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The Rice Sprout Song
The Rice Sprout Song is a 1955 novel by Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing). It was her first attempt at writing fiction in English and with it, she addresses political issues relevant to early 20th Century China in a far more direct approach than she was ever akin to. The novel depicts the extreme ruthless nature of the land redistribution movement of the Communist regime. The novel highlights the horrors and suffering it caused a southern agrarian village in early 1950s China and hinges on the lives of a large family of peasant landowners in the countryside. In doing so, the novel portrays several elements of a traditional Chinese family structure and the prominent culture of that era. The novel portrays the various and severe implications that the larger political institutions surrounding them impose, primarily the famine that led to the subsequent suffering of the peasants. It describes the desperation of ordinary farmers in the face of hunger in detail, and by analyzing the causes of hunger, highlights the contradiction between farmers' needs and government control, as well as the conflict between human nature and system. In the novel, there is also the cultural and organizational construction of the government in the countryside. Although it is also a means for the government to control the countryside, it obviously has no distinct theme of "hunger" because of its social progress.
The novel depicted the circumstances that a certain extreme communist policy had on the people in an intimate and vivid way by capturing the intricacies and rituals of family life as well as provide an accurate portrayal of the voices of countryside peasants. In doing so, Chang undoubtedly insinuates anti-communist ideologies and sparks a discourse about the dangers of communism as well as a retrospection at the harsh decisions of the communist party. The communist government was depicted to be the new landlord with proportionately more power and greed, wherein regardless of the peasant's hard work they never have enough to eat.
The story took place sometime between 1950 and 1954 in a rural town near Shanghai after the central government of the People's Republic of China enacted the Land Reform Law on June 30, 1950. The significance of the Chinese land reform consists in the elimination of the landlord-gentry class and redistribution of land among the peasantry. In the story, characters mentioned several times that they have received goods, such as the mirror in Gold Root's house, as well as land from landlords. The scene depicted in the story is a reflection of the outcome of China's land reform movement in reality at that time. During the winter of 1950-51, the land was confiscated from former landlords and redistributed to landless peasants and owners of small plots, as well as to the landlords themselves, who now had to till the land to earn a living.
After 1949, farmers classified as "poor peasants" by the Communists were given ownership to land taken away from local landlords and rich farmers. Estates and large farms were divided and peasants got small parcels of land. The seizure of land was not always easy. In some cases “certain necessary steps” had to be taken and this resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people. In many cases, villagers were executed or beaten to death by fellow villagers to get their land. By the spring of 1953, land reform was basically complete, and the peasants had achieved genuine liberation. The feudal system of land ownership that had existed for more than 2,000 years was completely destroyed and the landlord class was eliminated. However, Shortly after the fields had been turned over to the tiller, preparations began to familiarize the peasantry with the next step in agricultural reform. Before long, the land that had been handed out to the peasants was slowly returned to the state. In the early 1950s, the Communists helped form mutual aid teams, the precursors to cooperatives. Later in 1955, Mao decreed that all farmers should "voluntarily" organize into large cooperatives. The cooperatives were overseen by party cadres and large portions of the output were turned over to the state.[citation needed]
The promulgation of the Policy for Unified Purchase and Sale of Grain was closely related to the grain crisis in 1953 and the implementation of the general line for the transitional period. Although the strictly monitored relationship of supply and demand for grain in China was alleviated, the grain remained unfairly and unequally distributed. In order to meet the demand for grain in large scale industrialization and to stabilize grain price, the central government had to adopt a new measure to control the resources for production. The grain crisis in 1953 offered an important opportunity to propagate the Policy for Unified Purchase and Sale of Grain.
On November 19, 1953, the Government Council had approved The Order of the Central People's Government Council on the implementation of planned acquisitions and planned supply of food. Inside the order, peasants were ordered to sell the surplus grain to the country by the National regulations' set price, set types of grain and the set amount of planned acquisitions. After peasants were to sell their grain, the surplus would then be freely stored and used. The grain can be continually sold by the peasants to the National food department or through cooperative trading at food markets which are set and regulated by the government.
In the novel, due to circumstances such as bad weather, villagers did not have a good harvest, however, the planned acquisitions by the government remained mandatory, and were nonetheless ordered to sell their grain to the government, which they could not afford to sell as they were in the bouts of famine and starvation eventually leading the male protagonist to instigate a riot.
The author herself maintained a period of great popularity for about 2 years while Shanghai was under Japanese occupation in the 1940s and published the majority of her writings there. Her popularity arose soon after the publication of her first collection of short stories titled, Romances (Chuanqi, 傳奇). Chang's rise to prominence can be partly explained by the exodus of "progressive" writers from the foreign concessions to the north, which led to a vacuum in the literary scene that was filled by the leisurely Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School of popular romance. She went to the United States in the 1950s and that was the time when The Rice-Sprout Song was published. Her fame peaked again for several years at the end of her life.
