WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:12.290 align:center line:-1[I] was born in 1953 in Harbin, Northeast China. From 1966 to 1976, I still lived in Northeast China. 2 00:00:12.300 --> 00:00:16.190 align:center line:-1 [So I had] relatively more experiences in the Northeast. 3 00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:25.460 align:center line:-1 I went "down to the countryside," worked in a factory, and started teaching in a middle school in 1976. 4 00:00:25.470 --> 00:00:29.990 align:center line:-1 We had just gone through the elementary to middle school [entrance] exams [when the Cultural Revolution began]. 5 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.840 align:center line:-1 Right as the exams finished, the Cultural Revolution started. We took the middle school entrance exam in June. 6 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:43.250 align:center line:-1 So, there was no time left to go to middle school; a great revolution just suddenly appeared. 7 00:00:43.260 --> 00:00:48.390 align:center line:-1 At that time, apparently, a 13-year-old kid didn't understand anything. His/Her understanding was limited. 8 00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:52.330 align:center line:-1 It wasn't like today; I think [today's] 13-year-old kids are really mature. 9 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:56.630 align:center line:-1 In that era, kids weren't that capable; they were really ill-informed and inexperienced. 10 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:03.990 align:center line:-1 Although we lived in a big city [that] wasn't considered too out-of-the-way, we... 11 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:12.120 align:center line:-1 From my first year of elementary school up until my sixth year, generally speaking, we were culturally illiterate. 12 00:01:12.130 --> 00:01:19.290 align:center line:-1 It's just like today, I see [people in] China who are [have earned] a doctorate, but in general, they're culturally illiterate. 13 00:01:19.300 --> 00:01:25.600 align:center line:-1 That is, their profession might be good; they might have earned Ph.D. degrees, but they lack culture. 14 00:01:25.610 --> 00:01:49.110 align:center line:-1 I think after western culture streamed into our culture for over 100 years, our culture was, generally speaking, just about wiped out. 15 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:57.190 align:center line:-1 Later, after going through the Cultural Revolution, on our nation's land, culture was generally a blank space, a cultural desert. 16 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:05.450 align:center line:-1 Think about our childhood: the only culture that nourished up growing up were the eight model operas. 17 00:02:05.460 --> 00:02:10.930 align:center line:-1 How could that count as culture?! So, it was pretty rotten. 18 00:02:10.940 --> 00:02:19.390 align:center line:-1 When [I] was 13, seeing this big revolution, [I] had few other feelings besides being shaken to the core. 19 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:25.700 align:center line:-1 As for my family, of course my father would've experienced an impact, because of his family background. 20 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:33.980 align:center line:-1 When the Kuomintang [Nationalists] were in Northeast China during the War of Resistance Against Japan, he had served as a member [of the Kuomintang]. 21 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:38.500 align:center line:-1 So, after Liberation, he was both united and under control. 22 00:02:38.510 --> 00:02:48.720 align:center line:-1 Because he was considered to be a person of influence in education, he was united. 23 00:02:48.730 --> 00:02:51.590 align:center line:-1 However, he was also put under control, since he was a Nationalist,... 24 00:02:51.600 --> 00:02:53.770 align:center line:-1 ...[that is], what [he'd] participated in was the Kuomintang [Nationalists'] War of Resistance. 25 00:02:53.780 --> 00:02:58.390 align:center line:-1 So, he was this kind of self-contradictory figure. 26 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:02.530 align:center line:-1 So, in each successive [political] movement, there was no escape for him. 27 00:03:02.540 --> 00:03:09.400 align:center line:-1 From the time I was small, I was in this kind of family, following along step by step. 28 00:03:09.410 --> 00:03:19.240 align:center line:-1 As to how great an impact [my family felt], it could barely count as an impact, since my father's fate was the same as countless others'. 29 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:28.190 align:center line:-1 There was nothing unique about it. He was struggled against—this I feel was also the common fate of countless others. 