(2 of 5)
There is a sadness about the scene, mellowed by the fact that youngsters are involved, also by a vague sense that maybe Westerners don't really understand, that this may be a necessary step along the way. Who really knows? But walking down those dark halls, with the high voices echoing behind, one feels an inner shudder.
The school has its own miniature transistor factory. In small, whitewashed rooms, the kids hunch over the tiny things, putting them together in silence, with determination. A visitor asks a 15-year-old girl what she wants to be when she graduates. "I wish to be a successor to the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat," she says. She carries an open copy of Mao's little red book. Yes, yes, says the questioner, but how does she want to do that? "I want to do what is beneficial to the people," the girl responds.
He knows that, replies the insistent visitor, but specifically just what does she want to do? "I want to do what the party wants me to do," the girl replies, or at least that is what the translator says. One of the visitors speaks up. "If we had asked that question in America, she would have said she wanted to grow up and get married." The answer is translated and it has an odd effect. Instantly the somber expressions of the girls vanish; they laugh among themselves.
Beat Japan. Soldier Wang continues to smile. Is he going to get into the market with his transistors and compete with Japan, someone asks. Wang straightens. "We are determined we will not only catch up with but surpass Japan because of the wise leadership of Chairman Mao and the system of socialism."
There are students learning acupuncture and hair cutting. Barbers had been looked down upon in the past, explains the guide, but not now. Young boys are not only taught to cut hair but to do it proudly. In one room a girl helps repair shoes; she is a particular example, according to Wang. Shoe repairing was a shameful trade in the old days, and girls "did not like the smell of the shoes. But they have come to realize that what smelled bad was the bourgeois thinking. What has the best smell is the thinking of Chairman Mao." The girl, about 14 or 15, keeps her head bent over the old shoe, pounding on the sole.
Out in the cold air again, the group of Americans grows silent, passes around the hulking figure of Chairman Mao and files onto the buses. Will it all stick in those young minds, particularly if some of them later do go out into the real world? There is no answer. There is doubt, but then there is also the fresh memory of a high school purring like a calculator of some 3,000 parts. Mao has things going all his way at No. 26.
The East Wind Bazaar
A department store covering nearly a full block in eastern Peking, the East Wind Bazaar tells much about the daily life of Peking: its food habits, style trends, folk heroes, drinking habits and sex roles.
As always, Mao is everywhere. His works are on sale in five languages. An entire counter is devoted to posters of the Chairman in various poses, ranging from his youthful days in Yenan to swimming the Yangtze. There is Mao in a rice field, Mao in military dress, Mao surrounded by soldiers and sailors.