post-Cultural Revolution Research Articles

Reviewing the current status of the preservation of Gannan Tea Picking opera

Gannan Tea Picking Opera, a cherished cultural heritage, has been shaped by historical developments, government support, educational initiatives, and artistic innovation. The multifaceted efforts to safeguard and promote Gannan Tea Picking Opera. Through interviews with key informants and analysis of historical data, the importance of creativity in preserving Gannan Tea Picking Opera's cultural legacy is highlighted, emphasizing the integration of review and preservation in artistic innovation. Government support has played a pivotal role in providing policy input and services for preserving Gannan Tea Picking Opera, fostering an environment conducive to creative expression and cultural preservation. Integration into educational institutions and community engagement initiatives has furthered the opera's preservation efforts, ensuring its transmission to future generations. Moreover, music reveals a dynamic interplay between tradition and innovation, with post-Cultural Revolution developments showcasing a heightened emphasis on musical experimentation while retaining the essence of the traditional style and promoting the Gannan Tea Picking Opera as a vibrant emblem of Chinese cultural identity.

The transformation of images of Nezha and the changing cultural discourses in Chinese national style animated films from 1979 to 2019

Nezha is a mythological and dynamic character in the Chinese cultural discourse. In traditional China, the mythological character of Nezha represents a cultural integration between Daoism and Buddhism. By applying the Chinese animated films as an approach, this article focuses on exploring the changing cultural discourses of the Chinese national style in post-Maoist cinema through critical analysis of the character of Nezha and the deployment of Daoist philosophy in the construction of Chinese national style from the post-Cultural Revolution context to the post-Socialist context. This article examines two Chinese national-style animated films. The first film is Nezha Naohai (1979) which was produced in 1979, and another animated film is Nezha Zhi Motong Jiangshi (2019) which was produced in contemporary China. Through the film and cultural analysis of Nezha Naohai (1979), this article argues that the Daoist philosophy engages in the cultural discourse of Chinese national style and shapes the narrative, rhetoric, aesthetics and characterisation of Nezha in the post-Cultural Revolution context. The contemporary film Nezha Zhi Montong Jiangshi (2019) reflects an ideological change in the discourse of Chinese soft power states the power of Chinese culture including Daoist philosophy within a modern and scientific paradigm, which promotes a more international Chinese national identity and national style.

The formation and disintegration of Hong Kong Maoists in the 'Fiery Era' (1970-1981)

In 1976, the end of the Cultural Revolution quickly resulted in disillusionment among Hong Kong's Maoists, with organisational disintegration following soon after. However, most scholarship has overlooked the multiple factors resulting in the rise and fall of Maoist activism in Hong Kong. In order to investigate this conjuncture, this article centrally explores the early formation and internal structure of the Maoist community in Hong Kong, as well as the external factors of the political changes it experienced, such as the crucial moments of the 5 April Tiananmen protest, the fall of the Gang of Four, and the post-Cultural Revolution transformation, which is likely to have led to their final disintegration. Compared to other studies of global Maoism, the history of Maoism in Hong Kong remains largely unexplored. This article provides some details, describing Maoist internal life and giving an account of its ideological disputes with opponents, such as Hong Kong's Trotskyists, in order to further understanding of its unknown history.

Looking through the Lens of Bourdieu: A Corpus-based Study of English Romance Fiction Translation Concerning the Translation Strategies of CSIs

Translatorial habitus is a key term incorporated Bourdieusian sociological concept of habitus and Translation Studies’ translation norms. In light of Bourdieu’s theoretical model of sociology, this study sought to address the translatorial behaviour of the Iranian translators of English romance novels in terms of the translation strategies of Culture-Specific Items (CSIs) before and after the Cultural Revolution of 1980 in Iran. 4282 sentences containing CSIs were obtained from Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, the Great Gatsby, and their two Persian translations. Based on how each CSI was translated, they were grouped under one of Liang's proposed categorization. The frequency and percentages of each procedure were calculated using SPSS software. Moreover, the results were cross-checked with a qualitative analysis of some archived interviews printed in Motarjem [the translator] journal, newspapers, and WebPages. The evidence from this study suggests that there was a clear foreignizing trend among Iranian translators of the English romance novels when translating CSIs not only in the Pre-Cultural Revolution era but also in the Post-Cultural Revolution era. Also, a significant difference between various strategies utilized in the two eras was detected.

