1949 Communist take-over, many of the traditional teachings within China have been de-emphasized or at times even ruthlessly suppressed. However, this has not been the case, by and large, of old folk tales or proverbs. Instead, the government has incorporated these into the education system and has used them as part of the youth’s moral education, at times reinterpreting them to suit their political agenda. Indeed, in a famous and often quoted speech, Chairman Mao retold the story of how Yugong moved a mountain to stress the need for perseverance, reinterpreting the story as an allegory of how China would overcome imperialism and feudalism.
Along with these old folk tales, a new folk hero emerged in the 1960s, and has been used to inculcate morality among the youth—Lei Feng. Lei Feng (1940-1962) was an army soldier who died in a traffic accident. Shortly after his death, he became the focus of an intense propaganda campaign within China, as an example of selfless sacrifice for the Chinese people. Photos of Lei Feng surfaced showing him helping others and doing good deeds. A diary also emerged, extolling Chairman Mao, expressing zeal for his country, and revealing his desire to fan the flames of revolution among his brethren. This all belies the real question of whether or not Lei Feng even existed— something even some Chinese scholars doubt.
Nevertheless, Lei Feng is held up as a moral example even now, and Lei Feng Day is celebrated by schoolchildren each year on March 5 with visits to old folk’s homes or to the local park to pick up litter.
The Wonder That Was China!
In the centuries following the lives of Confucius and Lao Tzu, China experienced remarkable periods of innovation and invention that would make it the most technologically advanced country in the world.
Randy Smith of Monterey Peninsula College has noted in his writings that one of the greatest secrets of history is the immense contribution ancient China made to world civilization. The list of inventions and discoveries of the early Chinese is astounding, and equally remarkable is that many of their breakthroughs in knowledge and technology did not reach the Western world—or occur there independently—until hundreds or even thousands of years later. For example, Smith notes that “modern” paper was invented in China in AD 105. In contrast, papermaking was not introduced in the West until the eighth century, and the first paper mill in Europe was not built until 1009.
Similarly, an early compass was invented in approximately AD 200 when a Chinese metal smith discovered that magnetized pieces of iron always aligned themselves in a north-south orientation when placed on pieces of wood floating in a bowl of water. This primitive compass was refined over the centuries and the first true compass is said to date from around AD 900. It was not until the fifteenth century that Europeans became aware of magnetism.
Other Chinese discoveries and inventions that better-educated Westerners are generally familiar with include silk, gunpowder, and rockets.
For well over three thousand years China also led the world in the treatment of various diseases and in preventive measures designed to ensure optimum health—some of which, particularly acupuncture and tai chi, are only now finding acceptance in the West.
Smith credits the development of agricultural technology for the extraordinary growth of civilization in China, listing such innovations as row cultivation, intensive hoeing, and the use of the seed drill as major factors. Here China also outpaced the West: the first seed drills did not appear in Europe until the sixteenth century AD, although in China they came into use in about 1500 BC.
The Eclipse of the Great Chinese Civilization
During most of the last millennium of Chinese civilization’s heyday, the cultures of European nations were in the throes of what came to be called the Dark Ages—a stagnant period when the fall of Rome and domination by the Christian church resulted in religious faith replacing reason and logic in the affairs of the state and people.
While there was no dark age in China, by the beginning of the fifteenth century the imperial government stopped promoting and rewarding innovation, in effect making it taboo. Emphasis was shifted from looking ahead to looking backward, and from invention and creativity to revering the past and maintaining the status quo. Creativity in China dried up, and its great civilization began a slow, steady decline. For the most part China’s creativity was not to flower again until modern times.
From the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries a series of invasions and incursions by newly industrialized Western nations caused upheaval in China, and then in the early 1930s a massive invasion by Japan combined with a communist-led civil war to further devastate the country. Shortly after the end of World War II in 1949 the communist revolutionaries became the masters of China.
The Communist Regime of Mao Zedung
By the time Mao Zedung and his communist forces took over the country in 1949 the ancient wonder that had been China for more than three thousand years had virtually disappeared. The lights that had shone so brightly in the Middle Kingdom had gone out.
During the first decade of his rule Mao actually made many social and economic improvements in China. He gave women the right to vote and reformed the ancient tenant farming system. He established a system of universal education and decreed that Mandarin was to be taught as the national language.
But his attempts to rebuild the industrial infrastructure of the country in “Great Leaps” forward ended in disaster, bringing death and untold suffering to millions. In a final desperate attempt to remake China in his image of a communist utopia in 1966, Mao initiated the so-called “Cultural Revolution,” which was intended to eliminate all vestiges of China’s traditional culture—specifically the heritages of Confucianism and Taoism. Mao’s goal was to totally eradicate these traditions because he understood their weaknesses and did not want communism to mutate into a mixture of the two.
Mao’s armies in his new revolution were made up of millions of young people—mostly students—whose lives had been disrupted beyond reason by the results of centuries of war and turmoil. These were the infamous Red Guards who embarked on a ten-year frenzy of burning libraries and destroying temples; intimidating, torturing, and killing members of the educated class; splitting up families; and sending millions of city dwellers into the countryside to force them to live like peasants.
During the chaotic Cultural Revolution, Mao’s government condemned refinement in behavior as a ruling-class plot to inhibit people and keep them down. His Red Guard minions went to extremes to destroy China’s ancient cultural heritage of etiquette.
Present-day Chinese sociologists blame Mao for the virtual disappearance of good manners during his reign. Historians note that Mao himself was coarse and vulgar and delighted in flouting convention. During the Cultural Revolution being called a dalacu (dah-lah-tsu), a “big, rude guy,” was a compliment that was pursued in earnest by top leaders.
The Cultural Revolution was motivated by a desire to do away with traditional values and mores, pitting young people against their parents and teachers in a way that would horrify Confucius. However, the Cultural Revolution did not result in an eradication of traditional values within China—they still hold a potent power of many Chinese people, and later government initiates have at times stressed the need for traditional morality.
Indeed, in 1971, the PLA stepped in to gain control over the young members of the Red Guard, sending many of them to work in the fields as peasants, all of the while stressing the Taoist theme that the students should mind their own business, and just tend to their own fields without worrying about what others were doing. As Lao Tzu said,
There should be a neighboring state within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it.
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