Although China is known to be the home of the world's ancient and most continuous culture, it has experienced many institutional changes since the Communist regime came into power in 1949. In China, foundation of hierarchy and family, social set up was based on relational norms that were expounded by Confucius and Tang Dynasty's legal codes. Such an institutionalized relational kind of logic has shaped the society whereby the order is based on the social obligation to the authorities and family as opposed to the protection of individuals. The country’s history has been marked by two intertwined social imperatives. The first is concerned with integrity preservation through the protection of borders and maintenance of internal unity. The reinforced and justified hierarchical status of imperial officials treated with difference demonstrates this. Secondly, there is a need for communal help in case of disasters, famine or food shortages.
Chinese traditional culture had both constraining and incentive components some were ideological while others were structural. When these incentives and structural components were altered, the Chinese changed their social relations, attitudes, beliefs, values and material relations to adapt thus the cultural changes. The cultural change has been marked by several factors such as economic status, education, sex, age and urbanization determining the relationship between individuals. Communication played an important role in the cultural change process in two key perspectives. Political communication was used in Mao's era to introduce ideological and cultural changes. In the post-Mao the economic reforms introduced by Deng were communicated throughout the country through mass media (Browder 23).
Chinese culture can be traced back to around 18th century whereby it was not disturbed by foreigners. The locals had managed to absorb and assimilate foreign Han people such as Manchu and Mongols. Han culture is especially important in understanding the development of Chinese culture. Cultural Revolution negatively affected Chinese culture because many cultural treasures were damaged and destroyed, and practice of crafts and arts was essentially prohibited. However, the government has made policy changes aimed at restoring some cultural practices. Chinese culture continues to remain high (Browder 36). Han Chinese and the national minorities, which make up China have brought cultural diversity and contributed towards cultural development both nationally and internationally. Maoist movement and communism are two key ideologies as far as Chinese culture is concerned.
For many years, a Great Wall, not of mortar or stone, but of ideas, symbols and strong traditional beliefs and values, had sheltered China. Cultural bulwark held the society together for millenniums, protecting it from encroachment and internal erosion. However, in the mid- 19th century Chinese culture began to experience inevitable erosion. The political chaos that followed the 1912 fall of the Manchu Dynasty led to soul searching of the intellectuals because many citizens were confused. The 1937 to 1945 war between China and Japan led to the defeat of Kuomintang (Chu 12). The People's Republic of China was immediately established under the chairmanship of Mao Zedong whose charismatic leadership inspired radical transformation.
Immediately after the People's Republic of China (PRC) was established in 1949 Chinese traditional culture was tolerated for some time. The vital changes focused on removing social inequalities such as serfdom, ethnocentrism, and sexism. Given that Soviets had good relations with PRC Russian culture, especially language was so popular, but was later halted when the border dispute the alliance. Cultural Revolution was introduced in the early 1960’s that brought more changes in the Chinese culture.
Mao Zedong took a less vigorous role in leading the country. Liu Shaoqi, who was then the vice-chairman together with premier Enlai, brought economic reforms. The changes allowed families to farm their plots to empower themselves economically. However, Mao opposed these changes, arguing that they went against communism principles which he held firmly. He also got worried that CCP was becoming very bureaucratic, and most party officials did not commit themselves to revolution and communism values. Many perceived that most of the cultural productions were criticizing the communist leadership (Browder 56).
One of the key influences in Chinese culture is Confucianism. The ideology established three bonds of loyalty; wife's fidelity of husband, filial obedience, and loyalty to rulers. Two of them were targeting the family relationships indicating who is superior and who is subordinate. The philosophy was meant to guide people in their daily lives. It established a habit and a mode of thinking that persisted even during Daoism and Buddhism eras (Chu 27). According to this theory, a ruler was expected to guide the people, father to guide his son and husband to guide the wife. It had five important virtues, including fidelity, wisdom, propriety, righteousness and benevolence.
In the second half of the 20th-century, Chinese culture experienced unprecedented change that has never been witnessed again in history. First, Mao, who embarked on transformation and development through public ownership, cooperative, distribution of wealth, elimination of political and economic inequalities and engaged the population in development projects. The development approach of the socialists served to erode the cultural and traditional practices because people were no longer keeping their traditions instead they were busy trying to meet their economic needs. Secondly, there was the introduction of Dengist China that focused on social security and welfare, entrepreneurship, commercialization, privatization and application of technology in production (Colson 92).
