We live and learn--I certainly do and yesterday, for the first time, I heard about another form of poetry, ‘senryu’. I learned that ‘senryu’ fits what I’m doing with this series on China. Now, the haibuns I write will be using a ‘senryu’ instead of ‘haiku’, the traditional form.

haiku
line 1 - three syllables
line 2 - five syllables
line 3 - three syllables

senryu
line 1 - five syllables
line 2 - seven syllables
line 3 - five syllables

A ‘senryu’ is a three line Japanese poem structurally similar to haiku. It is unrhymed and the subject is based on human nature. It is usually satirical or ironic.
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When China Starved
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Washington Post

Cymbals clashed; a giant scroll unfurled. There were fireworks, kites, “ancient soldiers” marching in formation, modern dancers bending their bodies into impossible shapes, astronauts, puppets, children, multiple high-tech gizmos. The Olympic opening ceremonies showed you China as China wants you to see it.

But for a deeper understanding of how far China has come -- and of how odd its transformation continues to be -- switch off the Olumpics. Instead, spend a few minutes contemplating the existence of a new book: the first proper history of Chian’s Great Famine, a catastrophe partly engineered by the Chinese Communist Party and its first leader, Mao Zedong.

“I call this book Tombstone,” the author, Yang Jisheng, wrote in the opening paragraph. “It is a tombstone for my father who died of hunger in 1959, for the 36 million Chinese who also died of hunger, for the system that caused their death, and perhaps for myself for writing this book.

“Tombstone” has not been translated…. “Tombstone” -- in two volumes and 1,100 pages -- establishes beyond any doubt that China’s misguided charge toward industrialization -- Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” -- was an utter disaster.
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Several hundred thousand new books are published in the English language each year. Only a small number receive reviews in the Western media.
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Last member of China’s Gang of Four dies at 74
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
The Guardian, Saturday, January 7, 2006

The last surviving member of the Gang of Four -- the fanatical Maoists who were blamed for the terror of the Cultural Revolution -- has died at the age of 74, the Chinese government said yesterday. Nicknamed “the killer with a pen”, Yao Wenyuan was the chief propagandist of the ultra-leftist cabal, who helped turn children on their parents, students on their teachers, and civilians on bureaucrats in a class struggle that destroyed millions of lives between 1966 and 1976.…

With the last of the scapegoats gone, the communist authorities will hope to lay to rest a period of insanity, but it will not be easy. As many historians point out, there were more perpetrators than victims in the Cultural Revolution.
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Question and clarifying note: By using the word ‘scapegoats’, does ‘The Guardian’ imply that today’s Communist Party is responsible for the Cultural Revolution or just those in charge--those that were put on trial? What isn’t well known is that everyone connected, even slightly, to the Gang of Four was blacklisted. In China that means you don’t exist. The Chinese have their own way to punish. Robert Hart said it best. In China the guilty seldom escape punishment unlike the West where many criminals get away on technicalities. In China, the problem is that many innocent people suffer too, but that is a cultural difference going back centuries. The Imperial Dynasties did the same thing when it came to justice.
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October 11, 1976: China’s Gang of Four arrested. The new chairman of China’s Communist Party, Hua Guofeng, has ordered the arrest of four leading radicals in Peking. It is a sign that China is changing political direction following the death last month of Chairman Mao Zedong.

The so-called Gang of Four is led by Chairman Mao’s widow Jian Qing, and includes Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, and Zhang Chunqiao.

They were active proponents of the Cultural Revolution instigated ten years ago by Chairman Mao.
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Question: During the Nuremburg trails, after WWII, who was put on trail? The leaders of the Nazi party or the entire population of Germany since the majority supported Hitler. At the trial of Mao’s wife, she said, “I was Mao’s dog. When he told me to bite, I bit.”
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senryu

writing on China
Western media double standard
fear differences
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McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents….

During this time many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies…..

It was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and as the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States.

Question: Do we blame the Republican Party for McCarthyism?
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Japanese American interment refers to the forcible relocation and internment of approximately 110,000 Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans to housing facilities called “War Relocation Camps,” in the wake of Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor…. Of those interned, 62 percent were United States citizens.

Question: Do we blame the Democratic Party for the Japanese American internment in WWII?
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The Trail of Tears was the forced relocation of Native Americans for their homelands to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States…. Many Native Americans suffered [and died] from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations.

Question: Do we blame the United States government forever for The Trail of Tears or just those in power at the time?
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Mao Zedong died in 1976.
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“Seek truth from facts,” said Deng Xiaping. In 1977, Deng launched the “Beijing Spring”, which allowed open criticism of the excesses and suffering that had occurred during the Cultural Revolution…. Under Deng’s direction, relations with the West improved remarkably. Deng also orchestrated China’s return to a market economy. The West did not invent a market economy. If anyone did, it was China more than two thousand years ago.
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senryu

Western hypocrites
print diversity has weight
bar extreme contrasts

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