On June 21, China Taoist Association imparted some “red education” to Taoist clergy and staff by taking them to honor a Communist Party folk hero.
by He Yuyan
Pilgrimages are an essential component of Taoism. Last month, however, the government-controlled China Taoist Association introduced a new concept of pilgrimage. Personally led by Li Guangfu, President of the China Taoist Association, Kuang Sheng, Secretary-General, and Li Zhaocai and Sun Changde, Deputy Secretary-Generals, leading Taoist clergy and staff workers who had received an “offer they could not refuse” were taken to the Red Backpack Spirit Memorial Hall in the village of Huangshandian, in Fangshan District, near Beijing.
“The Red Backpack” was a 1965 Mao-era propaganda movie. It told the story of Wang Yanxiang, a loyal CCP member and employee of the Huangshandian Supply and Marketing Cooperative. He noticed that people from remote villages came to the Cooperative shop walking through the mountains under severe heat in summer and cold and snow in winter. Wang then organized a system of delivery of the goods directly to the villages. He and five (or six) co-workers carried heavy “red backpacks” on their shoulders and made the villagers happy. Wang explained he had found the solution to the delivery problem by studying the writings of Chairman Mao.
Or so the story goes, as critics in the Deng Xiaoping years found it greatly exaggerated. However, no criticism is heard today as the film is a Xi Jinping’s personal favorite. It has been re-released in a colorized version and is often proposed on TV.
The original cooperative store no longer exists but a state-of-the-art museum has been built in the village. Not because of the museum only, since the area is scenic and beautiful, but certainly also due to the tours organized for Party members, the village receives some 400,000 visitors every year.
Rather than to some religious shrine, the Taoist representatives were taken to the Red Backpack Museum to pay their respects to Wang Yanxiang. They not only had to watch a part of the old movie but were given backpacks to carry so to reenact the Party hero’s experience. In the end, they all signed a resolution stating that, like Wang Yanxiang, the Taoist clergy and workers will from now on “resolutely listen to the Party and firmly follow the Party.”
Their day had not ended. They were taken to the nearby Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site Museum, a testament to another of Xi Jinping’s passion, archeology, to be told that archeological discoveries confirm the Chinese President’s claims that the earliest human beings lived in China and even practiced a primitive form of Communism.