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Cultural revolution in china essay
Cultural revolution china essay
Effects of the Chinese cultural revolution on China
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In 1966, the Chinese government and society changed forever when Chairman Mao started the Cultural Revolution in order to lead China into prosperity. The Chinese Cultural Revolution was the method in which Chairman Mao wanted to alleviate China from its dark past with things such as the Four Olds, or a bourgeois lifestyle. The effects of the revolution were perceived by many citizens as the necessary phase that would lead China into prosperity. As perceived in the novel, Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang, the revolution was by no means a peaceful movement in the eyes of Ji Li. The Cultural Revolution affected citizens in many different ways. Not only would it lead to the major shift in Chinese society, it would change the history of China forever. …show more content…
As the Cultural Revolution begins to affect her family however, Ji Li begins to realize that Chairman Mao’s intentions was just another idea of smoke and mirrors. Towards the start of the revolution, Chinese students had began drawing da-zi baos, or Chinese propaganda. These propaganda posters were instilled to criticize the education system , and the citizens that were living a bourgeois lifestyle. JI Li began to shift her views on the revolution first hand when she realized that a da zi bao march was imposed towards her Aunt Xi-wen. According to Jiang, “ Her face was ugly with distress. She knew that no one would challenge anything we revolutionaries did to her. I did not want her to see me. I bent down and pretended to tie my shoelaces” ( Jiang, 47) . Many students from the revolution had shown their loyalty to the revolution by separating themselves from their families, however Ji Li’s refusal of supporting the protest against her own bloodline shows that Ji Li is beginning to see the harshness that exists in the revolution. Despite claiming to supporting the revolution, Jiang begins to repent her support overtime. The Jiang family are not the only people affected by the Cultural Revolution, Ji Li’s best friend An Yi suffered some serious consequences. An Yi had been living with her …show more content…
The Cultural Revolution was by no means a peaceful movement, and unfortunately, it suffered some serious consequences. “ Some 1.5 million people were killed during the Cultural Revolution, and millions of others suffered imprisonment, seizure of property, torture or general humiliation”(History.com Staff). MIllions of people suffered the consequences of the Cultural Revolution. Despite some being innocent, those who were suspicious of being supporters of Four Olds or being a reactionary were victims of death, torture and imprisonment. The Chinese who fell to the revolution can be seen as a lost generation in which had these people had survived, the development of China may have been different. Within those casualties could have existed new ideas, new leaders, and people that could have made a difference in the world today. Not only did the Cultural Revolution suffer high casualties, it would cause a shift in the government that would become the opposite of what Chairman Mao had intended. Overseeing the aftereffects of the revolution, many Chinese citizens began to realize the corruption that existed within the government and wanted reform. When Chairman Mao died in 1976, the cultural revolution had officially ended and China began to reform itself again. According to Griffiths, “By 1978, Deng would be paramount leader, as he
In Red Scarf Girl, Ji-li is faced with the challenge of her life when she has to choose between her family, and a family figure, her country, although she really had known since the day she was eliminated from the audition she loved her family more than anything or anyone. She shows her diverging opinions forced by peer pressure throughout the book in the beginning, middle, and end. Her scrambled thoughts have to be pieced back together slowly, and are forced to make detours through the revolution, but finally are able to bubble up to the top and come out to the world. In this way Ji-Li discovers not the mind swept mind of Mao Ze Dong, but her true self, ,and is able to see that she could never do anything to hurt her family, nor break away from it, and that no one could take her family away.
At first, Ji-li thought she was the luckiest girl in the world. She came from a very wealthy, loving, respected, and dependable family. In growing up in such was so was she too, “I was happy because I was able to excel and always expected to succeed. I was trusting, too. I never doubted what I was told…”(Jiang 1). The way Ji-li felt towards her family, proving that is the kind of family is everything Ji-li wanted. It is important for her, so then she can feel comfortable, then the family dynamics changed. Ji-li’s relationship has changed due to the Cultural Revolution, because when the change started to happen, she was okay. Ji-li then hated her family’s guts and background; near the end of the book. Ji-li feeling’s toward her family was unbreakable or even strengthened more than ever, and never went away. “… I would never do anything to hurt my family, and I would do everything I could do to take care of them. My family was too precious to forget, and too rare to replace.” ( Jiang 262-263). The importance that she will never abounded her family even in the most difficult times in her life. The reason the change occurred was Ji-li knew she could change her name, but she will always be a Jiang. She could also never leave the best thing in her life. Ji-li had other problems in her life as well, besides her family, there were her friends. Well
The Sun of the Revolution by Liang Heng, is intriguing and vivid, and gives us a complex and compelling perspective on Chinese 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 of 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.