30 00:03:28.200 --> 00:03:32.440 align:center line:-1 I was [the same], I didn't experience any unique impact. 31 00:03:32.450 --> 00:03:36.380 align:center line:-1 My path of growing up, my experience was also like this. 32 00:03:36.390 --> 00:03:38.990 align:center line:-1 At age 16, I went "up to the mountains and down to the countryside" for a short while. 33 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:43.540 align:center line:-1 My father was rehabilitated, [so] I returned to the city. [Then, I] went to work in a factory. 34 00:03:43.550 --> 00:03:54.160 align:center line:-1 After [I'd] worked in a factory for a few years, my father recovered his good name, and I went to work as a high school teacher. 35 00:03:54.170 --> 00:04:00.370 align:center line:-1 After working as a high school teacher, I went directly to Nankai University to be a graduate student. 36 00:04:00.380 --> 00:04:07.770 align:center line:-1 After completing graduate school, I went to teach at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China, and [have worked there] up until today. 37 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:10.790 align:center line:-1 That's how it is; [I] didn't have a unique experience. 38 00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:25.180 align:center line:-1 It's not like other people, a few years older than I am, who during the Cultural Revolution might've had their fill of carnage and terror—some had personal experiences [like that]. 39 00:04:25.190 --> 00:04:38.980 align:center line:-1 Generally, because of [my] age, [I wasn't old enough] to be breaking through enemy lines, and couldn't have experienced much during this revolution. 40 00:04:38.990 --> 00:04:46.480 align:center line:-1 13 years old is still too young, whether for rioting, or for having [clear] perceptions—none are too clear. 41 00:04:46.490 --> 00:04:58.770 align:center line:-1 But from that year when [I was] 13 years old, I didn't understand the Cultural Revolution. 42 00:04:58.780 --> 00:05:06.370 align:center line:-1 [I felt] really, really shaken to the core. So, from that year I started reading history. 43 00:05:06.380 --> 00:05:18.250 align:center line:-1 From then until later, before [I was] 20, I'd carefully read almost all [books on] Chinese history, including The Twenty-Four Histories. 44 00:05:18.260 --> 00:05:24.250 align:center line:-1 Among my generation, maybe in China, there are few people who can surpass my reading. 45 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:37.130 align:center line:-1 Whether it’s astronomy or geology, or the Three Religions and Nine Schools, or Confucianism and Buddhism, or Christianity, I've read nearly all the classics. 46 00:05:37.140 --> 00:05:57.280 align:center line:-1 So, bearing confusion and a lack of understanding of why the Chinese nationality had become spiritually insane, mentally unstable, extremely crazy [疯狂], [I] developed a focus in many academic areas. 47 00:05:57.290 --> 00:06:08.840 align:center line:-1 Although I am far from having done [deep] research or made contributions in every field, in terms of the quantity of my reading, really few people [could surpass me]. 48 00:06:08.850 --> 00:06:15.250 align:center line:-1 I think in the modern era, only Liang Qichao and a few other people could surpass me. I don’t take average people into account. 49 00:06:15.260 --> 00:06:24.830 align:center line:-1 [As for] the Cultural Revolution, I could not use years’ worth of time, expend this much time on the whole history, and I don’t have this motivation. 50 00:06:24.840 --> 00:06:45.240 align:center line:-1 I definitely bore a confusion and lack of understanding to go down this path, so in the end, [I] went to the [multifunctional] party, political, and academic Central Party School of the Communist Party of China,... 51 00:06:45.250 --> 00:06:53.840 align:center line:-1 ...wanting to gain a real understanding of China’s history, because that place was extremely convenient. 52 00:06:53.850 --> 00:07:03.180 align:center line:-1 It was at once an academic division, a Party and government administration division, and also was closely connected with the Communist party. 53 00:07:03.190 --> 00:07:12.730 align:center line:-1 The people you met were high officials of the Communist party. 54 00:07:12.740 --> 00:07:21.310 align:center line:-1 If you wanted to see a provincial Party secretary [or] a division head, you could just knock on their door, since at intervals they’d rotate in their training, without exception. 55 00:07:21.320 --> 00:07:28.730 align:center line:-1 Every provincial Party secretary, every division head, every government employee, all started from there as the first step. 56 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:37.580 align:center line:-1 [When I was] in my 20s, actually, in terms of my thinking, I was constantly changing. 