China has been keen in creating a viable culture and consciousness that can destroy the old feudal system. The conservatives attempted to reform, but their efforts were frustrated due to internal and external pressures. Mao Zedong dedicated the whole of his life to answering this dilemma that was eventually answered by Marxist ideology. Through 1949 victory of the communists that was followed by economic transformation in around 1950s, Chinese culture has equally experienced transformation. Communists’ leaders viewed the Cultural Revolution as a prolonged process that must continue.
The key problems that faced post-revolution in China were that most of the old relations were reproduced. The main goal of the socialist project was to ensure that the country breaks away from the traditional relations. The bureaucratic relations of dominance in economic, political and social domains were being reproduced. A revolution in traditional values and ideological consciousness is a precondition and integral part of any cultural revolution. The key relationship between revolution and cultural change, especially in the post-revolutionary period creates many challenges on the ability to sustain the achieved changes. Leaders have used different strategies to deal with these problems. Some have continued with the revolutionary agenda even after the seizure of state power just to ensure that cultural conservatism and old traditions do not re-emerge. Other leaders have compromised and intensely defended cultural conservatism (Colson 77).
Some social symptoms came up immediately after China's social transformation. The rich and former landlords attempted to continue practicing capitalism thus increasing bureaucracy in government fueling political regimentation, localism, and rapid industrialization. All these were common in the old society. It is perhaps Mao’s theory that revolution will be politically and culturally uninterrupted (Colson 92). Therefore, continuous revolution means a continuation of Mao’s practices and ideas. He had predicted that trying to oppose revolution was an exercise in futility because leaders, as well as citizens, were ready for the change. However, he added that there was going to be a repeat of some traditional values and practices.
The key challenge of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was how to bring development in the traditional and backward community. The government was torn between maintaining the socialist society and dealing with technology, capital and resource scarcity. Mao recommended that is solving this stalemate an organizational and ideological substitution of scarcity should be employed (Browder 124). Ideology was used as a force and organizations as instruments to foster the spirit of change among the citizens. The government focused on the power of the masses, it achieves its objective instead of technological productivity.
Mao had convincingly argued that human beings have tremendous power regarding hard work, self-sacrifice, and dedication. If people receive proper ideological and indoctrination discipline, they will be able to cultivate new traits and values. Societal transformation and the pursuit of economic development must begin with the transformation of humans. It is different from the Western economic theories that emphasize on technology, market mechanism, and individual desire to prosper as the key drivers of social and economic development.
Furthermore, Mao proposed that the current science and technological advancement is not only meant for the highly trained or specialized people, but an experimenting field, even for the ordinary peasants and workers (Chu 34). The fact that he politicized economic development does not mean that he was opposed to the idea, instead he emphasized the importance of human resource and other social forces in achieving the desired change.
It was clear that after the Cultural Revolution the issues of class struggle would occur at different levels. The leaders were convinced that introduction of individual ownership of the means of production such as plots of land would take China's culture to a new era. Resistance to government social projects begun to emerge because of the new ideologies and the associated social stratification. The leaders were categorized into two; the revolutionists and the conservatives. People fought strongly against the government policies on capitalism, saying it was a threat to the future generations. The citizens argued that the capitalists had changed the caring culture of the community and shifted to individualism where people do not care about each other. The future generations may be challenged to privatize public properties for individual gain. Many feared that there would be a great disparity between the rich and the poor in the society because then there was no established system of ensuring equality (Chu 129).
China’s music tradition is about 5,000 years old. It is one of the highly developed and oldest music systems in the world. This is confirmed both by the musical records as well as the archeological evidence uncovered such as stone chimes and bronze bells. In the early days, the musical instruments were classified according to the materials used such as the skin, metal, bamboo, wood and stone. The music industry has, however experienced a lot of change over time. For example, today the most common instruments include string instruments like pipa, which is a four-string and 25-string commonly known as dagu. Other instruments include the fanxiang and Sheng made using pipes and iron slabs.
The traditional belief in China that one's life is determined by fate made many people to be contended with their state of misery instead of challenging it. Additionally, Buddhists believed that people get wealth and power by appeasing Karma instead of confronting or challenging it. Thus, the social structure was greatly affected by the belief in Karma and fate. Another ideological belief was that one must bring glory to the ancestors (Gray 197). This made most of the Chinese to work-hard and prosper because nobody wanted to be depicted as the one failing the ancestors. The belief in karma made people endure the current situations with the belief that the future life would be better. The religious practices such as contributing in the temple and giving food to the monks served as a merit whereby such deeds were believed to cancel the past bad thoughts and deeds.
