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Film and Video
Care and Love
This film records the story of Liu Xianhong, a woman from rural Xingtai, Hebei, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion in the hospital and decided to publicly disclose her identity and sue the hospital. After fighting in the courts, she finally received compensation. This documentary demonstrates the surging awareness of civil rights in rural China at the grassroot level through depicting the experiences of several families and the concerted efforts of patients to form “care” groups to collectively defend their civil rights. Due to public awareness, media intervention, and legal aid, the government also introduced new policies to improve the situations of patients and their families.
This film is in Chinese with both English and Chinese subtitles.
Book
China on the Edge: The Crisis of Ecology and Development
Published in China in 1989, this book caused a sensation, reportedly selling as many as 300,000 copies. Described as the first "descriptive study" of the reality of China. In order to raise national awareness of the need for environmental protection, it examines the agricultural, environmental, and resource problems that China was likely to encounter in the course of modernization and predicts that the future would likely be even worse. The book was banned immediately after publication.
Book
Gan Cui: The Soul of Peking University-From Lin Zhao to the 1989 Democracy Movement
This book was originally published in the series *Micro Traces of the Past* - Documentary Volume - No. 6, edited by Huang Heqing, founded in 2007. Gan Cui, a student at Renmin University of China, was classified as a rightist in 1957. He became lovers with Lin Zhao, a rightist student who came from Peking University to work in the data room. Gan Cui was later sent to Xinjiang. When he returned, he learned that Lin Zhao had been killed. This book (in 140,000 words) is a manuscript of Gan Cui's memories of Lin Zhao in the context of the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
Book
History of the Chinese Thought Movement
This book is a masterpiece by Chinese scholar Li Honglin. The author was a representative of the ideological liberation movement during reform and opening up and was arrested after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. This book summarizes the various ideological purges launched by the CCP since its establishment in 1949.
Book
In Search of My Homeland
“In Search of My Homeland” is a collection of essays in three volumes written by Gao Ertai during his exile abroad. In this book, Gao looks back on his life. From his hometown of Gaochun, a small town in Jiangsu Province, to Suzhou, then to Lanzhou, Jiuquan, Dunhuang, Beijing, Chengdu, and the United States, Gao has undergone tremendous suffering, lost his home and family, and finally had to go into exile in a foreign country. Even though the work is widely regarded as having great literary merit, Gao uses real names and places, which makes the work a valuable historical document, especially for describing the Great Famine, and the brutal suppression of intellectual life during the Cultural Revolution at the Dunhuang research academy, which is one of China's most prestigious cultural institutions.
In an [interview](https://web.archive.org/web/20240130211408/https://www.aisixiang.com/data/80804.html), Gao explained why he wrote the book: "Searching for my homeland is nothing but searching for meaning.... Life is short and small, and its meaning can only be rooted in the external world and in the long history. My sense of drift and meaninglessness, that is, a feeling that the world has no order, history has no logic, and the individual has no home, seems to be a kind of destiny. My writing is nothing but a resistance to this destiny."
In 2004, a censored version of the first two volumes of this book was published by Huacheng Publishing House in Guangzhou; in 2011, an updated version was published by Beijing October Arts and Literature Publishing House, but still censored. The version uploaded to our archive is the traditional Chinese version of the complete three volumes published by Taiwan INK Publishing House in 2009.
Book
Lin Zhao: No Longer Forgotten
This book contains a number of articles in memory of Lin Zhao. It concerns the death of Lin Zhao as well as Lin Zhao's love, pursuits, and disillusionment. This book was published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House in 2000.
Film and Video
Memory of Lin Zhao
Independent director Tiger Temple began shooting this film in 2010 and completed it in 2012, with subsequent revisions. The film features interviews with Lin Zhao's former lover Gan Cui as well as interviews with several independent scholars such as Qian Liqun and Cui Weiping. It is a powerful addition to Lin Zhao's memory. This film was selected as one of the top 20 finalists in the 2012 Sunshine Chinese Documentary Awards.
