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Mao Tse-tung, Women and Suicide in the May Fourth Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Roxane Witke
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Extract

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the facts of Miss Chao's suicide. It happened this way. Miss Chao Wu-chieh, of Nanyang Street, Changsha, was engaged to marry Wu Feng-lin, of Kantzuyuan, on November 14, 1919. As a matter of course the match had been arranged by her parents and the matchmaker. Although Miss Chao had had only the brief ritual encounters with the fiancé, she disliked him intensely and was unwilling to marry him. Her parents refused both to undo the match and to postpone the wedding date. On the day of the wedding, as Miss Chao was being raised aloft in the bridal chair to be delivered to the home of the groom, she drew out a dagger which she had previously concealed in the chair and slit her throat.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 31 , July 1967 , pp. 128 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1967

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References

1 Shih-chao, Chou, “My Recollections of Chairman Mao in Changsha before and after the May Fourth Movement,” Kung-jen jih-pao (Workers' Daily), 04 20, 1959Google Scholar, translated in Survey of China Mainland Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 2011, 05 12, 1959Google Scholar.

2 Hunan li-shih tz'u-liao (Hunan Historical Materials) (hereafter HNLSTL), No. 4, 1959Google Scholar; Wu-ssu shih-ch'i shih-k'an chieh-shao (An Introduction to the Periodicals of the May Fourth Era) (hereafter WSSC), 2 vols. (Peking: 1958–1959)Google Scholar. Chou Shih-chao, op. cit., also contains passages from Mao's writings on Miss Chao.

3 Snow, Edgar, Journey to the Beginning (New York: Random House, 1958), p. 165Google Scholar.

4 Chia-yin tsa-chih, I, p. 6.

5 WSSC, I, p. 151. See also Schram, Stuart, Mao Tse-tung (London: Penguin, 1966), p. 63Google Scholar.

6 Snow, Helen Foster, Women in Modern China (The Hague: Mouton, 1967), p. 235Google Scholar.

7 Ibid. p. 236.

8 Snow, Edgar, Red Star over China (New York: Random House, 1938), pp. 144–145Google Scholar.

9 Chou Shih-chao, op. cit.

10 WSSC, I, p. 155.

11 Snow, Helen, op. cit., p. 236Google Scholar.

12 Ibid. p. 245.

13 Collected Correspondence of the Members of the New People's Study Society, II, in WSSC, 1, p. 155.

14 Collected Correspondence, III, ibid.

15 Ta Kung Pao, June 8, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 1, 1959, pp. 52–53Google Scholar.

15a HNLSTL, No. 3, 1959, pp. 6–7Google Scholar. In his article “Some Basic Errors in my Countrymen's ‘View of Life’ and ‘View of Death,’” first delivered as a lecture to the Society for Establishing Study (Chien hsüeh hut), then published in Ta Kung Pao (Changsha), 06 24–30, 1919Google Scholar, and reproduced in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1960, pp. 20–23Google Scholar, Chu Chien-fan depicted his fellow Chinese as being so possessed by notions of “fate” that they resisted evolution and progress. Because of Chu's reputation it is most likely that Mao was familiar with these views. Mao's own articles on Miss Chao's suicide take similar issue with the sort of Chinese fatalism which constrains China in the deathlike clutch of the past and inhibits progressive attitudes towards life and the future.

16 Snow, Helen, op. cit., p. 191Google Scholar.

17 Ta Kung Pao, June 12, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 1, 1959, p. 29Google Scholar.

18 Ta Kung Pao, June 18, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 1, 1959, pp. 34–35Google Scholar.

19 See Hsiang-chiang p'ing-lun, table of contents, in WSSC, I, pp. 547–549.

20 Hsiang-chiang p'ing-lun, issues 2, 3 and 4. For the text of this article, see WSSC, I, p. 147. See also Schram, Stuart, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1963), pp. 170–171Google Scholar.

21 HNLSTL, No. 3, 1959, p. 16Google Scholar. The term “man-eating feudal morality” was originally popularised by Lu Hsun.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Chow, Tse-tung, Research Guide to the May Fourth Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

25 WSSC, II, p. 356.

26 Chow, , Research Guide, p. 64Google Scholar.

27 Chou Shih-chao, op. cit. Another periodical source on the woman problem in Hunan during this period was T'i-yü chou-pao (Journal of Physical Education), organised by Huang Hsing, a physical education instructor of the Chu Chin Primary School, Changsha, who was broadly known for his literary and cultural interests. His journal, intended to introduce New Thought into Hunan, published 40 issues. Many of its articles argued the importance of physical education for women, as did other periodicals on the May Fourth era (HNLSTL, No. 3, 1959, p. 6Google Scholar. See also WSSC, II, p. 356). In the June 1917 issue of Hsin ch'ing-nien (New Youth) Mao published “A Study of Physical Education” in which he maintained that physical education was not only a personal means of self-strengthening, physical and moral, but also a way of strengthening the nation (see Schram's, Stuart translation, Mao Ze-dong, une étude de l'éducation physique, Paris: Colin, 1962)Google Scholar. In the light of this and his concerns with the woman problem in general it is likely that he was a contributor to T'i-yü chou-pao. However, this is not presently ascertainable because neither its table of contents nor articles have been made known outside China.

