PEN for Freedom A Journal of Literary Translation Volume 5 (2014): PEN for Freedom: A Journal of Literary Translation, #5

By Independent Chinese PEN Center

Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) is a nongovernmental, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization beyond borders based on free association of those who write, edit, translate, research and publish literature work in Chinese and dedicated to freedom of expression for the workers in Chinese language and literature, including writers, journalists, translators, scholars and publishers over the world. ICPC is a member organization of International PEN, the global association of writers dedicated to freedom of expression and the defence of writers suffering governmental repression. Through the worldwide PEN network and its own membership base in China and abroad, ICPC is able to mobilize international attention to the plight of writers and editors within China attempting to write and publish with a spirit of independence and integrity, regardless of their political views, ideological standpoint or religious beliefs.

 

The volume collected articles in 2014.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canada International Press
• Release date: Jul 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781990872006

Book preview

Stationery

I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies....

Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.

-Liu Xiaobo, a former president of ICPC and the laureate of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

PEN for Freedom

A Journal of Literary Translation

––––––––

Volume 5 (2014)

Independent Chinese PEN Center

獨立中文筆會

Promoting Literature

Defending Freedom of Expression

PEN for Freedom

A Journal of Literary Translation

Volume 5 (2014)

Copyright©2022 by Independent Chinese PEN Center

All rights reserved 

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Editor-in-Chief: Biao CHEN

Executive Editor: Yu ZHANG

Editorial Board: Biao CHEN, Lian YANG, Jian MA, Tienchi MARTIN-LIAO,

Yu ZHANG

Issued by the Press and Translation Committee, ICPC

Contributed by Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), June 2022

Published by Canada International Press

ISBN 978-1-990872-00-6 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-990872-01-3

CONTENTS

No. 17 (Spring 2014)

Sun Mingxun Swept Up in Criticism of a Movie

Lu Ling Betrayed in an Open Letter

Geng Yong Troubled for Discussing Ah Q

Feng Xuefeng Trapped in Red Chamber Nightmare

Zhang Zhongxiao Convicted in an Editorial Note

Ding Ling Exiled to the Great Northern Wilderness

Lü Yuan Condemned for Old Letters

Sun Yefang Suffering from Academic Opinions

Wang Juntao Detained for Tiananmen Poems

Yang Tongyan Captured for Velvet Action

No. 18 (Summer 2014)

PEN International Statement on China’s Renewed Crackdown on Writers and Journalists Ahead of 25th Anniversary of Tiananmen Protests

A Joint PEN Statement on China’s Crackdown toward 25th Anniversary of Beijing Massacre

PEN Witnesses Freedom of Expression in China (by Yu ZHANG)

The Darkness in Early Morning of June 4th (by LIU Xiaobo)

The 2nd of June 1989 and Other Poems (by LIU Xia)

Slaughter (by LIAO Yiwu)

Beijing Massacre and Beijing Coma (by MA Jian)

Motamorphoses, Alienation and the Return of Human Essence  (by FU Zheng Ming)

Opening Remarks for Freeing Liu Xia Event (by Suzanne NOSSEL)

Speech about a Letter from Liu Xia (by Hu Ping)

No. 19 (Autumn 2014)

Li Yizhe Condemned for a Wall Poster

Wang Fuchen Tried for Slandering Mao

Liu Qing Punished for His Prison Notes

Qin Yongmin Sentenced for Uniting Magazines

He Yongquan Convicted for Publishing The Duty

Xu Wenli Placed in Confinement for Appeal

Xue Deyun Arrested for Speeches

Liu Binyan Banned for Liberalism

Huang Xiang Sentenced for Poetic Disturbances

Wu, Mao, Zhu and Xu Jailed for or Editing Opposition Party

No. 20 (Winter 2014)

PEN International’s Day of the Imprisoned Writer: Gao Yu

ICPC Statement on PEN International Day of Imprisoned Writers

Warriors without Fear of Imprisonment

There Is a PEN and Another Poem (by Nguyen Xuan Nghia)

