Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (57 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Page 188
Xu Jilin: When I first heard
The Red Sun
I thought it was sacrilegious. The songs did not feel the same at all, although by the end I was won over by the music. The tape secularizes what were originally pure, religious hymns. Once people sung them with fervor; now they are sung in a new type of arrangement and with a different sentiment. There is an effervescence in the singing that is made possible by distance. The original songs were heavily laden with a complex of signs and significance; now all that remains is a [version of the old] melody and rhythm. The actual ideological content, value, and psychological thrust of the songs has disappeared entirely and has been replaced by a totally different sensibility.
That we can accept these songs and see them in a new light is proof that we can now deconstruct the "time of suffering" and our memories of it. It is an era that has left us with an extremely complex legacy. Why do some people feel deeply touched by these songs? We cannot avoid the fact that some things about the past are worth valuing, like the sense of simplicity and purity people had, for example, their piety, a belief that great goodness was possible and that people were good; a belief that you should not become entrapped in your own inner world and you should throw yourself into things and thereby find a meaning in life. Today we lack all these things.
Hong Kong and Taiwan Canto Pop songs might be easy listening but the lyrics are pathetic. They are all self-indulgent ditties about minor personal tribulations; they reflect a sense of absurdity and meaninglessness; they show a desire for new social contacts and a position in life and give voice to the sense of constriction that comes from being isolated in a large city. In the mainland songs of the 1950s and 1960s, there is virtually no clear delineation between the individual and the collective. Everything was done communally and when you hear the songs of that age you feel the self-confidence, dignity, and enthusiasm that people enjoyed at the time. People have been exposed to so much Canto Pop that they know its inadequacies; they feel the need for a collective belief system, a means for the individual to relate to society, and they have discovered some meaning and fulfillment in the songs of
The Red Sun.
The popularity of the tape is significant in many ways and, although it will fall from favor before too long, I believe that a great deal can be said about it in terms of social and cultural psychology.
He Ping: Shen Rong wrote a story some time ago called "Ten Years Younger" and I'm sure that [like the characters in that story] all Chinese people from their forties up wish they could shed ten years.
4
Listening to
The Red Sun,
people aren't simply recalling Mao, they are reliving their lost youth. On one level, that decade simply doesn't exist. Be that as it may, we feel there are things about those years that are worth remembering, worth

 

Page 189
giving clear and positive expression to. [The famous literary historian and writer] Qian Zhongshu once said that "the media is the message."
5
Though the content of some of these songs may be fairly ridiculous, given a suitable treatment the melodies appeal to large numbers of people.
Yang Jianguo: In musical terms, quite a few paeans for Mao have appeared in recent years, like "The Sun Is So Red and Chairman Mao Is So Dear," "A Mile-High Skyscraper Shoots Out of the Ground." Old songs popular with rusticated youth and prison songs have also made an appearance.
6
None of these, however, have been as well-received as
The Red Sun.
One of the reasons for its success is that the new arrangement is entirely in keeping with the sentiments, musical tastes, and up-beat attitude of today's audiences. The songs make you feel good; they allow you to recall all the good things about your youth and relive the past in a new and positive way. Younger listeners enjoy the songs not simply because they are used to Canto Pop and a Euro-American style of singing, but also because
The Red Sun
exudes a romantic spirit that they crave. They might not know what the Eight-Word Constitution is,
7
but they can sense the exciting spirit of the past and don't simply dismiss it as absurd.
Yan Bofei: The popularity of
The Red Sun
is proof that the power of ideology has gradually waned in recent years. But it also reflects a sense of crisis. For a few generations, people believed that all they had to do was give themselves up entirely; in the present crisis people don't have the safety net of any belief system.
He Ping: You must admit that the songs in
The Red Sun
reflect a peasant civilization that is superficially very self-confident. But its success lies in the fact that the songs aren't sung as they were originally. If the originals were released, people would be repulsed. When some of the Model Operas were restaged, audiences felt that the movements of the characters were a burlesque; everything was too obvious and the operas weren't well received at all.
Xu Jilin: The reason I can enjoy
The Red Sun
is that the musical arrangement is very much in keeping with my present psychological state. In the past, this music would have incited me to get involved in things and I wouldn't have thought much of the actual aesthetic value of the songs; now I can enjoy them from a perspective of distance and on an aesthetic level. I saw a performance of "Sister Jiang" a while ago.
8
It was in the same style of the original [1960s version] and I thought it could become a classic if they only changed a few things. There are some really good arias in it, but if you stick too closely to the original [score] it feels unbearably drawn out. Shakespeare's plays have been adapted for every age and they are still

 

