session #10 10/21 afternoon (dube)

[Flor Contreras]

I did not find this propaganda poster’s origin but I did some research on similar images style and purpose. Hence this is the story behind it. The girl name is “Chun”=born in the spring, because in the photograph I can see the tree is in full bloom and it looks that people are in good spirits. Location is probably Beijing. Time: 1966 The Cultural Revolution by Mao Tse-tung; pro China communist party. He used Cult of Personality to undermine China’s history and culture. Mao wanted to change what he thought was 4 bad habits amongst the population and so China produced thousands of powerful social and political posters exhorting the Chinese people in an effort to transform the proletarian Chinese society. The color red is overly marked, perhaps to give emphasis to the time.

Chun is having a bright day at the local park. She rode in her bicycle to meet the proletarian group that normally met every afternoon under a couple of cherry trees. Chun brought with her a nicely written black poster with the latest ideals from Mr. Mao Tse-tung. She was so excited explaining to the audience why Mr. Mao is right and how they all should follow his lead and change the old culture, the old habits, old customs and old believes. Chun is telling how she will be joining the Red guards and that they should do the same. The audience is quietly smiling gazing at her in agreement.

 

sources: http://www.history.com/topics/cultural-revolution, https://search.socialhistory.org/Search/Results?lookfor=china+poster&type=AllFields&page=12&filter%5B%5D=format%3A%22Visual+documents%22&filter%5B%5D=publishDate%3A%22%5B1975+TO+1975%5D%22&facetSort=index

 

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[Jacqueline Mercado]

The image portrayed in the card that I chose is of two Chinese peasant women with a red tractor.  The setting is rural and these two women are dressed simply and one is cleaning the tractor while one is pouring water into it.  Along the poster reads the words:  We have great improvements in wide and free areas.  While these two women are not driving the tractor, they are involved in operating it.  They seem very pleased and happy to be involved in this work.   While I was not able to actually find this exact propaganda poster online, I did come across some useful information that might point to the poster's message.  Firts of all, the poster looks very Maoist in its message of happy collaboration and bright colors.  There is an idealized picture of the peasant worker and the tractor represents some kind of modernization, the use of technology in agricultural work.   It seems to point to the female participation in mechanization and how women are active participants in production and operating machinery for the modernization of China.  The women represent participation and the tractor represents economic development and modernization.  This poster probably dates from the 1950's and such images of women working with modern tractors was influenced by posters depicting Soviet women as part of economic production.  Hence this propaganda poster is designed to show a modern China with a new message of mobilizing women to join in economic production.  It seems to be effective in its message.    Sorry, but I could not include the actual image due to technical limitations.

[clay dube]

The "late marry" refers to family planning. By promoting later marriages, they hoped to reduce the birth rate. 

[clay dube]

Flor's tying this to a popular book among teachers explaining the cultural revolution. "Little Green" or spring - the girl has a rapt audience for her lessons from Chairman Mao. 

[clay dube]

Excellent job linking the Paris Commune and the Shanghai Commune. Shanghai was controlled by party leaders in sympathy with Mao's ultraleftism. Beijing was more conservative. 
Paris Commune: https://www.britannica.com/event/Commune-of-Paris-1871
Shanghai Commune: https://chineseposters.net/themes/shanghai-commune.php  Mao calls on youth to bombard the headquarters. 

[Carlos Oyarbide]

My playing card depicts what I assume is a celebratory march to commemorate Mao's Long March.  Male and female soldiers are marching alongside holding sign that celebrate the communist victory in China. The mixture of shovels and riffles might symbolize the the economic and military revolution that celebrates the collective strength of the proleteriate.

After researching my card, I learned that in fact depicts people marching along the road on their way to one of the cadre schools to be educated and learn to become self-sufficient as part of the Great Leap Forward and Chairman Mao's May 7 directive.  Conditions at the school were poor and ultimately unsuccessful and many of the people died during the reeducation process.

 

[Eric Hoh]

This playing card portrays the Cultural Revolution in which cadres and intellectuals would occupy and experience lower levels of society. The faces and body language of the people on the card suggest that they are more than happy to comply with Chairman Mao's 7 May Directive. However, the reality was that peasants were not excited to share the burden of becoming "self-sufficient in food production." If anything, the sharing of space and farmland with these demoted cadres and intellectuals created a tense atmosphere in which poor farmers were threatened by competition for limited resources, while intellectuals were strained by the unfamiliar physical demands of labor and food production. In short, this card portrays the effects of Mao's decree as something facilitating unity and prosperity. The reality was quite the opposite. 

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[Tanish Fortson]

The cards we were allowed to look at in session 10 intrigued me. I quickly selected a card and began “researching” and looking for this so called propaganda that Professor Dube mentioned.

I learned that Mao Zedong and other Communist set out to reshape the Chinese society. I discovered that many were executed as capitalist’s exploiters and landlords. Mao urged the youth to rebel (I think they referred to this youth as the Red Guard). They carried little red books with quotes from Mao Zedong and terrorized capitalists and other members of society that was seen as an authority figure.

