REVITALIZE AND DEVELOP THE ARTS IN SHANGHAI1
OCTOBER 14, 1989
Some 900 of you from the Shanghai arts and traditional opera circles have participated in the second China Arts Festival. You have made long journeys to Beijing, Nanjing, and Xinjiang, where you won over the local audiences and achieved success. You have also won acclaim for the people of Shanghai, you have helped create a new image for them, and you have brought them joy and encouragement. On behalf of the Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government, and as a lover of the arts and of traditional opera, I want to express the most heartfelt respect to all of you who work in the arts in Shanghai!
I was very touched to hear the remarks by 10 of you just now. I hope that the journalistic circles in Shanghai will widely publicize your remarks so that more people in Shanghai will understand the accomplishments and caliber of those working in the arts, and understand the contribution they are making to Shanghai’s revitalization. This not only stirs up the enthusiasm of Shanghai’s people, but it also helps dispel some irresponsible rumors abroad.
Shanghai is now politically stable. There are still some elements of instability at certain institutions of higher learning: some young college students lack a comparison between our new and old societies and are rather extreme in their politics. We must provide them with in-depth, meticulous, and unstinting ideological education. Our arts and traditional opera circles have done well in this regard, and your participation in the second China Arts Festival has shown that this team of ours is up to the test. You have been received very favorably not only by the general audience, but also by many specialists and central leaders. Audiences raved about the Beijing Opera “Cao Cao and Yang Xiu,” in particular, and it became the talk of the capital. I hope those of you who performed for Shanghai will carefully sum up your experiences, avoid arrogance and rashness, keep up the good work, and further promote the role of socialist arts in encouraging, motivating, and urging on the people.
In conversation with veteran performing artist Yu Zhenfei (right), who had participated in the second China Arts Festival, October 14, 1989.
Now I’d like to offer some suggestions to you all.
First, Train Very Hard
You should train very hard with artistic rigor and conscientiousness to master the fundamentals. Last time, when I shook hands with the cast after watching “Cao Cao and Yang Xiu,” I could see beads of sweat the size of soybeans covering their foreheads—this is a form of beauty of the spirit. “The fragrance of the plum blossom comes from the bitter cold”: to achieve success in the arts, we must accept great hardships, endure great exertion, and work strenuously on fundamentals. It takes countless seasons of practice to perfect a single move on the stage. You can win over the audience only if your fundamentals are sound. Yu Zhenfei2 is a titan of Beijing opera and of kunqu, and he is more aware than anyone else that accomplished performers reached that level through hard training. There are so many theaters in Shanghai and such a large army of artists. We must advocate that they work hard on fundamentals in the spirit of being true to the people and true to art—that’s the only way to nurture great artists, create great performances, and take the right direction, and the only way for the arts in Shanghai to radiate brilliance.
Of course, a correct political direction is needed in order to develop socialist culture and art. The most important thing is to earnestly study Marxism and to apply the spirit of upholding the four cardinal principles3 and to oppose bourgeois liberalization in artistic practice and artistic creation. This will enable Shanghai’s arts and culture to continue to develop with correct ideological guidance and to flourish even more.
Second, Delve Deep into Daily Life and Create More
These past few years, both Beijing opera and kunqu have been gradually losing young audiences, and even lovers of our country’s traditional operas have dwindled. As serious artists, of course you shouldn’t accommodate or pander to such trends. Yet we must strive to improve the ability of young audiences to appreciate the artistry of traditional opera, while traditional opera itself must also undergo constant renewal. If it does not develop and innovate, and if it can only present a few old plays, it will lose its audience, particularly the young population.
This doesn’t mean that the traditional plays should be shelved—they should still be performed, but they should be improved. At the same time, we must keep up with the realities of today’s life, create and perform some new plays. New plays don’t necessarily have to be in modern dress. “Cao Cao and Yang Xiu,” for example, is performed in traditional period dress, but its approach is very original and it innovates and develops on the foundation of traditional opera. When audiences watch it, many thoughts come to their minds, perhaps even more than the authors conceived of, and it has been very effective artistically. Before it was performed in the capital, I had already expected it to be well received. As for the Beijing opera “The Pansi Cave,” I felt all along that plays of this style should be performed because a considerable number of viewers enjoy watching them, but I wasn’t very sure if it would be properly appreciated. And I hadn’t expected it to be equally popular with the Beijing audience. We can gain many insights from this, the most important being that playwrights, directors, and performers, as well as musicians, choreographers, and artists, need to delve deep into real life and make plays come alive. In particular, more plays should be written and performed that reflect real life in Shanghai, so that the audience for traditional opera is gradually broadened.
Greeting representatives from the Shanghai performing arts companies that had participated in the second China Arts Festival, October 14, 1989.
Third, Take the Arts and Culture Seriously
Party and government leaders at all levels in Shanghai should take the arts and culture seriously. Socialist culture and arts are an intangible industry, whose practitioners are engineers of the human soul. Only when work in this field is done well can the intangible be turned into the material. Experience has shown that economic work might not necessarily turn out well if based on a purely economic approach. Over the past few years, Shanghai’s economic work has run into many difficulties, but the key to doing it well is to ensure that people are of one mind. We can win people’s hearts by doing more practical things for them, such as focusing on clean government, the “vegetable basket,” and urban infrastructure. But people can also be won over by cultural and artistic work that is done well—which becomes evident when you simply look at how many people in Shanghai were stirred by a single song, the “Song of the Incorruptible Cadre.”4
Those of you in Shanghai’s arts and culture circles must fully recognize the important historic mission that is yours and offer more beautiful works of art to the people. I have confidence in Shanghai’s economic work because its economic growth is based on its unique all-round strengths, on a complete range of industries, and on a large, high-caliber force of sci-tech workers; by the same token, I have great confidence in Shanghai’s work in culture and the arts because here, too, the city is endowed with diverse strengths and the conditions needed to let a hundred flowers bloom. I am in favor of promoting, revitalizing, and developing Shanghai’s fine traditions in the arts and culture.
You have asked for a policy tilt toward arts and culture. We should indeed lend support to certain types of plays, but we also mustn’t have everyone eating from the same “big pot” and just rely on government subsidies. The way out for the arts is to win an audience. Shanghai’s current fiscal subsidies for grain, [edible] oil, and non-staples alone amount to RMB 3.7 billion annually, and that doesn’t even include cash subsidies to enterprises amounting to RMB 900 million—our burden is a heavy one. It is true that our intellectuals, including those in the arts and culture, have very low incomes and few benefits at present. Although this will be very hard to change quickly in the early stage of socialism, we must still be determined to improve things gradually; otherwise we won’t be able to retain talent. Eight performers recently left the Shanghai Kunqu Company, but I hope they will return.
We are examining how to gradually improve the incomes and benefits of intellectuals so that they all feel that they have not been forgotten by the Party and by the government. I believe that you all are aware of and understand the feelings of the Party and government. At the same time, I also believe that you will continue to reinforce your sense of honor and sense of responsibility to do good work in socialist arts and culture, to encourage and motivate the people of Shanghai.
1. This is the main part of a speech by Zhu Rongji during a discussion with some members of the delegation from the Shanghai Academy of the Arts that had performed at the second China Arts Festival.
2. Yu Zhenfei was a Beijing opera and kunqu artist who had previously served as director of the Shanghai Academy of Beijing Opera and director of the Shanghai Kunqu Company.
3. Continuing to uphold the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.
4. The “Song of the Incorruptible Cadre” was created by the Publicity Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee by combining the melody of “The Three Main Rules of Discipline and the Eight Points to Note” with collectively written lyrics.