Glossary

agricultural producers’ cooperative: the intermediate step between redistribution of land and the commune system, or between the 1940s and 1957, depending on the locality

All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles: established soon after 1949 to

rally the cultural forces behind the Party and the government anti-revisionism: opposition to the policy supposedly followed by Russia since

1959, a relaxation of Marxism-Leninism anti-rightist campaign: any movement billed as combating tendencies toward capitalism in behavior or in way of thinking

brigade committee (production brigade committee): the controlling element in a production brigade in a commune

cadre: originally a key member of any organization, now loosely used for

anybody who is somebody in the PRC, usually a Party member catty (chin): a weight measure, about 1.33 pounds

chang: a length measure, 10 Chinese feet, approximately 10.9 American feet cheng-feng: literally “straighten out the prevailing style of doing something”; a reform movement, used for the repeated drives to correct erroneous tendencies in the work and living style of the people involved; each of the movements (Three Antis, Five Antis, anti-rightist, etc.) is a cheng-feng movement chin (see catty)

Chinese Writers’ Association (national, with local branches): established soon after 1949, suspended during the Cultural Revolution (1964-70), recently revived

chüeh-chü: a standard Chinese verse form; a quatrain, or a cut-short verse, four

lines of equal length, with five or seven syllables in each line commune committee: the controlling element in a commune co-op, or cooperative (see agricultural producers’ cooperative)

Five Antis campaign, or Five Antis: begun in 1952 to oppose bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, skimping on work and cheating on materials, theft of state economic information Four Great Evils: four pests to be eliminated—in the early 1950s, mosquitoes, flies, sparrows, and rats; in 1960, after successful eradication of sparrows, bedbugs became the fourth pest Four Villains: in literary circles, Hsia Yen, T’ien Han, Yang Han-sheng, and Chou Yang, purged during the Cultural Revolution

Gang of Four: Chiang Ching (Mao Tse-tung’s wife) and her three close supporters Chang Ch’un-ch’iao, Wang Hung-wen, and Yao Wen-yüan, politically powerful in the mid-1960s, disgraced in 1976

General Line (short for General Line of the State): a guideline pronounced by the government in 1953 for the period of transition to socialism, roughly parallel to the first five-year plan, then modified in 1957 by Mao Tse-tung to pave the way for the second five-year plan

Great Leap Forward: policy for an all-out drive to develop the country, pronounced by the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee of the CCP’s Eighth Congress, in November 1958

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: official dates, 1966-69, but possibly 1962-76; ostensibly waged to keep the revolution from backsliding, but it actually caused a near civil war

hsieh-hou-yü: a figure of speech in Chinese colloquial, with the last word of

a familiar proverb omitted for the reader or listener to supply hsiang: subdivision of a county

Hsiao: meaning “small,” prefixed to a name as a form of friendly address Hundred Flowers movement: drive to encourage literary and artistic activity, (sometimes also applied to other areas of endeavor), first officially launched in January 1956 by Chou En-lai; the phrase was introduced by Lu Ting-yi on June 26 of the same year and was quickly applied to the movement.

huo-kuo: fire-pot, a sort of fondue with boiling broth instead of melted cheese

jenminpi: monetary unit; literally, “people’s money”

k’ang: heated adobe or brick platform used as a bed or sitting place in winter

in North China kaoliang: a main sorghum in North China

Kuomintang: short for Chung-kuo kuo-min-tang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1912 and stewarded by Chiang Kai-shek until his death in 1975

Lao: meaning “old,” prefixed to a name as a form of friendly address League of Left-wing Writers: established in 1930 by Lu Hsün, disbanded by

Chou Yang in 1936 li: a length measure, about one-third mile

Long March: the Communist forces’ 8,000-mile trek to escape Kuomintang siege and to consolidate scattered Communist bases in China, started in Juichin, Kiangsi Province, in October 1934, and ended in Yenan, Shensi Province, December 1935

lü-shih: a classical verse form; eight lines of equal length, with five or seven syllables in each line; also known as regulated verse

May Fourth movement: On May 4, 1919, students in Peking demonstrated against the Versailles decision to give to Japan former German possessions in Shantung; the movement was a dramatic expression of complex intellectual, social, and political undercurrents that began toward the end of the nineteenth century; in literature, the movement brought forth writings on modern themes in pai-hua (vernacular). The May Fourth era generally refers to the 1920s and 1930s.

May Seven (May Seven school for cadres): Mao Tse-tung’s directive dated May 7, 1966, exhorted every Chinese to learn other lines of productive work in addition to his or her principal career. Schools were subsequently established for this purpose. Some critics say the schools are but a modified form of reform through labor.

mu: an area measure, about one-sixth of an acre

pai-hua: vernacular, daily speech; its adoption in written language was promoted around the beginning of the twentieth century in an effort to create a new Chinese literature

Party branch secretary: head of a branch of the Chinese Communist Party, usually in an institutional unit, such as a commune or a factory

Party committee secretary: the committee of the CCP branch, usually in a political subdivision, such as a province, a county, a district [ hsiang) picul: a weight measure, equal to 133.33 pounds

“poisonous weeds”: a metaphor in circulation at the end of the Hundred Flowers movement, diligently used by those in power to label any writing they could not accept as a “fragrant flower,” but would rather reject as a poisonous weed

red-faced hero: exaggerated red makeup is always found on the stereotyped hero on the revolutionary opera stage; the expression is now used to denote a suntanned, fearless, almost superhumanly powerful model hero Red Guard: a term used before Liberation for the Communist militia or guerrilla member (ch’ih-wei-tui)) now rephrased hung-wei-ping, used for high school, even grade school students organized to serve the Communist cause; the Red Guards (school pupils) were called out by Mao Tse-tung during the Cultural Revolution to protect their leader and safeguard the revolution

Repatriates: landlords and village bullies who fled their villages at the advent of the Communist forces; after the Nationalist forces retook those areas, they returned to their village

Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region: the Communist sphere of influence in North China in the late 1930s and the 1940s, with the Kuomintang’s acquiescence

shih-fu: form of address, for a teacher of a trade, the master of a shop, a foreman, etc.

struggle meeting: a meeting, usually public, called to punish an offender, with the penalty ranging from gentle reprimand to physical abuse or even lynching, depending on the situation and the charge

Ta-chai: a model commune in southwestern Hopei Province

Ta-ch’ing: petroleum center in Manchuria, a model industrial development

tan: a weight measure, about 135 pounds

Three Antis: a movement begun in 1952 to oppose corruption, waste, and bureaucratism; cf. Five Antis

T’ien-an-men Incident: On April 5, 1976, supporters of the late Premier Chou En-lai insisted on holding a public memorial in his honor at the historic square in Peking, the Gate of Heavenly Peace (T’ien-an-men). Wreaths were laid and poems were posted. A riot ensued when police took down the tokens of grief. It has been said that the incident is as important as the May Fourth incident of 1919.

tz’u: Chinese classical verse forms popularized toward the end of the Tang dynasty, set to tunes of some 400 modes

wok: Chinese cooking pot, in Cantonese; in standard Mandarin speech, kuo

yüan: monetary unit, value varying throughout the years, worth about 50ȼ (one-half dollar) U.S. money after the Chinese monetary system had been stabilized toward the end of the 1960s