Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (59 page)

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Authors: Geremie Barme

Tags: #History, #Asia, #China, #Literary Criticism, #Asian, #Chinese, #Political Science, #Political Ideologies, #Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, #World, #General, #test

BOOK: Shades of Mao: The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader
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Page 194
Eternal Life to Chairman Mao
Dearest Chairman Mao,
you are the sun in our hearts.
There are so many private thoughts that we would like to tell you.
There are so many songs of praise that we would like to sing to
you.
Millions of red hearts think only of Beijing.
Millions of smiling faces welcome the Red Sun.
We respectfully wish you, Chairman Mao, eternal life!
Notes
1. See Thomas B. Gold, "Go With Your Feelings: Hong Kong and Taiwan Popular Culture in Greater China." Orville Schell says the rearrangement turns them into "transvestite-like songs." See Schell,
Mandate of Heaven,
p. 288.
2. These include such titles as
Guoqude ge,
Guiyang: Guizhou dongfang yinxiang gongsi (no date);
Renmin wangbuliao Mao Zedong,
Yanbian yinxiang chubanshe (no date);
Zhongguo gechao Mao Zedong,
Guangdong yinxiang chubanshe (no date); and,
Hong taiyang OK,
Beijing yinxiang gongsi, 1992.
3.
Tiantian hong taiyang (xinshangban-OKban),
Neimenggu yinxiang chubanshe, 1992.
4. Zhongyang dang'anguan/Zhongyang wenxian yanjiushi, eds.,
Juren zhi sheng: Mao Zedong jianghua yuanshi luyin,
Shenzhen: Shenzhenshi jiguang jiemu chuban faxing gongsi, 1993.
5. For details regarding Jin Wei's creative input, see Zhao Xiaoyuan, "Ta tuoqile `Hong taiyang'."
6. Located in the southwest of Jilin Province, near the border with North Korea.
7. The original version of this song, along with a number of other popular nationalities' songs of the Cultural Revolution period, can be found on the LP record
Zhufu Mao zhuxi wanshou wujianggezu renmin gechang Mao zhuxi,
Beijing: Zhongguo changpianshe, 1967.

 

Page 195
A Place in the Pantheon:
Mao and Folk Religion
Xin Yuan
Published under a pen name, the Beijing scholar Wang Yi has written on such diverse subjects as traditional Chinese gardens and elements of folk religion in the political culture of the Cultural Revolution. This article appeared in the Hong Kong press at the end of 1992.
From late last year [1991], China has experienced a craze that has involved the re-deification of Mao Zedong. It started in the South and has spread to the North. People have combined Mao's image with gold cash inscribed with the words "May This Attract Wealth"
1
or images of the eight hexagrams, and placed them in prominent places. Drivers throughout the country have Mao's picture hanging from their rear-view mirrors and claim that Mao can prevent car accidents. The cassette tape
The Red Sun: Odes to Mao Zedong Sung to a New Beat
has been a national best-seller. Mainlanders have variously called this the "Red Sun Phenomenon" or the "Mao Becomes a God Phenomenon." It has also given rise to numerous interpretations among political and cultural analysts.
Political conservatives are trying to dragoon this MaoCraze into the service of their efforts to "oppose peaceful evolution."
2
Deng Liqun has remarked "with the unprecedented international wave of revisionist thought coupled with the tide of Bourgeois Liberalism in China, we have indeed seen `á miasmal mist once more rising.'"
3
But Deng has nothing to say on the subject of why the masses are now treating Mao Zedong like Zhao Gong or the Kitchen God.
4
Intellectuals, on the other hand, see the MaoCraze as evidence that elements of the Cultural Revolution still hold sway and that there's been no rational attempt to understand the long-term damage wrought by that period on the people of China. But such views are all superficial and simplistic. No one has tried to discuss the question in terms of the psychology of folk

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