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The Rice Sprout Song
The Rice Sprout Song is a 1955 novel by Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing). It was her first attempt at writing fiction in English and with it, she addresses political issues relevant to early 20th Century China in a far more direct approach than she was ever akin to. The novel depicts the extreme ruthless nature of the land redistribution movement of the Communist regime. The novel highlights the horrors and suffering it caused a southern agrarian village in early 1950s China and hinges on the lives of a large family of peasant landowners in the countryside. In doing so, the novel portrays several elements of a traditional Chinese family structure and the prominent culture of that era. The novel portrays the various and severe implications that the larger political institutions surrounding them impose, primarily the famine that led to the subsequent suffering of the peasants. It describes the desperation of ordinary farmers in the face of hunger in detail, and by analyzing the causes of hunger, highlights the contradiction between farmers' needs and government control, as well as the conflict between human nature and system. In the novel, there is also the cultural and organizational construction of the government in the countryside. Although it is also a means for the government to control the countryside, it obviously has no distinct theme of "hunger" because of its social progress.
The novel depicted the circumstances that a certain extreme communist policy had on the people in an intimate and vivid way by capturing the intricacies and rituals of family life as well as provide an accurate portrayal of the voices of countryside peasants. In doing so, Chang undoubtedly insinuates anti-communist ideologies and sparks a discourse about the dangers of communism as well as a retrospection at the harsh decisions of the communist party. The communist government was depicted to be the new landlord with proportionately more power and greed, wherein regardless of the peasant's hard work they never have enough to eat.
The story took place sometime between 1950 and 1954 in a rural town near Shanghai after the central government of the People's Republic of China enacted the Land Reform Law on June 30, 1950. The significance of the Chinese land reform consists in the elimination of the landlord-gentry class and redistribution of land among the peasantry. In the story, characters mentioned several times that they have received goods, such as the mirror in Gold Root's house, as well as land from landlords. The scene depicted in the story is a reflection of the outcome of China's land reform movement in reality at that time. During the winter of 1950-51, the land was confiscated from former landlords and redistributed to landless peasants and owners of small plots, as well as to the landlords themselves, who now had to till the land to earn a living.
After 1949, farmers classified as "poor peasants" by the Communists were given ownership to land taken away from local landlords and rich farmers. Estates and large farms were divided and peasants got small parcels of land. The seizure of land was not always easy. In some cases “certain necessary steps” had to be taken and this resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people. In many cases, villagers were executed or beaten to death by fellow villagers to get their land. By the spring of 1953, land reform was basically complete, and the peasants had achieved genuine liberation. The feudal system of land ownership that had existed for more than 2,000 years was completely destroyed and the landlord class was eliminated. However, Shortly after the fields had been turned over to the tiller, preparations began to familiarize the peasantry with the next step in agricultural reform. Before long, the land that had been handed out to the peasants was slowly returned to the state. In the early 1950s, the Communists helped form mutual aid teams, the precursors to cooperatives. Later in 1955, Mao decreed that all farmers should "voluntarily" organize into large cooperatives. The cooperatives were overseen by party cadres and large portions of the output were turned over to the state.[citation needed]
The promulgation of the Policy for Unified Purchase and Sale of Grain was closely related to the grain crisis in 1953 and the implementation of the general line for the transitional period. Although the strictly monitored relationship of supply and demand for grain in China was alleviated, the grain remained unfairly and unequally distributed. In order to meet the demand for grain in large scale industrialization and to stabilize grain price, the central government had to adopt a new measure to control the resources for production. The grain crisis in 1953 offered an important opportunity to propagate the Policy for Unified Purchase and Sale of Grain.
On November 19, 1953, the Government Council had approved The Order of the Central People's Government Council on the implementation of planned acquisitions and planned supply of food. Inside the order, peasants were ordered to sell the surplus grain to the country by the National regulations' set price, set types of grain and the set amount of planned acquisitions. After peasants were to sell their grain, the surplus would then be freely stored and used. The grain can be continually sold by the peasants to the National food department or through cooperative trading at food markets which are set and regulated by the government.
In the novel, due to circumstances such as bad weather, villagers did not have a good harvest, however, the planned acquisitions by the government remained mandatory, and were nonetheless ordered to sell their grain to the government, which they could not afford to sell as they were in the bouts of famine and starvation eventually leading the male protagonist to instigate a riot.
The author herself maintained a period of great popularity for about 2 years while Shanghai was under Japanese occupation in the 1940s and published the majority of her writings there. Her popularity arose soon after the publication of her first collection of short stories titled, Romances (Chuanqi, 傳奇). Chang's rise to prominence can be partly explained by the exodus of "progressive" writers from the foreign concessions to the north, which led to a vacuum in the literary scene that was filled by the leisurely Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School of popular romance. She went to the United States in the 1950s and that was the time when The Rice-Sprout Song was published. Her fame peaked again for several years at the end of her life.