5—
New Wine in Old Bottles

In May 1938, the All-China Resistance Association of Writers and Artists held an informal meeting in Hankou to discuss a pressing question: how to compile popular reading materials for the soldiers at the front. Although a direct Japanese attack on this Yangzi River city was growing ever more likely, a sense of hope and enthusiasm permeated the discussion. With Tian Han, Lao Xiang (Wang Xiangchen, 1901–1968), An E (1905–1976), Wang Pingling (1898–1964), and others in attendance, President Lao She (Shu Qingchun, 1899–1966) called the meeting to order. He reminded those assembled that when the association was founded two months earlier, on 27 March, the members had decided to publish a total of one hundred different kinds of popular literary works designed to meet the needs of the soldiers and the masses. "A discussion today about this issue," Lao She noted, "will perhaps help us to better prepare for this challenge."^[1] A lively debate ensued, with several important questions raised: What kind of books should be written? Based on what sources? Should distinctions be made between materials aimed at soldiers and those intended for the general public? And should old cultural forms be used to serve the present needs? It was the last question, or what Lao She called "the question of pouring new wine into old bottles," that generated the most spirited exchanges:

An E: I think we should be selective in using old forms. Consider folk ditties. Some of them portray people's lives, expressing their emotions, but others are licentious and immoral. We should promote the former but discard the latter. It is important to note that things that are popular among the populace are not necessarily beneficial to them. We have the responsibility to educate

the masses. It is unwise to use harmful materials to cater to the needs of the people.

Lao She: Old and new forms are both acceptable. The important issue is to be careful about the choice of words. Some new words are certainly beyond the comprehension of the general public. Consider the following: "Lao She's eyes cast like an arc, arousing a trace of sentimentality." (Laughter) I doubt even a junior high school student could understand its meaning completely. So we must be careful in using certain words and expressions.

Wang Pingling: If we want to use "old bottles," we must first determine whether or not they are suitable for current use. We can indeed compose new materials based on old dagu [drum singing] verses. But we cannot do so with "Eighteen Touches" ["Shi ba mo"—an erotic song]. In short, it is a matter of whether the wine is good or bad, regardless of the age of the bottle.

Lao Xiang: I remember a story: A car salesman goes to the village to tout his products. He asks those gathered around whether they understand the wonders of the automobile. You know what happens? A peasant counters with a question: Without an ox to pull the car, how can it run?

Tian Han: Because we are intellectuals, we like to write in an elegant style. It seems that we never feel completely satisfied unless we do so. In Changsha, I saw some [anti-Japanese] slogans written in artistic calligraphy. How could the country folk understand them when they can't even understand those written in regular script?

The plan to publish one hundred different kinds of popular books for soldiers, however, never materialized owing to lack of funds and lukewarm support from the government (an issue that will be pursued later in this chapter).^[2]

The discussion of "pouring new wine into old bottles" in popular literature was reminiscent of an earlier, similar debate regarding traditional drama. In both cases, the question was how best to communicate with the largely illiterate populace to win support for the war cause. In both cases, too, resistance intellectuals looked to native culture to accomplish the task. Only the medium had changed, with the focus now on popular literature rather than theater.

To the resisters, the call "Literature must go to the countryside! Literature must join the army!" (wenzhang xiaxiang, wenzhang ruwu), one of the most popular slogans coined by the ACRAWA,^[3] would remain forever a lofty and useless dream unless they could determine

what kind of literature should be written, how it should be sent to the countryside, and in what way it could be presented to the peasantry. Intellectuals and writers should not engage in wishful thinking, Lao Xiang warned, but should "study the immediate needs of the people."^[4] To Lao She and Lao Xiang, the best way to satisfy the needs of the people was through the use of "popular literature and art" (tongsu wenyi), already a strong thread in the fabric of Chinese society.

Although the Chinese folk culture movement made its debut during the May Fourth era, its importance was not universally recognized until after the outbreak of the war. Before the Japanese invasion, the movement championing folk values and culture, despite its importance in modern Chinese cultural and intellectual history as a reaction against Confucian tradition, was very much a scholarly endeavor limited to a few intellectuals (such as Liu Fu [1891–1934] and Zhou Zuoren) and confined to a small number of university campuses.^[5] The war suddenly thrust folk literature onto center stage, arousing enormous public interest, especially among politicians and propagandists. But the renewed interest in folk literature had shifted its focus—from the literary and romantic value of the plebeian culture, and toward politics and nationalism. During the war popular and folk literature were mixed to form a hybrid resistance culture, the distinctions between them becoming blurred and insignificant, in practice if not in theory. In many instances, the two types of literature were used by resistance intellectuals interchangeably.

The Use of Popular Literature

The ability of popular literature and art to shape people's minds and feelings is well documented. English chapbooks in the seventeenth century and Russian lubki (popular prints) in the nineteenth century formed the staple of lower-class reading in those two countries and had an enormous impact on the peasants' literacy and attitudes.^[6] These were commercial in intent, however, whereas Chinese wartime popular literature and art was strictly political. It was a common assumption among resistance intellectuals that no attempt to repel the enemy would succeed in the long run unless ordinary people were willing to act together. One effective way to galvanize the disparate individual groups was by means of "popular literature," an easily comprehensible and beloved cultural form deeply rooted in the life of all Chinese people.

The writer Wang Pingling described a familiar rural scene: in villages in southern China, whenever there was a temple fair or a festival,

scores of itinerant book peddlers would appear, touting a host of chapbooks for customers. Most of the books were slim volumes of small cost, ranging from popular songbooks to familiar tales such as The Story of Yue Fei (Yue zhuan). "For the great majority of people," Wang noted, "these books served as major sources of information about Chinese history. Villagers could be equally captivated [by these books as] by a story of bandit-heroes avenging cases of injustice told by a professional storyteller in a country teahouse."^[7] Echoing Wang Pingling, Lao Xiang saw a bright future for popular literature in China's bitter struggle against the invaders. According to Lao, stories from popular novels such as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, including accounts of the brilliant strategy of the wise man Zhuge Liang and the bravery of Guan Yu, not only remained enormously popular with Chinese readers but also continued to shape their worldview, and thus could be valuable for educating the public in the cause of the resistance. In fact, popular culture proved to be far more influential than its elite counterpart. As Lao Xiang put it, "There were more of Guandi's [Guan Yu] temples in China than of Confucius's."^[8] But what exactly is "popular literature"? Does it refer only to popular novels like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Story of Yue Fei? Or does it include something more? And what are the differences between "popular literature" and "elite literature"?

Ironically, although the term popular literature was widely used during the war, its contents and its underlying assumptions remained vague. The term defied simple definition in part because it was a catch all expression, diffuse and pluralistic in nature, and in part because its meaning changed over time. At the beginning of the war it referred loosely to anything that was not considered elitist—that is, literary forms other than such recognized genres as poetry and lyrics. Subsequently the term was often used interchangeably with folk literature (minjian wenyi), literature or art such as folk songs and legends believed to be orally transmitted and collectively composed by the common people.

The search for a definition of "popular literature and art" provoked heated debates within intellectual circles. Some rated the quality of popular literature quite low, especially the old genres. Zheng Boqi (1895–1979), a former member of the Creation Society, a May Fourth literary association, was one such critic. He argued that "popular literature" meant two types of literary products: first, "feudal relics" inherited from the past such as Setting Fire to the Red Lotus Temple (Huoshao Hongliansi) and tales of adventure, superheroes, and spec-

tacular sword fights; and second, shoddy and often shameless modern works scribbled by mediocre writers whose sole intent was financial gain. Detective novels, "Mandarin Duck-and-Butterfly fiction," and stories of romantic triangles and sadism fit into the latter category. Zheng denounced these as "poisonous products," intended to promote ideas of hedonism, espousing fantasy, and corrupting people's minds.^[9]

The writer A Ying saw similar problems with popular songbooks produced in Shanghai. As a Communist, however, he adopted a more political outlook. A Ying observed a substantial increase in songbooks after the incident of 28 January 1932. Many of the songs bore patriotic titles, condemning foreign invasion and advancing nationalism. But in reality, A Ying said, they were crass commercial products that espoused "archaic ideas of fatalism and retribution." He attributed this phenomenon to the erroneous views of "feudalistic song writers" who, in his words, intended to "drug the laboring masses, leading them down the road of destruction."^[10] A Ying's criticism clearly reflected his own political view: the booming popular songbook publishing industry represented a society marred by greed and exploitation. Marxist clichés notwithstanding, his criticism addressed a common concern of intellectuals: not all popular literature was useful. In fact, much of it was deemed harmful to the cause of the war.

