The eyes of China

Author: Hu Ping
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Scratching away the frozen layers of history, where are the souls who died in vain? Near the Golden Silk Noodles in Jinggangshan, there are over a dozen Red Guards' cemeteries. These children lost their way while searching for the sites of the Red Army's battles and never returned. Under the blood-red setting sun and in the biting autumn wind, standing before the graves, a heart-wrenching sorrow fills our hearts. This seems to be a nation that is deeply fond of myths. Thirty years after the sharp and cold history has stripped away the modern myths covered in dust, people are still constantly picking up the fragments and pieces, piecing together new modern myths, and continue to do so with great enthusiasm. For the events that have taken place on this land, especially those that, if left unclarified and unaddressed, would cause our national conscience to restless all night and obscure the prospects of reform, whether they are "leftists" or "rightists," whether they are "nationalists" or "liberals," whether they are "idealists" or "realists," must reflect, study, and reveal the truth to every person living in this society. This is the social conscience and historical responsibility that all living Chinese must possess today. All the evils that occurred during the Cultural Revolution, including the contempt and deprivation of basic human rights, the control, suppression, and distortion of people's thoughts and speech, and the arbitrary deprivation of people's freedom and lives, will never be forgotten in the long history of China. It is recorded in history as a page of darkness and shame in the hearts of the Chinese people. These appalling evils were "manufactured" by the Chinese themselves and must be "digested" and eliminated by the Chinese themselves, ensuring that such mistakes are never repeated again. Moreover, these evils were committed under the name of "Marxism." Is Marxism really like this? The Chinese should always remember that no matter what "ism" it is, if it leads to such evils, it should be boldly abandoned. At the beginning of a new era, both in our circumstances and in our hearts, our generation is a complex and unique group of people on Chinese soil—singing songs of praise for the rebirth of our motherland and our nation, while singing dirges for the youth we sacrificed in that era; recalling the nightmare of the past, our generation needs twice the courage of others; moving toward the future bathed in dawn, our generation must endure several times the toil of others. Mao Zedong's two sentences were indeed correct—there is no love without reason in this world, nor is there hatred without reason. Another is that in a class society, every person bears the mark of their class on their bodies. The works collected in this book are certainly different from the shallow self-reflections, the minor ripples of cups of water, and the decorative, animalistic works that readers have seen too much. Apart from being determined by fate, it is also because the social reality of Chinese society since the 1990s, as well as the hidden historical myths wrapped in colorful legends within this reality, have given me a strong impulse to capture and interpret them often.