ICPC Statement on the International Human Rights Day

Listening to Bald Liao Playing Flute (by LIU Xiaobo)

Nothing to Say and Another Poem (by LIU Xia)

I Have No Enemies- Said Liu Xiaobo (by Yu ZHANG)

Song of October and Another Poem (by SHI Tao)

A Child Like This and Another Poem (by Mang Lang)

No. 17 (Spring 2014)

Special Issue for selected chapters of the book From Wang Shiwei to Liu Xiaobo: Prisoners of Literary Inquisition under Communist Rule in China by Yu Zhang

Contents

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Sun Mingxun Swept Up in Criticism of a Movie

Lu Ling Betrayed in an Open Letter

Geng Yong Troubled for Discussing Ah Q

Feng Xuefeng Trapped in Red Chamber Nightmare

Zhang Zhongxiao Convicted in an Editorial Note

Ding Ling Exiled to the Great Northern Wilderness

Lü Yuan Condemned for Old Letters

Sun Yefang Suffering from Academic Opinions

Wang Juntao Detained for Tiananmen Poems

Yang Tongyan Captured for Velvet Action

Translated by Stacy Mosher

Original texts in Chinese can be found at https://www.chinesepen.org/blog/archives/13877

Case No. 5 (1951): Sun Mingxun

Swept Up in Criticism of a Movie

1951-Sun Mingxun

Sun Mingxun (Sun Ming-Hsun, December 30, 1905 - January 20, 1961), a follower of the famous educational theorist and reformer Tao Xingzhi, was purged when official criticism of a movie, The Life of Wu Xun, brought Tao’s ideas into disrepute. Sun died from the effects of his maltreatment ten years later.

Among the first male teacher at kindergarten

Sun Mingxun was born to a peasant family in Pingbei County, Guizhou Province. Upon graduating from middle school at the age of 18, he was admitted to Guiyang Normal School, where he took part in the Guizhou Youth Revolutionary Alliance opposing Guizhou Governor Zhou Xicheng (Chou Hsi-cheng). In 1927, Sun joined classmate Dai Zi’an (Tai Jze-an) and others traveling on foot to Wuhan and then taking a boat to Shanghai. At the end of that year, he signed up to study at the Experimental Rural Normal School (subsequently renamed the Hsiao-chuang School) run by the famous champion of progressive education, Tao Xingzhi (Tao Heng-Chih).

In summer 1929, Sun helped establish Hsiao-chuang Kindergarten, becoming one of China’s first male kindergarten teachers. At the end of the year, he became editor of the newly established weekly Rural Teacher (Xiangcun Jiaoshi), which published Sun’s first essay, What Kind of Person is a Kindergarten Teacher? After Tao Xingzhi helped Nanjing workers go on strike and oppose the anchoring of Japanese warships in early 1930, the KMT authorities closed down the Hsiao-chuang School for colluding with the Communists and obstructionist practices, and Sun Mingxun and 30-odd other teachers and students were arrested. Supporters secured Sun’s release in August, and Tao Xingzhi sent him to teach at the Hsin’an Primary School in Huai’an.

In 1931, Sun Mingxun became a teacher at the Shanghai Tatung Kindergarten established by the China Mutual-Aid Association, and he joined the League of Left-Wing Education Workers. The following year he published his first treatise, Kindergarten Education (Normal Education). After helping establish Xin’an Kindergarten in Huai’an in 1933, Sun returned to Shanghai in 1934, and established and led China’s first kindergarten for the children of workers, the Laborers Children's Corps, in the British Concession in Shanghai. He subsequently published The Living Bodhisattva of the Ancient Temple (Gumiao Huo Pusa), Experience in Rural Kindergarten Education (Xiangcun Youzhi Jiaoyu Jingyantan) and The Laborers Children's Corps (Laogong Youer Tuan), and with his old classmate Dai Zi’an published several other works on kindergarten and primary education.

