Graven Images in the Peoples Republic of China

by Judy Manton

This article originally appeared in the summer 1988 edition of China Now

  published by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding in London

Premier Zhou En-lai stood in front of me expectantly. His intense, but kind, sparkling eyes were focused on me. I didn't feel as nervous as I had anticipated, but I felt very small in his presence. Noticing that he was wearing a "Serve the people" bar on his trim, grey, Chinese suit coat, I pressed into his hand a button from the one-China movement in the United States. I had only one moment in which to say my carefully rehearsed lines. After learning the  signi-ficance of the button, Premier Zhou smiled broadly as he vigorously shook my hand.

But why was such an insignificant person talking with the Premier of the Peoples Republic of China? It was January, 1972, at about 2 a.m. in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. A few minutes earlier in front of numer­ous heads of Chinese agencies and other American friends, Zhou En-lal had graciously thanked my husband for his contribution to U.S-Chinese relations.

China was in the midst of its most intensive politicizing campaign: the Cultural Revolution. ¡°Serve the people!" ¡°We will continue our revolution forever." ¡°A single spark can light a prairie fire." The quotations of Chairman Mao were plastered all over China, were on everyone's lips and on badges on everyone's chest.

Badges had made their appearance in China, however, long before the Cultural Revolution. In Yenan even before liberation, some people wore celluloid photos of Mao on badges. In 1950, a small badge bearing a '5' and a '1' representing May 1st was made in Beijing in commemoration of International Labor Day. The army wore 5-point red stars in their hats and Mao's .portrait in gold on red stars over ¡°Serve the people" bars on their chests. The Peoples Militia then began to show their loyalty to Mao by wearing badges. Other badges worn in China were school name badges, those worn by the participants in the Children's Palace in

          Shanghai, and little pins of various shapes which were

    souvenirs of famous places visited. The wearing of any

    kind of personal adornment in China was not popular as people were told that it was not necessary to make themselves attractive, that it was not good for the revolution. There were a few Zhou En-lai badges, but they were seen no more after Zhou said that only Mao badges should be worn. After Zhu Du's death, however, a few commemorative badges were made.

The first badges worn during the Cultural Revolution appeared in Beijing and were quite small. These dime-sized red badges were dubbed ¡°xiao hong dou" (small red beans). Bar-shaped badges bearing the characters ¡°Serve the people", made of cloth or plastic also became available. When the Red Guards were first organized by Chairman Mao, Zhou En-lai spoke to them en masse and emphasized that it was not how many badges they wore nor how big they were, but that they should wear their badges to the end and be loyal to them.

Liang Heng, in Son of the Revolution, recalled receiving his first Mao badge:" My proudest moment was when Peng Ning pinned on my red armband, not a makeshift paper one, but one of the finest red silk, with the shining snow-white words 'Red Guard' painted onto it. Then he attached a beautiful Chairman Mao button to my jacket, a noble yellow profile with metallic red rays emanating from it and Tien An Mien Square in red relief below. I think I grew 10 inches!

The badges were carried from Peking by enthusiastic Red Guards to other parts of China where they were greatly cherished. Then factories and institutions around the country began to make their own. They made them out of materials they worked with:aluminum, plastic, porcelain, or bamboo. The porcelains were very pretty and as they were heavy, they had to be secured especially well on the inside. People were afraid to wear porcelain ones as if they fell off, in breaking, Mao's name would be desecrated.

Aluminum was used in 1968 for the first badges made by the university in Guangzhou where I taught English from 1980 to 1982. As the university was closed during much of the Cultural Revolution, some of the teachers were free to devote many months to making badges. They looked a long time before finding an old man who agreed to make the first mold. Many people had refused as if they made a mistake, it might have been politically dangerous. Quite a few badges were pocketed by those who made them. People who worked in factories where badges were made often gave or sold them to relatives. That was permitted as it was all for the glory of Mao. Badges were not usually sold in stores, but could be purchased from people on the street. People sent special badges to their relatives in different parts of China. Some badges were distributed as gifts by various work units to their members. Others, in the shape of little books, were given out at special meetings which were called for the study of Mao Zedong's Thought.

