I don’t think this bears much weight of any sort, but I’m prefacing this to state that she was never a Little Red Soldier (neither was my father, however one of my father’s sister and her husband were).

This is what my recollection of what my mom has told me over the years. So some things may not be entirely accurate but for the most part it is.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts (will link it later if I find it), my mom grew up in the cultural revolution era (CRE, ~1966-1976), and was sent to the boonies for some time to do farm work as a teen.

My mom rarely talks about those events in the past. Nothing bad happened, it’s just she views it as something she had to do and that’s that. Once in a blue blue moon though she might bring up a name or two whom she had met during that period, but most of the time it’s about this particular elderly woman who took really took her in as her own daughter in a foreign town. My mom kept in touch with her every now and again, and I had met this elderly woman when I was young. As a child, it never really occurred to me the magnitude and meaning of its place (the cultural revolution era) in history until I was much older.

It was just a part of life for nearly everyone around my mom’s age. It kept her out of trouble. It provided purpose and direction, purpose and direction that people now can argue until the cows came home on whether it was a good thing or an evil thing. Opinions vary based on upbringing background, political standpoint, social economic class, etc etc, but nonetheless purpose and direction it did provide.

There were also many theater days in my mom’s former life. Events like this and this and many others like them, that she thoroughly enjoyed because she liked being on stage, singing/dancing with her friends. She tells me she was very good. She still remembers many of the songs, and I have heard some of them when I was young.

I came across this site when I googled — amazing what you can find on the internet — and it has some of those songs in MP3 format. One cannot deny the fact that the tunes are very upbeat and heartwarming, never mind what the lyrics actually mean. Those propaganda-makers were really good, as in effective. (Be sure to turn your volume down if you’re at work).

Each culture has to evolve by themselves. Outside forces can only do so much, the rest and majority of the evolving has to be from within. It’s the same analogy as one cannot be helped unless he/she wants to be helped and willingly make changes from within. And it takes time. Nothing is overnight.

I’m not here to argue whether or not Mao was an ev*l force. That gets too personal as each of us hold different political viewpoints. As they say, in general, don’t discuss politics, religion, or sex. The fact remains though that China today is far better off than 50 or 100 years ago, in nearly every aspect. Can anyone say “bound feet?!” (If you don’t know what that is, google the term.. but be warned, it’s not pretty) But it still has a long long way to go.

The other part of CRE was not so innocuous. My aunt and uncle (see above) were Little Red Soldiers during the CRE. I remember Great-Grandmother, GG, talking about how during a few visits where they destroyed almost everything on the Ancestors Alter and took away lots of things.

In Part II, I will talk about how my grandfather was tortured by the Little Red Soldiers and other various authorities because he was seen as a middle/upper class businessman.