WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.690 --> 00:00:10.960 align:center line:-1Interviewer: Hello! Thank you for accepting my interview. First, could you tell me when you were born? You don’t need to say the exact year. Just “’50s,” “’60s,” etc. will do. 2 00:00:10.970 --> 00:00:12.030 align:center line:-1 ’50s. 3 00:00:12.040 --> 00:00:18.140 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Where were you living in China between 1966 and 1976? 4 00:00:18.150 --> 00:00:20.070 align:center line:-1 In Beijing. 5 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:25.360 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Since you were born in the 1950s, you certainly have memories of the Cultural Revolution. 6 00:00:25.370 --> 00:00:30.630 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: I think if you started talking about that time, you could probably speak for days on end. 7 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:35.750 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: However, if you only have ten minutes – or in other words, during the first ten minutes of the interview -- 8 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:49.170 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: what memories or opinions do you most want us to hear? Anything would be fine. Please speak freely. 9 00:00:49.180 --> 00:01:02.080 align:center line:-1 To me, the Cultural Revolution had two phases. The first phase was when my parents did not feel any impact from the event. Life was still happy. 10 00:01:02.090 --> 00:01:16.230 align:center line:-1 Later, my parents were affected by the Cultural Revolution, and that was not so happy. So, I do not consider the Cultural Revolution from just one single perspective. 11 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:29.170 align:center line:-1 When the Cultural Revolution began, I was in elementary school, and everyone was just living it up, parading around. 12 00:01:29.180 --> 00:01:38.340 align:center line:-1 Everywhere you looked, it was revolution. Then, the upsurge [of the Cultural Revolution] passed, and everyone just played; nobody bothered about us [children]. 13 00:01:38.350 --> 00:01:45.490 align:center line:-1 Later, my family was investigated. 14 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:50.430 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Can you tell me about your family background? [Were your parents] intellectuals? 15 00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:52.990 align:center line:-1 Right, they were intellectuals. 16 00:01:53.000 --> 00:02:00.990 align:center line:-1 It was because he [my father] had joined some organizations. Later, some of these organizations ran into trouble. They were all Cultural Revolution participants. 17 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.240 align:center line:-1 In fact, if he had not gotten involved in the Cultural Revolution, he would’ve been fine. 18 00:02:03.250 --> 00:02:06.140 align:center line:-1 Later many Cultural Revolution participants were implicated, too. 19 00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:18.880 align:center line:-1 In terms of the attitudes toward the Cultural Revolution, I think the deepest issues are with later reflections, after the Cultural Revolution. 20 00:02:18.890 --> 00:02:23.560 align:center line:-1 I remember the period after the Cultural Revolution, when I went to university and then started working. During those years, I remember that intellectuals recalled the Cultural Revolution with bitter tears. 21 00:02:23.570 --> 00:02:27.830 align:center line:-1 The entire society was criticizing the Cultural Revolution with their mouths and their pens. 22 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:38.580 align:center line:-1 Now I think of the Cultural Revolution in this way. Two types of people were affected by the Cultural Revolution: the intellectuals—especially the prestigious intellectuals 23 00:02:38.590 --> 00:02:49.390 align:center line:-1 -and the cadres. After the Cultural Revolution ended, these cadres came onstage again, and grasped political power. 24 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:53.990 align:center line:-1 And the intellectuals seized the power of speech once again. 25 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.990 align:center line:-1 Through speech and writing, these two groups of people criticized the Cultural Revolution, describing it in such awful terms. 26 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.990 align:center line:-1 Of course, they were the ones who felt greatly impacted by the Cultural Revolution. 27 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:06.600 align:center line:-1 But I have found that I have different feelings [towards the Cultural Revolution] than the people around me. 28 00:03:06.610 --> 00:03:16.290 align:center line:-1 Reflecting on it from today’s perspective, the Cultural Revolution is very complicated. Looking at history from one perspective is just not right. 29 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:22.440 align:center line:-1 But from the perspective of the country and government, that is, from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], 30 00:03:22.450 --> 00:03:31.680 align:center line:-1 it was probably for the sake of political stability that the CCP needed to draw a line regarding the Cultural Revolution, to make a resolution. 31 00:03:31.690 --> 00:03:46.370 align:center line:-1 But now, there are big conflicts between the leftist and rightist ideas. The conflicts mostly focus on how the Cultural Revolution should be judged—whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. 32 00:03:46.380 --> 00:03:52.110 align:center line:-1 Right now, one relatively extreme attitude towards the Cultural Revolution is fully positive. 33 00:03:52.120 --> 00:04:00.370 align:center line:-1 It holds that not that many people died during the “three years of natural disasters” [1959-1961], while another attitude is fully negative, saying that many people died. 34 00:04:00.380 --> 00:04:06.590 align:center line:-1 This concerns whether or not our whole country is able to have unified thinking about this issue. 