The stringless serenade never ends — neither do the opportunities to sit and check your mobile phone.
I'm less sure about what the other statue is doing.
I'm less sure about what the other statue is doing.
In today’s China, more and more people speak in positive terms about the Cultural Revolution and hanker for a return to that era. Most of them don’t really want to turn the clock back: It’s mainly their dissatisfaction with current realities that fuels their interest in revolution. The itch for revolution, of course, may have different triggers. Some people are alienated by the increasing materialism of Chinese society, but many more are outraged by the emergence of interest cliques that marry political power to business profits.But a quote of a Chinese musician in German sinologist Barbara Mittler's "Popular Propaganda? Art and Culture in Revolutionary China" suggests how people can have positive feelings about the era's culture without connecting it to any specific political message:
My generation likes the model works; they are our youth. Yes, there are people who dislike them, too, but really we do like them. Indeed, when I was young, eighteen or so, I needed art so much, we all did. And then there were just the model works as our food, and we actually thought they were quite great. Jiang Qing [Mao’s wife, who was in charge of the production of model works] used really good performers, writers, artists, and musicians. Of course this was propaganda for Mao’s thoughts, but it was also simply good art, it is all against these imperialists and their attacks, yes, it is, but it is also good art, really.These are just two perspectives out of many on a complex topic which has generated much research and discussion — part of why I found the The Nostalgia Book Room so fascinating. Another part is simply the history. And old books and electronics . . .