Zhang Kuan’s Family During Cultural Revolution

Term Project for AL75Q--Chinese Cultural Revolution Studies

Submitted to Professor Youqin Wang

By Student Yves Lu

Department of Asian Languages

Stanford University

3-15-98

The Beginning...

Born in a small town of the Sichuan Province, Kuan Zhang was only attending

second grade when the Chinese Cultural Revolution began on May l6, l966. The news was

slow to reach him, as he was still a child, and forms of media such as television did not

exist in many parts of China at that time. Both his parents were middle school teachers,

and it is from them he learned of the Revolution. Elementary schools were not affected

as much by the edicts of Chairman Mao as middle schools were, and so classes continued

as normal.

His Father...

His father, Zhang Zhenping was a teacher of Classical Chinese Language and Literature at the local middle school. Because his father was considered one of the leading authorities of the

school, because the subject his father taught was considered useless and a waste of

time under the new order, and because his father had worked for nationalist government before the year of 1949, Zhenping was persecuted. Big character posters, indicative of

that time, were written and plastered on their front door, and Kuan's family was

discriminated against as a result.

The students still went to school where his father taught, but no classes were held. Instead, the students spent their time reading articles from Beijing and works written by

Mao, Marx, and Lenin. They considered what his father had published as controversial and thus he had committed crimes against the people. The big character posters admonished his father to practice self-criticism, and later the attacks advanced to the throwing of rocks.

When the Revo1ution first began, his father's right to teach was revoked and he

was regu1ated to the most menial tasks. His father was forced to clean the restrooms, feed the pigs, and work in the gardens. In all, 25% of the teachers at his father's school

were labeled as problematic for a variety of reasons. They were singled out because of the subjects they taught, historic problems (such as having previously he1ped the nationalist government, descended from a landlord family, for having a bad family background), bribery, sexual affairs with students or economic problems.

His mother...

Kuan's mother, Liu Ruizhen was not persecuted to the extent that his father was

because she was a teacher of mathematics and because she had a “clean” history. Throughout the Revolution, she still taught mathematics as she had before. Under Chairman Mao's order, the middle schools had been closed, for their purpose was to prepare students for college, but with the colleges not admitting new students, there was no use for them. His mother, along with other middle school teachers who still retained their right to teach were sent into the rural countryside to teach elementary school to the peasant farmer’s children. Later during the Revolution, Chairman Mao rescinded this order in an article he wrote endorsing the re-opening of midd1e schools and universities and the teachers were reca1led to their former positions.

Himself...

During the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Kuan's education was not

overtly affected by the changes, although his elder siblings' were. His older brothers and sisters were graduating from elementary school and heading into middle school. However, due to the Revolution, going to middle school was now a privilege given to those with "good" backgrounds, and only the children of the "real poor farmers and real proletariat workers" were allowed to attend. Because of the persecution of their father, Kuan's siblings were not allowed to enter the middle school his father had formerly taught at. Kuan's father felt that the education of his children was of utmost importance, so he used his influence and connections to send his children away to attend other middle schools. When Kuan finished elementary school, five years after the start of the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to Shandong Province on the east coast of China where he stayed with his uncle and attended middle school. During this time, the curriculum for

some classes such as math were unchanged, while others such as Chinese Literature were thoroughly revamped. The pure sciences were no longer taught, and applied sciences were emphasized instead. For example, one of Kuan's lessons involved the dismantling and analysis of a tractor engine.

The length of schooling was also affected by the Cultural Revolution movement. Children used to spend three years in middle school and three years in high school prior to the Revolution, but afterwards, it was shortened to two years of each. The practice of sending students who had recently graduated from high school to the countryside was also initiated during the Revolution. They were sent out to rural areas because there were no jobs in the cities due to the economic state at the time. The entire process was touted as a reeducation of the students.

Even after the universities were reopened, students were still required to work in either a farm or a factory before being allowed to attend. They also needed the recommendation of a local Communist party member to go to college. During Kuan's final year of high school, the Cultural Revolution ended, and Deng Xiaoping came into power. Deng Xiaoping was still not entirely entrenched in his new position at first, so the momentum of the Cultural Revolution continued after Kuan had graduated, and he was sent to Guizhou Province, south of Sichuan.

There he lived among a minority group called the Miao, who spoke some

Mandarin but mainly spoke their own dialect. During his first year there, Kuan mainly grew peanuts and corn. Afterwards, people there discovered he had a talent for English, and so for his second year he served as a teacher. He was proficient in English because the uncle he had stayed with in Shandong was an English teacher. After Kuan's second year in Guizhou, Deng Xiaoping had finally established his power base and had repealed the process of sending out young students, reinitiating the nationwide testing system.

Aftermath...

After Deng Xiaoping rectified much of the effect of the Cultural Revolution,

Kuan's father was reinstated as a teacher. Because his father's salary had been reduced to a third of the previous amount at the beginning of the Revolution, the government paid back the amount he was due from the Revolution, without interest of course. With this newfound wealth, Kuan's family distributed money to their relatives and friends who were supportive during the Revolution. His father regained his reputation, was promoted, and was even later recruited into the Chinese Communist party. "What a joke," remarks Kuan now, 1ooking back on the Revolution.

Kuan then took the nationwide test and scored quite well, which enabled him to

attend Fudan University in Shanghai where he majored in German Studies. He met his wife there and the two of them went on to graduate school. After working at the Research Institute of Chinese Literature, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing for some time, Kuan and his wife went to Germany to pursue advanced studies with a German scholarship, and then came to the United States. He is now finishing up his doctorate at Stanford University, where he lives on campus with his wife and his six year old son.