the China Lightroom blog

For the last two centuries, the Chinese psyche has been defined in large part by the humiliations and sufferings brought about by foreigners (see the Opium War, the Second Opium War, and the Nanjing Massacre). After the founding of the current Peoples Republic of China, it was the disastrous policies of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward which furthered that wound. The latter were the Chinese inflicting pain onto themselves.

In a T.V. series released in 1991, called 渴望 (“Yearning”), 毛阿敏 (Mao AMin) touched the hearts of every Chinese with her rendition of the theme song under the same name. The T.V. series itself was an epic, depicting the social upheaval that characterized the Cultural Revolution. The impact of the Cultural Revolution was pervasive. It gripped the whole nation.

Through 渴望, 毛阿敏 brought out the sadness and the strong yearning inside every Chinese to want to shed the past and to seek a future free of those sufferings. Every Chinese have lamented how things have gone so wrong for the bulk of the last two centuries. If anyone who wishes to understand why the Chinese want peace and stability nowadays, he or she should start by understanding this song and what it conveys.