Throughout the course of his lifetime, Ah Cheng experienced major political and historical events that strongly influenced his literature. The Cultural Revolution and rule of Mao Zedong was widespread throughout China starting in the 1960s, and devastated millions of families. Cheng took a different approach to much of the literature ("scar literature") that emerged from the revolution, and instead of focusing on the detrimental effects, chose to use his literature as a way to point out the flaws of the revolution. These counter-revolutionary ideals are subtle but evident throughout The King of Trees, as the political chaos creates a backdrop in the novella, rather than the central focus. They can especially be seen through the use of abundant metaphorical elements. By showing the effects of the “down to the countryside movement”, a major reform under the rule of Mao Zedong, Cheng is able to provide a commentary on the Revolution through his characters and the setting as well. Throughout The King of Trees, Ah Cheng reveals his political views towards the Cultural Revolution through his use of symbolism, and his descriptions of the characters and the setting.
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.
In the Chinese history there is an important date that many remember. That is the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966 (Chan 103). This Cultural Revolution wasn’t a war by any means, but a competition between the different factions of the communist party for power. The Cultural Revolution was also a very important event in the history of the Chen Village. We saw through the different chapters of Chen Village just how it affected the different people that were living there during the eleven year span that it lasted (Chan 103). The Cultural Revolution caused a lot of problems to stir up in Chen Village.
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
...ear and listen. That’s why most of the Chinese youth were inspired to join the army due to the books that were sold and the song that was written just for the Red Guards army. The book’s name is “Little Red Book.” The song’s name is “Red Guard Song.” For the members, the “Red Guard Song” reminds them of their purpose of why they joined the Red Guards. To add on, two young women had wrote their own memoirs to explain what their life was when the Cultural Revolution was happening and how their life was changed when they joined the Red Guards and started to rebel against their parents and their own teachers. As they grew older, they soon realized that everything that they’ve been doing the whole entire time was wrong and regret joining the Red Guards. They realize that all these time, they were killing innocent people that clearly was doing nothing to harm the country.
One of Mao Zedong’s motivations for beginning the Cultural Revolution was his view that a cutting-edge bureaucratic ruling class had surfaced because of the centralized authoritarian nature of the political system, which had little hope for popular participation in the process of economic development (The Chinese Cultural Revolution revisited). The motivations of Fidel Castro, on the other hand, were different in that he wanted all people of all classes to be equal. The notion that the poverty-stricken could live a life equal to all other humans was an immense sense of happiness and alteration. In China, Mao Zedong developed many things to entice people.
Walder, Andrew G. The Beijing Red Guard Movement: Fractured Rebellion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
I was beginning to doubt that the Great Leader was as great as I thought; he did not even know his most loyal Red Guards and he arrested them as enemies.” Furthermore, his distrust of the Party was worsened by an event that happened a short time after. His parents, who had been high ranking officials during the initial revolution which established the regime’s control, were arrested on the belief that they had assisted his anti-revolutionary aunt. In reality, they had turned her into the cold despite the fact that she was a member of their family. For two months, Fan Shen was forced to live as an outcast and provide for both his sister and himself.
In Liang Heng’s, Son of the Revolution, he notes the horrors of growing up in Maoist China. Liang grew up in a period known as “The Cultural Revolution,” a time of political and social turmoil in which purges were common and mob justice ran rampant. The goal of the cultural revolution was to purge any remnants of capitalism and establish communism throughout all aspects of Chinese society. These purges reached to the highest echelons of the Communist hierarchy without regard for their influence, such as in the case of Liu Shaoqi. Liang Heng no doubt felt the effects of the Cultural Revolution when he was forced to work in the countryside, a very typical punishment for families that needed re-education.
?Sheet after sheet, article after article, each da-zi-bao was a bitter accusation. One was titled, ?Teacher Li, Abuser of the Young.? The student had failed to hand in her homework on time, and Teacher Li had told her to copy the assignment over five times as punishment. Another student said his teacher had deliberately ruined his students? eyesight by making them read a lot, so they could not join the Liberation Army. Still another accused Teacher Wang of attempting to corrupt a young revolutionary by buying her some bread when he learned that she had not eaten lunch.? (42)
The argument Ms. Li proposed is most certainly backed up very well by her life experiences and story. The Cultural Revolution tore her family apart; her dad was forced into a labour camp and her mother and grandmother were said to be against Chairman Mao. The Revolution played a huge role in Li’s life, shaping her into the person she has become today. It gave her the incentive to study as hard as she did, witness the hardships of others as well as experience her own. The Revolution was a driving force behind her character, as well as many other people in China, as clearly testified by the author throughout the reading.