The historian and folklorist Gu Jiegang (1893–1980), however, looked on Chinese popular literature with a more sympathetic eye, stressing its positive influences rather than its detrimental impact. Gu, a nationalist and a brilliant scholar whose monumental multivolume work Critical Discussions of Ancient History (Gushi bian, 1926–1941) had permanently reshaped Chinese historiography, enthusiastically embraced the theory of "pouring new wine into old bottles." His meticulous study of ancient Chinese history convinced him that it was the very presence of the past that determined China's present and future. The nation's enduring legacy should be carefully examined and accorded due respect, for anything that could remain virtually unchanged over thousands of years must have great intrinsic value. Hence, unlike Zheng Boqi, Gu affirmed a host of traditional cultural forms. In an important article from 1938, "How to Write Popular Literature," Gu argued that popular literature encompassed the following: novels such as The Water Margin, storytelling, drum singing, regional drama, folk songs, xiangsheng (comic dialogue), shuanghuang (a two-man act with one singing or speaking while the other acts out the story), la yangpian (a still-picture show viewed through a magnifying lens), New Year pictures (nianhua), and so on.^[11] His list, which

covered a wide range of topics, was the most detailed and comprehensive one proposed during the war. Significantly, it combined works written by the educated (such as novels) and those produced by illiterate people (such as folk songs and New Year pictures). In this sense it thus underscores a significant development in wartime China: the merging of popular and folk literature in the campaign being waged by Chinese intellectuals against the Japanese.

But why were these old and to some extent outmoded cultural forms such as storytelling and comic dialogue valuable? How could they be resurrected to serve present needs? Like the dramatist Ouyang Yuqian, Gu Jiegang believed that tradition was a vital part of China's wartime culture. His celebrated study of the legend of Lady Meng Jiang had already in the 1920s demonstrated how China's folk heritage continued to shape the hearts and minds of contemporary Chinese. But he was equally sensitive to the urgent needs of the time. Gu argued fervently that popular traditional forms should not be misinterpreted as the products of a merely conservative impulse. Rather, they were the accumulated wisdom of the folk, embodying the people's thoughts and feelings. Given their long historical roots and enduring popularity, they were potent weapons for rallying the masses.

To be sure, Gu Jiegang held a rather romantic view of the common people.^[12] Even so, he was correct in stressing the potential use of folk and popular literature in a period of national crisis. The advantages of such forms were many: they used a rich array of common sayings drawn directly from the people's experience and thus would be familiar and understandable to the peasantry; their straightforwardness would allow intellectuals to reach the masses swiftly and sincerely; and if music were involved, because its tones were simple and easy to learn, an instant rapport could be established between intellectuals and the commoners.^[13]

Lao Xiang echoed Gu Jiegang's views. Besides popular novels like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Lao Xiang argued, well-loved detective stories such as The Cases of Lord Peng (Penggong an) and The Cases of Lord Shi (Shigong an) could be placed under the same rubric of popular literature. They were works of great merit that should not be brushed aside as inelegant or unworthy. The mere fact that they were extremely popular attested to their importance in the life of the common people. Studying them would yield valuable information about the attitudes of the reading public.^[14] In the past, such popular stories were usually considered too insignificant to warrant any attention. Lao Xiang, however, considered this censure to be pre-

sumptuous. Although popular works were predictably uneven in quality, they often exhibited a profound understanding of life, on top of being highly entertaining and rich in imagination. Popular literature, Lao Xiang warned, should not be confused with things "vulgar" or "shallow."^[15]

What impressed Gu Jiegang and Lao Xiang most was the sense of realism inherent in popular literature and its simple and lively language, which seldom fell victim to embellishment and pretentious punditry. Often witty and down-to-earth, popular stories faithfully mirrored social reality and the people's life. Both folk and popular literature, Gu observed, used language naturally and effectively, and both expressed ideas with a sense of colloquialism. The writer Fang Bai agreed. Folk literature was a treasure trove of insights that could provide unlimited inspiration to resistance intellectuals. Illiteracy, Fang noted, was so widespread in China that it would be naive to think that sophisticated works such as Lu Xun's Call to Arms (Nahan, 1923) or Mao Dun's Midnight (Ziye, 1933), however well received by critics, would be comprehensible to the general public. The hidden symbols and rich allegories in these books were simply alien to most people's lives. Something simpler, though no less forceful, was needed. Folk literature such as common sayings and proverbs could help, Fang suggested,^[16] thus reiterating a familiar proposal voiced earlier by Liu Fu and Zhou Zuoren during the May Fourth Movement. But now the argument was politicized, for it was the practical function, rather than the intrinsic value, of folk literature that drew these intellectuals' attention. And the argument was not used to reject traditional elite culture, as Liu Fu and Zhou Zuoren had done, but to spur the country to national consciousness.

Although Gu Jiegang and Lao Xiang stressed repeatedly the importance of popular and folk literature,^[17] they did not overlook its less attractive aspects. These old cultural forms, they agreed, were full of violence and superstition, and many were the products of booksellers who cared not about cultural values but about profits.^[18] But like the drama reformers Ouyang Yuqian and Tian Han, Gu and Lao proposed reform rather than complete rejection. Gu argued that an extensive review process was needed to select the useful works and discard the undesirable ones. The old forms must be transformed and given a new life. He suggested some fundamental changes: replacing "feudal mentality" with "national consciousness," and "lewd songs" with music that portrayed the reality of life.^[19] In the writing and publishing of good popular literature, Gu recommended a wide range of topics:

national leaders' speeches, the mobilization of the people, conscription, wounded soldiers, guerrilla warfare, the atrocities of the Japanese troops, and national heroes. Since most people had little interest in theory, the ideas introduced must be simple and related to their life. Intellectuals, he said, should approach the subject of popular culture with understanding, sensitivity, and respect, not with condescension or abstraction. Their efforts to awaken the masses would yield results only if they paid sufficient attention to the people's practical needs and emotions. In these views Gu was supported by Lao She and Lao Xiang.

Lao She and Lao Xiang

Lao She and Lao Xiang were pivotal figures in the popular culture drive, for they put ideas into practice. As the president of the ACRAWA, Lao She played a particularly crucial role in promoting popular literature. As a widely acclaimed writer in his own right, he lent the art a much-needed sense of legitimacy and mapped out a strategy for its dissemination. Lao She's nonpartisan stand and his unassuming character not only earned him wide respect among his peers, but it also seemed to underscore the sincerity of the work he was sponsoring.

Born in Beijing and of Manchu origin, Lao She first burst onto the literary scene in the mid-1920s with his novels The Philosophy of Old Zhang (Lao Zhang de zhexue) and Zhao Ziyue. Like his contemporary Shen Congwen (1903–1988), Lao She was noted for championing simple values and human integrity in his works. But unlike Shen, who focused especially on soldiers, peasants, and remote rural life, Lao She's characters are mostly urbanites caught in a world of corruption and deceit.^[20] Lao She felt strong sympathy for the underprivileged. Nowhere was this more evident than in his treatment of the tragic hero Camel Xiangzi, the protagonist and title character of his masterpiece written on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War. Xiangzi is a kind hearted, indefatigable country lad who is determined to eke out a living in Beijing by sheer hard work. But his repeated attempts to own a rickshaw and live an independent life are thwarted by evil forces all around him: the unruly military, the atrocious secret police, and the ugly daughter of his rickshaw boss. In the end, this honest man is destroyed by a rapacious and depraved society. His fate seemed to point to the futility of individual effort and the need for concerted action, an idea that became a reality for Lao She as he joined the collective campaign against the Japanese when the war broke out.

Throughout the war years, Lao She continued to write novels. But none quite matched the brilliance and sophistication of his earlier works. Perhaps realizing spoken drama's potential to reach a wide audience, Lao She also tried his hand at writing plays, producing a number of them, including The Nation Above All (Guojia zhishang, coauthored with Song Zhidi) and The Problem of Face (Mianzi wenti). As a whole, however, the plays are mediocre at best, devoid of artistry and visual appeal and lacking originality and insight into character. "Because he is a novelist," drama critic Tian Qin remarked politely, "his plays seem to retain the wit of a novel"^[21] —a shortcoming that Lao She frankly admitted later when he confessed that he did not understand the distinctions between writing scenes in a play and chapters in a novel.^[22] Arguing that everything must serve the war cause, Lao She imbued his plays with a distinct patriotic fervor.^[23]The Nation Above All, for example, tells the story of a stubborn Moslem who, realizing that China cannot win the war against Japan unless people join together with a single will, decides to put aside ethnic and religious differences and join hands with his fellow countrymen.^[24] Yet what Lao She lacked in artistic refinement in his wartime novels and spoken dramas, he made up for by his robust promotion of popular literature.

