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 . . .
Mao seems to me like a battered child still trying to make a defiant country into what his father made him into. A group of young men in Xian were jailed for showing porno at 20 yuan a ticket. “… Individual’s creative writing ability should be used for the good of society and not for his own personal satisfaction. None of the usual drama and royal scandals, only stories about peasants and farmers. I have lived in China all my life, and been a witness to the humiliation and the “rise. 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. ” He stated publicly that ones endowment of talents should not be kept to oneself. The official, joined by the party secretary and a note taker, would record each question asked, and the response given, and they had full rights to object to any question at any time, much like a court trial. A visiting Portuguese ballet company was driven to remove over half of their program, as he felt it to be “too modernistic. All writers were to be trained in by government writing officials- the desired effect being, of course, so that they all wrote in the same style. I want Mao to see these changes happening while he sits powerless. 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. People were being censored right and left.
Common topics in this essay:
Mao Zedong, Laws Literature, Nietzsche Jail, Gao Li, peasants farmers, roll film, change country, |
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