Article
My Life: China's Direction
When the Cultural Revolution broke out, Yang Xiaokai was a senior high school student at No. 1 Middle School in Changsha. On January 12, 1968, he published an article entitled "Where is China Going?" which systematically put forward the ideas of the "ultra-leftist" Red Guards, criticized the privileged bureaucratic class in China, and advocated for the establishment of a Chinese People's Commune based on the principles of the Paris Commune. Yang Xiaokai recalled that his parents were beaten because they sympathized with Liu Shaoqi's and Peng Dehuai's views, and that he was discriminated against at school and could not join the Red Guards. As a result, he joined the rebel faction to oppose the theory of descent. Yang Xiaokai was later sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for this article. Yang Xiaokai died in 2004. This article is a retrospective of his life.
Book
My Mother ：Gao Yaojie
Author Eva writes about her relationship with Gao Yaojie, a Chinese doctor. Dr. Gao Yaojie, who was severely repressed by the Chinese government for exposing the mass infection of Chinese farmers in Henan Province, China, by selling their blood, had no choice but to leave China at the age of 78 and go into exile in the United States. The dissemination of her story is strictly forbidden in China. In this book, author Eva describes Gao Yaojie's noble heart, her story, and her experiences.
Film and Video
My Mother Wang Peiying
On January 27, 1970, Wang Peiying, a cleaner at a kindergarten in Beijing, was sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes at a 100,000-person public trial held at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing. She was then taken to the execution ground along with a dozen other political prisoners to be executed by firing squad. Wang Peiying was strangled to death in the torture wagon because she preferred to die rather than give in and shout slogans. Forty years later, her daughter, Kexin, began to search for her mother's story. Through her mother's coworkers, friends in distress, and the task force, she gradually discovers her mother's experience as an active counterrevolutionary. In order to protect her conscience, Wang Peiying chose to stand up for her dignity and freedom to tell the truth, and willingly endured brutal torture. The documentary reflects the brutality of the Cultural Revolution and the destruction of humanity.
Film and Video
The Central Plains
Due to poverty in rural areas in Henan Province—part of China’s Central Plains—many farmers contracted AIDS by selling their blood. This documentary dives into the lives of these AIDS patients, depicting the manner in which they cope with life, officials’ responses, and the stories of volunteers who helped the infected villagers. The filmmaker visited several villages with high incidence of AIDS, interviewing and recording people’s accounts of how the “plasma economy” arose. This documentary presents the living condition of families and individuals, especially women and children, who contracted AIDS due to blood donation and blood transfusions, and demonstrates the formation of grassroots organizations.
This film is in Chinese with both Chinese and English subtitles.
Film and Video
The Vagina Monologues -- Stories Behind the Scenes
<i>The Vagina Monologues</i> is a pioneering feminist drama created by the American playwright Eva Ensler. In 2003, teachers and students at the Gender Education Forum of Sun Yat-sen University in China adapted the play and added artistic interpretations of Chinese women's gender experience. The adapted play had its first performance at the Guangdong Provincial Art Museum. This documentary records the attitudes of governments across China towards the play as well as women's perceptions of the play and its connection with their personal experiences. It also highlights the current political and cultural ecology of China.
Book
Who is the New China
Author Xin Hao Nian tries to analyze the modern history of China since the Xinhai Revolution. He pointsout that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a restoration of the authoritarian system, and the Republic of China (ROC) represents China's road to a republic. The first volume of the book defends and clarifies the history of the Kuomintang (KMT), arguing that the KMT is not a "reactionary faction" as claimed by the CCP. The second volume criticizes the revolution and history of the CCP. The book was first printed in 1999 by Blue Sky Publishing House (USA) and reprinted in June 2012 by Hong Kong's Schaefer International Publishing. It is banned on the mainland.