In autumn 1935, the national government became unhappy with the Laborers Children's Corps fostering a large number of children of CPC members, and the British Concession authorities ordered its closure. Sun Mingxun was invited to become the head of the Preschool Teachers Class at the Guangxi Universal National Primary Education Institute in Nanning and joined the CPC there. A year later, he resigned from the institute after disagreements with its director. He returned to Shanghai to establish the magazines Juvenile Knowledge (Shaonian Zhishi) and China Children (Zhongguo Shaonian). In December 1936, after his roommate was arrested, Sun fled to Xi’an, and proceeded from there to Yan’an in the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region controlled by the CPC. There he became a teacher at Lu Xun Normal School (later renamed Yan’an Normal School), headed by Xu Teli (Hsu Teh-li), once a teacher of Mao Zedong.

In April 1937, Sun Mingxun returned to Shanghai to work as an editor at the Life Education Society. In July, Japan launched its invasion of China and captured Shanghai in November. Sun moved with the Life Education Society to Wuhan and then to Chongqing. In the first half of 1939, he helped Tao Xingzhi establish the Yucai (Yu Tsai) School in Chongqing, and joined Lu Weite in editing and publishing Textbook for Anti-Japanese War and Nation building (Kangzhan Jianguo Duben) in 1940.

After the January 1941 Wannan Incident exacerbated tensions between the CPC and KMT, Sun went to teach at the Lanzhou Girls’ Normal School on Tao Xingzhi’s recommendation. In February 1942, he established and headed the Jiayu Guan branch of the School for Children of Yumen Oil Field Workers. He was obliged to resign in April 1943, however, when his CPC membership was exposed, and he returned to the Yucai School in Chongqing.

In spring 1944, the CPC’s Southern Bureau sent Sun back to his home village in Guizhou, where he organized local progressive youth in establishing the Vitality Association and became principal of the county middle school. Evading arrest by local KMT authorities, he returned to Chongqing in spring 1945 and edited Anti-Japan War Education (Kangzhan Jiaoyu) magazine for the local branch of the Life Education Society.

In January 1946, Tao Xingzhi established Society University, and Sun became a teacher in its Education Department. In April, most of the specialized sections of the Yucai School moved to Shanghai, and Sun became a leader of the general section and primary school that continued to operate as a branch in Chongqing. Tao Xingzhi died in July. The Ministry of Education forced the Yucai School to close down in December 1947, but its Chongqing Branch continued underground. Sun became the Chongqing branch head the following July, and published Education Viewed through Xingzhi’s Poetry in the same year.

When PLA troops occupied Chongqing in November 1949, the Yucai School was allowed to operate openly again. Sun was appointed the school’s principal and CPC branch secretary, and the following January he was elected as a delegate to the First Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress. In July that year, Sun was appointed to the Culture and Education Committee of the newly established Southwest Military and Political Commission under the Central People’s Government.

The purging of Tao Xingzhi’s followers

On May 20, 1951, People’s Daily published an editorial entitled "We Should Pay Attention to Discussion of the movie The Life of Wu Xun (later revealed to have been penned by Mao himself) relating to a recent film about a famous proponent of universal free education. The editorial touched off a nationwide mass political criticism of literary works that eventually developed into the Intellectual Thought Reform Campaign". On June 4, People’s Daily published an Education Ministry directive:

The so-called Wu Xun spirit has had a profound and widespread influence among education workers. This influence has obscured the revolutionary standpoint and viewpoint to become a serious ideological impediment to the people’s educational undertaking. For this reason, it is essential that all education administrative organs and schools at all levels engage in in-depth discussions of The Life of Wu Xun and works relating to Wu Xun, and must carry out a scientific and systematic discussion and criticism of the so-called Wu Xun spirit.

From then on, followers and admirers of Wu Xun in China’s cultural and education circles came under attack. Since Tao Xingzhi had been a great promoter of Wu Xun’s progressive ideas, his own followers became direct targets of this purge. Having published an essay expounding on Tao’s admiration for the Wu Xun spirit, Sun Mingxun became a particular focus of criticism.

