When a book combines the Cultural Revolution, bizarre sexual fetishes, and Chairman Mao, there are two things that are guaranteed: That is will become a best seller, and that is will be banned in China.

It appears that ‘Serve the People’, a sexually charged political satire by legendary Chinese author Yan Lianke, has already achieve at last one of these predictions. His latest work has been refused publication permission by the Chinese state propaganda ministry, a literary journal serializing the book has been forcefully removed from circulation, and the threat of government action has been levied against anybody found discussing the story or its content.

It has been reported that Chinese sensors became apoplectic with rage on reading the books. It was not made clear if this description was literal, or figurative.
 
Though the banning of a sexually explicit work is not unexpected during a time when the Chinese government is engaged in a campaign to remove overtly sexual content from public view, the banning of ‘Serve the People’ also comes amidst an intensified its campaign to remove anything that might question or contradict state lines on Chinese society, politics, or history in an effort to stem free debate, and to re direct growing internal discontent towards ‘appropriate’ outlets.

The Book

Yan’s work is set in 1967 and tells the story of an officer’s wife who grows bored with her restricted existence, the constant absence of her husband, and a lack of sexual satisfaction.

Using ‘serve the people’, a slogan from the Mao era, to signal her husband’s absence, she begins an intense affair with a naïve young soldier drawn from China’s vast peasant population, and the story continues on from there as a political satire with a highly charged sexual atmosphere.

While the books sexual content are enough to arouse the ire of China’s conservative censors on their own, it is the inclusion of sexual fetish scenes during which the couple destroy or deference Maoist material as part of their foreplay, including scene when they urinate on Mao’s writing, which have provoked public outrage in Beijing’s propaganda ministry, and the inclusion of scenes that portray the army and the cultural revolutions in a less than flattering light which have raise private outrage in Beijing’s propaganda ministry.

The defacement of Mao’s image was punishable by death during the Cultural Revolution and depictions of defacements are still largely forbidden.

Sex and Scandal Sell Books

Despite its banning, ‘Serve the People’ has already attracted a large audience and has become an underground hit with many readers because of its satire of official corruption and hypocrisy, and because its portrayal of the irrationality of the Cultural Revolution.

The book’s sexual content is has also attracted many readers.

It is likely that sections of ‘Serve the People’ are already in circulation on the internet, and that bootleg editions will soon appear on the mainland from printing presses on Chinese Taiwan, which does not recognize the jurisdiction of the propaganda ministry.

Gag Order

In addition to blocking the publication of ‘Serve the People’, China’s propaganda ministry ordered the confiscation of the entire printing run of the literary journal 花城, which was serializing the work, and have issued a broad notice ordering publishing groups not to cover the book in any form.

It was notable, and in line with past censorship practices in China, that the non publication orders issued by China’s propaganda ministry not only forbid the printing of excerpts from the work, but also forbid magazines, newspapers, websites, and journals from commenting or reporting on ‘Serve the People’ in a any manner.
 
The banning of excerpts from, and discussion of, ‘Serve the People’ is not expected to apply to officially regulated comment made by the Chinese state media, allowing the books content to be criticized while preventing criticisms from being independently confirmed or denied by readers or by Yan himself.

The block on comments also prevents Yan from correcting misconceptions being spread about his work, or from refuting claims made against him because of his work.

No official reason was given for the novels banning, but Yan said that it came as no surprise, given the books sexual and political content and the current climate in China over such issues.


It was later revealed that Yan had refused to speak further about his work, fearing that reprisals might be made against his family if he did.

Deny, Distort, Re-Engineer: Social Engineering through Censorship

It is a standard tactic of Beijing lead censorship, not only to forbid the publication of content from a banned work, but also to forbid and public acknowledgement of its existence. This tactic has been broadly applied to all forms of media in China, and to many different areas of content, including history, politics, and sociology and has had a substantial impact on the development of Chinese society because it has restricted the spread of information and ideas, and has created a society where free discussion of controversial issues is often limited to ‘acceptable’ angles.

Often, particularly with historic and political issues, but not so common when dealing with literary censorship, this form of restriction is accompanied by progressive distortions and eventual re-engineering of events until original accounts become lost, and ‘official’ accounts become doctrine.

In many cases, such censorship has lead to the widespread development of ‘misconceptions’ and ‘blank areas’ in China’s group persona and awareness, with people not only being unaware of many things, but also being completely unaware that there is anything to be unaware of. Coupled with the Chinese concept of ‘face’ this often leads to many mainland Chinese citizen become defensive or hostile when presented with information that conflicts with what they have been told, or that they were unaware of, and being unable to reconcile differences between Chinese perceptions of events and actual events.

A prime example of the impact of this process was the reaction of many people to the death and funeral of Zhao Yihang, China’s former head, with a significant portion of China’s population remaining unaware of his contribution to Chinese reforms, or believing that he was a negative figure that harmed China through his actions prior to the suppression of pro democracy activists in 1989.

Many of China’s confrontations with modern day Japan can also be put down to this process, which has seen a highly distorted image of Japan becoming prevalent despite modern realities.

Manipulation of historic texts and the media have seen contentious issues between China and Japan being overly highlighted, to the determent of positive issues, and the sowing of the ideas of a remorseless, ignorant, and hostile Japanese public into the Chinese group consciousness. This has lead to minor incidents becoming confrontations, and means that many mainland Chinese are unable to distinguish between wartime and post war Japan, and are unaware of the deep impact that war shame has on Japanese society because they have not been exposed to these elements of Japanese society.

Another example the outcome of censorship and replacement in action is the inability of many mainland Chinese to distinguish between anti unification sentiment in Chinese Taiwan, and active separatist sentiment, as well as the inability to understand why island residents are hostile to the prospect of coming under the control of the mainland government.

posted Saturday, 26 March 2005

http://kingofkillers.blogspot.com/

When one considers that LeBron James Nike commercials and Tomb Raider II were banned by PRC government censors, this development is hardly surprising.

I'm certain that the author foresaw this too.

KIMaster

OK, it's time for me to finish the story that I was writing about using stealth helicopters to "bomb" a region with subversive leaflets. Only I will change it to a section of China and the material distributed from the helicopter will be copies of Serve the People after the huge shipment of the books has been smuggled in as farming equipment.

Then the protagonists will write a cookbook and title it Serve the People and make fools of the government people who want to ban it.

My book will be banned, too, not for its subversion but for its lack of substance, plot and quality of writing. Oh, well.

Visit me @ http://www.journalscape.com/rhubarb/

KIMaster

Of course, the Nike commercial was so very offensive and so demeaning to Chinese culture, that it was only banned on the mainland. I have personally sat and watched a Chinese Kung Fu master being struck in the face with a basketball on television in Hong Kong. Obviously Hong Kong isn’t quite so bothered by this advert.

Beijing is far less secure than Hong Kong is in its sense of identity.