Pictures from a revolution

I wanted to be the girl in the poster when I was growing up. Every day I dressed up like that girl in a white cotton shirt with a red scarf around my neck, and I braided my hair the same way. I liked the fact that she was surrounded by the revolutionary martyrs, whom I was taught to worship since kindergarten. The one on the far right was Liu Hulan, the teenage girl whose head was chopped off by the Nationalists because she wouldn’t betray her faith in Communism. The soldier above her was Huang Ji-guang, who used his chest to block American machine-gun fire in the Korean War. The one next to him was Dong Cunrui, who used his own body as a post supporting explosives when blowing up an enemy bridge. The soldier on the far left was Cai Yong-xiang, who was run over by a train while rescuing others. The book, which the girl in the poster carries in her hands, is “The Story of Lei Feng,” a soldier/hero/martyr, who was a truck-driver who died protecting others.

My passion for the posters began when I was eight years old. One day I brought home from school a poster of Chairman Mao. Although I did not know that the Cultural Revolution had started, my action made me a participant -- I removed my mother’s “Peace and Happiness” painting with children playing in a lotus pond from the wall, and replaced it with the Mao poster. My mother was not pleased but she tried not to show her disappointment. I remember my thoughts: why wasn’t she happy about Mao looking down at us during every meal while others couldn’t have enough of Mao?

The posters had great impact on my life. They taught me to be selfless and to be loyal to Mao and Communism. To be able to feel closer to Mao, I filled my house with posters. I looked at Mao before I closed my eyes at night and again when I woke. When I saved a few pennies, I would go to the bookstores to buy new Mao posters.

The place where I lived in Shanghai became a war zone during the heat of the Cultural Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies. Violence between factions often led to death. Everyone fought in the name of Mao. To be a Maoist was the goal of the time. For ten years I was in charge of the “Blackboard Newspaper” in my school. For the head art, I copied every image from “The Head Art for Propaganda Publishing.” Week after week, month after month and year after year, I tirelessly drew pictures. I put out extra editions of the black-board newspaper during the summers and winters when the schools were out. I didn’t mind that only a few people would see my work. My hands were swollen from frostbite and I could barely hold the chalk. But I was inspired by the heroes and heroines in the posters, and I believed that hardship would only toughen me and make me strong.

I continued to dream that one day I would be honored to have an opportunity to sacrifice myself for Mao, and become the girl in the poster. I graduated from middle school and was assigned by the government to work in a collective labor farm near the East China Sea. Life there was unbearable and many youths purposely injured themselves, for example, cut off their foot or hand in order to claim disability and be sent home. My strength and courage came from the posters that I grew up with. I believed in heroism and if I had to, I preferred to die like a martyr.

I slaved in the rice and cotton fields for three years until Madame Mao, Jiang Qing, changed my fate. In early 1976, no one knew that Mao was dying and Madame Mao was preparing herself to take over China after him. She was making a propaganda film to show the masses, and she had sent out talent scouts all over the country to look for a “proletarian face” to star in her film. I was chosen when hoeing in the cotton field.

I was brought to the Shanghai Film Studio to be trained to act in Madame Mao’s film. It was there I encountered the famous poster-painter Mr. Ha Qiongwen from the Shanghai Art Institute Hua-Yuan. I was brushing my teeth one morning in a public sink when Mr. Ha approached me. He showed me a piece of paper authorizing him to look for models for his posters. He said that he liked my look and asked if I would model for him. I was flattered but asked if my puffy eyes would be a bother because I had just woken up. He said no.

Mr. Ha followed me back to my dorm to choose costumes from my clothes. I was surprised that he picked my green-colored worn-out army jacket which I had brought back with me from the labor camp. I told him that it would only take a moment for me to wash off the muddy dirt on the shoulder. He stopped me and said that the dirt was the effect that he had been looking for.

I began posing after Mr. Ha set up the camera. I didn’t know how to pose and was just doing what he asked of me, which was to look into the far distance with confidence. I apologized for my sun-beaten skin and hair, and I tried to hide my fungicide-stained fingernails. He said that he liked the fact that I looked like a real peasant.

He asked me what I would wear when working in the rice paddy. I replied that I would wear a straw-hat, I wouldn’t wear shoes, and I would have my sleeves rolled up to the elbows and the pants up to the knees. He told me to do that. I obeyed. I kicked off my shoes and he saw the fungicide-stained toenails. I was embarrassed, but he told me that I shouldn’t be. Instead, I should be proud. “I have been painting posters featuring peasants for years,” he said, “and I have never realized my mistake. From now on I will paint peasants’ toenails in a brown color.” A week later, Mr. Ha sent me a print of his favorite shot of me. I looked quite heroic, like the girl in the poster I had admired as a child. Months passed and I didn’t hear from him. One day during the Chinese New Year, when I was walking near Shanghai’s busiest street, Central Xi-Zang Road and East Yan-an Road, I saw myself in a poster on the front window of the largest bookstore. The woman in the poster had my face, my jacket, but her arms and legs were thicker. She wore a straw-hat, her sleeves and pants were rolled up, and all her nails were brown-colored!

I rushed home to share the news with my family, and everyone was excited and proud. I wished that I could have purchased a print of that poster, but it was not for sale. The clerk in the bookstore told me that it was distributed by the government for displaying in public spaces.

Michael Wolf’s collection of Chinese propaganda posters is unique and marvelous. The posters are a representation of a generation’s fantasy. They reflect an important era in Chinese history, which has been falsely recorded for the most part.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let them speak.