Life as an Intellectual Under Mao Tse Dung
When Mao Zedong first came into power, we all thought that it was a great thing- he was a strong leader, and he would pilot China from lowly pit of humiliation into a higher place, where we would regain our power and respect. Mao became the driving force behind extreme alterations in China. For centuries, operas had been a traditional form of Chinese arts. These operas featured legends of emperors, princesses, ministers, generals, demons, romance, treachery, and murder, topics which Mao deemed unsuitable for audiences of peasants and farmers. Under the careful watch of his third wife, Mao commissioned a group of writers to create new operas, ones about peasants and farmers, where the audience could see themselves portrayed as the heroines, and their detested landlords as the villains. Mao abolished traditional forms of Chinese art in favor of more vain, self-concerning plays that he claimed were "more appropriate to the interests of the masses and more with the party line." Censoring the arts was not just limited to our own plays, however. All visiting groups were required to perform first for Mao before they were allowed to perform for a Chinese audience. More often than not, Mao forced the groups to edit their pro
" I, like most others, was born on a farm. Many reporters traveled to China to interview government officials, hoping to write brilliant exposes on the horrors of Communism only to be met with application forms. Once an application for and interview with an official had been filled out, the interview would take place in a conference room. A visiting Portuguese ballet company was driven to remove over half of their program, as he felt it to be "too modernistic. A girl in Shanghai was arrested for dropping off a roll of film to be developed- a roll of film that contained some intimate scenes between her and her boyfriend. I have lived in China all my life, and been a witness to the humiliation and the "rise. My works are not in compliance with the Communist Laws of Literature, but I am able to publish them underground, regardless of the fact that the government took over all the publishing houses in the country when he came to power. I want Mao to see these changes happening while he sits powerless. A student who boldly proclaimed, "a real democracy is not a one party system," at a public protest was immediately taken to jail. All writing was to be, like the operas, concerning topics of interest to its audience.
Common topics in this essay:
Mao Zedong,
Laws Literature,
Nietzsche Jail,
Gao Li,
peasants farmers,
roll film,
change country,
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