Lao She left Ji'nan in Shangdong province for Hankou in late 1937. En route he was robbed several times, which were bitter and traumatic experiences.^[25] Fortunately, he was able to find temporary solace at the home of Feng Yuxiang, the famous Christian general, whom he had known earlier when he was a lecturer at Qilu University in Ji'nan in the early 1930s. General Feng, a passionate man with an imposing presence, received Lao She with open arms and enthusiastically supported his work in popular culture. Despite Feng's colorful public image, he lived a simple life and participated in arduous maneuvers with his troops. Like other patriots, he was also extremely critical of the GMD government's conciliatory policy toward the Japanese, and so drew the ire of Jiang Jieshi. In his early years, Feng had used simple songs (many of them his own compositions) and plays to inspire his troops and teach them such virtues as bravery and patriotism, an unorthodox method in his day.^[26] During the war, Feng promoted the resistance cause, inviting folk artists to join the movement and lecturing and writing voluminously on Japanese aggression; he was especially known for his simple, down-to-earth, nationalistic songs called qiuba shi (soldiers' poems).^[27] More important, Feng was an enthusiastic champion of popular culture and a staunch supporter of the ACRA-

WA. He lent his prestige to the organization from the start, serving as a director and contributing money when it was badly needed.^[28]

In Hankou, with the support of Feng and together with Lao Xiang and He Rong (1903–1990), Lao She helped to launch the magazine Resisting Till the End (Kang dao di), a bastion for popular literature in the early phase of the war.^[29] When the ACRAWA was founded in March 1938 in Hankou, Lao She, widely respected by left and right alike, was elected its president. He vowed to turn the organization into "a new mechanized force,"^[30] a martial phrase reminiscent of the language of wartime journalists. He remained in that post throughout the war years, helping to set the nation's cultural and literary agenda.

Lao She's mild and charming manner masked an iron will: he was resolute in pushing what he believed in. Like Gu Jiegang and Lao Xiang, he viewed popular culture as an ideal propaganda weapon. In his early career, he already demonstrated an enormous interest in a variety of traditional cultural forms. As a child growing up in the capital, Lao She had developed an enduring interest in the folk arts and local customs of old Beijing. He frequented the theaters and the teahouses, enjoying Beijing opera and listening to the storytelling and comic dialogues of local artists. The performing skills that he inadvertently picked up in these rather unconventional places later added a theatrical touch to his classroom lectures, earning him a reputation as a lively teacher in his Qilu University days.^[31]

Lao She was never an iconoclast. Unlike his May Fourth contemporaries, who vehemently attacked Chinese tradition as fusty and backward, Lao She had strong feelings of nostalgia toward the past. What he cherished, however, was not the Confucian elite culture, but the old customs and manners that still thrived among ordinary people. "I was born in Beijing," Lao She once wrote, "and I know well its people, its events and scenery, its atmosphere, the cries of peddlers selling plum juice and almond tea. As soon as I close my eyes, the city appears before me like a vivid, richly colored painting. This gives me the courage to describe it."^[32] Lao She's genuine love for popular culture in general and old Beijing in particular is evident in his works, which contain a wealth of information about lower-class people and their life in that ancient city. Many of his stories seem to conjure up an old, forgotten China brought back out of memory. He was particularly noted for his lively use of Beijing dialect (as in The Philosophy of Old Zhang).

Thus when Lao She came to promote popular culture during the war, he was already an expert in and great admirer of this art. To him,

popular cultural forms not only possessed superior intrinsic value, but they also embodied certain essential ingredients of China's rich cultural legacy. The war, instead of undermining his emotional and spiritual ties with the past, only strengthened his love for his country's multifaceted traditions. Echoing Xiong Foxi's notion of "education in entertainment," Lao She embraced popular culture as an educational tool. His childhood experience constantly reminded him that "inelegant" places like theaters and storytelling houses were as important as academic settings in providing the general public with knowledge of life's realities. "They were," he said, "tantamount to people's schools."^[33]

To plead a convincing case for popular culture, Lao She realized that he had to dispel the myth that it was low and worthless. Like Lao Xiang and Gu Jiegang, he argued that popular culture forms were often moving and entertaining. "Their fresh and pure words resemble newly picked vegetables from the garden. Their vocabulary comes from the people, representing their thoughts and imagination. On this point alone, perhaps, popular culture contains more new blood than the classics and the new vernacular literature."^[34]

Lao She's comment, which seemed to echo the views of such May Fourth folklorists as Liu Fu and Zhou Zuoren, was certainly romantic and exaggerated. To him, folk tradition was a pastoral landscape not yet trampled by the evils of urbanization and modernization, and popular culture forms were a potent source for cultural rejuvenation. Yet Lao She also gave the most detailed and convincing argument on why writing popular literature was such a difficult task for intellectuals, and in so doing he brought respect to the genre. Lao She believed that writers encountered three difficulties when composing such popular pieces: namely, the writing must be comprehensible, entertaining, and pleasing to the ear (yue'er) —a difficult task at best.^[35] But before writers could begin to solve these riddles, they needed to ask an even more fundamental question: For whom was the writing intended? To Lao She, the answer was very clear: "We must aim at the common people."^[36] In an influential article from 1938, "The Difficulty of Writing Popular Literature," Lao She offered the following advice:

First, forget that you are a man of letters. In other words, forget Shakespeare and Du Fu, and turn yourself into a country storyteller.

Second, discard highly specialized sociological and economic terms. If you can change descriptions such as modeng nüxing

[modern ladies] to xiao jiaoniang [young women], it would be even better.

Third, in portraying characters, black and white must be contrasted sharply. It must be simple and forceful.

Fourth, put your story into a familiar, easily recognizable setting.

And finally, use dialect.^[37]

In suggesting dialects as a useful vehicle in writing popular literature, Lao She was raising a difficult question long debated by May Fourth intellectuals. The folklorist Liu Fu, for example, recognized the value of dialect literature as a genuine folk product coming from the illiterate peasantry, and the leftist writer Qu Qiubai valued dialects as essential components in his ideal "mass language."^[38] Like Qu, Lao She criticized the new vernacular literature as being a kind of elitist writing focusing on "college professors, bank managers, dancing girls, and politicians" and thus separate from the life of real people. "Popular literature," Lao She wrote, "must use the language of the folk and write about the life of the people." Nevertheless, the dialect issue was a controversial one, for its full realization could lead to parochialism, which would contradict the original goal of fostering a national consciousness.

For Lao She, those who could best master "the language of the folk" were folk artists such as storytellers and drum singers. "They are the ones who live among the people, while we intellectuals are no doubt far removed from them," he lamented.^[39] Lao She therefore heartily applauded General Feng Yuxiang's move to invite folk artists to join the resistance camp. In his view, that act was more than a proper recognition of an underrated art; it was a true confession on the part of intellectuals that they were inferior to folk artists when it came to using popular cultural forms as a resistance tool.

Since the majority of the people were illiterate, simplicity of content was essential to make popular literature influential, Lao She argued. Subtlety, sophistication, and finesse had no place in such works. He particularly advocated the use of rhymes to reach as wide an audience as possible, pointing out that popular literature was not just a written form of artistic expression, it was "oral persuasion" (koutou xuanchuan). "Beside paying special attention to the common vocabulary and their simple meanings, we must make sure that popular literature exudes beautiful melodies," he wrote.^[40] His friend He Rong agreed: "Rhymes are the main ingredient of popular literature." Without a basic understanding of rhyme patterns and their implementation, a

writer could hardly claim that he had mastered the essence of popular literature.^[41]

By stressing the importance of rhymes, Lao She showed his unique understanding of the nature of popular performing arts. He was in fact one of the few resistance intellectuals to note the actual performance effect of popular literature. His theatergoing experience made him realize that the composition of an audience and the conditions of performance were just as important as the work itself in deciding its success or failure. The effect of a piece of popular literature, in other words, came not from its latent possibility but from its realization.

