The decade of the Cultural Revolution saw the creation of distinctive modes and spheres for the assertion of youth identity. The developments in these years laid the groundwork for the emergence of youth popular culture in the 1980s and later. The Cultural Revolution is conventionally dated from 1966 to 1976. The phenomena in the first three years associated with Red Guards account for the mapping out of a space in which young people could conduct their own activities, whether in support of the current political campaigns or from more personal motivations. When Red Guards became ‘sent-down youth’ (or ‘educated youth’), starting in late 1968, the spaces for the development of youth popular culture extended to the countryside. Groups from the cities took their new sense of the possibilities for self-expression to the rural communes and even to the militarised settlements in harsher environments. Although authoritarian and bureaucratic control remained high in many areas of life, young people found an outlet by participating in performance troupes and other cultural activities. Some of these activities soon took the form of unofficial or underground cultural production. The hand-copied novels and poetry circulated among urban youth in rural settings allowed for considerable experimentation and creativity. Urban salons of returned youth and others provided a new context for discussion and debate on these new cultural phenomena. Mao’s death in September 1976 allowed these youthful expressions of identity to emerge alongside mainstream discourse, setting off a further elaboration of youth popular culture as China opened up to more outside influences. But the Cultural Revolution origins of youth culture in China are unmistakable. This chapter will explore these origins better to assess the flourishing of youth cultures from the mid-1980s to the first decade of the twenty-first century.

The spaces for the expression of youth popular culture thus moved from cities (with Red Guards) to the countryside (with sent-down youth) and back to the cities (with literary salons and other groupings). Each of these spaces offered a wide variety of expression and tastes. The degrees to which official and orthodox culture attempted to confine or channel activities in these venues also differed widely. But once young Chinese experienced the opportunity to create distinctive spheres for their own cultural expression, they could not be expected to abandon such a heady sense of freedom and power.