Abstract
This chapter depicts the stories of the first generation or the veteran cadres. Trained and worked in the revolutionary years, the veteran cadres witnessed significant changes in Liangshan and were direct participants in various socialist movements. They generally hold a relatively grateful attitude towards the Communist Party of China (CPC) which was largely represented by the Han people. Emotion plays a significant role in shaping ethnicity, and this chapter explains how collective emotion and collective memory are generated during this period of time and affecting their expression of ethnicity. Differences can be observed within the group, and their pre-liberation status was a significant indicator of the differences.
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Notes
- 1.
http://szb.lsz.gov.cn/read.aspx?id=28230. Accessed on 24 September 2015.
- 2.
Third Front Movement was a massive industrial development project that started in 1964. The main projects relating to Liangshan included the construction of the Chengdu–Kunming Railway, the Panzhihua Iron and Steel Company and a series of infrastructure constructions in the mountainous areas.
- 3.
A tentative scheme for training ethnic minority cadres was approved by the 60th executive meeting of the State Council on the 24 of November, 1950 (A Collection of Literature on Ethnic Politics 1953: 6).
- 4.
He mentioned that his mother saw the plane too, and it was because of that plane that his mother even considered naming him as “fi jy sse” (airplane boy).
- 5.
The original text is “huo pusa”. Bodhisattva is a term used in Buddhism which describes enlightened being. But its usage is not restricted to Buddhism or among believers of Buddhism. In the countryside, bodhisattva (pusa) is a saint or a god who answers people’s prayers.
- 6.
Shifu is a Chinese word which means master. This word is more frequently used to describe the master or teacher that teach his apprentice skills in traditional professions like martial arts, Peking operas and cross-talk shows.
- 7.
At that time, Liangshan was still part of Xikang Province. It did not become a prefecture of Sichuan Province until 1955.
- 8.
She was really passionate about these songs and she sang some more songs which were clearly from a later period.
- 9.
Both expressions are a combination of Chinese and Yi language. Chairman Mao and the Communist Party are in Chinese, and the expressions in italic are Yi. “Vat vat ku” means to live ten thousand years, and “he jjy he” means very good.
- 10.
Many Yi villagers, even today, do not have a very clear idea of what a cadre is. In their opinion, a cadre is someone who takes a non-agricultural job but is different from a businessman. In Li’s case, even if he didn’t have the position of village accountant, Ayi’s family would still interpret him as a “cadre” as long as he was a schoolteacher.
- 11.
A city in Sichuan province, which is famous for its Leshan Buddha, and the majority population is Han.
- 12.
A city in Sichuan province that is dominated by Han population.
- 13.
This was a direct quote from Shyxi. However, I could not find supporting documents which stated a period of fifty years. Speaking of keeping things unchanged for a period of 50 years, the first thing that come to most people’s mind would be the Sino-British Joint Declaration in which the UK Government declared that it would hand over Hong Kong to PRC, and the PRC stated that in accordance with the “one country, two system” principle, the capitalist system would remain unchanged for a period of fifty years. Shyxi, like many other cadres, was very interested in domestic and international politics, and sometimes she unconsciously used expressions which clearly didn’t belong to the revolutionary years like “falun gong”. I incline to take this as a mistake she made.
- 14.
Official Party cadres earned a salary, and teenagers who had not reached the age of 18 were enrolled as active members of the Party; some were given guns and other weapons in order to combat local rebellions. For some, the weapons were even more attractive than were the salaries. Jimu described the situation in her hometown, where some teenagers went to register as the backup for the militia and were issued with guns, but never showed up for later training or campaigns.
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Guo, Z. (2020). “Vat jjy vat” and “kat shax shax”: Socialist Campaigns, Han Neighbours and Yi Ethnicity. In: Changing Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9491-1_3
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