The effectiveness of a piece of popular literature relied heavily on the circumstances under which it was performed, including the personalities involved. A seasoned performer such as the famous Beijing drum singer Liu Baoquan could easily bring the audience to its feet, but a less experienced performer might have just the opposite effect.^[42] Since writing popular literature was by no means easy, and since most of the writers in this endeavor were amateurs, Lao She suggested that they study the folk singers and traditional storytellers for ideas and techniques. "Learn from experts [neihangren ]!"^[43] Practicing what he preached, during the war Lao She cultivated a close friendship with a father-daughter Beijing drum singing team, the Potato (Shanyaodan, whose real name was Fu Shaofang) and Big Blossom (Fuguihua, whose real name was Fu Shu'ai), learning their techniques. He also sought advice from Bai Yunpeng, another acclaimed Beijing drum singer.^[44] Lao She's sincere respect for folk artists and his repeated emphasis on the conditions of performance underscored his strong aversion to grandiose theorizing. The power of a piece of popular literature, he firmly believed, lay not in its text, but in its ability to communicate directly with the audience. This view reflected the general determination among resistance intellectuals to translate abstract issues into personal and concrete statements.

Lao She created works in a variety of areas during the war, including drum songs, comic dialogues, shulaibao (rhythmic storytelling to the accompaniment of clappers), and Henan zhuizi (ballad songs popular in Henan province). Some of them—three drum songs, four traditional operas, and one old-style novel—were published in his popular literature collection entitled San si yi (Three, Four, One, 1939). They were produced, Lao She wrote in the preface, according to the formula of "pouring new wine into old bottles."^[45] Among a score of Lao She's drum songs, "Wang Xiao Drives a Donkey" ("Wang Xiao gan lü," 1938) is one of the best known. A short piece that touches

directly on the issues of patriotism and sacrifice, it describes how Wang Xiao, a peace-loving and hardworking young man who takes care of donkeys as a living, decides to join the army after China is invaded by the Japanese. Shocked by the brutality of the invaders, Wang Xiao resolves:

I shall go enlist in the army.
I am a man of indomitable spirit,
To die for my country I feel no regret,
It is better than living as a slave under the bayonets of the enemy.

After bidding farewell to his widowed, ailing mother, Wang Xiao sets off on his journey to the front:

As he turns around and looks at his home again,
He sees his mother standing stiffly at the doorstep.
Choosing between being a loyal citizen and a filial son is hard,
But [at last] he stamps his feet and leaves his hometown.^[46]  

"Wang Xiao Drives a Donkey" was certainly one of Lao She's better pieces.^[47] Despite its predictable ending, the song nevertheless bursts with emotion, a general call to arms issued in a familiar folk art form. Other of his drum songs such as "The Second Phase of the War of Resistance" ("Erqi kangzhan," 1938) and "A Eulogy to the Wartime Capital" ("Peidu zan," 1942) exude similar confidence and fervent nationalism, attempting to instill a sense of optimism amid a climate of uncertainty and fear.

Lao She was concerned more with patriotic value than with artistic sophistication. This can be seen in his "Classic for Women" ("Nü'er jing," 1938), a kuaiban piece (rhythmic comic talk to the accompaniment of bamboo clappers), where he praises women warriors:

They are women, but as courageous as men.
Patriots who won't live with a false peace.
Hardworking, they never dress up,
They donate their savings to the nation
And deliver winter clothing to the barracks….
Full of courage, they take up their guns.
They are heroines like Hua Mulan….
Women of a new era, their arms hold up the sky.
And the names of the heroines spread far and wide.^[48]  

The theme was familiar, but by using the popular kuaiban format, which is particularly effective in creating both drama and tension in a

performance, Lao She clearly sought to heighten audience emotions. Again, the actual performance was of primary concern.

Enthusiasm and versatility notwithstanding, Lao She's works in the domain of popular literature can hardly be rated as artistically superior. Many were mediocre pieces that paled in comparison with his more celebrated prewar novels. But Lao She was a humble man (he called himself a "foot soldier") and a patient learner, and he frankly admitted that, despite his attempts, he remained an amateur in writing popular literature. Still, he never had any doubt about the value of this powerful tool. "If War and Peace only lies on the sofa, whereas drum songs are widely read by soldiers and the people, I certainly [feel] no regret for writing drum songs and not coming out with War and Peace, " Lao She wrote in 1939.^[49] China, after all, was living in troubled times, and he was willing to sacrifice artistic refinement for practical needs.

Like his friend Lao She, Lao Xiang avidly promoted popular literature during the war. He was also an accomplished practitioner, producing a prodigious number of works in a short span of time. A graduate of Beijing University's Chinese literature department, Lao Xiang first made his name as a fine essayist noted for his wit and humor. But he was by no means a pure stylist. He often invested his writings with passion and, more important, with a strong dose of social commentary on current rural problems.

Born in a small town in southern Hebei, Lao Xiang considered himself very much a country man with a heritage deeply rooted in the Chinese soil.^[50] He firmly believed that the roots of China's problems lay in the countryside, a vast area long ignored or misunderstood by intellectuals. According to Lao Xiang, one of the gravest shortcomings of Chinese education was its indifference toward the peasantry. Consider school textbooks: they were filled with decorated mansions and sumptuously dressed women, representing a life-style far beyond the comprehension of humble peasants. Lao Xiang had long toiled against illiteracy. "Education," he wrote, "must be designed to meet the challenges of real life." He criticized government officials and teachers who were blind to the fact that "the real national resources of China are not coal or iron, but the 300 million reticent peasants."^[51]

Not surprisingly, one of Lao Xiang's favorite essay topics was the countryside. His two most popular books, The Yellow Mud (Huangtu ni) and The Countryside (Minjian ji) —both collections of essays that first appeared in such journals as This Human World (Renjian shi)

and The Analects (Lunyu) —chronicled a myriad of rural activities, ranging from "a water pump" to "offering sacrifices to the kitchen god," and were variegated and entertaining. Lao Xiang's prose was always down-to-earth, displaying his profound capacity for realism. No aloof observer, Lao Xiang was a participant as well. His concern for rural problems such as illiteracy, superstition, and hygiene prompted him to devote a large portion of his early career to improving the living conditions of country folk. He spent the early 1930s, for example, in Dingxian as an active member of the Mass Education Movement headed by James Yen, trying to eliminate illiteracy in the countryside. For Lao Xiang, education was more than formal training: it involved changing the minds of the people and exposing problems so that remedies could be found. This concern was the main thrust of his essays during this period. He went to Dingxian to teach, an act described by his friend the writer Sun Fuyuan (1894–1966) as a kind of "homecoming."^[52] Indeed, Lao Xiang's knowledge of and love for rural China was rare among other writers of his generation. Another friend, Qu Junong, summed it up best: "In the past, articles about peasants' lives were often the results of intellectuals' dreams, fanciful and unsympathetic. Lao Xiang's pieces, however, are microcosms of rural China. They are real!"^[53]

Lao Xiang was in Beijing when that city fell to the Japanese in late July 1937. Life under the occupation was both humiliating and frightening.^[54] He managed to flee to the south, later joining the ACRAWA in Hankou. Although there is no direct evidence that Lao Xiang participated directly in the Dingxian mass education group's efforts to collect a large amount of folk literature, notably yangge plays and narrated stories, he spoke enthusiastically about this famous endeavor led by his friend Sun Fuyuan, the director of the "Popular Literature Section" in Dingxian.^[55] Lao Xiang's thorough acquaintance with rural life (in Dingxian and elsewhere) and his interest in peasant culture proved to be extremely valuable during the war when he began to refashion a host of traditional popular and folk literature forms into what he called "powerful educational tools."^[56] His dream was realized when he took center stage of the popular literature campaign by assuming the editorship of Resisting Till the End in January 1938. The semimonthly, supported and financed by Feng Yuxiang, was one of but a few publications dedicated entirely to the advocacy and dissemination of popular literature during the war. Now Lao Xiang was in a key position to influence the course of that movement, which he did with zeal.

Vowing to "use ink as blood and to turn words into weapons,"^[57] Lao Xiang transformed the journal into a major force for popular literature. The journal's appeal lay in its rich array of popular literary forms (ditties, comic dialogues, and drum songs), cartoons (Zhao Wangyun, a friend of Feng Yuxiang's, was a major contributor), patriotic stories, and articles on "pouring new wine into old bottles." For all their variety, the pages displayed a strong nationalist current. Even the title of the journal was an obvious call to arms. Resisting Till the End was a fresh breeze in the publishing world in part because no magazine had ever before placed so much emphasis on popular culture, and in part because of the devotion and energy of its staff (which included Lao She and He Rong—who later replaced Lao Xiang as editor of the journal).