                        As badges made by factories run by the Peoples Liberation Army were usually larger and of better quality, people were anxious to obtain some of those. To save resources, the public was asked to donate badges to remote areas so that more people could have them. Florescent plastic badges appeared for a time and were sought after because they glowed like the sun (the symbol of Mao). Once determined dangerous, however, they were no longer produced. A popular photo of young Mao in an army hat taken by Edgar Snow appeared on some bamboo and porcelain badges which were made toward the end of the Cultural Revolution after the metal ones had been prohibited as a wasteful use of metal. The government collected many to melt down as Mao had said that it was more important to use metal for planes than for badges. Some people were glad to give them to the collectors as they didn't know what to do with them and would be criticized if they threw them away. Others, however, who'd worked so hard to collect them and who didn't want to lose their swap value, preferred to keep theirs.

                Badges got bigger and bigger. Some were ridiculously large and too heavy to pin to a shirt. The larger the badge one wore, the more loyal to Mao he appeared. The political pressure to demonstrate loyalty to Mao became so great that people had to wear badges even though they didn't necessarily favor the Great Helmsman.

             Mao badges had to be handled with the greatest of care and respect. The badges carried with them a lot of political meaning. People knew they should wear them, but on the other hand, they were afraid to as if the badges were damaged consciously or unconsciously, disastrous consequences might result. There's a story about a little girl who dropped a badge down a drain in the street. Fearing that someone might spot it and search out the careless individual, her family waited until nighttime and when they were sure no one was watching, went outside, lifted the drain grating, and heaving a great sigh of relief retrieved the badge.

                Collecting badges became quite a hobby, replacing stamp collecting which had been forbidden. Publicity was given to a young girl who said that when she had 500, she would present them to chairman Mao. One man in Beijing made 75 different ones in cloisonne'which he presented to Mao on his birthday. An American reporter in Inner Mongolia in 1973 reported having seen a display of 2000 badges.

                 The government forbade the trading of badges as they were considered too sacred to be treated so lightly. Badges were, however, traded widely. As the schools were closed during the Cultural Revolution, there was nothing much else for the young people to do. Children at Bei Hai Park and the Summer Palace often approached strangers, wanting to trade. One of the favorite gathering places of young enthusiasts in Beijing was at one of the entrances to the zoo. Stories circulated about people being arrested and their collections being confiscated. To fool the police, badges were pinned to shirt fronts and jacket linings and even up each sleeve. When completely covered by a closed jacket, innocence could be feigned. Some even covered the palms of their gloves with badges and concealed them by making a fist or thrusting their hands into their jacket pockets. The young people spent a lot of time discussing the relative value of their badges. Some hard-to-get, popular badges took on a monetary value and were traded for scarce items such as light bulbs, eggs, stamp albums, cigarettes, labels for collections, and even free train rides. At first children were very excited about collecting them. Although they didn't know anything about politics, the badges were interesting to them. In time, however, some of the younger ones lost interest and traded them for large goldfish (which had become quite expensive), pet birds, or marbles.

Collections were kept in albums with sponge-like pages, organized according to size. The badges were pinned to one half of each page, leaving the other half free to be folded over to prevent them from being scratched, Every time some new type of badge came out, such as the florescent one, people talked a lot about it and were anxious to acquire it. Middle school children enjoyed a lot of prestige if they had badges that the other children didn't have. They tried to wear a different badge to school every day. Many parents disapproved of their children's great interest in collecting badges, however, as they considered them a waste of money. The intelligentsia was not interested in them, except perhaps as a hobby. A lot of people wore them who were not really very supportive of Mao. Those who were very political, or at least tried not to be, wore them to get promotions and to meetings where it was important to demonstrate loyalty. One woman kept a badge in her desk drawer just to wear to meetings. When she'd forget to wear it, a friend would always slip her an extra one.

