:: I recently had the opportunity to chat with an ex-Red Guard. This ex-Red Guard kindly allowed me to photograph some documents and things from his experience during the Cultural Revolution as a middle school student, and his participation in the national “down to the countryside, up to the mountains” (下乡, 上山) campaigns as a teenager / twenty-something. I have done some photoshop’ing on these photos to conceal the identify of this ex-Red Guard, but I can assure you, these are genuine artifacts straight from his scrapbook.  // AjS

:: below is a patch that was sewed onto the clothing (chest) of Red Guards, it reads: “Red Guard, Shanghai City Middle School Red Guard Representative Meeting, Yangpu Military Zone.” (Before the Cultural Revolution, Yangpu was, and is now, simply referred to as a “district,” it was “militarized” for purposes of the 10 year campaign.)

:: below is a certificate stating this ex-Red Guard’s participation in the Shanghai City, Wusong Middle School Red Guard Representative Meeting. The handwritten / cursive Chinese script to the left and right of Chairman Mao’s bust reads: “Rely on the helmsman when sailing the seas, rely on Mao Zedong thought when carrying out revolution (大海航行靠舵手, 干革命靠毛泽东思想).”

:: below is the outside front and back cover of a Red Guard passbook. The front cover (right) simply says: Red Guard (vertically), and Shanghai City Wusong Middle School Team / Unit (horizontally). The back cover (left) says: “The Three Main Rules of Discipline (三大纪律): 1) obey orders in all your actions, 2) do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses / people, and 3) turn in everything captured. The Eight Points for Attention (八项注意): 1) speak politely, 2) pay /price fairly for what you buy / sell, 3) return everything you borrow, 4) pay for anything you damage, 5) do not hit or swear at people, 6) do not damage crops, 7) do not take liberties with women, and 8) do not ill-treat captives.”

:: below is the inside front and back cover of a Red Guard passbook. The inside front cover (left) is a quote from Lin Biao (essentially second in command during the first half of the Cultural Revolution, 1966 – 71) that reads: “Read Chairman Mao’s books. Listen to Chairman Mao’s words. Follow Chairman Mao’s instructions on how to handle affairs. Be Chairman Mao’s Good Soldiers.” The inside back cover reads: “August 20, 1966. Red Guard certificate. Second year of middle school (the handwritten “中二” just above the photo).”

:: below is a public transit pass for this ex-Red Guard / “sent down educated youth” to use when returning home (Shanghai City, Yangpu District) from the countryside; dated May 12th, 1973.

:: I spent the past three days in Anhui visiting with my friend’s grandfather, a lovely man full of stories and laughs. He apparently took a liking to me as well and upon my departure gifted me two vintage Chairman Mao pins and a handwritten “Cultural Revolution Souvenir” (文化大革命纪念). Note the last two lines of handwriting in the picture below: 1966 – 1976, 十年动乱!!! (1966 – 1976, Ten Years of Turmoil!!!). A souvenir indeed.  // AjS

:: taken in Shanghai inside the front entrance of an old neighborhood (Sichuan North Rd. close to the Hailun Rd. intersection). Look closely, the lettering on the cement beam reads: 无产阶级专政万岁, meaning “Long Live the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.”

You don’t see this too often in China anymore, especially in Shanghai. According to my friends who live in the neighborhood, the lettering dates to the early 70’s, as it was a popular slogan during the cultural revolution (‘66 – ‘76).  // AjS

:: in this video short, 93 year old Teacher Gui (Ms. Gui Biqing, 桂碧清) tells two short stories from the Cultural Revolution era in China; one about a son taking the punishment for his family’s capitalist ventures and bourgeoisie background while they were abroad, and another about the good children of academics / intellectuals going bad and rebelling against their parents and society.

This video is also available on Tudou for faster loading in China.

The “teacher gui” video series will be sharing short excerpts from ongoing interviews with Teacher Gui, who is working with Chen Yi (陈怡), a reporter at the Shanghai Service Platform for Science & Public (上海科普资源开发与共享平台), to write her memoirs; a yet-to-be titled autobiography published sometime in 2009.

Teacher Gui has been a resident of Shanghai since she was a teenager. Born in 1917, she spent her early years growing up in Beijing on the campus of Qinghua University where her father was a professor. When the Japanese came too close for comfort, Teacher Gui and her family fled south to Shanghai, where shortly thereafter they were again inconvenienced by the Japanese.

Teacher Gui has lived through some of modern China’s most turbulent and interesting times. Through it all, including an 18 month stint locked up during the cultural revolution for being accused of espionage, she’s never stopped working. She was a radio news broadcaster with the Soviet Union broadcasting station in Shanghai, a kindergarten headmaster, and Chinese language teacher. She’s been teaching Mandarin to foreigners in Shanghai since the early 1940’s, and she still teaches to this day.

For more on Teacher Gui, feel free to Baidu or Google her; there are plenty of interesting articles, interviews, etc. from over the years.

// AjS