Priced at 8 fen (later increased to 10), Resisting Till the End lasted twenty-six issues, from January 1938 to November 1939. Its impact is difficult to gauge, since circulation data for the journal are scanty, but it seems to have been well received by educated and semiliterate readers. In the eyes of Lao Xiang, the journal played a crucial role in arousing people's nationalistic sentiments by encouraging them to write: "One more word," he noted, "is one extra resistance effort."^[58] In his view, this sense of engagement alone was enough to have far-reaching consequences. Besides Resisting Till the End, Lao Xiang helped launch another journal, Resistance Pictorial (Kangzhan huakan), with Lao She and Zhao Wangyun, also financed by Feng Yuxiang.^[59]

Perhaps more than any other resistance intellectuals (Lao She included), Lao Xiang experimented with different types of popular culture and excelled in many of them.^[60] One area in which he shone was children's song writing. "Collecting Winter Clothing" ("Mu hanyi," 1940) is a good example:

The snow is dancing,
The lone crow is crying.
I am making a fur hat for the soldier.
Where can I find furs?
I ask help from a fox.
The fox runs into the grass.
Oh fox, oh fox, please don't run.
Can you lend me a big fur coat?
I won't wear it,
Nor will he,
We are sending it to the soldier at the front.

It feels so warm,
It looks so good,
We're sure to beat those Japanese.^[61]  

This piece is in the best tradition of Chinese children's songs. It begins with the familiar description of a natural phenomenon, then the human emotion it arouses. But Lao Xiang was not interested in rhetorical devices. He wished to carry a contemporary message: the importance of supporting the soldiers on the battlefield. Structurally, the song is simple, down-to-earth, and lively, yet its meanings are serious and its mood sanguine. Death is a subtext here, but is treated in an instructional, patriotic manner. The metamorphosis of a dead fox into a fur hat is more than a physical change: it is a transformation of values. Killing revives life, a victory will soon be in sight if the soldiers are well clothed, and many lives will be saved in the end. The image is not of death, but of life and triumph.

Another of Lao Xiang's songs, "A Small Swallow" ("Xiao yanzi," 1939), touches on a different but related theme of war: the bitter experience of a refugee living an uprooted life.

A small swallow,
Atop the roof beam.
Fled from home at seven or eight,
She misses her father,
And misses her mother,
She thinks about her beloved hometown.
What a wonderful place!
A place that's good!
Thinking of home, she hates the Japanese.
Oh, the Japanese devils,
Came to her town,
Killing and burning everything.
She lost her father,
She lost her mother.
She sobs bitterly by the road.
Do not weep,
Do not whine,
If we don't take revenge, we'll be worse than swine.^[62]  

Again, despite the defeats and suffering that the song describes, it ends on a note of determination and hope.

Besides children's songs, Lao Xiang composed drum songs, comic dialogues, shulaibao, and kuaiban. All were written with a gusto that the reader could not miss. But perhaps his most successful piece was a

revision of the Three-Character Classic (Sanzi jing), a telling case of "pouring new wine into old bottles."

Indeed, Lao Xiang's Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic (KangRi sanzi jing) was one of the most popular texts penned by a resistance intellectual. But why the traditional Three-Character Classic? To explain his reasons, Lao Xiang recalled two shabby, almost deserted bookstores he had known in Dingxian before the war. Contrary to his expectation that the bookstores were on the verge of closing, their business continued. The secret of their survival, he later learned, was that they were regional wholesale dealers of a number of "outmoded books," including the Three-Character Classic, the Thousand Character Classic (Qianzi wen), and the Hundred Names (Baijia xing) —books that had dominated traditional elementary education in China from Song times on.^[63] These texts remained enormously popular among the general public, even in an age of airplanes and telephones. When Lao Xiang later found that few, if any, soldiers or common people understood the contents of resistance magazines like Resisting Till the End, he turned to these "outmoded books" for help.

Lao Xiang published his Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic in Resisting Till the End in March 1938. As he put it, "Since the Three-Character Classic is such influential reading material among the Chinese people, by pouring 'anti-Japanese new wine' into this old bottle, perhaps the people can accept [this literature] more easily."^[64] Yet besides superficial similarities such as title and format (both books used three-character couplets), the two versions were markedly different in content and ideas. Lao Xiang's new version was longer (1,428 words versus about 1,100 in the traditional work, which was available in many versions), and its tone was patriotic rather than didactic. The differences between the two are immediately apparent in their respective opening lines. The traditional Three-Character Classic begins:

Men at their birth are naturally good.
Their natures are much the same; their habits become widely
different.
If foolishly there is no teaching, the nature will deteriorate.
The right way in teaching is toattach the utmost importance to
thoroughness.65

Lao Xiang's version begins:

Men at their birth are naturally loyal and persistent.
Loving their nation is instinctive.

When the nation falls, the family cannot survive.
Protecting the nation is the first concern [for everyone].
66

In the place of the traditional version's call for filial obedience, Lao Xiang emphasized patriotic duty and paid tribute to generals who sacrificed their lives in defense of the nation. And instead of providing historical anecdotes from the Chinese past, the new version chronicled the recent conflict with Japan. Lao Xiang, of course, presented no paragons of morality like Huang Xiang of the Han, who as a young boy warmed his parents' bed in winter before they went to sleep; nor did he exalt the Confucian ideals of benevolence and righteousness. Instead he praised sacrifice and unity, and urged perseverance and contribution to the war cause. Descriptions in the new version were not about past sages and their admirable deeds but about contemporary heroes and Japanese brutality; the emphasis was not on persistent learning but on armed resistance. While the traditional Three-Character Classic ends by advising, "Diligence has its reward; play has no advantages. Oh, be on your guard, and put forth your strength," the new version concludes with a call for revenge and for the recovery of lost territory.

Lao Xiang's piece was an overwhelming success. Not only was it widely reprinted in other magazines, but it sold more than fifty thousand copies in offprints during the first month of issue—a rare achievement at a difficult time in China.^[67] Critics hailed it as a virtuoso work that could only have sprung from the author's deep understanding of the resistance movement and his delight in writing it.^[68] Part of the reason for its phenomenal success was its low price of 1 jiao (10 fen). The vivid illustrations by Zhao Wangyun, Gao Longsheng, and others also helped. But the main reason was its familiar format—a confirmation of Lao Xiang's own belief that no recipe was more effective in combating the Japanese than the use of traditional forms.

Despite its success, the Anti-Japanese Three-Character Classic, though well organized and written with passion, was by no means a superior artistic achievement. It could not, for example, match the vividness and charm of the same author's children's song "Collecting Winter Clothing." It was longer than its traditional counterpart, its language was more difficult, and its messages utterly familiar, even stale. How ironic that its success was due largely to the perennial influence of an ancient Confucian text that new intellectuals had fought so hard to repudiate since the May Fourth era.

Lao Xiang, of course, was not the first modern writer to use the Three-Character Classic for a purpose other than Confucian education. The Taipings, for instance, realizing the prestige of that earlier work, had used it to render Christianity comprehensible to the masses in the mid-nineteenth century.^[69] Christian missionaries in the waning years of the Qing dynasty had also reshaped it into religious tracts.^[70] Lao Xiang, then, in writing both this tract and a less successful sequel, the Anti-Japanese Thousand-Character Classic (Kang-Ri qianzi wen),^[71] was following a long tradition of literary borrowing.

Drum Singing and Other Popular Culture Forms

Among a rich variety of popular culture forms, drum singing was one of the most prevalent during the war. Lao She, who, as we have seen, wrote the drum song "Wang Xiao Drives a Donkey," enjoyed the genre so much that he wrote a novel about it. The Drum Singers (Gushu yiren), based on his real-life friendship with the Potato and his daughter, Big Blossom, portrays the bitter life of an exiled drum-singing family in Chongqing from 1938 to 1945. Most Chinese readers, however, had gotten their first glimpse of this art in Liu E's (1857–1909) famed description of a performance of Pear Blossom drum singing by two sisters in his late Qing novel The Travels of Lao Can (Lao Can youji): "They were unparalleled songs sung by two beautiful women," marveled the author at the virtuosity of the singers Dark Maid and Fair Maid.^[72]

Dagu is a collective term for a host of drum singing styles performed in north China, especially in Shandong province. Originating in the Qing,^[73] drum songs are accompanied by a small drum and a stringed instrument. Beyond that, certain variations define the different styles. Their names identify them as to either the type of additional musical instruments used (Pear Blossom drum songs [Lihua dagu ], for example, use two pieces of iron hit together as their primary instrument) or the region where they are popular (for example, Beijing drum songs [Jingyun dagu ] or Leting drum songs [Leting dagu ]).^[74] Extremely flexible in rhymes and varying in length (they range from eight lines to a few hundred, though the common length is between one and two hundred), traditional drum songs drew their subject matter from such popular stories as The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin. They were immensely popular in north China, attracting large audiences in cities and villages alike. Virtuoso performers like the great Beijing Drum Singing School masters Liu Baoquan and Bai Yunpeng commanded a wide following before the war. Liu Bao-

quan's piece "The Battle of Changsha," an episode taken from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, always played to packed houses wherever he performed.^[75]

The popularity of drum singing continued unabated during the war and caught the attention of Lao She, Lao Xiang, and Zhao Jingshen (1902–1985), a scholar of folk literature and performing arts.^[76] Drum songs with a contemporary viewpoint soon began to appear in profusion, becoming one of the most widely used forms of popular art for political purposes. The Popular Reading Publishing House (Tongsu duwu biankanshe), founded by Gu Jiegang, issued drum song pamphlets like Fierce Battle at the Marco Polo Bridge (Xuezhan Lugouqiao). Newspapers and magazines also featured them prominently.

