Near the end of our stroll through the village, we passed under one of the old castle gates. Readers who've been following the earlier posts about Changyucheng will remember that this place was an old castle. The garrisons manning the nearby section of the Great Wall lived here.While the actual gates are gone, the arch above them still exists. And this arch provided us with a potent visual symbol not only of China's old history, but also of its tumultuous recent past. I know it might be hard to see on this web-sized photo, but if readers look really hard, they can make out a face on the arch. This face belongs to none other than the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao (毛泽东).
The 1960s was a particularly dark (黑暗) decade (十年) for China. It began with the culmination of perhaps the greatest famine in modern world history, the one brought on by the Great Leap Forward (大跃进). An estimated 20-30 million people starved to death (饿死了) thanks to that harebrained effort industrialize China overnight. Then after a brief interlude of stability and relative prosperity, the latter half of the decade was marked by the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命).
Few if any places in China were not affected by this huge social upheaval (社会动乱). Changyucheng Village was no exception. Mao's now barely visible and faded portrait was painted on the arch by the Red Guards (红卫兵) sent to there to live among and learn from the farmers (农民).
I've done more than a bit of thinking about this picture on the arch. I believe that the portrait of Mao may have helped spare this little remnant from the old castle from being torn down. As anyone familiar with the Cultural Revolution well knows, these years were immensely destructive to China's old cultural heritage. The Red Guards were determined to smash the “four olds” (破四旧), namely old ideas (旧思想), old culture (旧文化), old customs (旧习惯), and old habits (旧风俗).
The British journalist Jasper Becker has written a terrific new book on the history of Beijing, CITY OF HEAVENLY TRANQUILITY. He notes that in one month alone, the so-called “Bloody August” of 1966, the Red Guards ransacked 33,000 houses in Beijing and destroyed 3 million tons of books (that's right folks, 3 million tons, not 3 thousand tons). And many other valuable relics—vases, statues, furniture, and the like—were smashed up.
The Shanghai Museum's priceless collection of pottery, vases, and other relics was saved only through the cleverness of its curator, Ma Chengyuan (马承源). At that time, Ma was 70 years old and had finely honed his survival skills. Before the Red Guards could make it to the Museum to destroy the collection, Ma dressed his staff in Red Guard outfits and had them paint Maoist slogans all over the cupboards and display cases. When the real Red Guards showed up, they were told they had arrived too late. And in any case, these people refrained from breaking open the cases in which the treasures were stored, as doing so would have involved physically attacking Mao's words.
To be sure, the Maoist portrait on the arch was not a clever stratagem aimed at sparing the structure from revolutionary destruction. But I can't help but think that it had that impact, even if such an outcome was far removed from the ideals and intentions of the Red Guards who painted it up there in the first place.
So the arch still stands and provides visitors to the village with a powerful reminder of China's distant and not so distant past.
The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.
文化大革命遗留下来的 (wen2hua4da4ge2min4yi2liu2xia4lai2de5). As noted in earlier posts, 文化 stands for “culture,” while 大革命 means “great revolution.” According to my good friend, 路红艳 (lu4hong2yan4), “legacy” should be translated here as 遗留下来的.
毛泽东 (mao2ze2dong1). “毛” is the family name—the family name precedes the given names in Chinese names—while “泽东” means “light of the east.”
黑暗 (hei1an4). According to several Chinese friends, unlike their English counterparts, Mandarin speakers never use this adjective to describe the weather, as in “It's a dark day.” It's only used in connection with historical periods and actions. For example, you can say 黑暗的行为 (hei1an4de5xing2wei4). This literally means “dark deeds;” “ 行为” has several meanings, including “action”, “deed,” “conduct,” and “behavior.”
十年 (shi2nian2). “十” means “ten” and “年” “year”, so this character pairing is, like most of he ones in Mandarin, very logical. The 1960s in Chinese is 六十年代 (the 六十 combination is the word for “60”, while the character, “dai”, means “generation”).
大跃进 (da4yue4jin4). “大” means “big” or “great”, “跃” means “jump” or “leap,” while “进” can be translated as “advance” or “enter.”
饿死了 (e4si3le5). “饿”, which is pronounced like “eh”, is the Chinese word for “hungry”, while 死 means “to die” and “death.”
社会动乱 (she4hui4dong4luan4). “社会” is the word for “social” and “society,” while “动乱” can also literally be translated as “reckless motion.” By itself, “乱” means “reckless” or “wild.” So children who are wildly running about are 乱跑 (luan4pao4; 跑is the verb “to run”), while people making wild and reckless statements are 乱说 (luan4shuo1; 说 is the very “to say”). And Mandarin has a very peculiar four character phrase—these are called 成语 (cheng2yu3)—for a thoroughly muddled situation: 乱七八糟. When translated word for word, it reads “reckless, 7, 8, terrible”.
红卫兵 (hong2wei4bing1). “红” is the word for “red” and, of course, symbolizes the revolution. “卫” usually means “sanitary”, but in this context stands for “protect.” And “兵” is a shortened form of the word for “soldier” (士兵; shi1bing1).
农民 (nong2min2).
破四旧 (po4si4jiu4). “破” means “smash” or “break”, “四” means “four”, while “旧” is the adjective for “old.” However, this “old” is applied only to things, not living beings. For the latter, the Chinese say “老”.
旧思想 (jiu4si1xiang3).
旧文化 (jiu4wen2hua4).
旧习惯 (jiu4xi2guan4).
旧风俗 (jiu4feng1su2).
马承源 (ma3cheng2yuan2). This family name, 马, is also the Chinese word for “horse.”
No comments:
Post a Comment