Chinese "self expression" on the rise

  Chinanews, Oct. 25 - China's traditional heritage is that of a rural society where every one lived under traditional concepts. For most of the ordinary folks, they did not have the idea of self expression from a cultural value point of view and the sense of individualism was quite weak. Therefore, expressing one's thoughts used to be a matter for intellectuals and the latter would express themselves in two situations, one to become an official and worry about the nation's affairs, the other to become a disappointed scholar and retire from the world.

When many intellectuals ran into obstacles in their government careers, they would borrow their skills in chess, music, painting, calligraphy and drank enough wine to create poetry and songs to express their individualism and special interests. This type of individualistic expression did not have much social meaning and was purely a matter of self-entertainment. What is worth a mention is that during the Spring and Autumn and subsequent Warring States period (770 B.C. to 221 B.C.) when feudal lords were fighting each other, a large group of learned men who believed in "literature serves as morality" was running all over the country and writing books and actively promoting and propagandizing their own political views and method of ruling a country. This is the unprecedented period of Chinese history known as "a hundred schools fighting for supremacy" and Confucius was the most outstanding intellectual of that period.

"May fourth" period was also the period of individual liberation during which time anti-traditionalism and anti-authoritarianism carried double meaning of both freeing the individuals as well as freeing society (building a new social order) and the two were intertwined like both sides of the same coin. For example, the young were against traditional marriages and fighting for the freedom to choose their own mates. This was both self liberation as well as part of social revolution and societal movement -- the individual being a member of this social movement.

"Cultural Revolution" can also be called "totalitarian" societal period. The characteristics of a totalitarian society is that 1) ordinary life is highly politicized and there is no room for personal space. Even dating and marriage become political questions and must be approved by the organization and everything must be reported to those above. Before and after every dinner one must declare one's allegiance to Chairman Mao; 2) there is no freedom and no self, not even freedom to socialize. Every song that is sung, every movie viewed and every garment worn were almost all planned by those on top. There is no room at all for individual expression. At that time, although everyone participated in political activity, that participation had no individual element. Instead it was largely a blind following.

In the 1980's, China entered the period of cultural re-awakening. Reforms and liberalization enabled those who were confined during the Cultural Revolution to be liberated and have also brought unprecedented prosperity. At that time newspapers held numerous discussion forums and invited their readers to participate in discussions with experts and also started new columns on their papers to allow many readers to express their views.

From the 1980's to the early 1990's, works that described the life of ordinary people began to surface in large quantity. These new realistic writers and film directors used the content of the stories they told to change a literature of sorrow, of pain borne out of reflecting on one's culture as well as attempting cutting-edge aphorisms to ordinary life of citizens. The central characters of this type of literary work are no longer the hero or the model worker. Instead they are people we run into on the street, so ordinary they are often banal.

The period from the 1990's to the present is a very special era and is viewed as "anti-totalitarian society" and the characteristic of this society is that various elements of different qualities are mixed, recast or broken up, quite opposite that in a totalitarian society. Today, people have achieved a definite measure of individual freedom and space in their cultural entertainment and cultural consumption as more and more once-closed public spaces have been opened up and many public questions can now be discussed.