Mysterious Buddha, popular cinema, and the new Chinese film culture in the early 1980s

ABSTRACT Mysterious Buddha was one of the earliest commercial genre films made in post-Cultural Revolution China. Drawing from the traditional Chinese popular literature of chuanqi, crime thrillers, martial arts films, and horror films, the film was a smash hit with domestic audiences despite condemnation for its poor taste by many critics. The significance of Mysterious Buddha lies not only in its pioneering efforts in reviving the martial arts film genre in the PRC, which is the primary focus of previous studies, but—more importantly—in its ability to reflect the containment of popular cinema and the subsequent ascension of elite film culture. An unmistakable commercial “other,” the film represents a conspicuous departure from Socialist orthodox with its emphasis on plot over characters, native cultural relics over modernization, and bodily confrontation over intellectual engagement. The film was publicly denounced by many influential public figures but was eventually authorized for release. Its haphazard treatment indicated the emergence of a new film bureaucracy, professional institutions, and power balance while a new cinematic direction was sought in the changed political and cultural climate. This chapter reappraises the 1980s’ popular cinema represented by Mysterious Buddha and provides a case study to demonstrate the contested nature of nascent Chinese popular culture in the early 1980s.

The Great Leap Backward: Forgetting and Representing the Mao Years

The Great Leap Backward: Forgetting and Representing the Mao Years

The liberalism of fear in China: Hu Ping and the uses of fear and memory in contemporary Chinese liberalism

ABSTRACT Contemporary political theorists have sought to invoke Judith N. Shklar's liberalism of fear in discussions about human rights across cultural and national boundaries. These discussions would benefit from thinking with Chinese liberal thinker and activist Hu Ping, who considered the liberalism of fear an accurate description of the rediscovery of liberalism in contemporary China after the post-Cultural Revolution. Hu's different uses of memories of the Cultural Revolution not only reflected Shklar's thesis in the liberalism of fear that liberals should speak to memories of cruelty to inspire a liberal politics of cruelty-prevention. They also demonstrated how social and political contexts shaped political needs, which, in turn, changed readings of the past and challenged important assumptions in Shklar's political theory. Hu's uses of memory and fear shed light on the limits of Shklar's approach, revealed the importance of confronting the question of courage in any applications of the liberalism of fear, and called for more nuanced discussions about the conditions upon which memories of cruelty could be considered a pro-liberal force.

Privacy, reputation, and control: public figure privacy law in contemporary China

ABSTRACT Privacy law, as it regulates the nonconsensual disclosure of personal life, is instrumental to how reputation in human society becomes created, destroyed, and redistributed. In the contemporary Chinese society, as in elsewhere, privacy protection, and the lack thereof, have played an important role in the making of the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ in the society’s reputation landscape. This Article makes a systematic effort towards accounting for China’s contemporary legal regime that regulates its public figure privacy problems. Through examining leading court cases and relevant regulatory practices, this Article demonstrates that the Chinese privacy regime in the twenty-first century, as embedded in the country’s overall information regulation apparatus, differs in significant ways from the corresponding Western paradigms in terms of its operational structure, cultural logic, and political dynamics. Since the beginning of the post-Cultural Revolution era, China’s status-based privacy regime has for the most time been highly protective of government officials until they become expelled from the official ranks. It is often laissez-faire with respect to the privacy of famous individuals outside of the government system, but with notable exceptions for those enjoying an exalted status in the realm of high culture. Furthermore, it can be conspicuously hostile towards grassroot figures who aspire for the limelight. The impact such public figure privacy regime may have had on China’s reputation landscape is conceivably regressive. As this Article explains, underlying such regime is a lasting, albeit evolving, cultural tradition that tends to associate privacy protection with a hierarchical moral outlook. Notwithstanding the importance of culture, this Article further argues that China’s privacy regulation must also be understood as embedded in the country’s political context. As the status-based privacy regime produces disparate reputational consequences, it provides the state with a lever to incentivize and manage a diverse network of elites, whom the state considers as agents for upholding its political and moral authority and implementing its policy agenda. China’s privacy regime in the new millennium may thus be understood as having stemmed from an intricate political process as the state strategically responds to rising challenges from increasingly powerful and competing market and social forces over the production of information, fame, and influence.

