Beijing Buzz Article

Beijing Buzz

Rising of the Red Guards

10/12/66

BEIJING-Today at Tiananmen Square millions of Chinese students gathered around to answer Chairman Mao’s call for Red Guards. The square is so tightly packed that there is no room for anybody much to move around. A lot of the students are waving their Little Red Book, singing Mao’s song, or crying. These students have waited for a few days now to see Chairman Mao. Mao had ordered the schools to be closed so that he can bring these kids together. Mao also said that the “Red Guards” can travel free and make revolutionary ties with the other comrades.

Mao told the Red Guards to capture and torture anybody who is a bourgeois, rightist, in the black class, or even being a capitalist. He believed that in order to have a good Communist country, that country has to have nobody against it. SO that’s why Mao wanted to get rid of those people.  “I love this moment. Standing with the other Red Guards waiting for Chairman Mao to come and greet us,” said Yuan-Shing, one of the Red Guards told me. He also told me that he participated in every movement that the Communist Party held. Yuan thinks it is improtant for every body to equal, that every can’t be rich or poor.

On the contrast my friend, Lee Long, who was accepted as a Red Guard, but instead he refuses. “The whole idea of ‘Red Guards’ is pathetic, what a waste of time for us; school should be first,” he explains. He is also an counter-revolutionist in which he believes a democracy is better. He loves democracy so much that he wants to join the Kuomintang group and help them.- Marvin Tao

My Editorial

Marvin Tao

12/12/66

Mao Zedong’s Call for Red Guards (A Despicable Idea)

Chairman Mao, the Communist Ruler of China called the creation of Red Guards in which will range form 15 to 20 years old. At the massive meeting at Tiananmen Square this past fall, Mao ordered all schools to be closed down and bought young scholars to be “re-educated” by the peasants in the countryside. By Mao doing this, he is not gaining anything. Instead of letting those young scholars go to school on a regular basis from them to have a bright future when they grow up. By creating Red Guards to destroy China’s old cultures is awful for China already, but it is even more dreadful to prevent kids from learning and do nonsense things instead.

    In the mission of the Red Guards, Mao is ordering all the Red Guards to eliminate all bourgeois, xenophile, black class people and anybody who is thought to be disgracing the Communist Party. They also have to destroy the Four Olds, which are Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs. That includes destroying old artifacts, religious objects such as holy writings, scared objects and as well as the temple itself. Sabotaging all these great artifacts and objects of China is like destroying the country itself, since abolishing all these is taking away China’s fame and great feats. What they are wrecking is beautiful art or rare objects that we don’t have the wisdom to make anymore. Mao also told the Red Guards that they could break into people’s houses if they are accused of having bourgeois objects or being a bourgeois to destroy or arrest them. Even if you are caught listening to foreign radio is forbidden! This is totally violates people privacy because it is unlawful to break into anybody’s house before asking for their permission first.

Some people might say that starting new China will help us get rid of bad habits such as foot binding and rule of an emperor. Also to get new ideas is an excellent thing to do because good ideas mean a brighter future. Unfortunately, this is a horrid idea to do. Even though we can get good ideas from other countries, some of them might refuse. This can led up to war or other catastrophes. Abolishing our old cultures is bad, too. We should preserve our Four Olds so that we can make benefits out of them. We can learn from them and use it now.

Gathering Red Guards to destroy the Four Olds and bourgeois people is a very cruel thing to do. It should cause China to be ashamed of itself because we are destroying our old culture, ideas, habits, and customs, which can be good and useful for the future, too.

Map of Cultural Revolution

       

         In the map above,the borders of the  Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) are shown here as the dotted lines as present day China and the bold lines shows the Qing dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, China includes the entire country of Mongolia and juts into present day Russia a little.Both periods have the city of Beijing as their capital city. Also both time periods includes the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas Mountain range. In the Cultural Revolution, the borders are much like today. But there is still a conflict between that Taiwan that it wants to be independent. Hong Kong was also didn’t belonged to China at time nor it was independent.

By Marvin Aramthip

Interview with Chairman Mao

Me: Hello Chairman Mao, thank you for joining us today for the interview.
Mao: Glad I can join.
Me: Okay lets begin:
Question 1: How do you feel about the Cultural Revolution so far?
Mao: Well I think it is going really good so far. My fellow Red Guards are doing an excellent job destroying bourgeois, rightists, capitalists and those who oppose me. I am trying my hardest to catch up with Russia and other communist countries. I am to throw away our old things and a fresh, new start.
Question 2: Why are your quotes are so important?
Mao: I think it is important for our comrades to know the meaning of life, which is why I wrote these quotes. They are to educate the mind of our future Chinese People. I especially published these books, called The Little Red Book or the Precious Red Book, to keep all my quotes in it. It is even pocket sized for convenient on-the-go.
Question 3: What is your main goal for China?
Mao: My main and ultimate goal is to make China to become an communist country. And as you know, China means “in the middle of the universe”, and I want it to happen like that. That is why I assigned Red Guards to destroy the Four Olds, and other things that are foreign to our country.
Question 4: How do you feel about capitalists and the counter-revolutionists in your country?
Mao: As you know I don’t old things and foreign people on my country. Hence, I tried to get them out of here as soon as possible. I believe foreign people are evil and mean human beings in this world. I also want China to become independent and not relying on outside help.
Question 5: All right Mr. Zedong, last question; what happened with you and Soviet Union?
Mao: It’s kind complicated with Nikita Khrushchev since we argued so much with Communism. I disagreed with him that he was ruling his people too weak. In order to have Communism, we need to rule through violence. I believe that violence, leniency, and tolerance is the key for my country.
Questions by Marvin Tao.

Art In The Cultural Revolution

Marvin Aramthip

2/1/12

Art in The Cultural Revolution

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong’s image or anything about him almost anywhere; songs, posters, documents, boxes, etc. Art was one of those among the daily life objects that depict Chairman Mao. Almost all of them have a quote that Mao said in them. It’s either to convince people to join with the Communist party, criticize capitalists, or to get rid of China’s Four Old. It usually depicts the people of China in regular clothes and either fololwing Mao or looking up to him. Mao’s main goal was to make China a communist state even though some people don’t like the idea of Communism.

Bibliography

Works Cited

China’s Communist Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/‌hi/‌english/‌static/‌special_report/‌1999/‌09/‌99/‌china_50/>.

The Cultural Revolution. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. <http://library.thinkquest.org/‌26469/‌cultural-revolution/>.

The Great Proletarian  Cultural Revolution in China, 1966-1976. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. <http://www.sjsu.edu/‌faculty/‌watkins/‌cultrev.htm>.

Jiang, Ji-Li. Red Scarf Girl. New York City: HarperCollins, 1997. Print.

Mao Zedong Thought II. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://chineseposters.net/‌themes/‌mao-thought-2.php>.

Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. <http://www.burkemuseum.org/‌static/‌ordinarylife/‌history.htm>.

Timeline and Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <http://depts.washington.edu/‌chinaciv/‌timeline.htm>.