"Local cadres were beaten in our village."

WEBVTT


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Interviewer: Hello! First, thank you for accepting my
interview.

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Interviewer: Could you please tell me the decade of your
birth? You don't need to say the exact year. You can just say "1950s,"
"1960s," etc.

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1960s.

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Interviewer: OK, 1960s. Could you please tell me where you
lived in China from 1966 to [1976]?

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I lived in Hubei [Province], in a place that’s now
called Xiantao, in [the city of] Jingzhou.

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Interviewer: During the Cultural Revolution, you were
still quite young.

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Interviewer: If I give you about ten minutes to share
memories of the Cultural Revolution, for example a specific incident,

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00:00:54.320 --> 00:01:08.520  align:center  line:-1
Interviewer: ...or a happy or sad moment, or something
about your family or friends – anything you want –

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00:01:08.530 --> 00:01:12.150  align:center  line:-1
Interviewer: ...what would you most want to talk about in
the initial ten minutes of the interview?

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Interviewer: Please speak freely.

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I really don’t have any memories, since I was still so
young.

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When the Cultural Revolution started, I was only about
three or four years old.

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Later, I heard that during the Cultural Revolution, people
were beaten, such as some officials in the area.

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I heard a bit about that.

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Interviewer: Was anyone in your family affected?

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No, no one. My parents weren’t officials.

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Interview: I see. So your understanding was that it was
only officials who were impacted?

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I think so, along with some intellectuals.

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Interviewer: Later, do you think there was anything from
the Cultural Revolution that had a positive or negative influence on your
life?

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I don’t really think so.

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Interviewer: No influence?

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Well, I think the influence may have been indirect, for
example, an influence on education after the Cultural Revolution.

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Interviewer: What kind of indirect influence on
education?

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For example, we didn’t place as much importance on
education as before [the Cultural Revolution].

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When we got to middle school [age], we often went out to
do manual labor.

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I think maybe this [decreased emphasis on education] is a
result of the Cultural Revolution.

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But we didn’t feel any direct influence.

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Interviewer: Today, do you have any interest in the topic
of the Cultural Revolution?

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Yes, I do, actually.

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Interviewer: You do. How come you’re interested?

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Later on, I knew why the Cultural Revolution had
happened;

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I feel it was because at that time Mao Zedong wanted to
make Liu Shaoqi step down. So that was the motivation.

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Interviewer: Do you have an opportunity to talk about the
Cultural Revolution with your children? Are they interested in it?

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My children are all growing up in the United States.

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They’re not interested; they don’t know this
history.

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Interviewer: They don’t understand it at all, right?

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Right.

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Interviewer: Is there anything related to the Cultural
Revolution you want to say more about?

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Not really. Basically, I think the Cultural Revolution was
initiated by Mao Zedong to get Liu Shaoqi to step down.

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Its impact on China was still huge, and it hurt a lot of
people.

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Interviewer: Your own family didn’t feel too great an
impact, but through other channels you’ve been able to understand the
impact on other people.

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Right, through reading books and watching TV dramas.

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Interviewer: Thank you for accepting my interview.

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Thank you.