Looking through the lens of Bourdieu: A corpus-based Study of English Romance Fiction Translation

Habitus is one of the key concepts of the Bourdieusian sociology which Translation Studies has benefited. Based on the Bourdieusian sociological model, this study investigated the translatorial habitus of the Iranian translators of English romance novels as far as the translation strategies of culture-specific items (CSIs) are concerned before and after the Cultural Revolution of 1980 in Iran. The research data include 4282 sentences containing CSIs extracted from Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, and The Great Gatsby, and their two Persian translations. The extracted data were analyzed, adopting a consolidated typology of translation procedures for CSIs. The strategies employed for translating CSIs are presented with frequencies and percentages using descriptive statistics. Moreover, the results were corroborated with a qualitative analysis of some archived interviews printed in Motarjem [the translator] journal. The investigation revealed three essential findings: a marked source-oriented tendency among Iranian translators of the English romance novels when translating CSIs in the Pre-Cultural Revolution era, maintaining the same tendency in the Post-Cultural Revolution era, and finally a growing tendency in moving from Pre- to Post-Cultural Revolution era. The results of the Chi-square test highlighted a significant difference between various strategies used in two eras.

Post-cultural revolution Chinese cinema of betrayal: the figure of the collaborator and the doubling paradigm

ABSTRACT Drawing on the prevailing theoretical paradigm of post-Holocaust research, which defines primarily the post-traumatic subject positions of victim and perpetrator, this paper focuses on the Chinese cinema’s representation of collaboration during the Cultural Revolution (CR). It discusses the issue of betrayal inside the real or symbolic family, which is still unexplored and even overlooked by Chinese cinema research. Furthermore, it analyzes the prolonged and profound identity crisis generated by the CR as presented by twenty-first century blockbuster (e.g. Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home) and independent films (e.g. Wu Wenguang’s 1966: My Time in the Red Guards and Investigating My Father) especially through the figure of the collaborator and the destructive dynamics of betrayal. In these films, the process I term the ‘doubling paradigm,’ and its ‘doubling effect’ enable the spectator to come to terms with the dimensions of pain and loss caused by collaboration, and the ethical repercussions of revolutionary morality. Following an analysis of the four forms of collaboration which emerge from this corpus, this discussion points to the potential contribution of Chinese ‘cinema of betrayal’ to the undertheorized subject position of the collaborator, beyond the Chinese case.

“Misty Poetry” as a reflection of the nature of Chinese literature of the “New Period” (second half of the 20th century)

The subject of the study is the formation of “Misty Poetry” trend in Chinese literature of the late 20th century. The study aims at the disclosure of the dynamics of “Misty Poetry” within modernist paradigm against the backdrop of Chinese literature of the “New Period”. The method is grounded in identification of key modernist poetics categories, perceived and transformed in the versification practice of Misty Poetry. Sociocultural contextualization method is employed to locate Misty Poetry in the post Cultural Revolution aesthetic and ideological context of China. The study results cover the lyrical attempt at a modernistic search for identity in Chinese literature of the “New Period”. The pursuit of self and vaster category of identity is considered and comprehensively analyzed through the array of representative poetic texts (Zhang Ming, Meng Lang, Bei Dao, Duo Duo). “Misty Poetry” marked the beginning of the “New Period” in the history of modern Chinese literature. The trend demonstrated qualitative changes in the ideological foundations and artistic practice of the new poetry of China in the 20th century. “Misty Poetry” became a kind of aesthetic protest against the ideological and artistic clichés of the preceding cultural-historical era. The concept of “self” within the paradigm of Misty Poetry is corroborated to be perceived as an independent consciousness, not dictated by any ideology or doctrine, disclosed through the means of a poet’s internal thoughts depictions, both conscious and subconscious. The paper results demonstrate the transformative potential of the Misty Poetry trend poetics on prosodic level, level of stylistic imagery and genre specificity. The paper interpretative results explore the significance of the “Misty Poetry” in the way that it revived and gave a new impetus to the further development to the humanistic orientation of Chinese poetry. The novelty is connected with the aesthetic means of territorializing the marginal space that provides the poet and the poetic protagonist with a critical distance from the dominant discourse of the political-cultural establishment of post Cultural Revolution China are disclosed. The paper concludes the Misty Poetry trend drew attention to the subjective beginning in art and opened the discourse for an active search for a new artistic reality in which the legacy of classical poetry of China, the best humanistic traditions of the new poetry of the early 20th century and the modernist features of Western poetry were combined.

