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The Cowshed: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Hardcover – January 26, 2016
In contemporary China, the Cultural Revolution remains a delicate topic, little discussed, but if a Chinese citizen has read one book on the subject, it is likely to be Ji’s memoir. When The Cowshed was published in China in 1998, it quickly became a bestseller. The Cultural Revolution had nearly disappeared from the collective memory. Prominent intellectuals rarely spoke openly about the revolution, and books on the subject were almost nonexistent. By the time of Ji’s death in 2009, little had changed, and despite its popularity, The Cowshed remains one of the only testimonies of its kind. As Zha Jianying writes in the introduction, “The book has sold well and stayed in print. But authorities also quietly took steps to restrict public discussion of the memoir, as its subject continues to be treated as sensitive. The present English edition, skillfully translated by Chenxin Jiang, is hence a welcome, valuable addition to the small body of work in this genre. It makes an important contribution to our understanding of that period.”
- Print length216 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNew York Review Books
- Publication dateJanuary 26, 2016
- Dimensions6.27 x 0.68 x 9.29 inches
- ISBN-101590179269
- ISBN-13978-1590179260
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"At the center of Ji’s account, ably translated by Chenxin Jiang, is the ‘cowshed' of the title…[Ji’s] description of this institution, really a kind of mini concentration camp, is unforgettable.” —Richard Bernstein, The New York Times Book Review
“Offers a rare and harrowing description of life as a prisoner of the Red Guards...[with] a compelling introduction.” —Jane Perlez, The New York Times Sinosphere blog
“Cowshed deserves to be near the top of anyone’s list of literary memoirs of China under Maoist rule.” —Philip F. Williams, World Literature Today
"China doesn’t make it easy for its people to openly discuss sensitive issues. Some were surprised, then, when a professor at one of the country’s most prestigious universities published this memoir in 1998 of his abuse during the decade-long, deadly social upheaval known as the Cultural Revolution. This book is a short, clear read, and now it’s in English." —Cara Anna, Associated Press
"A bestseller in China, this memoir calls attention to the tremendous injustices wrought in that anarchic time. . . . [Ji’s] pages seethe with grievance and reckoning. . . . [A] meaningful document of a time too little chronicled and now all but forgotten by younger Chinese people." —Kirkus Reviews
"Ji, as a world-renowned expert on Buddhism, Sanskrit, and comparative religions, brings a perspective to this hellish time that is marvelously informed, ironic, and revealing. Western readers get far more than simply an opportunity to be immersed in the sordid details of Red Guard torture. This book raises questions about religiosity, dictatorship, and trauma that will impact far beyond the China studies world. Chenxin Jiang’s translation and notes elucidate with skill, and empathy, the difficult details of the text. . . . Here lies the opportunity of genuine testimony, as glimpsed so dramatically in the works of Primo Levi, Jean Améry, and Dori Laub." —Vera Schwarcz, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University
"The most detailed account of Mao-era violence ever published inside China, now available in English translation." —Perry Link, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Foreign Languages, University of California, Riverside
“To a remarkable extent, The Cowshed achieved Ji’s goal of directing public attention to the brutality of the Cultural Revolution. And in light of current events such as artist Ai Weiwei’s house arrest and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo’s imprisonment, Ji Xianlin’s eyewitness story of surviving ‘reform through labor’ is an especially timely read.”—Jiang Chenxin
About the Author
Chenxin Jiang was born in Singapore and grew up in Hong Kong. She received the 2011 Susan Sontag Prize for Translation, as well as a PEN Translation Grant for her work on Ji Xianlin. Chenxin also translates from Italian and German. She studied comparative literature and creative writing at Princeton University.
Zha Jianying is a journalist and nonfiction writer. She is the author of two books in English, China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids, and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture and Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Dushu.
Product details
- Publisher : New York Review Books; Main edition (January 26, 2016)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 216 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1590179269
- ISBN-13 : 978-1590179260
- Item Weight : 15.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.27 x 0.68 x 9.29 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,056,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #361 in Historical China Biographies
- #3,724 in Chinese History (Books)
- #9,790 in Political Leader Biographies
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Ji was a peasant by birth who had been basically "given" to an uncle who ensured he would be educated. While having disdain for Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang government, Ji was essentially apolitical. He was a true intellectual. For ten years he lived in Germany, away from his wife and family, during the period of World War II, where he marveled at the cult that developed around Adolph Hitler, assuming that could never happen in China. It was ironic though, that years later, Ji himself became part of the cult around Mao Zedong, attending the large rallies, shouting Mao's slogans and embracing the Communist cause, even becoming a member of the Chinese Communist Party. Then the Cultural Revolution erupted and the Red Guards (Hongweibing) began their terrible reign of terror, urged on by Jiang Qing, Mao's wife and member of the infamous Gang of Four, as well as Peking University professor, Nie Yuanzi, derisively referred to by Ji as the "Empress Dowager," in reference to a despicable character in Chinese history. Ji was initially (somewhat) supportive of the Cultural Revolution, but at one point, he was critical of Nie, resulting in his being targeted by her New Beida faction of the Reg Guards. Ji even joined the Jinggangshan Red Guard faction as a means of protection against New Beida reprisals, but that failed. He was visited by Red Guards, priceless artifacts destroyed and his personal papers and past writings reviewed. This resulted in Ji being taken before large groups of students where he was beaten, spit upon and subjected to having to stand in the "airplane position." Later, he was assigned to The Cowshed on the campus of Peking University, but only after surviving harsh treatments on the countryside, etc. At one point, Ji was even prepared to commit suicide, but the Red Guards arrived to take him away for another session. Finally, Ji determined that he would survive the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution, a story of personal courage and perseverance. At times Ji interjected rather caustic humor in his observations, i.e. he noted that to his knowledge the airplane position had never been patented and how some students calligraphy had actually improved by their writing the large posters where he and other intellectuals were denounced. But that humor does not take away from the vivid account of the savagery of his treatment from the Red Guards.
