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Book
Mao: The Unknown Story
This book presents the dramatic life of Mao Zedong, revealing a wealth of unheard-of facts: why Mao joined the Communist Party, how he came to sit at the top of the Chinese Communist Party, and how he seized China step by step. Writers Jung Chang and her husband Jon Halliday took ten years to complete this book, interviewing hundreds of Mao's relatives and friends, Chinese and foreign informants and witnesses who worked and interacted with Mao as well as dignitaries from various countries.
Purchase link：https://www.amazon.com/Mao-Story-Jung-Chang/dp/0679746323.
Book
Memoirs of Sima Lu: A Witness to the History of the Chinese Communist Party, The
Sima Lu (1919-2021) was an expert on the history of the Chinese Communist Party. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1937, then was politically persecuted in Yan'an, left it, and was expelled from the Party in 1941. In 1952, Sima Lu published “Eighteen Years of Struggle” in Hong Kong, writing about his tortuous journey from defecting to the Communist Party to his awakening and eventual choice of freedom. It became a sensation. He has made in-depth special studies on several leading figures of the CCP, such as Qu Qubai and Zhang Guotao. His memoir, “Witness to the History of the CCP”, is divided into three chapters according to its contents: the first is about his personal experience, the second about the first generation of CCP figures, and the third is devoted to the struggle between Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.
Film and Video
Mountain Songs from the Plains
Luo Xiaojia, a young Yunnan Yi girl was trafficked to the plains of Shandong at the age of 17 and forced to marry a young farmer in the area. The film documents her family life in the unfamiliar Shandong countryside and her longing for home. In her tenth year in Shandong, she finally fights for the opportunity to return home. After a 4,000-kilometer journey, she returns to her hometown of Yunnan and sees her mother, whom she misses day and night. However, she struggles with conflicting emotions, and returns to Shandong with a mountain song that her mother sings for her. This movie reflects the sad fate of trafficked women in China and the social psychology that follows these tragedies.
Book
My Mother ：Gao Yaojie
Author Eva writes about her relationship with Gao Yaojie, a Chinese doctor. Dr. Gao Yaojie, who was severely repressed by the Chinese government for exposing the mass infection of Chinese farmers in Henan Province, China, by selling their blood, had no choice but to leave China at the age of 78 and go into exile in the United States. The dissemination of her story is strictly forbidden in China. In this book, author Eva describes Gao Yaojie's noble heart, her story, and her experiences.
Film and Video
My Mother Wang Peiying
On January 27, 1970, Wang Peiying, a cleaner at a kindergarten in Beijing, was sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes at a 100,000-person public trial held at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing. She was then taken to the execution ground along with a dozen other political prisoners to be executed by firing squad. Wang Peiying was strangled to death in the torture wagon because she preferred to die rather than give in and shout slogans. Forty years later, her daughter, Kexin, began to search for her mother's story. Through her mother's coworkers, friends in distress, and the task force, she gradually discovers her mother's experience as an active counterrevolutionary. In order to protect her conscience, Wang Peiying chose to stand up for her dignity and freedom to tell the truth, and willingly endured brutal torture. The documentary reflects the brutality of the Cultural Revolution and the destruction of humanity.
Book
Newly Discovered Mao, The: Volume I
Author Wang Ruoshui spent his early years studying philosophy at Peking University. He served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Communist Party newspaper “People's Daily” and was able to participate in high-level ideological discussions, gaining a deep understanding of Mao Zedong as a person and of his thought. He was one of the rare intellectuals within the CCP system who had an independent personality as well as the ability to think for himself. After his death from cancer, his wife, Feng Yuan, helped put together this posthumous book. Published by Ming Pao Press in 2002, it has been described as "the first and most comprehensive and in-depth discussion of Mao Zedong and his thought."
Book
Newly Discovered Mao, The: Volume II
Author Wang Ruoshui spent his early years studying philosophy at Peking University. He served as deputy editor-in-chief of the Communist Party newspaper "People's Daily" and was able to participate in high-level ideological discussions, gaining a deep understanding of Mao Zedong as a person and his thought. He was one of the rare intellectuals within the CCP system who had an independent personality as well as the ability to think for himself. After his death from cancer, his wife, Feng Yuan, put together this posthumous book. Published by Ming Pao Press in 2002, it has been described as "the first and most comprehensive and in-depth discussion of Mao Zedong and his thought.
Film and Video
Onlookers
People from all over China rush to the scene of China's trial of Bo Xilai, the former Chongqing Party Secretary of the Communist Party of China. The trial took place in August 2013 at the Jinan Intermediate People's Court in Shandong Province. Reporter Liu Xiangnan captured the scene.