Translation, transformation and refiguration: The significance of Jingdezhen and the materiality of porcelain in the work of two contemporary Chinese artists1

Abstract In December 2016 a group of researchers led by Professor Jiang Jiehong travelled to Jingdezhen as fieldwork for the Everyday Legend research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Representing the White Rabbit Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art, Australia, I was invited to participate. This article developed from reflections on the fieldwork component of the research project, as well as the formal and informal discussions that took place, at the time and subsequently, in Shanghai, Birmingham, Groningen and London. In 2018, as a further development of this process of reflection, I conducted semi-structured interviews with two artists of different generations: the article examines how Liu Jianhua and Geng Xue approach the use of porcelain as a contemporary art material. Each has spent extensive periods of time in Jingdezhen and each is immersed in this particularly Chinese tradition. At the same time, each is identified (and identifies themselves) as practising in a global contemporary art context and participates in exhibitions and exchanges internationally. Considered in the context of current and historical discourses around global contemporaneity and its manifestations in twenty-first-century China, their work illuminates the key question that the Everyday Legend project was designed to examine: how can contemporary art and traditional Chinese craft practices intersect, informing and enriching each other? As representatives, respectively, of the generation who emerged into the first years of the post-Cultural Revolution Reform and Opening period, and of a younger generation educated partly outside China, they reveal how Chinese artists strategically negotiate local and global in positioning their work as contemporary reinventions of traditional forms and materiality.

Trial from Hostages? Scar Art and the Break of History

This paper analyzes how the artistic images and sexualized artistic subjects in Chinese scar art works represented by Father, The Maples and Youth, etc., changed with state ideology in the early 1980s. This paper points out that art works always “exist” in the society, so they are not only text waiting for interpretation, but also the carrier and object of social practice. In the process of subjectification, narration and representation of the gender differences consolidates the existing symbolic order unconsciously. On this basis, the paper further explores the close relationship between the artist subject and the mainstream ideology of the country in shaping and referring each other. Frederick Jameson vividly called the 1960s as the “Long 60’s”. The Cultural Revolution in China was undoubtedly an important component and representative event of the great “Global 60’s”. As a reflection and rebellion against the collective experience of the Cultural Revolution, a series of avant-garde art movements emerged in the early 1980s in Chinese Mainland, which are regarded as the origin of Chinese contemporary art by the academic circle. The cultural and political nature behind this trend is just as Li Xianting, an art critic, puts “The revival of art is not a revolution of art itself, that is, language paradigm, but a movement of mind emancipation [1].” From the perspective of historical witnesses, Li points out the main axis of artistic ideology that runs through the post-cultural revolution era. “All of these are driven by a rebellious mentality, and the core of the change is social consciousness and politics [1].” Li’s point of view reminds us that the beginning of Chinese avant-garde art is closely related to the change of state ideology. The vicissitudes of national destiny and the turning point of national history have become part of the artist’s personal life and memory, which not only possesses individuality, but also possesses collectivity and constructs the cultural and political subject of the 1980s dialectically and interactively.

The Ocular Turn, Misty Poetry, and a Postrevolutionary Imagination

Abstract “The Answer,” a poem by Bei Dao first published in 1978, marks the emergence of a defiant voice in contemporary Chinese poetry and asserts skepticism as the political stance of a young generation in post–Cultural Revolution China. It also heralds a historic transition from an era of sonic agitation to an aesthetics based on visual perception and contemplation. This rereading of Bei Dao's canonical poem and other related texts goes back to the late 1970s, when the political implications of the human senses were firmly grasped and heatedly debated. The author shows that an ocular turn occurs in “The Answer” and drives the aesthetic as well as political pursuits of a new generation of poets. He further argues that, in a moment still enthralled with a revolutionary sonic culture, Misty poetry disavowed aural excitement and was part of the reconditioning of the human senses in preparation for a postrevolutionary order and sensibility.

