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  3. Going to the Countryside: The Rural in the Modern Chinese Cultural Imagination, 1915-1965

Going to the Countryside: The Rural in the Modern Chinese Cultural Imagination, 1915-1965

Yu Zhang
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  • Overview

  • Contents

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, modern Chinese intellectuals, reformers, revolutionaries, leftist journalists, and idealistic youth had often crossed the increasing gap between the city and the countryside, which made the act of "going to the countryside" a distinctively modern experience and a continuous practice in China. Such a spatial crossing eventually culminated in the socialist state program of "down to the villages" movements during the 1960s and 1970s. What, then, was the special significance of "going to the countryside" before that era? Going to the Countryside deals with the cultural representations and practices of this practice between 1915 and 1965, focusing on individual homecoming, rural reconstruction, revolutionary journeys to Yan'an, the revolutionary "going down to the people" as well as going to the frontiers and rural hometowns for socialist construction. As part of the larger discourses of enlightenment, revolution, and socialist industrialization, "going to the countryside" entailed new ways of looking at the world and ordinary people, brought about new experiences of space and time, initiated new means of human communication and interaction, generated new forms of cultural production, revealed a fundamental epistemic shift in modern China, and ultimately created a new aesthetic, social, and political landscape.

As a critical response to the "urban turn" in the past few decades, this book brings the rural back to the central concern of Chinese cultural studies and aims to bridge the city and the countryside as two types of important geographical entities, which have often remained as disparate scholarly subjects of inquiry in the current state of China studies. Chinese modernity has been characterized by a dual process that created problems from the vast gap between the city and the countryside but simultaneously initiated constant efforts to cope with the gap personally, collectively, and institutionally. The process of "crossing" two distinct geographical spaces was often presented as continuous explorations of various ways of establishing the connectivity, interaction, and relationship of these two imagined geographical entities. Going to the Countryside argues that this new body of cultural productions did not merely turn the rural into a constantly changing representational space; most importantly, the rural has been constructed as a distinct modern experiential and aesthetic realm characterized by revolutionary changes in human conceptions and sentiments.

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Part I. The Rural as a Reflexive Vision of Chinese Enlightenment
    • One. How Far Are We Away from Home?
    • Two. Creating the Rural Vernacular
  • Part II. The Rural as a Constructive Vision of Chinese Revolution
    • Three. Journeys to the Revolutionary Site
    • Four. Legitimizing Romance, Sentimentalizing the Law, and Romanticizing Labor
  • Part III. The Rural as an Industrial Vision of Chinese Socialism
    • Five. Creating a Rural Industrial Aesthetics
    • Six. Socialist Builders on the Rails and Road
    • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index
Citable Link
Published: 2020
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-12660-6 (ebook)
  • 978-0-472-07443-3 (hardcover)
  • 978-0-472-05443-5 (paper)
Series
  • China Understandings Today
Subject
  • Asian Studies:China

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Black and white print of a crowd gathered on a city street. Two men are having a discussion while others look on.

“Ma Xiwu Mediating a Marriage Dispute Case”

From Chapter 4

Fig. 1. Woodblock print Ma Xiwu Mediating a Marriage Dispute Case authored by Gu Yuan. It was initially published in the Liberation Daily (October 9, 1944).

People work together on a large farm using industrial farming machinery. Mountains, fields, and a river appear in the background.

“The Prospect and Future of the Village”

From Chapter 5

Fig. 2. The Prospect and Future of the Village (Zhang Yuqing, 1958).

A group of young people dance and sing at a party.

The Young People in Our Village (1959), people dancing

From Chapter 5

Fig. 3. The Young People in Our Village (1959). The young people are dancing and singing at a party held for their entertainment (1:12:08).

A group of young people dance and sing at a party.

The Young People in Our Village (1959), people singing

From Chapter 5

Fig. 4. The Young People in Our Village (1959). The young people are dancing and singing in a party held for their entertainment (1:12:32).

Workers dig and chip away at a large, rocky mountaintop.

The Young People in Our Village (1959), people digging

From Chapter 5

Fig. 5. The Young People in Our Village (1959). The young people are digging on top of the mountain (1:12:46).

Workers move a mine cart along the tracks through a tunnel.

The Young People in Our Village (1959), the mine cart

From Chapter 5

Fig. 6. The Young People in Our Village (1959). Maolin and Xiaocui collaborate to make a mine cart to move mining debris (1:30:21).

Two workers stand on a mountain holding mirrors to direct sunlight into a tunnel below.

The Young People in Our Village (1959), the two mirrors

From Chapter 5

Fig. 7. The Young People in Our Village (1959). Maolin and Xiaocui use two mirrors to reflect light into the dark tunnel (1:30:43).

In a residential setting, a man at a table builds a wooden model of a milling machine. A woman looks on, smiling.

The Young People in Our Village (1963), the miniature model

From Chapter 5

Fig. 8. The Young People in Our Village (1963). Maolin makes a miniature wooden model of a power-driven flour-milling machine (13:03).

A woman operates a large milling machine in an industrial setting.

The Young People in Our Village (1963), the large machine

From Chapter 5

Fig. 9. The Young People in Our Village (1963). The flour-milling machine that appears later in the film looks like an enlarged version of the wooden model (1:28:01).

This photo depicts a train traveling across a bridge over water.

The Nurse’s Diary (1956), the railway journey

From Chapter 6

Fig. 10. The Nurse’s Diary (1956). A sequence of shots depicting the railway journey, highlighting the aesthetic appeal of the machine that provides mobility (16:26).

Passengers in a train car gather together and socialize.

The Nurse’s Diary (1956), the passengers singing

From Chapter 6

Fig. 11. The Nurse’s Diary (1956). A group of young people who share no past, only the current moment: “train moving forward, passengers singing.”

The empty wasteland, covered in snow and patchy grass and marked by a flag, will be turned into an industrial site.

The Nurse’s Diary (1956), the land for the factory

From Chapter 6

Fig. 12. The Nurse’s Diary (1956). Jian Suhua and Tang Xiaofang embrace the land on which they will construct their “dream factory.”

A woman walks across rocky ground covered in twigs and small, barren trees.

The Nurse’s Diary (1956), the journey to the construction site

From Chapter 6

Fig. 13. The Nurse’s Diary (1956). Jian Suhua’s journey to the construction site.

Two people talk in a household setting.

A Blade of Grass on the Kunlun Mountain (1962), an intimate chat

From Chapter 6

Fig. 14. A Blade of Grass on the Kunlun Mountain (1962). An intimate chat inside the house.

A mountain rises in a snow covered landscape.

A Blade of Grass on the Kunlun Mountain (1962). the Kunlun Mountain

From Chapter 6

Fig. 15. A Blade of Grass on the Kunlun Mountain (1962). The Kunlun Mountain.

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