Interview with Bai Di: Growing Up in Revolutionary China

[redwinter]

Hey comrades...there is a really interesting interview with Bai Di, a scholar on Chinese history who grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China. Her work involves de-constructing and debunking many of the lies that have been spread about the experience during the GPCR and socialism under Mao Tse-Tung. Here's the intro from Revolution newspaper:

"Bai Di grew up in socialist China (before capitalism was brought back after the death of Mao in 1976) and participated in the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). She is a co-editor of the book, Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up During the Mao Era and is the Director of Chinese and Asian Studies at Drew University. The following interview with Bai Di was done in February 2009 by Revolution correspondent Li Onesto.

The entire interview is posted online here, and is being serialized in print."

And as promised, the link to the interview:
http://www.revcom.us/a/161/Bai_Di_interview-en.html

Thoughts?

[dez]

Bai Di: I grew up there, and for me, I always had a purpose. That was what education was about. And you didn’t have to worry about something like the kind of financial crisis that capitalism will always have periodically. We never had that much—two sets of clothes, but we never felt we should have more. You don’t have that kind of crazy desires for everything, like the need to go shopping all the time. I feel that capitalism is very good at creating a void in people’s psyche. It will teach you that the only way you feel okay is to want more. It is so consuming. When I grew up, I did not put much time at all in material stuff. So we had energy to do other things for greater good. We studied all kinds of subjects, and we thought our presence was very much a part of the future. Yes, we were very future oriented and our focus was also wider than only on China. It was about the whole human kind. It is what inspired us. That’s what I feel education has to be about.


Gold.