Director Guang Chunlan in Conversation

This interview features Guang Chuanlan, a Sibe director who has been active since 1976. Guang is known for establishing Chinese Muslim cinema made in the Xinjiang autonomous region in socialist China. Many of her films are released and awarded in Arabic countries and in India. Her enduring career exemplifies the key role women filmmakers have played in building Chinese cinema under state-driven film policies. While it is commonly believed that the Fifth Generation (represented by male directors such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang) put post–Cultural Revolution Chinese cinema on the international map, Guang's career (along with those of other women directors) compels us to reexamine Chinese film historiography and excavate a more complex constellation, especially with regard to women's authorship in intersection with race/ethnicity and the state, and inter-Asian film interactions based on a shared religion—a dimension oftentimes obscured by the dominant paradigm of East-West internationality.

Cao Fei: Rethinking the global/local discourse

Abstract Cao Fei (b. 1978) was born and raised in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou by the Pearl River Delta (PRD), ‘the factory of the world’, as the artist defined it. Working with multimedia, primarily video, photography and machinima, her practice engages with popular culture, regional trends and globalized fashions. With an early official participation at the China Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2007, Cao Fei is one of the most renowned Chinese artists of the post-Cultural Revolution ‘new new human beings’ (xinxin renlei), and one of the few women artists from the People’s Republic of China who has been recognized and collected internationally by art establishments such as the Tate Collection in Britain, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. This article proposes to use Cao Fei’s work to explore the limitations of the global/local discourse and offer a more nuanced and complex understanding of this dichotomy in Chinese contemporary art.

Queer Bodies, Queer Lives in China English Contact Literature

Abstract Ha Jin and his works have contributed significantly to world Englishes knowledge, both through direct scholarly engagement with contact literatures and through the linguistic creativity exhibited in his works of fiction (Jin 2010). His fiction writing also acts as a site of scholarly inquiry (e.g., Zhang 2002). Underexplored, however, are how local varieties of English as used to create queer identities. This paper will seek to address this gap by exploring how Ha Jin created queer spaces in his short story “The Bridegroom.” This investigation will utilize a Kachruvian world Englishes approach to analyzing contact literatures (B. Kachru 1985, 1990, Y. Kachru & Nelson 2006, Thumboo 2006). This analysis will be supported by interfacing it with perspectives from the fields of queer theory and queer linguistics (Jagose 1996, Leap & Motschenbacher 2012), which will allow for a contextually sensitive understanding of queer experiences in China. This approach will enable us to examine how Ha Jin utilized the rhetorical and linguistic markers of China English to explore historical attitudes towards queerness during the post-Cultural Revolution period. These markers include the use of local idioms and culturally-localized rhetorical moves to render a uniquely Chinese queer identity.

College English Teaching Reform in China: An Orientation toward ESP

The teaching of English as a foreign language to non-English majors at the tertiary level in mainland China is referred to as College English. This course has a special position in Chinese higher education because it is meant to equip the future professionals with language skills necessary for international communication, and has therefore attracted large investment of time and money from both the government and individuals involved. Ever since the end of Cultural Revolution and the start of Open-and-Reform Policy, College English teaching in mainland China has gone through four decades of reforms. Interestingly, each round of College English teaching reform lasts for about 10 years, for example, the post-cultural revolution reform from 1976 to 1985, the second stage of reform from the mid 1980s to the mid of 1990s, the third stage is the turn of century reform lasting from the mid 1990s to about 2004, and the fourth stage started from 2004 when the Ministry of Education issued College English Course Teaching Requirement. In recently years, signs of another round of reform are arising as many important journals are publishing papers explaining rationale for the reform. This round of reform is content-driven, characterized by English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Based on this context, we intend to make a brief introduction to the present day College English teaching reform in mainland China. We first introduced the background which includes a survey of the history of the College English teaching reform. Then we made a need analysis from the angles of College English Teaching reform, globalization of economy and internationalization of higher education, particularly the needs of the learners and society in the new era. Both the background and need analyzes help to explain why ESP is going to be the focal point of this reform. Finally, some issues over the terms of English teaching or learning are analyzed, and it finds that the controversies or confusions concerning some concepts like General English (GE) and English for General Purposes (EGP), English for Special Purposes (Esp) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP ) and so on are dwelled upon.