57 00:07:37.590 --> 00:07:46.780 align:center line:-1 From the beginning, with my lack of understanding of the Communist Party, up to later on, when [I] strongly opposed certain Communist Party policies—actually, it wasn’t just me. 58 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:53.320 align:center line:-1 Some people like Bo Xilai, like Wang Qishan, people I’d had contact with in the past, actually [they] were all like this. 59 00:07:53.330 --> 00:07:55.670 align:center line:-1 This generation of people walked the same path. 60 00:07:55.680 --> 00:08:06.600 align:center line:-1 [Of] the elite of every profession in China, there are many with whom I’m quite familiar, so [I know that] that everyone has read just about the same books. 61 00:08:06.610 --> 00:08:18.050 align:center line:-1 At that time, there were some internal books, as well as some books that couldn’t be openly spread around, many, many that everyone read. 62 00:08:18.060 --> 00:08:22.720 align:center line:-1 Just about [everyone] traveled the same path. 63 00:08:22.730 --> 00:08:28.390 align:center line:-1 Each person carried a bit of dust when the Cultural Revolution ended. 64 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:39.790 align:center line:-1 In general, people walking into a new environment traveled the same path. Each person’s path was bumpy. 65 00:08:39.800 --> 00:08:49.180 align:center line:-1 Or you could say, most people traveled like this: in their thinking, of course there were changes— 66 00:08:49.190 --> 00:09:03.500 align:center line:-1 --from not understanding, or even from completely believing in and worshipping the Communist Party to not understanding [it], to criticizing it from many aspects. 67 00:09:03.510 --> 00:09:12.900 align:center line:-1 Up until age 50, it changed into an understanding of many, many aspects. There were really many changes. 68 00:09:12.910 --> 00:09:19.130 align:center line:-1 Each person carried a bellyful of perplexity. Some became laid-off workers. 69 00:09:19.140 --> 00:09:25.760 align:center line:-1 Those who came out independently rushed into their own fields, each coming out step by step. 70 00:09:25.770 --> 00:09:36.490 align:center line:-1 There was [nobody] who firmly carried out a certain profession at first, or was a firm believer; [everyone] felt perplexed and went along step by step. 71 00:09:36.500 --> 00:09:39.960 align:center line:-1 The academic world was even more like this. 72 00:09:39.970 --> 00:09:50.010 align:center line:-1 No matter which department a scholar was in—especially in the humanities—[as] represented [by] Xu Youyu—weren’t these people all like this? 73 00:09:50.020 --> 00:09:51.800 align:center line:-1 Up until today it’s still contradictory. 74 00:09:51.810 --> 00:10:01.410 align:center line:-1 After all, should China go toward the democratic path? Can [it] follow completely? Or, should it return to [the path of] traditional Chinese politics? 75 00:10:01.420 --> 00:10:05.240 align:center line:-1 Two paths—we have no way to [unify our opinions]. Today, there’s no way to choose. 76 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:14.370 align:center line:-1 Up until today, people are getting more and more self-contradictory, since the path of democracy, since today in the United States—everyone sees this—democracy didn’t turn out so well. 77 00:10:14.380 --> 00:10:23.640 align:center line:-1 [Toward] the prospects of China’s traditional path, people don’t maintain a really optimistic attitude. 78 00:10:23.650 --> 00:10:31.100 align:center line:-1 Today’s path still must be chosen; it has not yet been settled. 79 00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:33.500 align:center line:-1 So, this was the generation of the Cultural Revolution. 80 00:10:33.510 --> 00:10:39.970 align:center line:-1 All along, I believed if this [my] generation would rise up, it would bring with it a powerful China. 81 00:10:39.980 --> 00:10:44.800 align:center line:-1 This generation led to the only-child generation, [who] cannot bear heavy responsibility. 82 00:10:44.810 --> 00:10:57.690 align:center line:-1 This generation, from age 10, began that kind of class struggle, mutual deception, two sides unable to co-exist, made their way through a bloody path of carnage. 83 00:10:57.700 --> 00:11:03.050 align:center line:-1 If these people couldn’t accomplish something remarkable, neither could earlier or later generations. 84 00:11:03.060 --> 00:11:16.420 align:center line:-1 Going back [to] my older siblings’ generation, they revered Marxism; their thinking was a rigid doctrine; they had no way of dealing with different situations. 85 00:11:16.430 --> 00:11:26.037 align:center line:-1 But this generation, my generation, no matter if it’s Bo Xilai, or if it’s Xi Jinping, they all brought about a grand situation.
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