Article
Oral Interviews with Global Feminists
As one of China's foremost feminist activists and thinkers, Ai was interviewed by the Global Feminisms Project at the University of Michigan. In this interview, Ai talks about her upbringing as well as about the current state of feminism in China and its outlook.
Book
Personal experiences of political movements
This book is a collection of many authors, most of whom were former senior officials of the Communist Party of China, such as Li Rui, Xiao Ke and others. Through the author's recollections, we can learn about the political movements of the Mao Zedong era, including the Cultural Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Movement, etc., as well as the details of many unjust cases, such as the Hu Feng case, which is quite convincing. This book was published by the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau Press in mainland China in 1998.
Film and Video
Postcard
After retiring from her job as a cadre, Wang Lihong fulfilled what she saw as her civic responsibility to become more active in women’s rights in China, especially the protection of their legal rights. In 2009-2010, she became involved in the “Fujian Netizen Case,” which resulted in the arrest of three human rights activists, who all sought to investigate the death of a 25-year-old women believed to have been murdered in a gang rape by men associated with the local police. Wang Lihong wrote letters to the General Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China every day for nine consecutive days, calling on the authorities to let them go home for the New Year. For this reason, she was criminally detained by the authorities in March 2011 on suspicion of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble." The case was heard by the Beijing, Chaoyang District People's Court on August 12; nearly a month later, on September 9, the court issued a guilty verdict and sentenced Wang Lihong to nine months in prison. The film documents her case, and raises questions about the accountability of the local government and police. Another one of Ai Xiaoming’s films, “Let the Sunshine Reach the Earth,” documents Wang Lihong’s trial process in more detail.
This film is in Chinese with Chinese subtitles.
Film and Video
Remembering Lin Zhao
Independent director Tiger Temple began shooting this film in 2010 and completed it in 2012, with subsequent revisions. The film features interviews with Lin Zhao's former lover Gan Cui as well as interviews with several independent scholars such as Qian Liqun and Cui Weiping. It is a powerful addition to Lin Zhao's memory. This film was selected as one of the top 20 finalists in the 2012 Sunshine Chinese Documentary Awards.
Film and Video
Spark
<i>Spark</i> tells the story of a group of young intellectuals who risked their lives to voice their opinions about the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s. Following the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1957, many intellectuals were branded as Rightists and banished to work and live in rural China. A group of students from Lanzhou University were among those sent to the countryside. There, they witnessed mass famine which resulted from government policies to collectivize agriculture and force industrialization in rural China. Shocked and angered by the government’s lack of response to the Great Famine, these students banded together to publish <i>Spark</i>, an underground magazine that sought to alert the Chinese population of the unfolding famine. The first issue, printed in 1960, included poems and articles analyzing the root causes of failed policies. However, as the first issue of <i>Spark</i> was mailed and the second issue was edited, many of these students, along with locals who supported the team, were arrested. Some of the key members of the publication were sentenced to life imprisonment and later executed, while others spent decades in labor camps.
In this 2014 documentary, Hu Jie uncovers the stories of the people involved in the publication of <i>Spark</i>. He conducts interviews with former members of the magazine who survived persecution, and also shows footage of the manuscripts of the magazine. A digital copy of the original manuscript of the first volume of <i>Spark</i> is also held on our website.
This film was awarded the Special Jury Prize for Chinese Documentary at the 2014 Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival and the Award of Excellence in the Asian Competition. Later, it won the Independent Spirit Award at the Beijing Independent Film Festival.
Periodicals
Spark, Issue 1
<i>Spark</i> was an underground magazine that appeared in the Tianshui area of Gansu Province in northwestern China during the 1959-1961 Great Famine. The magazine was lost for decades but in the late 1990s began to be republished electronically, becoming the basis of documentary films, essays, and books.
In 1959, the Great Famine was spreading across China. It was witnessed by a group of Lanzhou University students who had been branded as Rightists and sent down to labor in the rural area of Tianshui. They saw countless peasants dying of hunger, and witnessed cannibalism.
Led by Zhang Chunyuan, a history student at Lanzhou University, they founded <i>Spark</i> in the hope of alerting people to the unfolding disaster and analyzing its root causes. The students pooled their money to buy a mimeograph machine, carved their own wax plates, and printed the first issue. The thirty-page publication featured Lin Zhao's long poem, "A Day in Prometheus's Passion." The first issue also featured articles, such as "The Current Situation and Duty," which dissected the tragic situation of society at that time and hoped that the revolution would be initiated by the Communist Party from within.