Revolutionary Committees - A Historical Review of a Historic Era

Revolutionary committees were unified governing bodies in local government during the Cultural Revolution period. This article aims to present revolutionary committees to the world objectively and provides a historical review of a historic era. The article introduces local governance in three distinctive periods in modern history: the Cultural Revolution, pre- and post-Cultural Revolution. It further makes contrast between them. Accomplishments during this period in terms of opening up and economic reforms are assessed.

A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture by Barbara Mittler (review)

Reviewed by: A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture by Barbara Mittler Xing Fan A CONTINUOUS REVOLUTION: MAKING SENSE OF CULTURAL REVOLUTION CULTURE. By Barbara Mittler. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012. 486 pp. Hardcover, $59.95. Barbara Mittler’s A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture is a valuable and stimulating monograph on artistic and cultural theory, practice, and experience during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). This book revolves around two interrelated questions: How shall we characterize Cultural Revolution culture? And what shall we make of it? Investigating the multifaceted landscape of the lived experience during the Cultural Revolution, the author reveals for the reader a period of complexity, paradoxes, and contradictions, and the book is a useful source for both academic and general readers. The author offers three core arguments: (1) Cultural Revolution culture comprised a diversity of both official and unofficial activities, and it itself experienced changes during its ten-year period. (2) Synchronicity played a crucial role in reaching out to an extremely wide public because the same messages were repetitively presented at every possible location and in every possible form. (3) Cultural Revolution culture was a pivotal moment in the pursuit of a new, Chinese, modern culture, from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. (All audiovisual resources under discussion in this book are collected in an online archive available at http://projects.zo.uniheidelberg.de/continuousrevolution.) Employing aesthetic experience as the base of this study, Barbara Mittler organizes her book around senses. In “Introduction: Nose—Smells,” the [End Page 617] author presents the overall ideas on some fundamental characteristics of Chinese propaganda art and proposes three reasons for the extreme popularity of Cultural Revolution culture, thus offering the initial “odors” of the scholarship. In the three subsequent divisions, each of which consists of two chapters, the author focuses on the audio, literary, and visual experience, respectively: part 1 is about the musical aspect of the model works and revolutionary songs, part 2 focuses on Mao Zedong’s writings and the fate of Three Character Classic, and part 3 is dedicated to Mao portraits and Cultural Revolution comics. In “Conclusion: Hands—Touch,” the author finishes with an analysis of the far-reaching and lasting popularity of what the author calls “Cultural Revolution Culture” from the perspectives of style, localities, and connections to the pre–and post–Cultural Revolution. Oral history is a significant dimension of this study. Not only acknowl-edged artists, writers, and scholars, but also forty anonymous interviewees with different family backgrounds provide their firsthand experiences with Cultural Revolution culture. At first reading, their narrations may appear overwhelmingly contradictory—people’s recollections of any given aspect of their cultural activities may differ from official statements and/or general assumptions regarding the ten years of the Cultural Revolution, people may relate widely divergent experiences, and one individual may even have different approaches to one issue at various points of a single interview. When the author juxtaposes these recollected personal experiences with discussions of artistic productions, however, a larger picture of the Cultural Revolution culture—one incorporating hatred and love, horror and pleasure, pain and joy, and destruction and construction—begins to emerge. In the study of Cultural Revolution culture, artistic creativity and the connection between the Cultural Revolution and previous periods have already attracted academic attention (see Paul Clark’s The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History and Xiaomei Chen’s Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China). In challenging the long-term oversimplification of Cultural Revolution culture as homogeneous and stagnant, Mittler’s book complements the literature in this field by presenting official model works in the context of audience reception and reenactments, and she juxtaposes the officially approved pieces with unofficial cultural experience. Moreover, in declining to isolate the Cultural Revolution as a discrete period in China’s cultural history, she examines not only theatrical and musical performance, but also literary and visual experience, and contextualizes Cultural Revolution culture within the larger picture of Chinese history from the late nineteenth century to the present. For the reader of Asian Theatre Journal, I will focus on part 1 in the...