.” This is quite baffling and at the same time very interesting. As we know (I’m aware of the pitfall of generalization) Americans hate the communist government of China; but did they know the biggest thing the Red Guards did was to break China’s state apparatus? Should a communist hater applaud or condemn that? There is just no simple black-and-white answer. […]
June 13, 2008 @ 10:09 am | Pingback
68
By ecodelta
@mor
“The only one who is not allowed to make that kind of comment without being called a sexist is nanhe”
Misandry?
😉
June 13, 2008 @ 2:40 pm | Comment
69
By otherlisa
Listen, if anyone was gonna call misogyny, it would be me. I thought Serve’s comment was pretty harmless snark. I also thought that he was praising Xujun’s book by comparison to the literature he/she cited.
Of course I could be wrong. It’s been a long day.
June 13, 2008 @ 2:58 pm | Comment
70
By Checkedout
http://user.wangjianshuo.com/34768
June 13, 2008 @ 3:06 pm | Comment
71
By mor
I think, ecodelta was referring to the expression “Chinese Chick Lit” which does sound a little misogynist.
June 13, 2008 @ 3:07 pm | Comment
72
By ecodelta
@kenneth
“Hilarious”
Definitely the (freedom for) Tibet girl! :-O
Does anyone has her telephone number 😉
June 13, 2008 @ 5:40 pm | Comment
73
By sp
Hey Richard,
Just a question. As the owner of a blog, will you be able to know the IP address of those who leave comments in your blog? Thanks.
June 13, 2008 @ 11:21 pm | Comment
74
By Serve the People
@kenneth
I think that girl is Christina Chan, a student at Hong Kong University. During the torch rally in Hong Kong, she wanted to organize a pro-Tibet Independence protest, but failed to find forty or so participants, a minimum number required to get a protest permit in Hong Kong. In the end she just showed up at the torch rally, wrapped in a Snow Lion flag. The Hong Kong government had to send a dozen police officers to protect her.
Anyhow, as you can see, there is at least one part of China, where freedom of expression is safely guarded., and not all Chinese people think the same way. There are two Chinese women, Chan and Grace Wang, who appear to care more about bigger issues than shoes.
@ecotelta, mor, otherlisa
To the Chinese Chick Lit genre, I also add The World of Suzie Wong and the more recent Shanghai Babe.
June 14, 2008 @ 5:03 am | Comment
75
By Tang Buxi
@Otherlisa,
Seems to me you need to branch out. It might be intellectually soothing staying in your comfort zone, but if you want to be taken seriously, try taking the time to learn what the Chinese are actually saying. Despite what you might suspect, we’re not all caricatures of human beings, devoid of logic and reason.
June 14, 2008 @ 5:16 am | Comment
76
By Tang Buxi
And one more comment for @Otherlisa.. or is there a different Lisa?
Regardless, I remember one of you commenting on the lack of a convincing, coherent Chinese “narrative” on Tibet. Of course, such a narrative exists, you’re just ignorant of it.
June 14, 2008 @ 5:23 am | Comment
77
By Richard
sp: Yes.
Tang: If you want to place an ad on my site to promote a web site, please let me know. But please don’t use the comments here as a marketing tool. Thanks.
To everyone else: Sorry again for the unprecedented silence.
June 14, 2008 @ 7:06 am | Comment
78
By Leo A
I don’t care for the dry academic (and dismissive) school of thought that renders all personal narrative that isn’t itself dry and detached, usually with tenure, “victim literature”. I first heard this noxious term used to describe the books women write about having been victims of sexual crimes… it came into vogue around the time people began to question the implicit elitism of the western canon and students wanted to hear voices of women, minorities, etc, and the old boys network (and their flunkies) chafed at the stories they heard creeping up from the bottom of the well.
I’ll go for a generalization here: this sort of ivory tower disdain is the inevitable product of becoming above it all, comfortably monied and able to talk about ANY atrocity with the same cocktail party panache that one also uses to discuss carbon footprints, the price of soy milk at Whole Foods, or the French revolution. Just another abstract idea for us to lay a template of concern – really we care! – on, but not to get caught up in being victims, because you know there are no real victims in postmodern discourse.
I call BS.
