China Quiz #2

Front 1

What did Ba Jin do besides write novels?

Back 1

- one of the last survivors from the cultural revolution in the 1920s and 1930s
- as China emerged from the Maoist era in the 1980s, Ba would again seek to ventilate a China which, beneath the socialist label, still betrayed profound feudal characteristics. He had become a cultural figurehead for the regime, and had only expressed mild criticism in the anti-rightist witchhunt of the late 1950s. He had suffered only moderately in Mao Zedong's cultural revolution (1966-76), having been banned from writing and forced to clean drains.
- When cultural apparatchiks threatened another dogmatic onslaught in the late 1980s, he proposed to establish a cultural revolution museum so that the tragedy would never be repeated.
- Like many young people of the time, Ba made a second escape from the chaos of warlord China, moving to France in 1927. In Paris, he joined a group of young Chinese anarchists - news of the execution of the anarchist workers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the US affected him deeply. His adopted name - chosen in 1929 - reflected his admiration for anarchism: Ba stood for the first syllable in the Chinese transliteration of Mikhail Bakunin, and Jin for the last syllable of Kropotkin.
- By 1934, the novel Sprouts had been placed on the blacklist, and Ba was forced to move under an assumed name to Japan, where he had friends. Returning to China two years later, he found himself a prominent figure, although he steered clear of the rival literary factions. But he defended the Spanish anarchists against attacks by Chinese communist sympathisers.
- It is no wonder then that Ba - and so many other writers - embraced the new communist government and looked determinedly on the bright side.
- In the 1950s, he spent most of his time in his new role as vice-chairman of the official China Writers' Association. In 1958, he declared that there was only one way to be a genuine creative writer: to stand firmly on the proletarian platform.
- Ba continued to lend his voice to protest. When martial law was declared in May 1989, in the run-up to the Tiananmen Square massacre, he signed an "emergency letter of appeal" by Shanghai writers. Three years later, he joined a petition to liberate art from "pernicious leftism" and criticised the new Mao cult which became briefly voguish among young Chinese in the early 1990s.
- Though nominally chairman of the writers' association, Ba became increasingly incapacitated and, from 1998, was confined to Shanghai's Huadong hospital.

Front 2

Brief summary of Family

Back 2

Family is the story of an aristocratic Chinese family at the beginning of the 20th century. The Kao family lives in a well-appointed compound in the city of Chengtu and enjoys all the material and cultural benefits the city has to offer. Three brothers in the Kao family, Cheuh-hsin, Cheuh-min, and Cheuh-hui, are the main characters of the story. Cheuh-hsin, the oldest, is married and has a son, and the other two brothers are students in their late teenage years.

Cheuh-hsin suffers greatly because he has never been able to stand up for himself. He is a big believer in filial piety, and he has always been willing to do what his elders tell him to do, even when his own dreams are sacrificed. For example, Chueh-hsin wanted to marry his cousin Mei and pursue a career in scientific academia, but his grandfather arranged a marriage with Jui-cheuh

Front 3

Northern warlords from 1911-1916

Back 3

YAN Xishan, Shanxi
FENG Yuxiang, north central China
ZHANG Zuolin (d. 1928), Xueliang (d. 2001), Manchuria (Fengtian)

Front 4

YAN Xishan

Back 4

- Shanxi

Front 5

FENG Yuxiang

Back 5

- north central China

Front 6

ZHANG Zuolin (d. 1928), Xueliang (d. 2001)

Back 6

- Manchuria (Fengtian)

Front 7

Northern Expedition, 1926-28

Back 7

-

Front 8

Long March, 1934-35

Back 8

-

Front 9

Xi'an Incident, 1936

Back 9

-

Front 10

From May 4 to May 30: 1915-1926

Back 10

- 1915: New Youth magazine Qingnian zazhi (CHEN Duxiu, LU Xun);
- 1917: Bolshevik Revolution
- 1919: Treaty of Versailles, May 4th Movement
- 1921: Chinese Communist Party (CCP): LI Dazhao, CHEN Duxiu, LIU Shaoqi, MAO Zedong, et al.
- 1922-23: SUN Yatsen’s Nationalist Party (Guomindang/GMD or Kuomintang/KMT)
- Comintern: United Front w/ CCP, ca. 1922-27
- Sun’s “Three People’s Principles” (sanmin zhuyi): nationalism (minzu), socialism (minsheng), democracy (minquan)
- 1925: May 30th Movement (began in Shanghai)
- 1926-27: CHIANG Kaishek (JIANG Jieshi), Northern Expedition to reunite China; capital at Nanjing in 1928

Front 11

Questions

Back 11

- What kind of revolution did different groups or sectors of the Chinese population want?
- What did the GMD and CCP agree about?
- In what ways did the GMD & CCP diverge?
- What did socialism mean to Sun Yatsen (Zhongshan)?
- How much “liberation” for women? What kind? (What did women want? Which women? What did men want? Which men?)

Front 12

New Youth Magazine

Back 12

-

Front 13

Chen Duxiu (1879-1942)

Back 13

- “romantic revolutionary”

Front 14

LU Xun (1881-1936)

Back 14

- writer (Zhou Shuren)

Front 15

May 4th Movement

Back 15

-

Front 16

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Back 16

-

Front 17

LI Dazhao (1888-1927)

Back 17

- co-founder of Communist Party (1921)

Front 18

LIU Shaoqi

Back 18

-

Front 19

MAO Zedong

Back 19

-

Front 20

Sun Yatsen

Back 20

-

Front 21

United Front

Back 21

-

Front 22

"Three People’s Principles"

Back 22

- Nationalism
- Socialism
- Democracy

Front 23

May 30th Movement

Back 23

-

Front 24

CHIANG Kaishek

Back 24

-

Front 25

HU Shi (1891- 1962)

Back 25

- “cautious pragmatist”
- studied w/ Dewey at Cornell
- Chinese ambassador to US in mid-1930s.

Front 26

Bai hua

Back 26

- vernacular