Emergence of Cultured Servicewomen Celebrities and Works Depicting Women's Sense of Independence

If we count up the number of veteran women writers, women journalists, and women literary and art workers of the present age, can see that close to half of them were servicewomen during the War of Resistance Against Japan.

Out of the soil of war and national liberation grew up a large number of outstanding cultured celebrities among the servicewomen. The then famous young woman writer Ding Ling, after her diary of Miss Sophie, wrote "Reflections on the March Eighth Women's Day", Head for the Front, and a number of other excellent essays, reports, and novels. Luo Qiong, a young woman, became editorial director of the supplement "Chinese Women" to Liberation Daily. In both the head office and all the branch offices of Xinhua News Agency there were Young women journalists who, following the troops, covered hostilities and news in each of the war

zones and anti-Japanese bases. Some of them even became directors of the branch offices. After Poetess Mo Ye's Ode to Yan'an was set to music, it spread far and wide in the anti-Japanese bases and Kuomintang- controlled areas. These works by women fully reflected the Chinese women's subject consciousness for independence and political stand of resisting the feudal patriarchal system's oppression of women. The awakened Chinese women began to view themselves, the family, the surroundings, the society and the world with their own eyes.

The formation and development of servicewomen's culture was not only a numerical collective accumulation in the form of groups but was also a concentrated representation of the female sense of independence which was full of militancy.

Luo Qiong, selected by the New Fourth Army as a deputy to the 7th National Congress of the CPC, arrived in Yan'an. In the Chinese Women's University she made a report on New fourth Army Servicewomen Dashing about in Battlefields in the South of the Yangtse River. She also compiled A Course in Women's Emancipation on the basis of her theoretical accumulation of many years and her experience and understanding in doing work on women. From a sociological viewpoint she analyzed the formation and evolution of women's social status, pointing out: "In each stage in the development of mankind, women's status in society and family varied with the change of social systems. Oppression of women and inequality between men and women didn't exist from time immemorial." "On the surface, oppression of women seems to result from their control by men, but in essence it results from oppression by the class system of exploitation. The exploited women slaves, women peasants, and women workers, put at the bottom of society, suffer double oppression. Women of the slave-owner class, the feudal landlord class and the capitalist class, being members of their respective classes, have a hand in the exploitation and oppression as noble ladies and share the wealth created by the labourers' blood and sweat; at the same time, subservient themselves to their respective fathers, husbands and sons, they become their subordinates." Luo Qiong pointed out that realization of women's emancipation depended both upon women's own struggle so as to achieve class liberation and upon the extinction of the whole class society so as to achieve equality between men and women in the final sense of the word. Liberation Daily's supplement "Chinese Women," the publication of which she supervised, advocated women's economic independence and called on women to enter society to take part in production and the Anti-Japanese War and to resist the advocacy of merely being "a good wife and a kind mother, a good husband and a kind father" by the Kuomintang reactionaries. Comrade Mao Zedong's famous inscription "Go deep into the realities of life and don't indulge in empty talk" was written in 1942 at the

invitation of the supplement "Chinese Women."

