MCLC: Oliver Stone slams Chinese film industry (10)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Jeff Kinkley <jkinkley at verizon.net>
Subject: Oliver Stone slams Chinese film industry (10)
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I support Canaan's remarks and raise the issue of Chinese textbooks,
another front in the struggle for national historical self-understanding.
(Other countries, including the US, also lack self-understanding, but that
does not alter the Chinese predicament.) My monograph, "Visions of
Dystopia in China's New Historical Novels," due out from Columbia UP in
October (pardon the plug), offers a brief summary of a standard Chinese
history textbook of modern and contemporary China published in 2011 by the
People's Education Press. That edition is virtually unchanged from its
2001 predecessor. When the textbook comes to the post-Mao period:

'Political struggle is subsequently replaced by policy options,
culminating in Deng Xiaoping's reforms. Final chapters list Chinese
achievements in science, technology, education, historical research, and
culture. The only literary achievements acknowledged are Maoist "red
classics," Ai Qing's poetry, and the "eight model plays" of the Cultural
Revolution. No post-Mao work is mentioned, except for certain movies and
TV series of the historical potboiler and "main melody" type. It is as if
Mao Zedong's arts policy were still in command.[note] It appears that even
China's lifestyle improvements are due not so much to changes in the last
three decades as to the revolution that created New China in 1949.'

Here's my note: 'Literary production in post-Mao times is covered in one
paragraph: "Since the end of the 'Gang of Four,' literature has recovered
and revitalized as the number of publications has increased, and the
subjects covered broader themes. Prosperity came. After the 1980s, the
'Mao Dun Literary Prize' was established in our country, and many
excellent literary works have won prizes. This has further pushed forward
the development in literary creativities" (2:148/2:241).' Pardon the
wooden translation. It is the official  translation, repeated
word-for-word from the English edition of the textbook!

Jeff

P. S.  China's 1950s leaning toward the USSR is not mentioned, so the
textbook did not need to mention the Sino-Soviet split.