A. Plan of Investigation
The purpose of this study is to answer the question: To what extent did Chinese leaders display their power through the controlling of sex in the Chinese Cultural Revolution? This can give historians a better understanding of the extent to which the Chinese leaders controlled every aspect of the Chinese people's life. This is a fairly new subject because, as I will discuss later in the project, sex was silenced in the Cultural Revolution.
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| B. Summary of Evidence
The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a time of great social change for the nation of China. In the words of Premier Zhou Enlai, the Revolution “defeated the arrogance of the reactionary bourgeoisie and...broke old ideas, customs and habits of the exploiting classes, fostered new ideas, culture, customs and habits of the proletariat, and vigorously promoted the revolutionization of people’s minds.”
The state controlled sex through the different treatments of the people in rural settings and those in urban settings: loose in the former and strict in the latter. The urban areas were filled with the bourgeoisie and the rural with the “sent-down youth,” teenagers who were “sent to labor in the fields to reform their thinking.” “Life in the countryside was punctuated by flirtation and sex.” Sex was an abomination in the urban settings because it was seen as “being equated with being cheap, and bourgeois, with promiscuity; [violators] are unrevolutionary, not worthy of brave hearts that should be beating with thoughts of building a new socialist nation.” Chinese people were called to “maintain the honor and reputation of the country” by “remain[ing] pure.” Sex was no longer a personal business; it was a matter of conc...
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...a: Alive in the Bitter Sea. New York: Times Books, 1982.
Chesneaux, Jean. China: The People’s Republic, 1946-1976. Translated by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis. New York: Pantheon, 1979.
Diamant, Neil Jeffrey. Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1946-1968. London, England: University of California Press, Ltd., 2000.
Honig, Emily. “Socialist Sex: The Cultural Revolution Revisited.” Modern China 29, no. 2 (April 2003): 143-175. http://lnks.jstor.org/sici?sici=0097-7004%28200304%2929%3A2%3C143%3ASSTCRR%3E2.0.CO%3BR2-3 (accessed April 3, 2008).
Pan, Lynn. The New Chinese Revolution. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1988.
Zhou, Enlai. Speeh, September 30, 1966. Premier Zhou Enlai’s Speech at the National Day Reception. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/zhou-enlai/1966/09/30.htm (accessed January 28, 2010).
The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chines culture during a confusing time period. We get the opportunity to learn the story of a young man with a promising future, but an unpleasant childhood. Liang Heng was exposed to every aspect of the Cultural Revolution in China, and shares his experiences with us, since the book is written from Liang perspective, we do not have a biased opinion from an elite member in the Chinese society nor the poor we get an honest opinion from the People’s Republic of China. Liang only had the fortunate opportunity of expressing these events due his relationship with his wife, An American woman whom helps him write the book. When Liang Heng and Judy Shapiro fell in love in China during 1979, they weren’t just a rarity they were both pioneers at a time when the idea of marriages between foreigners and Chinese were still unacceptable in society.
William Hinton, a US born member of a Chinese Communist land reform task force in 1948, noted that the peasants were challenging the landlords and money lenders in regards to overcharges and restoration of lands and property seized in default of debts (Doc 4). This was due to the newly found confidence in themselves through the defeat of the Japanese. Although Hinton was born into the communist party, his recount of the actions he saw concerning the peasants was simply from a look from the outside in. He personally did not experience this sudden upsurge of challenges, which gives the public a view of what the communist party thought of what looked like a move towards social equality. Although Hinton’s recount may not have been thoroughly verified, the communist party did indeed aid in fueling what was known as a struggle meeting, where Chinese peasants humiliated and tortured landlords, as seen in the picture, organized by the Communist Party as part of the land reform process, of a group of peasants at a meeting where in the center a woman is with her former landlord (Doc 7). Alongside the destruction of the landowning infrastructure that was previously followed, the Communist party also aided the peasants in a form of social reform. One important law that granted specifically women more freedom in their social life was the creation of the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China in 1950, where it states that the “supremacy of man over woman, and in disregard of the interest of the children, is abolished” (Doc 5). The newly introduced concepts of free choice in partners, abortion, and monogamy that derived from this law changed the societal position on women and peasants which greatly expresses the amount of new social mobility
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to market. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Common in premodern China was the heavy discrimination of women and a strict social role that they were obligated to follow in order to survive. Women were assigned a limiting job at birth: be a good and faithful wife. For thousands of years, women were portrayed more as employees of their husbands than lovers or partners, and this is prevalent in imperial Chinese literature.
Ye and Ma’s movement of “up to the mountains, down to the countryside” represented a unique reeducation where Ma was sent to a state farm in Yunnan and Ye went the other route to visit the village Shanxi. Ma became a cook and was determined to reform herself into the “iron girl” ideal and prove, “whatever men comrades can do, women comrades can do too”. This ideal forced Ma to rid herself of what distinguished her from her male comrades and hid these natural female tendencies for the higher purpose of unity which was reinforced by the CCP’s Communist ideology. Ye favored a relaxed environment and found that in the peasant village of Shanxi where the “higher a man’s generation the more respect he would get”. This idea directly conflicted with the urban party belief that your position in the party was related to your family’s background. Tradition was tightly held in the rural area of Ye’s reeducation and haunted Ye forcing her to realize just how backwards the rural area was compared to her urban society of downtown Beijing. Villagers had a lackluster belief in the communist practices who felt they hadn’t gained much under the new regime but continued their frail life as they lacked the tools to educate themselves otherwise.
