I've been curious about the book because i saw some people talking about it, another urge after the netflix show, so went to check a little the book.

I haven't read much about chinese revolution, so i became intrigued, the cultural revolution was really like that or it was exaggerated?

i sometimes watch a guy that lives on china, he says the current standing of the people today is that thr cr was a mistake because it destroyed many historical artifacts.

well, the post became more about the cultural revolution than the scifi piece itself.

  • Kaplya
    ·
    8 months ago

    Older generation folks really don’t like to talk about it, but I’ve heard that the real Cultural Revolution as some had experienced was even worse than the scene described in the book.

    The scene in Netflix is almost an accurate recreation of the scene in the book, down to the Chinese dialogue. Even the critique against Einstein’s theory of relativity and the Big Bang theory was real. They didn’t add anything of their own to the scene.

    The only thing that pisses me off is the banner “Down with social imperialism” which clearly aimed at the USSR, instead of “Down with capitalism” which showed their bias. However, it’s something only noticeable to those who understands Chinese.

    My personal theory is that the Cultural Revolution traumatized entire generations of China so much that they are no longer confident in committing to radical paths toward socialism. Everything has to be taken slowly, conservatively, and laying as low as possible. Xi Zhongxun (Xi Jinping’s father), one of the most decorated commanders during the Liberation War (Chinese Civil War), for example, was purged during the Cultural Revolution and had to go through the “struggle session”. Many intellectual and academic families were banished to the countryside. It was a very messy and chaotic times fueled by anti-intellectual frenzy.

    Here’s the Cultural Revolution “struggle session” scene from Farewell My Concubine (1993) by the way.