The servicewomen were both participants of the war and its recorders. As a result their literary productions not only had strong female characteristics but also sent forth a strong period feel and social consciousness. Serviceman Yang Mo, who joined the revolutionary ranks in 1936, went, after the breakout of the War of Resistance Against Japan, to the newspaper office of the Political Department of the Tenth Sub-Unit of the Eighth Route Army in central Hebei and became an editor there. Later she transferred to Jin-Cha-Ji Daily, conducting propaganda on and reporting news of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Song of Youth, an autobiographical novel she wrote in accordance with her own experience, made a great stir among the Chinese readers. It told of the story of a young girl by the name of Lin Daojing who forsook her feudal family and joined the revolutionary ranks. Lin became the model of youth to many young girls. The novel was then adapted into a film, whichbecame known to every household in China. In a great sense, the book told women that to liberate themselves they must first of all smash the feudal society that fettered women. Otherwise, even if they shook off the yoke of the family, they would fall into the abyss of the feudal society. The novel was not only the struggle chapter of the spiritual awakening of a depressed girl student but also the literary representation of the psychological journey and tragic experience of a generation of anti-Japanese servicewomen transforming from girl students into women soldiers. Servicewoman Zeng Ke played an active role in the Art Troupe of the fifth war zone in 1938. Many of her field reports, short stories and stage plays were published in Hongkong's Literary Front, the publication of which was supervised by Mr. Mao Dun, and progressive publications like Free China and Literary Monthly. Later they were compiled into reportage collections At Tangyin Battlefront and In fightings. During the War of Liberation, following the Second Field Army as a journalist of Xinhua News Agency, she took part in the Huai-Hai Campaign, the Yangtse River-Crossing Campaign, the Marching into the Southwest Campaign and some others. Her Head for the Front and Pressing onward into Dabieshan Mountains were true records of these campaigns. She said: "Tempered by war and educated by the martyrs who laid down their lives for the revolution and the selfless, courageous, resourceful and heroic officers and men, I did various kinds of work I was capable of in companies or at battlefront: doing rescue work at battlefront, passing on messages, mobilizing people in carrying stretchers and constructing defense works, reading and writing letters from and to home for soldiers, drafting bulletins, announcing meritorious services and summarizing material of operational experience. At critical moments, the officers and men, forgetting that I was a servicewomen, snuggled up together with me in

one col or gateway. Fearing that shell fragments might fall on me, they hid me with their own bodies and even carried me on the back across waist-deep rivers. I seized every minute that could be made use o during marches, operations and rest, collected material, and put down two to three hundred thousand words in the form of news, news dispatch, diary, and reportage." She said: "These were the most important and most valuable years in my life. It was also the most substantial period in my creative practice."

Poetess Mo Ye arrived in Yan'an with the Shanghai National Salvation Performing Team. She recalled: "At that time, I was only 19. Yan'an was the rich soil that fostered my optimistic character. It was a hotbed for cultivating the revolutionary optimism. I wanted to jump when I walked and to sing when I opened my mouth. We kept singing all the time, with one song accompanied by another and another leading to still another. Songs were like the air and sunshine in life. without them, life would be suffocating. I learned various new songs and sang many anti-Japanese songs. when had I sung so many songs in my life before? Yoke of the feudal family, oppression by the dark society, aggression of the imperialists, and persecution by the Kuomintang reactionary government had presented me with a hazy sky and a gloomy future. Though I could also sing then, the songs I sang were sad songs, angry songs, and rebellious songs. The songs I sang when traveling from Shanghai to Yan'an were songs of national salvation. but once in Yan'an, I became so open and happy in my mind, so cheerful in my laughter and so magnanimous in my songs. The song Happy People, popular during the Russian War of National Defense--'Songs of joy bounce with songs and happy people are in high spirits...'--was a song I constantly sang. It reflected the frames of mind not only of mine but also of almost all the youth in Yan'an. Though each of them had a different background, they had all got to the sacred place of the revolution after overcoming difficulties and setbacks and after transcending depression and hesitation. Life in Yan'an was a turning point in our whole life. Whenever I thought of this, I wished to sing an ode to Yan'an with my heart and with passion." Hence the song Ode to Yan'an which spread throughout the war zones and circulates even today. Servicewomen's culture was characterized not only by the portrayal and narration of the field life at that time, which broke free from the domestic female culture of narrow-minded women's petty feelings that had prevailed for several thousand years. What was more important and also the cause of its being a sign of an independent culture was that both in form and content it became a comprehensive representation of Chinese servicewomen's souls and lives.