Page 190
popular. If they stuck with a Victorian interpretation of the plays, no one would want to watch them.
Yang Jianguo: The Japanese did a production of Mozart's
The Magic Flute
in which they used an astronaut and electronic music. It was reportedly very successful. Conceptually, we're just incredibly conservative.
He Ping: There are works that can live on beyond the age that gave them birth, but they need to be reworked so they can enter into a dialogue with contemporary audiences. Another thing that
The Red Sun
has done is to remind us of the extraordinary power of the media. Cassette tapes are a medium that is inexpensive to produce, easy to use, and quickly disseminated.
Xu Jilin:
The Red Sun
has led me to consider the question of the resources of popular culture. Pop culture can develop from highbrow culture. Take Richard Clayderman, for example. His piano music is adapted from classical works. It can also come from local culture, as in the case of so much American musicjazz, rock'n'roll, discowhich has been heavily influenced by black music.
The Red Sun
originated with historical songs. But I feel we should also add a note about self-awareness. You need to be completely clear about your original material and have a full understanding of and familiarity with the audience you are working for. The popularity of
The Red Sun
also reflects the paucity of contemporary pop music on the Mainland. It is obviously easier to enter into a dialogue either with the past [as in the case of the music of
The Red Sun
] or overseas [Hong Kong and Taiwan music] than with the rapidly changing realities of contemporary life. At best we are using outside cultural contact as an intermediary for establishing a dialogue with our own present. Given this creative deficit, South China is definitely lagging behind the North. At least the North has given us the "Northwest Wind."
9
Yang Jianguo: The success of
The Red Sun
will lead to a fad for similar songs that will last for a while. Right at this moment a number of record companies are preparing to release other revolutionary songs, including quotation songs.
10
I'm not sure that this new deluge of music will be as much of a money-spinner as expected. The past has effectively acted as a massive form of presale advertising [for cassettes like
The Red Sun
]. Everyone's familiar with them so you don't need to spend any money on promoting them. But you can have too much of a good thing, and people can easily be turned off.
Notes
1. Many revolutionary leaders like Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai, and even Hu Yaobang, hailed from Hunan Province.
2.
Xiaohu dui
was a teeny-bopper Taiwanese group of the early 1990s.

 

Page 191
3. In late 1985, arias from a number of Cultural Revolution-period Modern Revolutionary Model Operas (
xiandai geming jingxi,
or
yangbanxi
), in particular ''The Red Lantern" and "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy," were set to disco music and sold in cassette form as well as played on radio stations throughout the country. This led to a debate about the validity of reviving a widely reviled form of mass culture that was so closely associated with their patron, Jiang Qing. Outraged opponents of the operas like the Shanghai writer Wang Ruowang and the Beijing writer-bureaucrat Deng Youmei helped dampen the general enthusiasm for this tacky reprisal of the Cultural Revolutionary past. See Barmé, "Revolutionary opera arias sung to a new, disco beat."
4. In her comic late 1980s' story
"Jianqu shisui"
the novelist Shen Rong speculated as to what would happen if Party Central issued a document making everyone in China ten years younger enabling them to make up for time lost due to the Cultural Revolution.
5. Presumably, Qian was quoting Marshall McLuhan's famous line from the 1960s.
6. Songs of rusticated youth (
zhiqing gequ
) were popular with educated urban youth who were sent to the countryside in the late 1960s. Prison songs (
qiuge
) enjoyed a measure of popularity in 1987.
7. The Eight-Word Constitution or Eight-Point Charter for Agriculture (
Bazi xianfa
) was a Central Committee directive issued in 1958 as part of a socialist and communist education movement to increase production by paying attention to (and these are the eight words) "soil, fertilizer, water, seeds, close-planting, protection, tool improvement and field management" (
tu, fei, shui, zhong, mi, bao, guan, gong
).
8. For "Sister Jiang," see the note to Liu Xiaoqing, "A Star Reflects on the Sun" above.
9. The "Northwest Wind" (
Xibeifeng
) was a style of music combining local northwestern Chinese folk music troupes with Canto Pop that swept the nation in 1988. There are those who claim, however, that the first "Northwest Wind" songs came from Guangzhou and that much musical innovation spreads from the HK-Taiwan-influenced South.
10. Quotation songs (
yuluge
) were Mao quotes put to music. These generally tuneless and clumsy songs enjoyed considerable popularity in the early years of the Cultural Revolution. Twenty-two of these were published under the title "Wei Mao zhuxi yulu puqu." A recorded version of these songs was also produced, see
Wei Mao zhuxi yulu puqu,
Beijing: Zhongguo changpianshe, 1967. Some 365 Mao quotes were eventually put to music, the leading composer of such works being Jie Fu (Li Jiefu), who wrote over 70 tunes in a two-year period. See Lin Hongfa, "`Wenge' zhong Mao zhuxi yuluge dansheng shimo." As in so many other areas of contemporary Chinese life, litigation has also marred the post-revolutionary fate of the quotation songs. The family of the late Li Jiefu successfully sued the Musical and Film Publishing House of the Beijing Film Academy for breach of copyright in their illegal use of Li's musical adaptations of Mao quotations, songs for the stage and the film version of the musical extravaganza "The East Is Red," released on cassette in 1977, and in music used in the
The Red Sun
tape discussed at this forum. See "Beijing Haidianqu renmin fayuan gongkai shenli Li Jiefu gequ qinquanan"; the cassette tape
Mao zhuxi yulu gequ/Dahai hangxing kao duoshou,
Beijing: Beijing dianying xueyuan chubanshe, 1992; and, for a "rock'n'roll" version of the quotation songs, see
Mao zhuxi yulugeyaogun lianchang,
Kunming: Yunnan yinxiang chubanshe (no date).

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