I think the propaganda comes in because things were not as they seemed. Mao felt his leadership being threatened and removed any threats (highly educated teaches, scientist, engineers, and managers) He didn’t want anyone who had authority (in his words “who thought they were better than everyone else”) in the new society. Mao wanted the to get rid of the “four olds”: old habits, old customs, old culture, and old thinking.  Schools were closed and students were taught the “new way” and did not receive the proper education. My card depicts the movement “Countryside Reeducation” Young educated privileged youth was forced to go to the mountain and countryside to become reeducated by the workers and farmers.  Needless to say things got out of hand and China was sent into social turmoil. 

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[Michelle Levy]

I loved the reading on the oral history from the Houhua Village. I felt a distinct understanding between the struggle of this man, in the reading, and my own students today. This man, who even as he is telling this story, cannot read or write. Yet, surprisingly, before his father died, the family was fairly well off. Then, like so many problems today, drug abuse causes theft, which in this case, led this man’s uncle to kill his father. Several excerpts from this letter stood out to me. “I never went to school. Having nothing to eat, how could I study?” This sadly reminds me of my students. Although we are there to provide education, some days it is so much more, including feeding the kids to make sure they can concentrate on their class work and homework. The struggle of this man in the village in China can actually be compared to modern versions of today’s struggles. That makes me sad. At the very end of this reading, after pages of describing all the hardships, the beam of light comes with the arranged marriage by his mother. He says, “Our life gradually got better. We raised a donkey and a pig. Sometimes we even ate meat.” It just makes me sad that still today the communities we live and work in are less than perfect. No matter where and when, our students will be struggling to survive in one way or another. This reading definitely opened my eyes to the similarities.

[Amir Osterweil]

I found this to be a valuable resource in explaining the appeal of Communism to peasants in China. I found it especially powerful that the Wang Fucheng mentions how his father died from abuse of opium. This is a good example of the lasting effects of the opium war on China. Wang describes povery in a southern China village. He mentions the appeal of the Communists was that they stood up to the abuses of the landlord class. This illustrates the appeal of the communists to the peasant class and I would definitely use this to explify the appeal of the communists to the peasants.

[Jane Shen]

The two persons in the cards, one is a postwoman who are delivering the government periodic newspaper“人民日报”，and some flyers in the baskets attaching to her bicycle. Another one has a medical box which has a red cross is a " barefoot medical worker". During the Culture Revolution, they consider doctor to be the western influnced demon, so most of the medical workers are some high school kids who had limited medical training.

These 2 women ( I would like to say 2 girls) are very young in the cards. which tells they might be the students from rural cities moved to the country sides. They spread out the literacy, mainly the government political thoughts, and they also provide some very basic medical help. 

[Aja Koester]

After learning about Chairman Mao during Dube’s lecture, I came across a documentary that follows, oddly enough, a British motorcycle rider named Guy Martin through China. The documentary is titled “Our Guy in China” and looks at modern China through an interesting perspective where he rides around a “flying pigeon bicycle” which is the most popular Chinese produced bicycle with over 500 million that were produced. During the documentary Martin attends a celebration where thousands of people come together before the sun comes up for the national flag-raising ceremony held in Tian’anmen Square in Beijing. He discusses the history of the square as the first place where Mao united China and put it under Communist rule. He is amazed at the respect and loyalty shown by the people in the gathering and by the flag raising celebration, which lasts exactly 2 minutes and 7 seconds (the duration of time for the sun to rise). He emphasizes how Mao died over 40 years ago, but how important he still is during this celebration. In the background of the square hangs the enormous portrait of Mao, which Dube discussed in his lecture and the documentary explains how the portrait is replaced each year with a refreshed painting. Many visitors wait in line to observe Mao’s body in a mausoleum. Later in the film, Martin goes back to his hotel room and goes on the internet to test out what he can find about Tian’anmen Square. He discovers that the massacres are censored and one website calls the event a “popular myth”. The documentary helped bring to life many of the topics Dube discussed.

[Amir Osterweil]

This story is a good example of retribution on behalf of the peasants against the "greedy and evil" landlords. In this excerpt Jiang, a landlord is forced to give up his possessions as retribution for the exploitation of peasants in the village. The story is follows Marxists principals in that the peasants are going to "settle accounts" with what is owed them. It is evident in the story that Jiang's lavish lifestyle is born from the the rent he has charged his tenants. Most of the characters in the story are poor peasants who worked as tenant farmers. They exchange stories of hardships forced upon them by Jiang, who had the authority to confiscate their property if they did not make rent on time. It is not enough that Jiang give up the land titles, he must surrender his property as well. 

[Amir Osterweil]

I was not surprised at all by this article about China's historical amnesia regarding the cultural revolution. The Party still holds Mao in hi regard and in order to, the disasterous period in Chinese history must be overlooked. The first time I became aware of this selective amnesia was when I was working in Korea. The Chinese teacher, there told me she had never even heard about the Tianamen Massacre until she traveled outside of China. As Mitchell suggests, perhaps the party is so strong in China that people are willing to overlook personal past gievences in favor of the "greater good", putting party interests before thier own. In the case of Xi Jinping, the party's interests are his own, as pointed out in the article by a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies Univeristy  “Xi is building a personality cult for himself"

 

[Rick Steil]

I looked at your clues and I found that there was a push to make medical services available to the rural citizens of china through a program created by Mao. Was this an attempt to bring in the rural people to buy into the movement created by Mao. Did it have any real effect or was it just a propaganda ploy to make it seem like there was access to medical help or like we see in America now with the falsehood of affordable healthcare for all.

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