Share it:

A Portrait of Chairman Mao

  The Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong began in June, 1966. Since then on, Mao was thought to be the unique god in China. As a result, his symbol – the portrait – became divine as himself. At that time, the circulation of Mao’s portrait was so large that it was hard to say. The most popular was Mao’s standard portrait. One day, somebody questioned it, and said that it uglified the image of Great Leader Chairman Mao. Soon the insurrectionists of the print house who issued Mao’s portrait declared that it was a big conspiracy of the counterrevolutionists who did want us to see Chairman Mao every day. Then the crisis was pressed.   

Anyone who unhallowed or was thought to unhallowed Mao’s portrait would be put a label of counterrevolutionary. The condition between the big circulation of Mao’s portrait and its sacredness made people in dilemma. For example how to deal with an older portrait, and how to deal with the daily paper in which there were lots of Mao’s portraits. Consequently, many tragedies in the country at that time occurred. The story is one of them.

Zhang Shaowen was a young teacher in a village school in the suburb of Beijing, teaching Chinese. He was big and strong in appearance, with a mind gifted in many ways. His wife was also a village school teacher and they had a son, enjoying family relationship. However, the happy family was destroyed.

As Chinese New Year’s Day drew near in 1968, every family was busy preparing to celebrate the Spring Festival – the traditional Chinese holiday – buying the subsidiary foodstuff that were specially supplied for the Spring Festival, such as sesame paste, sugar, peanut, melon seeds, which  usually could hardly be seen by the citizens, making new clothes and other things. However, the most important thing was buying a Portrait of Chairman Mao. Actually, we used the word ‘invite’ rather than the word ‘buy’, because the latter was not respectful to our great leader.

Braving the cold north-west wind, Zhang Shaowen rode a bicycle for forty kilometers to the largest book store in the county to choose the largest portrait of Chairman Mao for sale there. He felt very happy because, if he had arrived a little later, this kind of portrait would have been sold out. But now he could be proud when guests visited his house and saw the portrait, the unique decoration in any house at that time.

After he arrived home, a beautiful young woman came in, with a portrait of Chairman Mao in her hand. Her face was like a red apple because of the cold winter weather. When he saw the portrait in his wife’s hand, he said: “I have told you that I would buy a portrait. Why did you buy one as well?”

“It was given to me by … another person,” said his wife.

“Who?” asked Zhang Shaowen.

“It’s none of your business,” replied his wife.

Although she didn’t tell him the name of the donor, he knew it well from her expression and the way she spoke. He felt, suddenly, angry but he still tried to control himself, keeping silent. He was feeling more and more fidgety. As he lay on his bed, scene after scene appeared before his eyes.

From October 1966, the ‘Great Exchanging Revolutionary Experience’ began. It was really a sublime phenomenon: thousands of students and teachers stopped their classes and left their schools to go around the country anywhere, without paying money. In any city there were reception houses of Red Guards, who were the guards of Chairman Mao, supplying free board and room for the visitors who called themselves Red Guards. And the traffic was free too, including the trains and buses. His wife went to a different line from him. However, information kept coming to his ears: his wife had made friends with a young music teacher and they lived together during the travel. Three months later, his wife came back in high spirits, although she was tired after the long journey. From then on, however, the peace and harmony of the family was broken. The formerly affectionate couple began to quarrel. Zhang had never actively provoked any fight but had passively tolerated everything from his wife, turning big problems into small ones and small ones into no problem at all. So he kept silence as usual. 

After dinner, he began to put the portrait on the wall. First, he prepared the paste and then chose a most conspicuous place. When he just finished putting the portrait up, his wife cried out: “Stop!” 

He stopped to turn around and asked: “What has happened?”

His wife said: “I don’t want to put yours up, I want to put mine up.”

Zhang felt unbearable and said: “If you insist on putting that one up, you can put it in another place.”

The woman replayed: “I want to put it up just here,” taking her portrait to the place where her husband stood and trying to put it up.

“What’s its advantage?” he asked angrily.

“It is much better than yours,” she answered loudly. When he hear that, he was too stimulated to control of himself. He slapped her face and tore the portrait.

“How dare you beat me and how dare you dare tear Chairman Mao’s portrait!” she cried.

“Yes, I beat you and I …” when he said the second ‘I’ he realized the seriousness of tearing chairman Mao’s portrait. He dropped into his chair dejectedly and began to smoke.

Next morning, when he was cooking their lunch, several girls and boys, with red armbands on which were written characters which read ‘RED GUARD’, came directly to him and asked: “Are you Zhang Shaowen?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Zhang Shaowen!” they shouted. “You have really got monstrous audacity! Even you dare to tear Chairman Mao’s portrait, insulting our great leader! ”

“Your behavior is counterrevolutionary, so you are a counterrevolutionalist! ” one of them said.

“From now on, I declare, on behalf of the Red Guards, that you are put under the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

He had to go out of his house with the Red Guards, who had big sticks and whips in their hands. 

Keyword: portrait cultural revolution

Report this story | Add to Favorites | Send to Friends | Author's Profile

No Comments posted

Comments

Post a comment

Post a comment