Like their predecessors, wartime drum songs often began with opening lines like "Let's talk about" (biao de shi), "You fellows" (lie wei), and "If you asked me" (ruo wen). These phrases are rooted in the storytelling tradition, and they established an instant rapport with the audience. In content and length, however, wartime drum songs differed substantially from their forerunners. As Lao She's "Wang Xiao Drives a Donkey" demonstrates, the new works naturally placed considerable emphasis on the current conflict with the Japanese. And while the old ones often ran to more than a hundred lines, the new versions were substantially shorter. Two pieces by Zhao Jingshen are good examples. "The Pass at Juyong" ("Juyongguan," 1937), about the battle at the Nankou Pass in August 1937, has only sixty-five lines, and "The Pass at Pingxing" ("Pingxingguan," 1937), hailing a successful military maneuver by the Communist Eighth Route Army against the Japanese at the Pingxing Pass on the Great Wall in September 1937, is even shorter, with forty-six lines.^[77]

Like newspaper articles and cartoons, the thrust of wartime drum songs was patriotism. They abounded with tragic war scenes and stories of the valiant Chinese troops. In "The Pass at Pingxing," which appeared in National Salvation Daily the month after the battle occurred, Zhao Jingshen describes the surprise attack on the Japanese with hyperbole:

When he heard about the arrival of the Eighth Route Army,
Commander Itagaki [Itagaki Seishiro] was alarmed and panicky.
"Damn! I have heard of the brilliance of the Red Army's guerrilla
warfare for a long time,
We sure are facing grave danger!"
Let's not talk about how frightened the Japanese troops had
become,

But spend a few words on our courageous Red Army.
A battalion of them was sent to encounter the enemy.
They lured the Japanese into the precipitous pass pretending they
were being beaten.
When the enemy saw us retreat,
They gleefully poured into the pass in hot pursuit.
At the right time, with a big shout,
Our troops in ambush
Attacked the enemy on both sides.
They encircled them day and night.
And inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy….
How gallant were our Big-Sword Teams!
How like frightened babies were the invaders!
We annihilated them in hundreds and thousands,
Their bodies lying all over the mountain pass.^[78]  

Another example was the Battle of Taierzhuang—also the subject of a cartoon by Te Wei (fig. 28)—which was given a new interpretation in Lao Xiang's famous piece "The Resounding Victory in Southern Shandong" ("Lunan dasheng," 1938). Instead of detailing the battle scenes, Lao Xiang presented a vivid picture of the men at the front, especially General Li Zongren, the commander in charge of the campaign:

If you asked me how General Li dressed,
I am happy to give you a full description:
In gray trousers and gray coat,
He is even more modestly clad than a commoner.
But humble apparel has nothing to do with ability on the
battlefield.
Resisting the Japanese does not rely on good clothing.
Let's not mention clothing,
And let me tell you something about his looks.
A man of strong physique,
He certainly can shoulder national affairs.
Born to be a great general who guards our land,
His eyes glare like a tiger's,
And he loves his people.
He sets strict rules for his troops,
But he speaks gently with a kindly face.^[79]  

Lao Xiang's piece was a classic drum song both in its use of rhyme and in technique. Even his description of General Li was reminiscent of the familiar portrayal of heroes in classical novels and storytelling:

a brilliant warrior who is not only gifted in military affair's but also charming as a person. The piece thus presents a unique intimate look that contrasts sharply with the haunting reality of war.

While Lao Xiang was adroit in furnishing the human dimension of the war, Zhao Jingshen, as demonstrated in his "The Pass at Pingxing," focused on heroic battle scenes. As an avid promoter of folk literature in the 1920s,^[80] Zhao Jingshen was certainly no novice when it came to "pouring new wine into old bottles," and he produced a string of highly successful drum songs in the early phase of the war. Like others, Zhao idealized his heroes: generals are brilliant strategists, and soldiers are vigorous, robust fighters with enormous confidence. But the fact that he wrote about real people (such as the air force hero Yan Haiwen)^[81] and the stories were authentic, he believed, lent his pieces credibility. Surely Zhao recognized these drum songs as propaganda works; but he thought highly of this unique performing art because of its flexibility and enduring popularity.^[82]

Drum singing was but one of the many popular "old bottles" filled with "new wine" during the war. Other forms were used as well, such as folk songs, tanci (storytelling to the accompaniment of stringed instruments), and local ballads.^[83] Folk songs were especially popular, enjoying a surge of renewed interest in the late 1930s. Wartime intellectuals again found ways to make them work as political instruments. "Let us edit them and turn them into a new popular wartime art," one writer proposed.^[84] And Chen Yiyuan did exactly that. In his 1938 "Anti-Japanese Mountain Song," he used the traditional duige (love duet) format to express his feelings. The first new verses are as follows:

(Woman) Magpies flutter under the eaves,
My loved one has finally arrived.
Oh! My love, you bring along an umbrella,
And you carry a bag on your back.
Are you going away on a long trip?
(Man) I am prepared to enlist in the army,
I want to become a soldier to fight against the Japanese.
When the enemy is defeated
And I return in two or three years,
Our love will be reunited.
(Woman) You are such a dumb fellow.
Haven't you heard that "good men never enlisted"?
Maybe there is another woman out there?
Has she stolen your heart?
And you have forgotten our pledge.

(Man) I will never be a heartless man.
But love and loyalty are two different things.
Now our country is under siege,
I must put my love aside for the moment.
But in the future we will have a long time together.^[85]  

Chen's love song (also known as a "mountain song") is an excellent piece, lighthearted yet serious, endearing yet solemn, weaving lyrical evocations of love with the militant celebration of armed struggle. The love duet style and the juxtaposition of contrasting feelings that it allows create a particularly dramatic impact. Instead of the amorous love of traditional love songs, Chen's song lauds the idea of devotion to one's country. There is no question of the outcome when it comes to choosing between love and patriotism.

The continuing popularity of the folk song tradition and its extreme flexibility, in fact, made it a favorite vehicle for many resistance writers to show their support for their country. The dramatist Ouyang Yuqian, for instance, wrote a song praising the heroic deeds of Chinese Women in the war effort.^[86] And Bao Tianxiao (1876–1973), the Butterfly fiction writer turned patriot, wrote an equally compelling piece accusing the Japanese troops of numerous atrocities during their 13 August 1937 attack on Shanghai. "I hope this song will spread far and wide among the Chinese people," Bao wrote.^[87]

As we have seen, the dramatist Cui Wei furnished new words to the "September Eighteenth Melody" when staging Lay Down your Whip, and many wartime song writers did likewise. The revised "Thirteen Months" ("Shisan yue," 1938), for example, begins:

January is the first month of the year,
Our leader is Generalissimo Jiang.
He is determined to defend our nation,
And he is China's Great Wall of Iron.