On June 12, 1951, New China Daily (Xinhua Ribao), the official newspaper of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, launched a major criticism campaign throughout the region. Chongqing propaganda and education officials put Sun Mingxun into isolation for investigation and mobilized students of the Yucai School to expose and criticize the serious ideological poison of Wu Xun Spirit among Yucai teachers and students. Later that year, the Yucai School was reorganized, with Sun Mingxun forced to resign as principal and criticized by name in New China Daily on October 11:

In his essay Wu Xun and Tao Xingzhi, Sun Mingxun, the former principal of Yucai Middle School in Chongqing , particularly expounds on why Tao Xingzhi so extravagantly praised Wu Xun. This essay does not make the connection to his ideological practice, but is just an empty discussion with an inadequately serious attitude.

On November 28, 1951, New China Daily published a lead story on the influence of ‘Wu Xun Spirit’ on the Yucai Middle School in Chongqing and on the thinking of former principal Sun Mingxun. People’s Education accused Sun of representing the right wing in China’s current education reforms, and representing the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie’s reformism in the struggle for leadership of the people’s educational undertaking. With the launch of the nationwide Three Antis Campaign against corruption, waste and bureaucratism at the end of 1951, a work team stationed at Yucai Middle School accused Su Mingxun of corrupt dealings and mobilized students to criticize and humiliate him.

Late at night on March 6, 1952, Sun Mingxun slit his own throat in a failed suicide attempt. The Chongqing Municipal Committee of CPC designated Sun a suicidal traitor to the Party and announced in New China Daily that he had been stripping of his Party membership and employment. Once the Three Antis Campaign ended in October 1952, however, Sun was exonerated and assigned work, first as an editor and screener of educational publications, and then as a lecturer on children’s literature at Southwest Normal College. In 1956, he was confirmed as an associate professor, and under the penname Tuo Lin published his edited collection of Sichuan Children’s Songs through China Juveniles’ and Children’s Publishing House.

Dying alone as a Rightist

In May 1957, the CPC Central Committee launched its Rectification Campaign against bureaucratism, sectarianism and subjectivism in the Party. Responding to the call to assist the rectification by free airing of views, Sun Mingxun raised sharp criticisms during a rally at his college, and summed up his comments in an essay published in New China Daily on May 21:

The educational legacy of educator Tao Xingzhi, who was good enough to represent a model of the era, seems to have been completely cast aside, and cannot even be mentioned. Is this in compliance with the principles of Marxism-Leninism?

A month later, the Central Committee launched a political battle of Counterattack Against Bourgeois Rightists, commonly known as the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Quickly labeled a Rightist, Sun Mingxun was dismissed from his lecturing position and sent to the reference room to accept Reform through Labor (laogai) under the supervision of the masses. His wife, Kuang Zhongling, a teacher at the Primary School Affiliated with Southwest Normal College, was also labeled a Rightist because of her refusing to divorce Sun, and was sent to the countryside for laogai.

On the night of January 20, 1961, Sun succumbed to the bitter cold and died alone in his home in Chongqing at the age of 55.

Sun’s Rightist status was rectified in January 1979, and in 1981 he was fully rehabilitated and had his Party membership and political reputation restored.

Sun Mingxun’s Selected Essays on Education, edited by Kuang Zhongling, was published by Chongqing Publishing House in 1984.

Bibliography

Xin Yuan and Xie Fang, Tao Xingzhi and Xiaozhuang Normal School, 1986.

Xiao Shu, ‘Soul of Democracy’ Tao Xingzhi’s Unhappy Lot in the New China, 1999.

He Pinghua, Research on the First Cultural Crime Case after the Founding of Communist China, 2003.

Sun Dannian, Sun Mingxun: The Main Target of Criticism for ‘Wu Xun Spirit, 2005.

Liang Maolin, Self-Cultivation to Benefit Society: In Memory of the Centenary of Mr. Sun Mingxun’s Birth, 2005.

Kuang Zhongling and Sun Dannian, Preschool Educator Sun Mingxun, 2005.

Hu Xiaofeng and Jin Chenglin, A Genuine Life Educator: Mama Sun, 2007.