Reddest Red Sun
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The Whole Family is Red
Photo: Two-and-a-half-year-old Ting Hung-ping leading the whole family in singing a quotation from Chairman Mao set to music.
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During the vigorous great proletarian cultural
revolution, Mao Tse-tung's thought has been propagated and popularized
on an unprecedented scale among hundreds of millions of people. Their
spiritual outlook has undergone a profound change and numerous stirring
happenings have occurred. Among these, for instance, are the deeds of
the Ting Lai-yu family Mao Tse-tung's thought propaganda team.
Ting Lai-yu is a poor peasant of the Lunghua brigade in Polo County, Kwangtung
Province. His family of eight includes six children, the oldest 14 and
the youngest not yet three. Cherishing boundless love for our great leader
Chairman Mao, the red sun in our hearts, they enthusiastically propagate
Mao Tse-tung's thought in literary and art form. With song and dance,
they warmly praise Chairman Mao, the great Chinese Communist Party and
the great Chinese People's Liberation Army. The broad masses of workers,
peasants and soldiers give them a name: "The 'Whole Family Red' Mao
Tse-tung's Thought Propaganda Team".
Before liberation, oppressed by the exploiting class, Ting Lai-yu's family
lived a life worse than that of beasts of burden. When he was 13, his
parents died one after the other of poverty and illness. His five brothers
and sisters either died of starvation or were sold. Within a year, Ting
Lai-yu found himself the only survivor of the family. When Ting's wife
Chang Chiung was young, she was also sold as a slave-girl to a landlord's
family and underwent untold sufferings.
The east is red; the sun rises. After liberation, Ting Lai-yu was emancipated
and became master in his own house. He raised a new family and lived a
happy life. Now his family again has eight members. Bit the two families,
just as the old society and the new, are poles apart. Ting often teaches
his children: Now that we are emancipated, don't forget the Communist
Party; we owe our happiness to Chairman Mao!
In March 1967, with the enthusiastic help of the People's Liberation Army,
a Mao Tse-tung's thought study class was set up in Ting Lai-yu's family.
This further promoted their ideological revolutionization and aroused
an inexpressibly deep class feeling of loyalty to Chairman Mao. Every
member, with the exception of Hung-ping who is less than three, can recite
the "good old three" articles and over 100 quotations from Chairman
Mao. Every bit they learn, they apply, combining study with application.
The invincible thought of Mao Tse-tung is the life-blood of the revolutionary
people. They feel that in addition to studying and applying well Mao Tse-tung's
thought themselves, they should also propagate it among more people. They
study and practise every day. So far they have learned to sing more than
100 revolutionary songs and perform 50-odd minor revolutionary items of
literature and art.
They disseminate Mao Tse-tung's thought with soaring enthusiasm, giving
expression to their boundless love for and loyalty to the great leader
Chairman Mao. Ordinarily they perform for the local poor and lower-middle
peasants. When arrangements for them to go on tour are made by the departments
concerned, they think nothing of crossing mountains and rivers to perform
for the workers, peasants and soldiers. They are always compiling material
about the moving deeds of the poor and lower-middle peasants which shows
their fervent love Chairman Mao, elaborating it and arranging it into
new items. Whenever a new instruction of Chairman Mao's is published,
they find it set to music in the newspaper, learn to sing it as quickly
as possible, sometimes adapting dance movements to it, and propagate it
among the revolutionary masses. At present, a total audience of 400,000
have enjoyed their performances. The broad masses of workers, peasants
and soldiers acclaim them as "singing what is in the bottom of our
hearts and expressing our deep feeling of infinite loyalty to Chairman
Mao".
See also "The 'Red Family'" from China Reconstructs