Red Scarf Girl

1
Red Scarf Girl

• Historical Context

2
Setting/history

• The story takes place in Shanghai, China, during
  the onset of Chairman Mao Ze-dong's Cultural
  Revolution.
• From www.harperchildrens.com

3
Setting/history

• By 1949 Mao established a Communist state by
  defeating the former ruling party, the
  Nationalists. In 1966, when Ji-li's story begins,
  Mao has just imposed the Cultural Revolution to
  cut people's ties to pre-Communist China.
• From www.harperchildrens.com

4
Setting/history

• To lead this revolution he enlisted help--mostly
  high school and college students--to implement
  rules and to eliminate everything that suggested
  a bourgeois lifestyle.
• From www.harperchildrens.com

5
Setting/history

• Having only grown up during the Communist state,
  many young people had little understanding of
  China's pre-Communist past and were aggressive
  about enforcing these rules. These factions of
  young people became known as the Red Guards.
• From www.harperchildrens.com

6
Setting/history

• The Red Guard frequently terrorized people they
  felt were not good Communists, and those under
  suspicion often lost their positions or their
  memberships in the Communist Party. Many others
  were sent to work camps. Some were thrown in jail
  or even killed.
• From www.harperchildrens.com

7
Landowners

• At first, the heart of the revolution was land
  reform.
• The ultimate goal was to increase economic
  output so that China's industrialization could be
  built on the profits made in agriculture.
• The first step, land to the tiller, was to get
  land into the hands of those who rented but did
  not own it. This was a bloody phase because
  landlords, whose lands were seized by local
  political leaders without compensation, were
  attacked by local peasants and often killed in
  struggle meetings.
• Who in the book is a landlord?
• From The Mao Years R. Keith Schoppa

8
The Cultural Revolution

• Mao mobilized the people to carry out government
  policies through mass political campaigns.
• In the first years of the regime, there were
  campaigns against corruption and waste among
  elites in party and government (Three-Anti
  Campaign) and against corruption in business and
  industry (Five-Anti Campaign).
• They were called campaigns because people were
  mobilized to campaign against the "evils" that
  were specified by the party.
• From The Mao Years R. Keith Schoppa

9
The Cultural Revolution

• By 1966 there was internal strife in the
  Communist Party and many policies were failing.
• Mao recruited young people to engage in
  continual revolution in order to maintain
  control over his party and to draw attention away
  from governmental failures.
• This time period is the focus of Red Scarf Girl.

10
1966-1968

• Mao called on the young people in The Red Guard
  to destroy the four olds old ideas, habits,
  customs, and culture. The years from 1966 to 1968
  were a period of almost total anarchy in China.
  Red Guards seized and humiliated - in some cases,
  beat to death - anyone allegedly linked with
  "feudal China." Many people committed suicide to
  escape such humiliation and torture.
• From The Mao Years R. Keith Schoppa

11
The Cultural Revolution

• The Cultural Revolution was meant to change
  peoples values and beliefs.
• It was a systematic attack on Chinese traditions,
  culture, and beliefs (the olds), which people
  were expected to replace with new beliefs an
  values.
• This poster is titled Destroy Old World.

12
Monsters and Demons

• 'Monsters and Demons' (???? niugui sheshen) was
  the term used to vilify specialists, scholars,
  authorities and 'people who entrenched themselves
  in ideological and cultural positions' during the
  Cultural Revolution.

13
Monsters and Demons

• Once people were 'dragged out' as 'evil spirits',
  they were forced to wear caps, collars or
  placards identifying them as such. Being 'cow
  monsters', they were imprisoned in what was
  generally called a 'cowshed' (??,niupeng). This
  did not have to be a genuine stable it could be
  a classroom, storehouse, dark room or temple. In
  the absence of legal procedures, the length of
  stay in the 'cowshed' could be ten days or ten
  years.

14
Rules of Survival

• During the Cultural Revolution, China printed an
  estimated 2.2 billion Mao Zedong posters--three
  for every citizen. Failing to display Mao
  prominently could brand you a counterrevolutionary
  .

15
The Little Red Book

• Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong was published
  in 1964.
• Every citizen was (unofficially) required to
  study and memorize quotes from it to be seen as a
  good citizen.

16
As you finish reading . . .

• What are the rules of survival depicted in Red
  Scarf Girl?
• Why do you think Ji-li Jiangs peers behave the
  way they do?
• Why is she tempted to behave in similar ways?
• What does the book tell us about children as
  political agents?