Response by Maya Novák-Cogdell
On Friday, October 24th, the Greater Chinese Association of Charleston, in partnership with the Chinese Studies department at the College of Charleston, hosted a discussion and screening of the film Coming Home (2014). The film spans decades and centers on how one Chinese family was splintered by the Cultural Revolution, and how they were able, in some capacities, to put the pieces back together. The discussion that followed the film was equally interesting, giving audience members, some with very personal connections to the effect of the Cultural Revolution, an arena to voice their (varied) opinions on China’s memory of the Great Leap Forward, the Down to the Countryside movement, the Red Guards, and communism with Chinese characteristics, as well the film itself.
The movie begins in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, and centers on a small family, Li, Yu and their daughter, Dandan, Yanshi. Li, accused of being a rightist, has been imprisoned, and later is sent to the countryside to be re-educated, fracturing the family for many years, and causing its remaining members to be judged by others on account of the reasons for Li’s absence. However, the movie’s primary focus is on the way the family reunites, attempting to forge new ties where the previous intimate family dynamic is irreparably damaged; marked by the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution that forced them apart in the first place.
Following the film screening, a panel of C of C faculty members with distinct connections to China set up in the front, and opened the flood for questions, interpretations criticism of the film, which quickly lead to an open discussion on the Cultural Revolution. Dr. Lei Jin commented that Chinese people can have many kinds of memory of the events and times. Official memory, social memory and personal memory were three differentiated by Dr. Jin. Of the three, official memory, created, in a sense, by the Chinese government, acknowledged the events of the time but did not dwell on the horrors or account for any lasting effects. Dr. Jin noted that in a newly-renovated Chinese history museum in Beijing, the Cultural Revolution received only one small exhibit space, which glossed over the true impact of the era. Social memory, specifically representations in film and literature, were pronounced to be more honest and telling of what conditions and experiences were really like. However, censorship on both the individual and state levels is seen as a barrier for these mediums (even Coming Home) in informing the audience. Finally, personal memory was described as being the most anxiety provoking of all three—many audience members recalled that family members or friends who had been directly impacted by the Cultural Revolution were not quick to share their stories; most outright refusing to acknowledge what had happened, or giving only the history that the Party had approved. In one heated moment during the event, a man stood to confidently declare (to the outward chagrin of most of the crowd) that the Cultural Revolution had only affected a minority (one to five percent, in his estimation) of the population, and that most Chinese citizens actually benefitted from it, and now held it to be a positive part of their national history. His opinion was not widely held by those assembled, and yet could be seen as an extension of the exact re-configuring of history that we were dissecting.
Another audience member remarked about wanting to know more about how understanding of the Cultural Revolution era depended on the age of the narrator. The story might vary widely, one could argue, depending on if the narrator was of the generation of the Red Guard vs. the previous generation they were taught to mistrust, or of the children of Red Guard members, born into a time where much of history was taboo. Age group membership, panelists and audience members agreed, seemed not to affect the willingness of the individual to share their personal memory, and instead had a greater impact on the kinds of art created, particularly in the representations of the Red Guard in this media—both negatively as an expression of guilt and no-so-negatively, causing the audience to identify them as acting out of fear, or because of their youth, and effectively humanizing, if not apologizing for their actions.
Connections between the Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust are frequently drawn, but personally I find that comparisons to the Dirty Wars in Latin America are more accurate, specifically regarding collective national/regional and global memory. While, likely because of the maintained cultural integrity of Jewish communities in worldwide diaspora, as well as the global intervention and action in World War II, public knowledge and memory of the Holocaust is brutal, but widespread, and German reparations domestically and outwardly have been carefully exacted. There have been, however, no Nuremberg trials for the events of the Cultural Revolution. Similarly, in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, among other nations formerly ruled by military dictatorships (juntas), war criminals have been granted amnesty or have avoided trial. In most cases, this stems from a perception that people want to move on from these events, echoed by the unwillingness of survivors to share their experiences. Literature, particularly an increase in postmodern resistance literature, and the usage of magical realism and fragmentation to express an inability to trust the “official story” and the need to create a narrative, or at least perception of one’s own, also seems to reflect the events of the Dirty War. It seems almost ironic that although the Cultural Revolution targeted rightists and the Dirty Wars leftists; intellectuals, doctors, and students were persecuted in both series of conflicts.
Westerners, especially at the time of these traumas, were not as concerned with China or Latin America as we were with (Western) Europe, which likely also informs our heightened awareness of the Holocaust and our lack of awareness of the Cultural Revolution or the Dirty Wars. This then, makes events like this one, fostering discussion and critical thought about a difficult and relatively unfamiliar topic, more important. Audience members noted that though the plot had “Chinese characteristics”, the story was universally accessible, and could be adapted and applied to other eras of violent political and cultural anguish and upheaval. In the face of the ongoing and consistently appalling violence in Iraq, Syria, Mexico and Somalia, etc., it is even more important for students, faculty, and especially community members (the inclusion of which greatly diversified the discourse and analysis), to come together and actively participate in didactic memory of past trauma, to foster a dedication to eradicating suffering in the world we all live in.