The song continues for eleven more stanzas, each referring to a particular month or seasonal change and describing either a famous battle or a celebrated general, including Feng Yuxiang, Chen Cheng, and Zhu De (1886–1976), commander in chief of the Chinese Communist forces. The piece ends on an upbeat note:

The thirteenth month is a leap month.
The whole nation is united into one.
We are determined to resist till the end;
The final victory no doubt will be ours for sure.^[88]  

Such popular love songs as "Seeing My Loved One Off" ("Song dage") and "Embroidering a Purse" ("Xiu hebao") also were given a new patriotic content.^[89]

But individual efforts, no matter how original and well articulated, were generally limited to specific localities. Thus resistance writers launched collective campaigns to try to shape public consciousness, invoking the devices of popular literature to stimulate civilian morale. In early May 1937, two months before the conflict actually broke out, the Shanxi Provincial Sacrifice and national Salvation Alliance (Shanxi xisheng jiuguo tongmenghui) in Taiyuan, in addition to issuing a series of number of patriotic items, including a story entitled "United to Resist," a shuanghuang called "The May Thirtieth Incident" (about an anti-imperialist demonstration in Shanghai on 30 May 1925 during which many Chinese students were killed), and a Henan zhuizi entitled "The Japanese Invasion of 18 September 1931." The performers were reportedly warmly received by the audience.^[90]

The organizers, however, were not content to stage the performance only in the city; they wanted to see the campaign bear fruit in the countryside as well. A reporter gave this eyewitness account of the reaching-out campaign:

To spread this naional salvation storytelling into the villages, several men went down to Taigu county [about thirty miles south of Taiyuan] and set up a teahouse. Storytelling and drum signing were performed and created a great sensation. Even the county magistrate offered his help to make the show work. Each performance easily drew four to five hundred people. Not only did this kind of performance bring the patriotic message to the countryside, but it also attracted country folksingers and performers to Taiyuan in order to learn more about nationalist songs and stories.^[91]

Organizers clearly realized the importance of a concerted crusade. A variety show helped to bring people together, coalescing their individual experiences into a collective one. Perhaps nothing was so effective as providing the audience with entertainment that was both familiar and well loved. The show was designed to recruit new patriots and establish a firm grass-roots base in line with the ideal of "every citizen a participant" (quanmin dongyuan). The effort was successful, at least for the early years of the war, when collective enthusiasm remained

high; only later, as the conflict turned into a protracted one, did the energy start to wane.^[92]

Popular Reading Materials

To mount an effective campaign against the Japanese, the government and the public at large had to join hands and work side by side, that much was clear. Yet in the eyes of many resistance intellectuals, the government was not doing enough. The ACRAWA, for instance, was founded largely on the initiative of individual writers, with little assistance from the government. The mere fact that the organization was chronically short of funds was an indication of the government's luke-warm support. The tentative plan to publish one hundred different kinds of popular literary works never materialized, largely because there was never enough money; even coming up with the rent for the organization's headquarters in Hankou was a constant headache for Lao She and other association officers. Its meager income from the membership fee (which ranged from one to five yuan per person annually) hardly sufficed; as a result, the association had to rely heavily on the generous though intermittent donations of such prominent figures as Feng Yuxiang and Shao Lizi.^[93]

To be sure, the war did open the eyes of some government officials, inducing them to play a role in the popular culture effort. The publication and dissemination of certain popular reading materials was one task they took on. Notable examples include the pamphlet series "Air Battles" ("Kongjun dazhan"), issued by the Central Propaganda Department, and "Donating Money to save Our Nation" ("Shucai jiuguo"), put out by the Department of Education.^[94] The Logistics Section of the Military Council also published a "Resistance and Reconstruction Popular Series" ("Kangjian tongsu wenku"); using a variety of popular culture forms, this series contained a plethora of titles, including "The Monks on Mt. Wutai Participate in the Resistance" ("Wutaishan heshang kangzhan"), a drum song, and Counterespionage (Fanjian ji), a spoken drama, to name but two. As the products of a government agency, these items—such as the drum song booklet Generalissimo Jiang's Address to the Army and the People on the Second Anniversary of the War (Jiang weiyuanzhang kangzhan liangzhounian gao junmin) —predictably voiced support for the GMD.^[95] Another organization, the Disabled Soldiers Vocational training Center (Rongyu junren zhiye xunliansuo), also published a series of patriotic songbooks. One of them was entitled Little Japan (Daxiao Riben). In four sections and in simple language, this booklet be-

gins with a familiar admonition, but it goes on to offer a specific way to disseminate patriotic ideas in the neighborhood:

This is a little songbook.
Despite its plain language and colloquial expressions,
Every word in it is true and sincere.
I hope you fellow readers will read it with great care,
So that the exact nature of the Sino-Japanese War becomes crystal
clear.
With evil intention, the Japanese want to conquer China.
We can no longer endure any more provocation;
We will become a subjugated people unless we stand up and fight.
It is easy to sing using a songbook,
But to save a nation is far more difficult.
Unless we Chinese join hands together
Our nation will never be strong.
If you can gather all your neighbors together,
Be they young or old.
Sing this song to them
And follow with explanation.
This will be a great contribution [to your nation].^[96]  

The language in this songbook series was neither difficult nor exquisitely crafted; there were no artistic turns of phrase or rhymes. It was specifically designed for people at a very low level of education and, like the folk songs "Thirteen Months" and "Seeing My Loved One Off," was meant to be sung in a group and in public, so that emotions could be shared and hearts touched.

The government's effort was unsystematic, however. Apparently the Guomindang had no overall plan to publish and distribute popular reading materials, and little coordination among different government agencies can be detected. Given the popularity and effectiveness of these materials, the lack of official support is perplexing. Was the government short of funds, or unable to find qualified authors? Did government officials hold an elitist view and place popular reading materials low on their agenda? Or did the inaction reflect the GMD's continued suspicion of the popular movement in general as Communist-inspired, a point raised earlier by journalists Fan Changjiang and Xiao Fang?

There is no question that the Nationalists considered the mobilization of all human and material resources for the war effort as their top priority. But their conservatism and distrust of the masses contradicted and ultimately undermined their policies and original objectives. A

case in point is the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement, a campaign initiated on 12 March 1939 to rally people behind the government. The movement, as Lloyd Eastman puts it, "encouraged people to swear to a 'Citizens Pact,' all twelve articles of which were negatives—'Not to act contrary to the Three People's Principles,' … 'Not to participate in traitorous organizations,' etc."^[97] Instead of issuing positive instructions to gain public support, the entire campaign seemed more like a warning to the people about the series consequences of wrongful political affiliations. Like the earlier New Life Movement (1934), it soon ended in failure.

The conservative nature of the government's activities was particularly evident in the realm of higher education. Under the direction of Chen Lifu (1899-), China's wartime minister of education, the government continued to streses the importance of what Chen called "character education" in an attempt to reintroduce Confucian values of filial piety and loyalty into university curricula.^[98] Such a program, however, was incongruous with the harsh realities of the war and met strong opposition from students.^[99]

As the war progressed, the GMD leaders' suspicions regarding the political loyalties of artists and dramatists grew, particularly those involved in the drama propaganda traveling troupes. The belief that many propaganda troupes were heavily infiltrated by the Communists led to curtailment of funds to these groups and ultimately forced them to shut down—as occurred with the Cartoon Propaganda Corps in late 1940, for example. This concerted nonsupport further alienated independent-minded artists like Ye Qianyu, who viewed it as oppressive.^[100] The removal of Guo Moruo as the head of the Third Section of the Political Department in the fall of 1940 was undoubtedly meant to curtail the Communists' influence in the propaganda arena. But the man who replaced him, Huang Shaogu (1901-), a GMD loyalist, lacked the vision and charisma to lead a forceful campaign. More important, the Guomindang's culture policy in general remained, as the literary historian Liu Xinhuang (1915-) put it, "perfunctory and passive."^[101] The Party's preoccupation with military and administrative affairs left its entire cultural propaganda program in a state of neglect.

In sharp contrast to the Nationalists, the Communists were serious about launching and coordinating different kinds of popular movements, including directing a well-orchestrated popular literature campaign in the border regions. The results of the two groups' efforts, in the end, were very different from each other, even though populariza-

tion and politicization of popular culture occurred in both Guomindang and Communist areas during the war. As will be discussed in the next chapter, the differences in outcome were not just a matter of the Communists succeeding and the Guomindang failing in their efforts. Rather, at issue was the fact that the Guomindang helped to start the campaign but then failed to capitalize on it.

