Blog
(This from our colleague Dan Honeywell, whose expertise in all things Mandarin earns him huge respect from the team):
Isn’t language fascinating? I have always been amazed at how squiggles, lines, dots and sounds can combine to form such beautifully intricate forms of communication.
So what if our access to language, and literature was restricted? We all take freedom of print for granted, and yet there have been many instances where regimes actively regulate the consumption of written material. The most well known was the Cultural Revolution in China (1966-1976), a time when any non-propagandist literature was actively banned. Anybody found reading, discussing or creating non-sanctioned material would have their lives systematically and publically destroyed. The result was the creation of well over a decade (the problem did not right itself overnight) of active paranoia and crippling fear throughout the country. Friendships and families were almost impossible to maintain, and the entire country’s social structure dissolved.
Very 1984, but very real.
It is hard to imagine such a time, and to have such a basic human right (as I believe it is) taken away from you. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, people were desperate for literature. As the suffocated country gasped for air, stories were written spontaneously, sporadically and with vigour. It has taken a long time for this ‘Scar Literature’ to shake itself free of the literary shackles to become original, propaganda-free material, for society to heal itself and for the written word to once again become the esteemed art it was always held to be.
The telling of stories is something far more powerful than any of us can imagine. Only when absent is its true gravity felt, and we should all appreciate the beauty, fragility and power of our language always.