Ji seemed to be at something of a loss as to how the Cultural Revolution occurred. But he did not discount the prospects of another Cultural Revolution occurring in the future, mainly because China's government has largely repressed any airing of that decade of Chinese history. Indeed, some may argue the current repressive government in China, where even the slightest hint of dissent is considered intolerable, there is a current Cultural Revolution ongoing, though in a different form.
This is a highly readable and important contribution to the history of the People's Republic of China and the repressiveness of the current government, that is neither the peoples or a republic, but instead, an intolerant police state.
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Much worse was to come over the following dreadful year. Ji was subjected to countless beatings and numbing 'struggles', and was imprisoned in his own university campus. His 'crime' was criticising a powerful university faction leader.
Born in 1911, under the last Emperor of China, Ji was a distinguished scholar of Buddhism and Sanskrit and also well-versed in ancient Chinese poetry. But it seems from his honest tale that he was essentially a conformist and not a deep thinker, choosing (understandably) to focus on his translating and teaching work, and doing just enough to stay in with the local power. After 1947, afflicted by guilt that he had not contributed to Communist liberation, (according to his own account) Ji took part in cultic adulation of Mao and frequent persecutions of party ‘leftists’ and supposedly capitalist ‘rightists’ on his campus. Indeed, despite witnessing decades of brutality and killings, Ji never questioned the ruthless Maoist ‘ideology’ or its intolerance of any form of dissent (nor did he object much to Nazism, though he studied in Germany during the tumultuous years of 1935-1945).
As Ji wrote, 'Even after I had been imprisoned, I continued to support the Cultural Revolution.' When he wrote an appendix to his memoir, in 1993, he testified that he still worshipped ‘cadres, soldiers and workers’ with a complete lack of discrimination, though he felt able to condemn the Cultural Revolution once the Gang of Four had been toppled in 1976.
In his memoir, which is readable though hardly a literary work, Ji shows minimal concern for his unfortunate wife, whom he barely mentions, or his aunt, who shared the small apartment – though he writes with heartfelt grief about his mother, whom he never saw after he left his impoverished peasant family as a teenager to live with an uncle in a city in the 1920s.
Fortunately, Ji had an unusually stubborn streak, which kept his spirit alive, despite his brain-washed mindset and his unrelenting nationalism. He was also remarkably adept in his chosen field: in 1970 he translated the twenty thousand verse Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, in secret, in order not to die of boredom when he was forced to work as a security guard.
The eponymous 'Cowshed' in question was the group of rotting sheds on Beijing University campus where academic 'capitalist-roader, enemies of the people' were incarcerated without charge and beaten until they confessed to pathetically vague crimes. Indeed, as Ji relates, the victims of this hysteric but prolonged campaign - whipped up by Mao to take his party enemies by surprise - did not try to defend themselves, but readily admitted guilt. Indeed, it would have been difficult to do otherwise, faced by hundreds of screaming accusers, amongst whom typically were one's colleagues and neighbours.
This memoir (published in Chinese in 1998 and in English in 2016) is a rare first-hand testimony to the murderous madness of the 'Cultural Revolution' of 1966-1976, during which 1.5 to 2 million intellectuals and officials were killed and tens of millions were beaten up and imprisoned, according to the respected historian Frank Dikotter, who has recently published the final volume in his trilogy about Mao's disastrous rule (The Cultural Revolution: a People's History, 1962-1976).
To this day, Mao is almost universally revered in China - the Communist Party dare not downgrade him from demi-God status for fear of undermining the party’s authority, though the Cultural Revolution has been condemned as a mistake. The fact remains that Mao was an utterly ruthless, mass-murdering, mesmeric manipulator on a par with Hitler and Stalin. In order to safeguard his personal power, Mao was responsible for the deaths of many tens of millions of his own people and did his best to destroy all potential sources of independent thinking, including Chinese peasant and literary culture. A frustrated poet, Mao was also personally sinister: his nightly penchant was to 'wash himself' in the loins of innocent, young peasant girls who were brought forcibly to his quarters (according to The Private Life of Chairman Mao: the memoirs of Mao's personal physician, by Zhisui Li).