Also in contrast to the government was the private sector, which actively published popular reading materials in the form of pamphlets, an effective format that the novelist Bao Taxi called "the culture shock troops" against the Japanese military.^[102] Two key presses were the Three Households Publishing House (Sanhu tushu yinshuashe) and the Popular Reading Publishing House (Tongsu duwu biankanshe). Founded by Feng Yuxiang in Hankou in early 1938, the Three Households Publishing House drew its name from a famous episode in Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji, first century B.C. ) in which the Master Nan of Chu said, "Be there but three houses [sanhu ] left in the state of Chu, still Chu will finally destroy Qin" (Chapter 7). The name had a distinctly modern ring when it was revived during the war. The pamphlets published by the Three Households Publishing House, including Feng's own The Great Masses in the War of Resistance (Kang-Ri de weida minzhong), were inexpensive, ranging between 8 to 45 fen apiece.^[103]

The history of the Popular Reading Publishing House went back even further, having been established by Gu Jiegang in Beijing right after the Manchurian Incident in September 1931. It was quite successful, publishing, as the name implied, a wide variety of booklets and magazines for the general reader. Each booklet cost between 2 and 4 fen and averaged eight pages in length (a reflection in part of the limited paper supply). With over four hundred titles published, this press "penetrated deep into the countryside of north China," as one source put it.^[104] When Beijing fell into the hands of the Japanese, the Popular Reading Publishing House moved southwest to Taiyuan, on to Xi'an, and then to Wuhan. Despite the shaky circumstances, it continued to turn out popular drum song pamphlets such as Five Hundred Soldiers Die Martyrs' Deaths at Xifengkou (Wubai dadaodui zhansi Xifengkou), glorifying the heroism of common foot soldiers, and Commander Hao Mengling Dies a Hero's Death (Hao Mengling kangdi xunguo) about how Commander Hao gave his life to defend the city of Taiyuan against the Japanese in October 1937.^[105] As in wartime cartoons, collaboration with the enemy was another dominant theme; an example is Capturing Bai Jianwu Alive (Huozhuo Bai Jianwu), which

describes the arrest and execution of a notorious collaborator in Hebei. Most of these pamphlets could be sung "either in drum singing or Henan zhuizi style." Many were also designed to be read aloud to the public.

The Three Households Publishing House and the Popular Reading Publishing House were two of many privately funded organizations that disseminated simple, inexpensive pamphlets to the populace. Life Bookstore (Shenghuo shudian) also published a series of popular readings, and the National Association for the Advancement of Mass Education, headed by James Yen, likewise issued a famous series of booklets entitled "Peasant Resistance" ("Nongmin kangzhan congshu"). Both these series, like those of the Popular Reading Publishing House, skillfully employed traditional popular literature styles. For instance, Eight Hundred Heroic Men Defend Zhabei to the End (Babai haohan sishou Zhabei), by Zhao Jingshen, was written as a traditional drum song, and War Songs (Zhan'ge), by Yang Cunbin, was a spoken drama. And once gain, patriotism permeated the writings. Xi Zhengyong's eighteen-page Ban Chao Pacifies the Western Region (Ban Chao ding Xiyu), for example, tells the famous story of the Eastern Han general Ban Chao's (32–102) successful campaign against the nomadic Xiongnu people, with which he brought about a long peace on China's western flank. ban Chao is described in the booklet as a patriot who, realizing the country is being threatened, decides to abandon his study for a military career. He is a man of commitment who firmly believes in the old saying "Every man has a share of responsibility for the fate of his country" (guojia xingwang, pifu youze). The book concludes with an admonition on the current crisis: "Now the enemy warplanes are hovering above us, and their artillery moves ever closer. To avoid destruction we must march to the front. It is time for old scores to be settled and foreign aggression repelled. Let's abandon our studies and join the army, and let's learn from the courageous Ban Chao who stamped his name on a foreign land."^[106]

Although James Yen's mass education campaign in Hebei was abruptly interrupted by the Japanese attack, he continued to be active in the resistance movement after he moved NAAME to Changsha in 1937. While fighting hard to keep the association's education activities afloat in the interior, Yen also turned NAAME into a propaganda agency, producing, under the supervision of the dramatists Xiong Foxi and Yang Cunbin, a series of popular patriotic plays, among other things.^[107]

Resistance intellectuals' communication with the populace did not,

of course, rely only on booklets. Cao Bohan, an expert on propaganda, suggested a host of different kinds of activity. In his 1938 book A Reader for Propaganda Techniques (Xuanchuan jishu duben), Cao discussed an array of methods for reaching the populace: woodcuts, cartoons, wall pictures, postcards, parades, regional dramas, and dialect plays, to name just a few.^[108] Collectively, these media contributed to what Liu Qun called "artistic propaganda." Most of them were simple in form, requiring no elaborate planning or technical expertise to produce.^[109] Old-style Spring Festival couplets (chunlian), for example, because of their visibility and popularity at the New Year festival, could be easily reshaped into an anti-Japanese tool, the editors of National Salvation Daily reminded their readers.^[110] Wall newspapers (bibao) could also be used to great effect despite their less than elegant appearance, Cao Baohan observed. They were easy to produce and could be pasted on the wall with relative ease; since they were handwritten, the complication of printing could be avoided; their articles were generally brief and timely; and their authors were local residents who were in close touch with their immediate surroundings. They were thus ideal vehicles for spreading military knowledge and teaching patriotic songs.^[111]

The mass production of a great variety of popular literature was an important development in wartime China, to be sure. But through what channels were they passed along to the general public? Who actually read them? To what extent were these publications influential? Realizing the difficulty of spreading information, Lao Xiang and He Rong suggested that perhaps old country bookstores could be used to help distribute materials in the rural areas;^[112] the unreliability of the network and the scarcity of country bookstores were limitations to this scheme, but they might be surmountable. Maybe the government could play a more active role, they suggested. In any event, to reach the widest possible readership, Lao Xiang argued, traditional, orthodox methods of communication no longer sufficed. Every possible means should be used and new channels explored. Books and pamphlets could be displayed at public places like temple fairs, village offices, and teahouses, and "book vendors, soldiers, students, and folk artists could also help to promote them."^[113] Yet despite numerous ingenious proposals, the distribution issue was never satisfactorily resolved, owing to the government's lack of supervision and coordination and the uncertainty of the times.

But had popular literature actually gone down "to the country," as Lao She and many others had so passionately urged? Chen Yiyuan's answer was an emphatic no: "Not only has literature not reached the

countryside; it has not even reached the country level. It remains in a few large cities."^[114] The root cause, He Rong insisted, lay in the intellectuals' stubborn urban mentality. They never could fully identify with country folk. Their city-oriented attitude and effete life-style produced disappointing results when they attempted to bring popular literature to the masses. "You certainly would be an eyesore to the villagers if you went down to the countryside dressed in Western-style clothing and leather shoes," he wrote critically.^[115] Such a lack of understanding led to shoddy products and empty slogans, agreed Xiang Linbing, a literary critic who wrote extensively on this subject.^[116] To Xiang, the vocabulary of this wartime popular literature was limited, literary, and embellished, never truly becoming "the language of folk."^[117]

Such admonishments notwithstanding, a large amount of wartime propaganda literature was in fact produced, suggesting that some activists viewed it as an ideal tool to motivate the general public. And as a whole, these works did exert considerable influence at the grass-roots level, forging an emotional, if not intellectual, bond between intelligentsia resisters and the illiterate.^[118] Through small, relatively inexpensive wartime pamphlets, a communication channel was built that allowed interacting, persuading, and learning experiences to take place: intellectuals swayed the attitudes and beliefs of the mass audience, and in turn the commoners exerted an influence on the educated—teaching them, among other things, how to speak in a language comprehensible to the masses.

True, much of the popular literature from the war years was superficial and dull. Most of these writings, after all, were propaganda items, pure and simple. Every piece, be it folk song or comic dialogue, seemed the same, clinging to a nationalistic formula that no one dared abandon. This is not to say, however, that they were entirely devoid of artistic value. Many of Lao Xiang's pieces, such as "Collecting Winter Clothing" and "A small Swallow," were respectable literary achievements, and Lao She's "Wang Xiao Drives a Donkey" was excellent. For Lao She and Lao Xiang, not only did propaganda literature draw huge audiences, but it also could yield fine products if approached with care and a sincere heart. In the end, though, the actual attempt by intellectuals to reach our to the public was just as important as what they produced.

Despite the resistance intellectuals' attempt to make the popular literature movement a collective effort, most of the works were individual undertakings, connected, perhaps, by the common sense of

shared patriotism. Questions of subject matter, technique, audience, and purpose continued to divide creative individuals into separate camps. As mentioned earlier, A Ying derided writers for producing what he described as "feudalistic" popular literature to poison the people. And the leftist writer Liu Shi boldly declared that the popular culture movement was "an anti-imperialist, antitraitor movement."^[119] To the leftists, the War of resistance was not just a struggle against Japanese militarism: it was a battle between two social systems—socialism versus capitalist imperialism. In the GMD-controlled territories, where feuding factions and inconsistent, uncoordinated policies wreaked havoc on solidarity movements, the ultimate purpose of popular literature was at times far from clear. In the Communist areas, by contrast, a coherent political philosophy and unified approach to popular literature gradually developed. Nevertheless, this policy, directed as it was from above and not by the artists themselves, dictated content and methods of expression that aroused a bitter sense of anxiety among intellectuals. The result was an atmosphere unconducive to creativity.