Interview With My Mom

As I mentioned in the Introduction page, my mom was born in early 1962, and therefore grew up during the Cultural Revolution. I did an interview with her, and these are some of the questions:

What was the Cultural Revolution?

The Cultural Revolution was the sociopolitical movement launched by then Chinese leader Mao Zedong, who was saying that his power and authority was challenged by other people so he tried to use young people to start a revolutionary movement to purge some people that he thought would lead China to the diretionc he didn't like and he would also keep his glorified positionin China

What are your earliest memories of the Cultural Revolution?

I was born in March 16, 1962, therefore I just turned 4 years old when the Cultural Revolution started. My earliest memory was when, all of a sudden, my 6 older siblings stopped going to school. For them, some where scared and some where having fun. I knew something was happening then, but not what exactly.

When you were younger, what did people think of the Cultural Revolution?

It varied. The Cultural Revolution lasted for 10 years. The degree of severity varied in the different stages, but pretty much ended at the time when Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976. So from '66 to '76, I went from 4 to 14 years old. Generally speaking, because of the Red Guard control, there was no obvious official or personal badmouthing of the Cultural Revolution. People in general went with the flow, although there were some instances of suicide or depression. People were suppressed, and there was lots of gunfighting. School stopped, there was no manufacturing, and there was a lack of goods. People in general were more scared, however, like in my family, my father and mother were not believers of of the Cultural Revolution, so they sometimes made negative comments about it, but not in public.

Who were the Red Guards?

The Red Guards were kind of like, in the US, like the boy scouts. It was kind of like that, but in China it was a political organization. Any kid that was loyal to Mao's regime could be in the Red Guard. Most of them were schoolkids in their teenager time. Mao used them in speeches like in Tiananmen Square to show that they were the future of the nation. They wore red bands to show that they were part of the Red Guard so they could go to factories to schools to have a revolution, or purge the leaders and teachers. So, Mao Zedong and his wife utilized the Red Guard to cause the chaotic situation in China in order to purge anybody who disagreed with them.

How did the Cultural Revolution impact your family?

All my older siblings were planning to go to college, but they couldn't because Mao launched an initiative to have them move to the countryside and become farmers and stuff, so my oldest 2 brothers were sent away to the countryside and could only come back to visit, which saddened me and my family. Because my parents grew up before communism and the PRC, they had gotten some education and weren't part of the communist party, so they were purged from their professional positions and put in blue-collar worker jobs. My father had to work in a steel factory for years instead of working in a teacher position like before, which saddened him in terms of not being able to utilize his talent, same as for my mom.