Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen (names changed for privacy concerns), two employees of Beijing Normal University, both agreed that they read many xiao3shuo1 in their younger days. Favorites among the two 50 year old women were jian3ai4 and gang1tie2 shi4 zhen2yan4 lin2chen2de. The first story, jian3ai4, was a common story read by youngsters in the 1950's while the latter story, gang1tie2 shi4 zhen2yan4 lin2chen2de describes the process in which steel is made. The story is influenced by the fact that steel production and industrial capabilities are two major facets of industrial development in the Communist system. The young people of China were quickly indoctrinated with Communist thought in order to show them the importance of the new system that they were living in. Both Mr. Chang and Mr. Wang are in their 60's and in the 1940's they both read Andersen's Fairy Tales and Grimm's Fairy tales along with other common reading for young people. As their lifetimes began to intersect the lifetimes of Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen similarities began to develop.

Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen, along with Mr. Chang and Mr. Wang, two officials in the current CCP both read all four gu3dian3xiao3shuo1. Mr. Chang, Ms. Bai, and Ms. Chen all touted hong2lou2meng4 as their favorite book out of the si4da4ming2shu1 but for different reasons. Because of Mr. Chang's background as a zhi1shi4fen4zi3 and his extensive classical training what appealed to Mr. Chang the most about hong2lou2meng4 was the beautiful language, sentence structure, and flowery phrases. He considers the author of hong2lou2meng4 the Chinese Shakespeare and inside "it has philosophy in it, not just a family feud about the Qing Dynasty." When asked why they enjoyed hong2lou2meng4 they said that they enjoyed the plot more than anything else, that the intrigues of the feudal court drew their interests. Mr. Wang on the otherhand enjoyed san1guo2yan3yi4 the most saying that it is the "most well written and well thought out of the four books" and that it "was extremely readable and had an interesting plot." Another common similiarity among the four interviewees was the amount of socialist and communist doctrine they ingested as students in xiao3xue2, zhong1xue2, and in gao1zhong1. Mr. Wang, who has lived in the mainland all his life and currently resides in Jiangxi province read the Das Kapital by Marx and Mao2zhu3xi2 Yu3lu4 in his childhood. Similarly Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen also read these two most fundamental communist thinkers in their childhood. The fact that Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen, two members of the peasant class during the initial years of CCP control, were taught using both classical literature and communist propaganda shows a realization of "a fragment of Marx's dream about developing fully rounded human beings with access to all their latent talents." (Spence 550) Mr. Chang is a special case because he was born in Taiwan and lived there until he was 40 years old. Becuase the Guomindang was in power in Taiwan only five years after he was born, Mr. Chang had to work hard to get foreign literature, especially those of mainland China which were outlawed in Taiwan because of its communist content. Although Mr. Chang had trouble receiving some of the CCP literature, it only took a bit of trouble to ask foreign students to bring him literature as he was working as a teacher of foreign students at the time. He read all of the works of Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Engels, and various authors of fiction including Lu Xun, Mao Dun, and Lao She. Even though Mr. Chang grew up in Taiwan he read Kong3yi4ji4 and Wo3delao3shi1 by Lu Xun and various works by Guo Muruo and Ai Qing, all poetry and books that Mr. Wang, Ms. Bai, and Ms. Chen read as students in China. However, because of his classical education, coupled with his determination to read all communist literature, Mr. Chang concludes that he "knew more about Chinese culture and about socialism than the people who were born in China." Mr. Chang's unusual circumstances in life allow him to be an unusually good observer of the events during and following the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Movies that were watched during the Great Leap Forward were already showing the restrictive grip that the CCP had on the development of culture. Two movies that Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen felt were memorable were San1mao2liu2lan4ji4 and Di4dao4zhan4. Both of these movies were on topics that the CCP felt were acceptable to be portrayed in movies. Most of the music listened to and performed at this time were old folk songs and songs expounding the greatness of socialism. Mr. Wang remembered very clearly as a child learning the words to she4hui4zhu3yi4shi4hao3zhu3yi4 and other propaganda songs. Taiwan at the time continued to import acceptable foreign music which included Elvie Presley which Mr. Chang remembers fondly.

