Book Reviews
The relationship between the state and intellectuals in China has never been an easy one, either in imperial China or under Chinese Communist Party rule. In 1942, seven years before taking power, Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art made it clear to party members that art and culture were there to serve the party and the revolution. Culture in China from the 1950s to the 1970s was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and its state cultural bureaucracy. Conflict between intellectuals and the state over literary freedom erupted in 1956 in the period of relative liberalisation known as the Hundred Flowers, but its ruthless suppression led most creative people in China to keep their heads down, work in state-sponsored organisations or simply not publish.
Mao died in 1976, and, by the end of that decade, China had embarked on the Reform and Opening policy of Deng Xiaoping. This new environment permitted a renaissance in Chinese culture. During the 1980s, new literary publications mushroomed and the Chinese public was treated to the abstract and metaphysical work of misty poets’, and to ‘scar’ or ‘wound’ literature in which writers attempted to come to terms with the social and personal costs of the Mao decades.
Geremie Barmé’s superb book is a study of the emergence of the post-Mao culture of China in the 1980s and 1990s. The author has been deeply engaged with that culture throughout the period in question, as a translator, a writer, an academic. He has a distinguished track record of publishing in this field, including Seeds of Fire: Chinese Voices of Conscience (1986), New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices (1992) and Shades of Mao: the Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (1996).
The early chapters of In the Red outline the evolution of the literary scene in the 1980s and 1990s. All the usual suspects are present, including Wang Meng the ‘literary technocrat’, Liu Binyan, the respected campaigning journalist, and the pioneering television documentary, River Elegy, but many less well-known figures also make an appearance.
Later chapters deal with fascinating aspects of the emerging post-Mao culture. The liumang (literally ‘hooligan’) culture, seen by some as a nascent counter-culture has a strong attachment to the ideals of gemen’r
‘mateship’ or ‘buddyism’, the solidarity of young, primarily male gangs, and the novels of the urban writer Wang Shuo embody much of this new culture. After the military suppression of the Democracy Movement on 4 June 1989, the government and party attempted to revive the 1960’s cult of the selfless cadre, but the decadent Chinese cultures of Hong Kong and Taiwan were far more attractive to most young educated Chinese. Political satire in the humorous T-shirts of Kong Yongqian, which were the fashion statements of 1991, is the subject of a whole chapter and illustrated in a photo insert. Other chapters include essays introducing art exhibitions, discussion of controversial films such as Beijing Bastards and the politico-literary infighting that seems to be the lifeblood of the Beijing intellectual scene.
The book ends with thought-provoking observations on China-watching and Asian values and is an essential read for anyone who wants to find out what has been happening to Chinese culture since the death of Mao.
