In an op-ed entitled “Don’t hide the ugly past” published in the Shenzhen Daily, Lin Min says university students, who were recently photographed imitating scenes from the Cultural Revolution, aren’t to blame for the photos because they simply lack the ability to sympathize with things they don’t understand or know (photo seen above).
Lin writes:
China has praised Germany for its honest reflections of its role during World War II and has denounced Japan for not being remorseful enough over its wartime atrocities. Now we should ask ourselves, have we owned up to our past sins?
Lin decries the lack of an official sanctioned museum to commemorate what may be one of the most important events in China’s modern history. And yet, as Lin points out, a Cultural Revolution museum does in fact exist here in Guangdong.
Started in 2005 by Peng Qi’an, the museum is a somber reflection upon a brutal past as well as an actual graveyard. Visitors can pay their respects to the victims of the Cultural Revolution directly at a tomb that houses approximately 70 unidentified bodies buried in a mass grave there. The museum if the first museum to mark the Cultural Revolution in China.
However, the Cultural Revolution museum has been facing pressure from the local government. The museum is not officially recognized, and does not show up on local maps or have any road signs directing visitors to it.
Back in 2006, Peng had stated that the museum received about 1,000 visitors a day.
The grandiose facility continues to remind visitors of the past through the use of many stone engravings and tablets.
Across from the statue of Liu Shaoqi in Anxi Park is a wall that displays many of the punishments meted out during the Cultural Revolution. Not far away on the palatial grounds that also house a pagoda is a commemorative wall with the names of nearly ten thousand victims who perished during the strife.
Perhaps the museum’s most significant contribution to posterity is an exhibit of stone engravings that features every one of the 628 pages from the book Cultural Revolution Museum, the 1995 book published by Yang Kelin. Here, some 1,100 photographs have been engraved onto plaques.
Peng hopes his museum can continue to stand as a reminder of the atrocities committed from 1966 and 1976. He also has a clever answer for those who criticize his museum:
To be against the Cultural Revolution museum is to be against the Communist Party.
Peng also has choice words for what kind of people his critics are:
People who oppose are those that must have committed unspeakable acts of evil during the Cultural Revolution.
The museum is located in the Dashan Scenic Area of Lianshang Township, Chenghai District, Shantou, Guangdong. Foreign visitors wishing to tour the museum should note that all exhibits are written in Chinese only.