During the Cultural Revolution, most of the existing CCP infrastructure was overturned and much of China's chuan2tong3 was lost including China's great literary tradition. At this time, literature in the mainland China was basically limited to the books that the CCP directed such as Lei2Feng1 Ri4ji4. Drama and movies were limited to the yang4ban3xi4 such as bai2mao2nu3 and hong2 yan2, hong2ri4, and qing1chun1 zhi ge1. The CCP limited performances to a few model operas and model ballets, ones that "gave didactically 'correct' interpretations to the purity of revolutionary activism." (Spence 606) At this point in Chinese history Mr. Chang and Mr. Wang begin to disagree with Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen. Their different experiences during the Cultural Revolution and before then change the interpretations that they now have of the culture and literature of the time. Mr. Chang, still in Taiwan at the time, pointed to the model operas as a complete massacre of Chinese culture. Mr. Chang felt that the only good thing that came out of the communist art system was that the period after the Great Leap Forward "promoted regional methods of artistic expression" such as Nanjing's qun1qu3 and love stories such as mu3da4ting1. However this was lost as the Cultural Revolution banned all of this including Beijing's famed jing1ju4.

Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen sum up their cultural and literary experiences with one phrase: "Where the party goes, the people follow." If the party directed them to read Lei2Feng1 Ri4ji4 and believe that it was true, that is what they did. To this day both Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen place undying faith in the fact that Lei2Feng1 Ri4ji4 was a real journal and unchanged by propagandists. When asked why they read this literature, Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen proclaimed that "because of patriotism, nationalist beliefs, and being proud of your country. That was why we read it." Both Ms. Bai and Ms. Chen were hong2xiao3bing4 in elementary school and hong2wei4bing1 in middle school and high school before being sent down to the countryside after their first year of high school. Through all of the episodes of the Cultural Revolution they kept faith in the CCP and loyally ingested all of the CCP propaganda and literature. On the other hand, like most Western scholars today, both Mr. Wang and Mr. Chang agree that the diary is of questionable authenticity and is probably "fictitious, concocted by PLA propaganda writers." (Spence 566) Mr. Chang goes so far as to say that "no good things came from Lei Feng, Lei Feng's story has no literary merit, much like all of the other supposed works of art created during the Cultural Revolution." He felt this way because the character of Lei Feng was totally unrealistic and lacked human qualities. All of the literary works during the Cultural Revolution lacked "lifelike characters" (Zha 32) and were completely devoid of human relationships. Characters were flat and uninteresting, mere vehicles of revolution for the propaganda writers. Mr. Wang, a party cadre who was sent down to the countryside because of aristocratic family connections dating back three generations said that "all of the traditions of Chinese artists were lost during the Cultural Revolution and all we had to read and watch were unbelievable works that were obviously created socialize and placate the masses."

When the Cultural Revolution ended the CCP was revived. Literature and culture, although set back 20 years, began to flourish once again. Mr. Chang believed that in the aftermath, revolution failed because "people are Chinese but Marx is western, Chinese problem is not a problem of ideals, it is a problem of being human with human needs and wants." In 1980 when he traveled to Beijing to live there for life and accept his post as a party cadre in the state department of the CCP, he saw Beijing opera performed for the first time. After the performance he proclaimed "maybe there is hope for Chinese culture after all."

Bibliography
Chinese 11 course handouts 6/18/2002, 6/19/2002, 6/26/2002, 7/10/2002
Personal correspondance with Mr. Chang 7/16/2002
Personal correspondance with Ms. Bai 7/18/2002
Personal correspondance with Ms. Chen 7/18/2002
Personal correspondance with Mr. Wang 7/20/2002
Spence, Jonathan. The Search for Modern China. 2nd Edition. (WW Norton & Company, New York: 1999)
Zha, Jianying. China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Bestsellers are Transforming a Culture. (The New Press, New York: 1995)