From a cultural sense, servicewomen became many Chinese women's criterion for cultivating their moral character and improving

themselves. The former also became the pillar of the latter's spiritual youth. In her Diary of A Woman Soldier, Xie Bingying wrote: "Our life cannot be more joyful. Though we have to go out to drill every day both in the hard-snowing winter and the scorchingly hot summer, living the same kind of life as that of the common soldiers, none of us complains." She really enjoyed life of this kind: "We have to cover a distance of at least eighty to ninety li each day on average, and sometimes in the evenings we have to sleep on a door plank or a pile of rice straw." She said: "In this great era, I forget that I'm a woman and never think of personal affairs. I only wish to dedicate my life to the revolution. In order to overthrow the warlords and relieve the masses of the people in the whole country of their sufferings, I only wish to run to the battlefield to shed blood. I'll never shed tears or sigh any more for the sake of any personal affairs of marriage." Diary of A Woman Soldier was first put by Mr. Lin Yutang into English and then was published respectively in French, Russian and Japanese, etc. Even Romain Rolland, a well-known French writer, sent her a letter, expressing respect and congratulations. In 1937, the boom of guns of resisting Japanese aggression drove her from the hospital bed to the front. Her mother had just died and her father was seriously ill, but despite the emotional trauma and the urge of the kinsfolk for her to stay, Xie Bingying immediately aroused women to the front so as to render service to the wounded. This was one of the most joyful experiences in her life. Amidst the beacon-fire of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Xie Bingying traveled over many places--the east and west of the Grand Canal, the south and north of the Yangtse River, and the Yellow River valley. In Hankou she delivered a speech "Back from the Front"; in Chongqing she edited the supplement Blood Waves to New People's Newspaper; in Xi'an she supervised the publication of yellow river; and published such works as Touring five War Zones, New diary of A Woman Soldier, At the Battlefront, Soldiers' Hands, Sister, Maiden Meizi, A Letter to Young Writers, Literary Collections of Resisting Japanese Aggression, In a Japanese Prison, and Autobiography of a Servicewoman. Even in her later years, Xie Bingying is concerned about writing a sequel to Autobiography of a Servicewoman and is called "a forever young servicewoman."

Han Zi, a servicewoman during the War of Resistance Against Japan, was even more a woman who had her servicewoman's career melt into her soul. In the 50's of the present century, she hurried to the front of the War to Resist U.S.Aggression and Aid Korea in the capacity of a writer and fought for over 40 days and nights in the famous Shangganling tunnel. Her works the front and The Pearls of Memory recorded extensively what she saw and heard and how she lived in the armed forces. This servicewoman complex was not only and inexhaustible source of

creation to her but was also a sum of spiritual wealth that pulled her through the difficult years. In her prose Wanniu and Me, there was an unusual account: "1959,I was denounced for 5 days and nights on end because of an unwarranted charge of Right deviation. In the darkness before dawn I was often accompanied by my beloved little Wanniu(a girl rescued by the New Fourth Army). The denunciation was brought to a temporary close 5 days before the National Day I was bent upon casting aside my 'self-criticism'and setting to the writing of Wanniu. It was no ordinary writing. I turned my tears into ink and pored them down on paper. The sentences expressing my feelings gushed out as a spring. What I put down was my faith, my loyalty, as if a bare-footed girl, despite all the setbacks, were trying to catch up with her own troops and the Party wouldn't, nay, couldn't forsake such a daughter. Correcting while writing, I finished drafting and improving on the 9,000-word story by the evening of the next day. Then I felt as fresh and happy as if I had been washed in a mountain stream of Yunling." Han Zi,now over seventy years of age, suffers from cerebral thrombosis and has had two strokes," I walk with faltering steps and am forced to rely on a walking stick. But I'll try my best to put aside the stick and regain my former graceful bearing through exercises." She refuses to give in to old age, for she is a servicewoman. She said: "Even if I cannot get rid of the walking stick, I'll show my special field charm, the charm of a servicewoman that cannot be underestimated."