Transcript for Paul Bao Student Interview Interviewer: What was your most significant recollection about the

Cultural Revolution? Paul Bao: Well I have to say okay, I was pretty young. The Cultural Revolution is officially defined from 1966 the middle to 1976. So I was pretty young. When it started I was about 6. So my recollection was pretty sparse. But I got a lot of recollection from my exposure to friends, from their conversations, from peoples personal experience who were old enough to remember those things. So basically if I remember anything from my young mind, its chaos. Chaos is not only in society, its penetrating any part of life. So China is a huge country, but this chaotic situation penetrated every village, basically every square foot of land in that big country. That could be the purpose of this event, this movement; they want to create chaos in order to get things done without rule, without common sense. Interviewer: How did the Cultural Revolution impact you personally? Paul Bao: Not directly, I didnt get impacted because I was so young, so my life just started. But I was impacted very much, though indirectly because in the Cultural Revolution. In the whole Peoples Republic of China, but particularly from the Cultural Revolution period, the family life, personal life or dating life was affected because of the following reasons. The first reason is that people were classified into classes. So communists tried to classify people into different classes by their birth, by their family, by their parents education, by the parents working experiences. You were born to a class, nothing you could change. The Cultural Revolution strengthened that classification. If you were classified in the lower class or the class we call bad class, then the chance for you to do anything would be hampered. You cant go to school; you cant get a job, even though you are skillful to qualify for the job. You cant get promoted because of your classification by birth. So that impact changed your whole life. Like for example, in the Cultural Revolution there was another movement affecting all the students, all the high school middle school students. For 10 years if you graduated from either middle school or high school you have to go to the countryside. The countryside means you go to the villages. The villages youre going to have nothing to do with you. You have no friends. The villages are very remote. For example, in the border areas of the country, the mountain areas, the high plateau areas. So you have to go there, but if you belong to a bad class by birth, you will go to the harshest villages. If are you have some reason parents that were or still are highly ranked officials, or you know someone connected to power, you might be selective and go somewhere better. That is an impact you get your whole life. You dont see the life ahead of you. You see your big brother or big sister going through the procedure which you are following suit. There are people, young people that grew up in cities and ended up in the countryside for 10 years. There are a very small portion of them that went to the countryside and stayed their because of various reasons, married to local people, they stayed there all their life. Thats a very small portion. Most people came back to the city after basically 1978, after Deng Xiao Ping became a leader. But those 10 years the government after this Cultural Revolution has a description of these 10 years. They call it the 10 year catastrophe.

Thats a very strong word. I dont think you could find a stronger word in English or Chinese to describe something as a catastrophe. Its a totally chaotic 10 years everything has been destroyed, everything. The Cultural Revolutions name might be right because all of the culture has been destroyed. The civilization accumulated from 5000 years of history from china had been totally destroyed. We still feel the impact today near 40 years afterwards. Thats something. Interviewer: In your opinion how was this a turning point for China? Paul Bao: Do you mean how this event changed China? Interviewer: Yes, the significance. Paul Bao: Okay, very ironically, the Cultural Revolution is a catastrophe. It was a bad thing that affected everyone for 10 years in China negatively. Ironically, this event had some positive impact. To understand this you have to understand Communism and the governments control by this Communist idea. Before the Cultural Revolution, we already had classes: higher classes and lower classes. All of the government officials, those people who fought for the creation for the Peoples Republic of China. Those people and their family, their second and third generations, maybe even fifth generation already. They had power and privileges, they had everything. So they form a very small minority but strong power group governing the country. Not only governing the country but everything. During the Cultural Revolution, one of the objectives by Mao, Chairman Mao, or Mao Zedong was to take down a few high ranking officials Mao considered this enemies. Just a few officials that Mao considered a threat to his power. So thats the very objective of this Cultural Revolution. At the time, nobody understood. Nobody was smart enough or illogical enough. Mao was a very illogical guy. Nobody was illogical enough to understand the whole motivation of it. During the Cultural Revolution those high ranking officials were taken down by this chaotic situation. They had been taken down, definitely illegally but taken down. They lost their power and their life. Then after this Cultural Revolution, everyone got impacted in a negative way, they learned from these bad experiences. That led to what we called reforms: economic reforms, society reforms, maybe in the future political reforms. Interview: Alright, thank you for your time.