In a village left behind as the rest of the China is progressing, the fate of women remains in the hands of men. Old customs and traditions reign supreme, not because it is believed such ways of life are best, but rather because they have worked for many years despite harsh conditions. In response to Brother Gu’s suggestion of joining communist South China’s progress, Cuiqiao’s widower father put it best: “Farmer’s have their own rules.”
Li, K., & Mengyan, F. (2013). A historical survey on modernization of Chinese culture. Asian Social Science, 9(4), 129-132. doi:10.5539/ass.v9n4p129
They are not typically sexualized, and are often thought of as “’not quite real men’ because they fail the (Western) test of masculinity” (Louie 9). Unlike the typical Western macho man, Chinese men often do not have facial hair, have very soft and delicate looking skin, slim bodies, and tend to appear very young. These qualities can relate to more of the female characteristics exhibited in many other cultures. Perhaps a reason why Chinese men tend to be softer looking is “a result and an indication of sophisticated cultural tastes in art and literature” (Law 41). This can be tied back to the traditional wen-wu masculinity of how being scholarly and well educated was highly valued. Being sexualized has never been a very prominent factor within the Chinese masculinity. The highly respected quality of having excellent self-control reiterates to men that they should control their sexual desires and urges. It once again is the very opposite of the Western idea that men cannot control themselves, and that women have to always be on the defense as a result. To exhibit that one could have the most self-control, there was the concept that during sex it was often considered a “battle with the ultimate goal being the ability to withhold an orgasm while making the other partner orgasm” (Law 7). Chinese masculinity and integrity focused more on the ability to control sexual desires rather than the person one was having sex with. This can account how up until recent times, it did not matter all that much whether or not a person was in a homosexual relationship. Nowadays, however, homosexuality is not widely accepted in China. It can be determined from all this, that masculinity lies in the capability to control oneself rather than being blatantly sexually
The early part of the novel shows women’s place in Chinese culture. Women had no say or position in society. They were viewed as objects, and were used as concubines and treated with disparagement in society. The status of women’s social rank in the 20th century in China is a definite positive change. As the development of Communism continued, women were allowed to be involved in not only protests, but attended universities and more opportunities outside “house” work. Communism established gender equality and legimated free marriage, instead of concunbinage. Mao’s slogan, “Women hold half of the sky”, became extremely popular. Women did almost any job a man performed. Women were victims by being compared to objects and treated as sex slaves. This was compared to the human acts right, because it was an issue of inhumane treatment.
The Cultural Revolution was a revolution that had happened between 1966 and 1976 and had a great impact on China. The Cultural Revolution used to be known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution but was changed after many years. The main goal of this Revolution was to preserve true communist mainly in China by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. It was also used to re-impose Maoist which was thought as the dominant ideology within the Party. The Cultural Revolution was basically a sociopolitical movement. But it was mainly for the return of the leader, Mao Zedong, who was the leader of the revolution on and off. Which had led him to a position of power after the Great Leap Forward which paralyzed
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
There are many things that most people take for granted. Things people do regularly, daily and even expect to do in the future. These things include eating meals regularly, having a choice in schooling, reading, choice of job and a future, and many more things. But what if these were taken away and someone told you want to eat, where and when to work, what you can read, and dictated your future. Many of these things happened in some degree or another during the Chinese Culture Revolution under Mao Zedong that began near the end of the 1960’s. This paper examines the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie and a book by Michael Schoenhals titled China’s Culture Revolution, 1966-1969. It compares the way the Chinese Cultural Revolution is presented in both books by looking at the way that people were re-educated and moved to away, what people were able to learn, and the environment that people lived in during this period of time in China.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, beginning as a campaign targeted at removing Chairman Mao Zedong's political opponents, was a time when practically every aspect of Chinese society was in pandemonium. From 1966 through 1969, Mao encouraged revolutionary committees, including the red guards, to take power from the Chinese Communist party authorities of the state. The Red Guards, the majority being young adults, rose up against their teachers, parents, and neighbors. Following Mao and his ideas, The Red Guard's main goal was to eliminate all remnants of the old culture in China. They were the 'frontline implementers' who produced havoc, used bloody force, punished supposed 'counter revolutionists', and overthrew government officials, all in order to support their 'beloved leader'.
Clark, Paul. "The Chinese Cultural Revolution: a history." Google Books. Web. 03 Feb. 2011. .
Mao resigned as president of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in April 1959 , after the Great Leap Forward, planning for Chinese production to “overtake Britain in 15 years”, failed and caused a widespread famine in China, where 20-30 million people starved. President Liu and General Secretary Deng began to restore China , while Mao remained ceremonial head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Liu and Deng introduced many liberal and effective policies , which involved stepping back from communist ideals. Collectivisation and communal cafeterias were abandoned and peasants recommenced private, “capitalist” farming. They even rehabi...