Perhaps in 20 or 30 years, when Sichuan has rebounded and due to the influx of funds and attention become a western version of Jiangsu, we can all remark so drily on the officals who oversaw the construction of “tofu towers” and posit that without their neglect, such a beautiful phoenix wouldn’t have risen from the ashes. They won’t be corrupt officals behind a foul and heartless regional administration… when we walk their corpses to burial maybe we won’t have to expend so much money bribing the ghosts!
You should be ashamed of yourself for being no more than a party favor at the faculty soire.
June 15, 2008 @ 1:21 am | Comment
79
By otherlisa
Tang, give me a break. I was commenting on the quality of the comments and commenters we’ve had on TPD recently. I think I know your previous identity; surely you would agree that the quality has gone downhill lately. And I erased some of the most egregious, and I am talking truly foul, stuff. I’ve had to go through these threads with disinfectant, they got so disgusting at times.
And my criticism was directed at both sides of the entirely predictable argument.
It’s also that the same “issues” get dragged into every thread regardless of the topic.
I’m all for people expressing themselves but quite frankly I am bored with insults and predictable and irrelevant arguments.
I mean, I put up a post that I think most would agree is a pretty nuanced interview with a Chinese writer who has an interesting perspective on the CR and recent history, and most of the comments that followed were almost completely irrelevant to the discussion.
So, yeah, I’m happy to listen, but you need to be saying something intelligent and interesting.
June 15, 2008 @ 2:16 am | Comment
80
By schtickyrice
I must say that judging by the majority of the comments above, Xujun’s book is more needed than I thought. The superficial level of understanding of most western bleeding heart liberals towards the CR is disheartening. Why are these purported advocates of democracy and human rights so quick to tow the official Chinese Communist Party line regarding Red Guards and the CR? These are exactly the same attitudes that led to the bloody suppression of TAM. Deng Xiaoping and the party elite only seem to remember their own victimization at the hands of the Red Guards, and projected this hatred onto the students of 6.4. What they conveniently forget and sweep under the carpet is their own enthusiastic participation, and that of their own children, the “old Red Guards”, at the beginning of the CR. The anger against the atrocities committed by the red-blood “old Red Guard” elite had as much a part in the initial mobilization of the grassroots “new Red Guards” as any Mao personality cult. The PLA was responsible for far more deaths than that committed by any of the rebel mass movements. While the ‘new Red Guards’ went to jail, the ‘old Red Guards’ conveniently washed their hands clean and became the ruling elite of today’s China.
June 16, 2008 @ 6:23 am | Comment
81
By mor
“The PLA was responsible for far more deaths than that committed by any of the rebel mass movements.”
Maybe you should tell Tang Buxi alias CCT, instead of complaining about “The superficial level of understanding of most western bleeding heart liberals towards the CR”.
June 17, 2008 @ 11:38 am | Comment
82
By schtickyrice
Did I hit a nerve? If you put yourself on a pedestal and assume the moral high ground, then I think it is only fair that one would hold you to a higher standard than your brainwashed commie nationalist counterparts.
June 18, 2008 @ 8:22 am | Comment
83
By mor
Dear schtickyrice,
Please tell me where I put myself on a pedestal and assumed the moral high ground! It is Xujun Eberlein who thinks that successfully publishing a few (fictional) stories about the Cultural Revolution puts her into the position to call another writer – Jung Chang – dishonest without backing up that accusation – at all. The same Ms. Eberlein, in her comment above, said this:
“On a particular argument, contrary to your ‘belief’ that ‘they never touched the top level of power, nor did they ever think about touching it,’ even the top government was broken, as China’s President Liu Shaoqi was ‘struggled’ and beaten up by the Red Guards without (of course) any legal permission.”
I expressed my doubts:
“There might not have been a ‘legal permission’, but I seriously doubt the Red Guards would have dared to attack Liu Shaoqi without Mao Zedong, the chairman at the top level of power, denouncing him first. Call me an ignorant European, but I still believe that nothing happened to Liu Shaoqi that Mao Zedong didn’t want to happen to him.”
And Lisa, who, as we probably agree, has more than just a superficial understanding of the history of the PRC, had the following to say:
“Actually, Liu Xiaoqi [sic] was handled by the ‘Special Case Examination Group’ – the order to struggle against him came from the highest levels of government. I’d have to review my Great Wall of Books for details as it’s been a while since I’ve studied this stuff. But the order to struggle against him was given by the Gang of Four and approved by Mao.
