Forced into Exile and Fighting Back

The Red Guards, backed by the Maoist military representatives stationed in Jack’s office, cajoled Yuan-tsung and Jack into going to the backwater Upper Felicity Village, which was the Red Guards’ final solution to the problem of disposing of the couple. But Yuan-tsung reconnected with Jack’s American brother-in-law, Jay Leyda, who was teaching at York University in Canada. Eventually, with the secret help of a fellow victim Yuan-tsung had met by happenstance on a bus, and despite some letters intercepted by Red Guards, Jack was able to get messages from Leyda. Leyda succeeded in organizing a speech tour for Jack to Canadian and American universities, and informed Zhou Enlai of it. On the prime minister’s personal order, Jack was brought back to Beijing and granted exit visas for the family. After the tour of Chinese cities arranged by Zhou Enlai, Jack, Yuan-tsung, and their son left China in May 1971, two months before Kissinger’s secret visit to China in July.

Intrigues in a Slum House

Zhou Enlai tried but failed to protect Jack, and so in 1969, Jack and Yuan-tsung were evicted from their apartment and forced to live in a corner room at a slum house on Sheep Market Street. Most of their neighbors came from the urban underclass; among them were a retired prostitute, a semireformed thief, a laundress who doubled as a bed playmate to her employer, and an old witch who practiced black magic. They were purveyors of gossip and became new sources of information for Yuan-tsung. A Japanese woman named Noriko, punching bag to her Chinese husband, became Yuan-tsung’s best friend and played a key role in her fight against the Red Guards.

The Mob Rule

In 1966, the Cultural Revolution broke out. Chen Yi, the foreign minister and Zhou Enlai’s right-hand man, sent a message to Jack, through Comrade Xia on a secret errand, that he would grant Jack an exit visa if he applied for one. But soon Mao’s Red Guards ran amok. Chen Yi was pushed aside. Jack, no longer protected by his family’s reputation and his own connections, was assaulted and not allowed to leave the compound of the Foreign Languages Bureau, where he worked on the English edition of the Peking Review. Yuan-tsung, however, was mobile. She went to see the Red Guards rally at Tiananmen; each of the participants held the Little Red Book, the compilation of Mao’s quotes.

The Secret Listener

From the time she was a girl, Yuan-tsung Chen had had a literary dream, and in 1950 she embarked on a literary career, a journey filled with thrilling and dangerous adventures. She went to Beijing and got a job in the Scenario Department of the Central Film Bureau, where she found herself in a front-row seat during China’s culture wars as Mao Zedong demanded that literature and art serve the Party, while writers wanted culture to be distinguishable from propaganda. Hence she became a secret listener. Purges ensued. She narrowly escaped the Anti-Rightist Purge of 1957 by marrying Jack Chen, who, because of his connections, had avoided political trouble so far. Mao’s “class war” continued. His Great Leap Forward caused the plunge in agricultural production and the greatest famine of the twentieth century. It led to Mao’s last and most violent purge, the Cultural Revolution. His hitmen, the Red Guards, viciously attacked Jack. Yuan-tsung went secretly to ask Zhou Enlai, the prime minister, for help. Zhou tried but failed to protect them. They were sent out of Beijing and consigned to a rural backwater village, cut off from all recourse to friends. But Yuan-tsung figured out a way to get in touch, right under the noses of the Red Guards, with Jack’s American brother-in-law and asked him to arrange a speaking tour for Jack. He did, and thus Jack was able to accept an invitation to lecture on Canadian and American campuses. After a tense wait, on the prime minister’s personal order Jack and Yuan-tsung got permits to leave the country.

Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?

The Chinese diaspora is compelled either to prostrate to an edifying project of assimilation to U.S. liberal democracy, or be branded as illiberal "Red Guards" unfit for serious political discourse. This discursive context has long mobilized overseas Chinese to affirm the universalism of Western liberalism in opposition to a Chinese despotism defined either by dynastic backwardness or communist depravity. Can overseas Chinese speak for themselves in the face of the West's "hegemonic right to knowledge?" Or will all such speech that challenges U.S. presuppositions of liberal selfhood and Chinese despotism simply be tuned out as illiberal noise?

DAZIBAO: SARANA PENGGALANGAN PENGAWAL MERAH PADA ERA REVOLUSI KEBUDAYAAN TIONGKOK (1966-1969)

Dazibao literally translated as big character poster. Since China dynasty era dazibao has functioned as a medium to deliver messages to the public, therefore it is usually posted on an open wall. The use of dazibao as a propaganda medium for Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party has been widely discussed, but in the research process, specific data were found which show that revolutionary action and the number of Red Guards increased sharply in the short period of time after the dazibao of Nie Yuanzi from Beijing University and Mao Zedong were published. These findings aroused interest to dig deeper into dazibao’s strong elements as a Red Guards mobilizing medium during the Cultural Revolution which become the main analysis of this article. Historical approach which consist of heuristic, verification, interpretation, and historiography is used to reconstruct the strength of dazibao. The analysis focuses on the two dazibao mentioned above, along with Mao Zedong's influence and socio-political development at that time as inseparable factors. The result shows that writers background, main issue, form, and diction used are elements of the strength of Nie’s dazibao and supported by Mao’s dazibao caused dazibao to have a very significant function in raising the number of Red Guards during the Chinese Cultural Revolution 1966-1969.Dazibao secara harfiah dalam bahasa Indonesia berarti poster dengan tulisan besar. Sejak era kedinastian Tiongkok telah dikenal dan digunakan sebagai sarana penyampai pesan kepada masyarakat, karena itu biasanya ditempel di dinding terbuka. Pemanfaatan dazibao sebagai sarana propaganda Mao Zedong dan Partai Komunis Tiongkok telah banyak dibahas, tapi dalam proses penelitian ditemukan data spesifik yang menunjukkan bahwa aksi revolusioner dan jumlah Pengawal Merah meningkat tajam dalam jangka waktu singkat setelah publikasi dazibao Nie Yuanzi dari Universitas Beijing dan dazibao Mao Zedong. Temuan tersebut membangkitkan ketertarikan untuk menggali lebih dalam tentang factor-faktor yang menjadi kekuatan dazibao sebagai sarana penggalangan Pengawal Merah pada Revolusi Kebudayaan tersebut. Hal itulah yang menjadi pokok bahasan artikel ini. Metode sejarah yang mencakup tahapan heuristik, verifikasi, interpretasi, dan historiografi digunakan untuk merekonstruksi kekuatan dazibao terutama yang tercermin dalam dazibao Nie dan Mao. Dalam pembahasan pengaruh Mao Zedong serta perkembangan sosial-politik saat itu menjadi bagian tak terpisahkan didalamnya. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa latar penulis, pokok bahasan, tampilan, dan pilihan kata/diksi merupakan faktor-faktor yang menjadi kekuatan dazibao Nie. Ditambah dengan dukungan dari dazibao yang dibuat Mao serta publikasi yang masif menyebabkan dazibao berfungsi sangat signifikan dalam penggalangan Pengawal Merah pada Revolusi Kebudayaan Tiongkok tahun 1966-1969.