                 Very highly valued were badges commemorating famous revolutionary sites. Badges such as those could be traded for quite a number of less important ones. As the Red Guards traveled around China they tried to visit as many revolutionary sites as possible. They pinned their collections onto 1arge handkerchiefs and carried them around carefully that way. Liang Heng in Son of the Revolution recalled his excitement in joining the New Long March Team: ¡°We would follow exactly in the Red Army's footsteps, suffering every hardship they had suffered, learning from them, turning ourselves into worthy inheritors of the torch of the Revolution by journeying to the very spot where it was first lit...We could get precious Chairman Mao badges at those sites, those invaluable souvenirs that had become national symbols of fervor and sincerity." Liang Heng gave up one of his treasured badges in exchange for a free train ride. He wrote that the train employee ¡°unclasped one of the Jinggang Mountain buttons, a big red one with Chairman Mao's head floating over three golden peaks (and said) 'I already have one of Peking, and now all I need in Shaôshan, Yenan, and Ruijing for the complete set of the five major revolutionary sites.'"

Badges even reached some peasants, given them in appreciation for housing they'd afforded transient Red Guards. Some of the Educated Youth who were sent to the countryside to live like peasants were so delighted with the large, attractive badges from the cities that they framed them and hung them on their walls.

     Badges were issued for many reasons, such as to commemorate an event. One badge bore the picture of Yu Hua Tai, the Revolutionary Martyr's Garden in Nanjing where the Kuomintang had executed many revolutionaries. Another showed Zun Yi, where in 1935 during the Long March Mao had been chosen Chairman of the Communist Party.

Others were issued in memory of places Mao had visited or where he'd delivered a significant speech. Several badges depicted An Yuan, a coal mine at which Mao had organized a strike in the 1920's.

Model communes were adulated through badges. An attractive porcelain badge showed Mao wearing a broad, straw peasant hat while overlooking the once lauded Daizai. Below the picture was the quote: ¡°In agriculture, learn from Daizai."

Many of Mao's famous quotations appeared on the front and back of the badges, such as one from Guangdong Province which read: ¡°Chinese women don't like to dress beautifully, but like to fight."

           To the participants in a special study session convened by the First Congress of Activists in Studying Chairman Mao's Works at the Peking Agricultural Institute was distributed a badge depicting Mao's books and above them a banner which read: ¡°We wish Chairman Mao a long, long life." Another bore the character for loyalty and the words: ¡°Warmly hail the publication of the Quotations of Chairman Mao."

                    Political movements were also the subject of badges. Factions within the Red Guards, for instance, wore badges to indicate their leanings. One of these was the Red Flag Commune which began at Zhongshan University (Sun Yat-sen University in Canton). After the late Premier Zhou En-lai had praised it, most of the students joined and the movement spread throughout the city. This badge was greatly prized in Guangzhou and commanded a very high trading value.

                     Badges were not only red and round (¡°The red sun in our hearts"), but also appeared in the shape of banners, flags, hearts, books, red stars, bars, flaming torches, and Mao's profile. Popular symbols were the sunflower which represented Mao, the evergreen tree which is the Chinese symbol of longevity, and the mangos which had been given him by General Ne Win of Burma.~

                  My collection of 750 Mao badges began in 1968 when,thousands of feet above Bulgaria, my husband gave a copy of the New York Times to an Albanian for a Mao badge pinned to his lapel. In 1972, in the five cities we visited in China I traded anti-Vietnam War buttons for Mao badges and was able to buy a few in Friendship Stores. Upon our return to China in 1973, however, I saw very few badges being worn and they were no longer available in the stores.

                  As Teletha Gerlach, a long time resident in Shanghai, told me at that time, ¡°It's not necessary to wear them now because Mao is secure politically. He doesn't like personal attention paid to him, but he sanctioned it from the beginning as other forces began to challenge his power." Actually it was Defense Minister Lin Biao who had promoted the 'Mao cult. Fewer badges were produced after his death in 1971.

                           Feelings in China now toward Mao badges are mixed. An American teacher in Xian in 1981 was given several hundred by a teacher who said he didn't want them anymore, but couldn't throw them out. When word got around the university in Guangzhou that I collected Mao badges, many were brought out from under beds where they'd been for several years and were presented to me on my birthday. Some had been pinned to another once-treasured discard: a Mao Zedong Thought Brigade arm band. Badges could be given away or even melted down, the graven image destroyed, but the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the Chinese people cannot so conveniently be erased.

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