Zhou Enlai signed the order for Liu’s arrest, though as is typical of Zhou, it’s not clear to what extent he approved of this or whether he felt he had no choice in the matter. He did warn Liu’s wife about what was coming but did not help Liu himself, who died of medical neglect in prison.”
Now, who is the one who has a rather superficial understanding of what was going on back then, who is the one who doesn’t get the facts right? I don’t know your background, but you are singing the same litany as most would-be Chinese nationalists on this blog-site: “Laowai no understand China, laowai always talk about things he no understand.” Tang Buxi alias CCT, who took the moral high ground by accusing Jung Chang of “dubious political activism”, would most likely agree with you on that, as can be seen in this statement:
“This is just one of those things that, again, reflects how ignorant the West remains of Chinese affairs.”
A little later, in the same comment, he had this to say:
“As far as the PLA using lethal force against ‘the people’ prior to 1989… care to give me an example? The cultural revolution? The great leap forward? If you think the PLA played a role in either event (*especially* the cultural revolution), you don’t know Chinese history.”
Which, sort of, seems to be a contradiction to your statement:
“The PLA was responsible for far more deaths than that committed by any of the rebel mass movements.”
And again, I ask you who is the one who has an only superficial understanding of what happened, who doesn’t get his facts straight? Do you think of Tang Buxi as a “western bleeding heart liberal”?
Did you hit a nerve? Well, maybe you did. It has sort of become fashionable recently to first write a rather pungent comment and then, if somebody replies, to ask: Did I hit a nerve? I’d say if you never hit a nerve, nobody will reply to your comments and then this whole blog-site with its comment-section will not only be boring, but also pointless.
I just want want to know: Where is this “majority of the comments above” in this thread (which you obviously didn’t read) judging by which you come to the conclusion that “Xujun’s book is more needed than I thought”? And I guess, so far Linda is the only one who read it. Where are those “western bleeding heart liberals” whose level of understanding is so superficial? All I can see are two Chinese people who can’t get their facts straight, but point their fingers at “Western” ignorance and Jung Chang’s alleged lack of honesty. So who is assuming the moral high ground here?
June 18, 2008 @ 5:37 pm | Comment
84
By Richard
I won’t get in the middle of this. I’ll just say that I do agree with mor’s criticism of the “Did I hit a nerve” response. I think people should avoid it, as it insults those it’s directed at. It lets someone make an audacious assertion and then when people object, they can brush the objections aside by saying, “Oh, I must have hit a nerve!” I.e., “I must have said something right that the people don’t want to admit, otherwise they wouldn’t be getting so upset.” No. You can “hit a nerve” by just saying something dumb.
That said, schtickyrice has been contributing excellent comments here for a long time. So I hope we don’t get into a food fight over this.
June 18, 2008 @ 6:16 pm | Comment
85
By schtickyrice
Food fight?! No, that would be much too schticky of a mess to clean up.
I apologize for the nerve hitting comment if it causes offense. However, I stand by my original statement about the western bleeding heart liberals, which was neither audacious nor dumb. I am getting rather tired of the same old knee jerk reactions coming from the politically correct left. I have not been impressed by the diatribes from CCT in the past, but I do agree with some of Tang Buxi’s statements regarding Jung Chang and the CR as a reflection of the human condition.
The era of human gods is over, and Jung Chang is no exception. As the daughter of a high level communist cadre, she herself is a member of the redblood elite that dominated pre-CR China. Did she participate as a member of the old Red Guards before the likes of her own father became targeted? One can only guess. Mao may have been a monster, but the anti-establishment sentiment of the masses that he managed to harness to his own political benefit did not arise out of thin air, nor was it completely unjustified. It is highly unhelpful to overlook the complex personal motivations behind the acts of cruelty committed by all sides.
June 19, 2008 @ 9:21 am | Comment
86
By mor
Can you cite at least one comment by a so-called “western bleeding heart liberal” in this thread? And who said Jung Chang was a human god? I only asked those who call her dishonest to back up their accusations. As to your question whether Jung Chang participated as a member of the old Red Guards, did you ever read her book?
June 19, 2008 @ 4:21 pm | Comment