The students planned to send the magazine to the leaders of the provinces and cities with a view to correcting their mistakes. But before the first issue of Spark was mailed and while the second issue was still being edited, on September 30, 1960, these students in Wushan and Tianshui were arrested, along with dozens of local peasants who knew and supported them. Among them: Zhang Chunyuan was sentenced to life imprisonment and later executed; Du Yinghua, deputy secretary of the Wushan County Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for having interacted with the students, and later executed. Lin Zhao was detained and also executed. Other key members, such as Gu Yan, Tan Chanxue, and Xiang Chengjian, were all sentenced to long years in labor camps.
In the 1990s, Tan Chanxue devoted herself to researching historical information and figures to bring this history to life. She found in her personnel file (<i>dan'an</i>）photographs of the magazine, as well as self-confessions and other evidence used in the students' trial. Eventually, the photos were collated into PDFs, which began to circulate around China.
Editors' note: This site the original handwritten version and a PDF of all the articles from the first issue of <i>Spark</i>. We will also make available transcripts of the essays in Chinese and are searching for volunteers to translate the texts into English. Please contact us if you're interested in helping!
Book
Sparks: A Chronicle of the Rightist Counter-Revolutionary Group at Lanzhou University
During the worst years of the 1960 famine, a group of teachers and students at Lanzhou University decided to publish an underground publication, <i>Spark</i>, to alert Chinese people to the growing disaster and expose the authoritarianism of the Chinese Communist Party. Only two issues of this underground publication were printed before it was broken up as a counter-revolutionary group case and 43 people were arrested.
The author of this book, Tan Chanxue, was a key participant and helped save the memory of <i>Spark</i> from being lost. Tan was the girlfriend of Zhang Chunyuan, the magazine's founder, and participated in key moments of the magazine's short lifespan. She was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but was later released and rehabilitated, and taught at the Jiuquan Teachers' Training School. In 1982, she was transferred to the Dunhuang Research Institute as an associate researcher, and retired in 1998, settling in Shanghai.
It is largely through Tan's efforts that we know about <i>Spark</i>. She was able to look into her personnel file (<i>dang'an</i>), where she discovered the issues of the magazine, as well as confessions of the people arrested, and even her love letters to Zhang. She photographed this material and later it was turned into PDFs, which circulated around China starting in the late 1990s, helping to inspire books and movies.
Film and Video
The Central Plains
Due to poverty in rural areas in Henan Province—part of China’s Central Plains—many farmers contracted AIDS by selling their blood. This documentary dives into the lives of these AIDS patients, depicting the manner in which they cope with life, officials’ responses, and the stories of volunteers who helped the infected villagers. The filmmaker visited several villages with high incidence of AIDS, interviewing and recording people’s accounts of how the “plasma economy” arose. This documentary presents the living condition of families and individuals, especially women and children, who contracted AIDS due to blood donation and blood transfusions, and demonstrates the formation of grassroots organizations.
This film is in Chinese with both Chinese and English subtitles.
Book
The Goddess of Freedom of the Chinese Nation -- An Anthology of Essays in Honor of Lin Zhao 40 Years After Her Death
Lin Zhao, formerly known as Peng Lingzhao, a native of Suzhou, was admitted to the journalism department of Peking University in 1954, but was classified as a Rightist in 1957. She was arrested and imprisoned in October 1960 because of her involvement with the underground magazine <i>Spark</i>. In 1965, Lin Zhao was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for "counter-revolutionary crimes." On April 29, 1968, she was sentenced to death and executed on the same day at the age of 36. This book is a collection of more than sixty articles written in memory of Lin Zhao.
Film and Video
The Vagina Monologues -- Stories Behind the Scenes
<i>The Vagina Monologues</i> is a pioneering feminist drama created by the American playwright Eva Ensler. In 2003, teachers and students at the Gender Education Forum of Sun Yat-sen University in China adapted the play and added artistic interpretations of Chinese women's gender experience. The adapted play had its first performance at the Guangdong Provincial Art Museum. This documentary records the attitudes of governments across China towards the play as well as women's perceptions of the play and its connection with their personal experiences. It also highlights the current political and cultural ecology of China.
Book
Thirty Years of New China
Tang Degang is a historian and biographer who specializes in oral history. In the latter half of his life, he settled in the United States and taught at Columbia University and the City University of New York. In the field of history, he put forward the "Three Gorges Theory of History", which divides the change of Chinese social system into three major stages: feudalism, imperialism, and civil rule. The book was originally titled <i>Mao Zedong's Dictatorship, 1949~1976</i>, but was renamed <i>Thirty Years of New China </i> when it was released on the mainland.