28 Ta Kung Pao, November 16, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, p. 28Google Scholar. A less complete version but identical in the Chinese with the HNLSTL record where excerpts are extant may be found in Chou Shih-chao, op. cit. Stuart Schram has made a selective and composite translation of the series on Miss Chao, using both the above sources in Mao Tse-tung, textes traduits et présentés par Stuart Schram (Paris, Mouton, 1963), pp. 287–290Google Scholar.

29 Ta Kung Pao, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, pp. 28–29Google Scholar A lesser portion of the same article, including the last three sentences which are not found in HNLSTL, appear in Shih-chao, Chou, SCMP, p. 6Google Scholar.

30 Ta Rung Pao, November 19, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, p. 29Google Scholar.

31 Ibid. pp. 29–30. Chou Shih-chao, op. cit., preserves part of this text.

32 For the figurative translation of these traditional expressions regarding marriage I am indebted to the SCMP translator of Chou Shih-chao.

33 Ta Kung Pao, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

34 Ibid. p. 31.

35 “The Public Debate of Miss Chao's Suicide,” Ta Kung Pao, November 20, 1919, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, pp. 32–33Google Scholar. See also Chou Shih-chao, op. cit.

36 HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, p. 31Google Scholar.

37 Ta Kung Pao, November 30, 1919, ibid. Chou Shih-chao, op. cit., preserves some passages of the above.

38 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, “On Suicide,” 01 1, 1920, Tu-hsiu wen-ts'un (Collected Works of Ch'en Tu-hsiu) (Shanghai: 1922), I, pp. 391–416Google Scholar.

39 Hsi, Chih, “Does Youth Commit Suicide or Does Society Murder Youth?”, Hsin ch'ao (New Tide), II, p. 2, 12 1919Google Scholar. A classic example of new fiction in the vernacular on this subject is Hsün's, Lu “A New Year's Sacrifice” (Collected Stories of Lu Hsun (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1954), pp. 95–118Google Scholar. Ch'ensheng's, Yang story “The Chaste Girl,” which appeared in the June 1920 issue of Hsin ch'ao (II, p. 5)Google Scholar, is a less known but equally representative example of fiction of this type. Yang's story, an uneasy mixture of sentiment and horror, is about a “chaste girl” whose fiancé died before the wedding. Nonetheless she is forced to go through with the entire ceremony, the groom being represented by his dead body, and to spend the wedding night in the bridal chamber keeping vigil over the body. The next morning she is found dead of unspecified causes.

40 Lu, Hsüan, “Chao Ying, a Girl who Died within Society,” Nü-hsing wen-t'i (Problems of Women), edited by Sheng, Mei (Shanghai: Hsin Wen Hua Shu She, 1934), VI, pp. 153–162Google Scholar.

41 Ibid. p. 160.

42 The facts of her life history were originally compiled by Su Chia-ying. They were presented by Shih, Hu along with his own critical analysis of her suicide in his article “The Biography of Li Chao,” Hsin ch'ao, II, p. 2, 12 1919Google Scholar.

43 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, “Patriarchalism and the System of Inheritance,” Tu-hsiu wen-ts”un, II, pp. 86–89Google Scholar.

44 Yüan-p'ei, Ts'ai, “A Talk in Commemoration of Miss Li Chao,” Ts-ai Tse-min hsien-sheng yen-hsing lu (The Collected Speeches of Ts'ai Tse-min [Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei]) (Peking: Peking University Press, 1920), pp. 465–468Google Scholar.

45 [Shao] Tzu, Li, “The Suicide Case of Miss Yüan Shun-ying of Changsha,” Nu-hsing wen-t'i, VI, pp. 170–176Google Scholar.

46 Hsüan Lu, ibid.

47 An article on Miss Chi'ts'un, Li by an author who signs himself merely “Je” in Ta Kung Pao, 02 17, 1920Google Scholar, in HNLSTL, No. 4, 1959, pp. 33–35Google Scholar.