35 00:04:06.600 --> 00:04:12.920 align:center line:-1 This is my viewpoint: in the current situation, the unity of thoughts on the Cultural Revolution is not a good thing. 36 00:04:12.930 --> 00:04:18.730 align:center line:-1 Some time ago, there were other people who wanted me to express my opinion. 37 00:04:18.740 --> 00:04:26.720 align:center line:-1 There was a good friend who wrote an article and asked me what I thought. Right now our country is facing all kinds of issues such as environmental pollution and [political] corruption. 38 00:04:26.730 --> 00:04:35.490 align:center line:-1 If we emphasize the question of the Cultural Revolution or other problems from the past, with you on your side, me on mine, fighting over it, this is not a good thing. 39 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:44.000 align:center line:-1 It’s the same as in a family—if you’re always focusing on past mistakes, this kind of thing will just go on and on. 40 00:04:44.010 --> 00:04:52.490 align:center line:-1 I think that you have to let it go; if you still want to live, you need to move on. I think this is a better way. 41 00:04:52.500 --> 00:04:56.990 align:center line:-1 I feel that the current conflicts between leftist and rightist ideas are really strange. 42 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:01.990 align:center line:-1 I think many things are irrational. [It’s as if they are saying,] “If you want this, then I choose that. If you want that, then I choose this.” 43 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:11.330 align:center line:-1 They are all interpretations from a political perspective, not from the perspectives of social stability and cooperation. 44 00:05:11.340 --> 00:05:24.840 align:center line:-1 Another aspect is that, from the point of view of the entire society, today’s intellectuals are “right-deviationist,” tending towards liberalism and holding negative attitudes towards the Cultural Revolution. 45 00:05:24.850 --> 00:05:32.680 align:center line:-1 For example, there is a notion that the Cultural Revolution caused an economic collapse. 46 00:05:32.690 --> 00:05:36.330 align:center line:-1 I think that is pure nonsense. It’s simply not the case. 47 00:05:36.340 --> 00:05:42.360 align:center line:-1 If the economy had collapsed at that time, there could not have been this kind of development later, and not to such an extent, either. 48 00:05:42.370 --> 00:05:47.990 align:center line:-1 This is how history works. When you are too close to it, it is hard to speak about it clearly. 49 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:55.400 align:center line:-1 What’s more, people who hold the power of speech will arrange history to suit themselves. 50 00:05:55.410 --> 00:06:01.570 align:center line:-1 So, I think that we will need a long period of time before we can look at the Cultural Revolution from an objective perspective. 51 00:06:01.580 --> 00:06:08.300 align:center line:-1 For the current situation, I think we should set aside the controversies. It would be better to stop arguing back and forth. 52 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:17.430 align:center line:-1 It is very hard to clarify this historical event in current times, because many people who experienced it are still alive. 53 00:06:17.440 --> 00:06:26.290 align:center line:-1 This is basically what I want to say. If I were to talk about the influence [of the Cultural Revolution] on me personally, 54 00:06:26.300 --> 00:06:46.700 align:center line:-1 [the biggest impact might be that] I read many books by Lu Xun [during the Cultural Revolution period], and went over [the novel] Water Margin many times. I think I was greatly impacted by Water Margin. 55 00:06:46.710 --> 00:07:00.670 align:center line:-1 Later I also wrote scholarly criticism. Friends said that my writing has Lu Xun’s style, a style of the Cultural Revolution. 56 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:25.850 align:center line:-1 Nowadays, society holds a negative attitude towards Water Margin, but I think this novel reflects some current phenomena in our country, and has a lot of things worth considering in it. 57 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:39.760 align:center line:-1 These two things I just mentioned had a relatively large influence. Other things I remember, just not that clearly, for example, going fishing, these kinds of pleasant things. 58 00:07:39.770 --> 00:07:53.570 align:center line:-1 We lived in the western suburbs, which were covered by paddies, so everywhere you’d hear the cries of frogs, especially in the summer. 59 00:07:53.580 --> 00:08:06.800 align:center line:-1 In the winter it was just pastoral scenery, with the large areas of farmland. Now it has been covered in houses and become a place full of pollution. 60 00:08:06.810 --> 00:08:15.990 align:center line:-1 Right now, the pollution in western Beijing is really serious. The pollution in the Haidian District of Beijing is severe. 61 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:24.290 align:center line:-1 It is said that Xi Jinping’s statement about “being able to see the water and the mountains” referred to that area. 62 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:31.690 align:center line:-1 At that time, transportation was also not very convenient. You’d have to wait a long time to see even one or two vehicles passing by. 63 00:08:31.700 --> 00:08:44.240 align:center line:-1 In retrospect, it was very pastoral. Trucks from Sijiqing [County] came to send vegetables to the city and to take away garbage. 64 00:08:44.250 --> 00:08:51.690 align:center line:-1 There was no urbanization, no urban pollution [at that time]. 65 00:08:51.700 --> 00:09:01.930 align:center line:-1 I think that was quite a good time. Maybe it's that now, we just remember the good things. Maybe it's due to its strong contrast to the current situation. But anyway, it's one kind of feeling about it. 66 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:05.990 align:center line:-1 Interviewer: Thank you for the interview. 67 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:08.067 align:center line:-1 Thank you.
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