Word: self
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...midst of Zouping is a village of 1,100 where Wu Baohua, 57, has been Communist Party secretary for 25 years. Wu is soft-spoken and polite, and his face expresses a sanguine dignity without a trace of self-importance. Then there are his teeth, big strong Jimmy Carter teeth. Separately, each one could win a prize. Taken together, the effect is electric. You could read fine print at the bottom of a well by his grin...
...Cultural Revolution two decades ago: PREPARE FOR WAR, PREPARE FOR NATURAL DISASTERS, SERVE THE PEOPLE. Wu makes no apologies. "Of course I know the slogan's origins," he says. "But there is nothing wrong with those words. We should use more of what Mao taught. His themes were self- reliance and sacrifice. I say to our leaders, more of that and less riding around in fancy cars...
Perhaps because the Chinese are historically indifferent to introspection (as befits a culture where family rather than self is the core of an individual's identity), I never hear a coherent analysis of the Cultural Revolution, an event that so inverted the natural order that parents were shamed, beaten and in some instances even killed by their own children. All I pick up is a line or two about the traditional absence of psychological study in totalitarian societies, and some bits and pieces, mostly about the worship of Mao as a semidivine figure, and tales of the Chairman's senility...
...what you want. Just remember to be careful outside." As we leave Bi's classroom, he turns out the lights and, without even a faint smile, sets the clock ahead an hour. Like many Chinese, Bi is expert at concealing his feelings behind a facade of impassivity and self-control. "You never know who may come by and see the clock," he says. "It is crucial to go through the motions. Be subtle even in protest...
Feigned compliance is the term used by Lucian Pye, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to describe such self-protective make-believe and the obedience it spawns. As a trait central to the Chinese character, feigned compliance has distinct Confucian roots, and Confucius is very much in vogue in China today. Not for that part of his philosophy that extols good-heartedness and broad-mindedness, but for his celebration of authority, hierarchy and anti-individualism. For the purposes of China's leaders, what counts is that Confucius presumed the ruler's right to rule...