The key events that happened in the country since 1949 can be seen as an incentive or constraints to cultural change. Agrarian land reforms, as well as the exploration of the urban business, removed business and property owners from the social class lifting two key structural constraints from urban workers and rural peasants. The Communist Party, however, introduced equally confining constraints in the state enterprises and the People's Communes. Landowners and the landlords were stripped of the land rights; their property was taken over by the party cadres. The party cadres were removed from their positions by the Cultural Revolution. The traditional hierarchy and respect for authority were broken even after the chaos, which lasted for some years (Gray 206).
Specifically, the political communication over the years has played a major role in cultural change. The party in early 1950’s, introduced new ideologies and campaigns to attack the cultural beliefs and values, arguing that they were the source of economic backwardness. They came one after another and ended in 1966 being culminated by Cultural Revolution that marked a traumatic climax. These campaigns criticized Confucian teachings. Mao was targeting to destroy the old ideas so that he could introduce new ideologies inspired by the Communist leadership. His strategy had distinctive negative impacts on culture not because the ideologies were appealing, but his attack tactics, confrontation, and accusations established a behavioral pattern that was different from Chinese harmony and moderation (Guillain 612).
Through Cultural Revolution and political changes that followed, it seems more restrictive limitations replaced the structural constraints. For example, if Confucianism set clear boundaries on social behavior, then communism ideological tenets introduced barriers that were more rigid. In the traditional Chines culture, state examination was not one of the avenues determining mobility in the country (Guillain 619). Mao’s era also did not serve the same purpose because holding a college degree did not guarantee a job or promotion. During Cultural Revolution, being educated, served as a source of stigma because the society had not yet realized the importance of education in changing the society.
Communist Party attacked the Confucian beliefs, especially believe that to be successful one had to bring glory to the ancestors. However, Mao did not offer another incentive that would encourage the people to work hard until when Deng came to introduce the economic reforms in 1980. The citizens began embracing external culture from the mainland, especially Taiwan and Hong Kong. Pop songs sung by stars from the two countries filled the streets and cities in the mainland. Apart from the songs, the gangster and art films were also introduced on the mainland and were majorly played in the video playing Halls. It was in such halls that the modern art lovers and filmmakers got the artistic enlightenment. The films made in this era began to receive international recognition (Guillain 616).
1990 introduced a new cultural life that was full of diversity. Art works came into play with some focusing on mainstream ideology while others seeking roots in people’s ordinary lives and their experiences. New year's comedies and films were introduced in the entertainment industry. Many televised singing competitions were launched by the TV stations with Pop music being one of the most common music being played. The younger generation abandoned culture adopting new ways of life that was contrary to Chinese traditions. From 1990s to date, there has been a lot of changes in Chinese culture with most of the traditional practices left to the seniors (Guillain 626).
Introduction of communism was instrumental as far as change in Chinese culture is concerned. Before this, the Chinese kept their traditional practices that were well spelled out in Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism ideologies. These ideologies kept the society together and ensured that people had a unity of purpose and followed the traditional practices to the letter. It was a form of indoctrination because they were connected to religious practices. People who went against them were considered outcasts because they were seen as going against the religious beliefs.
Although the country did not progress economically before Communism, there was a lot of cohesion due to the structure of the cultural practices, which emphasized respect for leaders and fathers in the family. According to these cultural traditions, ordinary citizens were not expected to question their leaders because if they did so, they would displease their ancestors and that was a bad omen (Yu 234).
Communism came as a strong force to abolish the traditional beliefs. Led by Chairman Mao, people’s culture was attacked and policies enforced to prevent any practice of these traditions. The administration realized it was not going to make any ideological impact if the citizens continued keeping Confucianism's ideologies. Stagnation in economic development was also seen as being contributed by the traditional backward practices, including the motivation system, insisting that people must appease their ancestors to prosper in future.
Communist leaders launched many campaigns to liberate the community from such traditions, including tactics such as banning of some practices (Yu 79). However, the communists did not give the community alternative cultural practices. Instead, they kept on discrediting the existing traditional practices. Maoism was just anti-traditionalism, and it failed to focus on the positive side of culture. The cultural revolution came in immediately making another onslaught on the cultural practices; it focused on the economic agenda specifically trying to empower citizens to be self-reliant and economically stable. After the Cultural Revolution, the government made a lot of efforts to bring back some beneficial cultural practices after the realization that they played a key role in building country’s heritage. However, globalization had already set on bringing a new challenge. Therefore, Chinese culture has experienced a great transition before, during and after communism.
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