Chairman Mao Zedong Badges & Ephemera

I keep finding the best stuff over at Sandra’s eBay store. Seriously, how can I stop buying when she keeps putting up great items like Little Red Soldiers Follow Mao (larger image here)? Just like the Tibetan record, you have to get a load of these song titles:

• “The Radiance of Chairman Mao”
• “Chairman Mao is Dearer to Us Than Our Parents”
• “Youngsters Love Chairman Mao”
• “Education Should Be Revolutionized”
• “The Proletarian Revolution in Education Should Be Carried Out”
• “Always Study the ‘Three Constantly Read Articles’”
• “Red Youngsters Love Reading the ‘Three Constantly Read Articles’ Most”

Can’t wait to slap this on my turntable!

In other news, I’m back in the US and looking for a copy stand I can use to shoot images of some Mao badges I bought in my last few trips to Panjiayuan. Updates should come in the next month or two.

Well, I did it again. I picked up another Cultural Revolution-era EP from eBay, this time a nifty little piece of Tibetan pro-China propaganda called A Pure and White Hata for Chairman Mao (larger image here). It’s not particularly subtle propaganda either — check out these song titles:

• “The Liberation Army and the Tibetan People are of One Family”
• “The Party’s Policies Shed Their Light Everywhere”
• “The Communist Party Brings the Tibetan People Happiness”
• “Brightly Shines the Thought of Chairman Mao”

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll try to get samples up when I’m back in the U.S. later this year. Until then, you’ll just have to imagine what a Tibetan folk song called “Thinking of Chairman Mao” sound like.

Online auction sites can be dangerous for compulsive collectors, and that’s why I try to stay away as much as possible. That danger has been particularly apparent since I discovered a woman in Hong Kong who’s selling Cultural Revolution-era LPs and 10″ EPs online. No, I’m not going to link to her store — a guy has to protect his sources — but I will share with you my latest purchase: There’s a Golden Sun in Peking: Concert, Solos on Traditional Instruments (larger image here). It would almost be worth it for the sleeve itself, but I’m sure the music will be just as interesting, even if it appears to be all instrumental. If I can, I’ll try to make some MP3 samples when I get back to the US later this year. Rest assured that I’ll also post pictures if/when I buy more.

Stefan Landsberger — lecturer in contemporary Chinese History at Leiden University and editor of the semi-annual journal China Information — has assembled a collection of over 1500 Chinese propaganda posters, many of which he’s scanned and put online at his Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages site. Landsberger is a recognized authority on the subject of Chinese propaganda, so along with the posters themselves, you get some outstanding commentary and background. And really, how can you not like a man who writes a paper called Paint it Red—Fifty Years of Chinese Propaganda Posters?

We here at Chairman Mao Badges & Ephemera are fond of the sections on the Mao personality cult, various Cultural Revolution Campaigns and Hua Guofeng (who we find to be a fascinating if relatively forgotten transitional figure in post-Mao China). Every section bears serious inspection, though, and it’s easy to lose a couple of hours to the site.

I’m happy to announce a new gallery of images from mid-60s issues of China Reconstructs magazines. I scanned these images back in 1995 when I was a graduate student, but was never able to get them posted to the site. Fortunately, all the work I’ve put into the redesign has motivated me to finish the job. I hope to add more images and upgrade the quality of the existing images, but that will have to wait until this fall when I return to St. Louis. In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the new additions.

I’ve had Chinese Propaganda Posters: From the Collection of Michael Wolf on my Amazon.com Wish List for a while now but never got around to posting about it. At 319 pages, it looks like an indispensable resource for anyone who’s serious about collecting Mao ephemera. An excerpt can be found on the publisher’s site, as can a series of review blurbs. The author’s personal site can be found at www.photomichaelwolf.com.

In other news, I’ve enabled comments on the site thanks to the recent upgrades at Blogger.com. Feel free to post if you have something you want to share with the other visitors to this site.

I somehow missed this December 2003 story about Yang Chunbing, a Shandong man who may have one of the largest collections of Chairman Mao badges in China. He claims to have spent 150,000 yuan ($18,000 US) over the last 37 years on a collection that includes “…badges highlighting historical events like National Holiday celebrations, the war to resist US aggression in Korea and the liberation of Tibet in 1951.”

“When then 14-year-old Yang Chunbing gingerly wore his first badge displaying the late Chairman Mao’s portrait 37 years ago, he believed the insignia would protect him from any misfortune during the “Cultural Revolution” (1966-76) era.”

If you’ve read any personal accounts of the Cultural Revolution, you already know what these badges meant to people (Gao Yuan’s Born Red is highly recommended ifyou haven’t). It seems like Mr. Yang’s associations are no different than so many others’.

A company called FreeBiddingTools.com has set up a nifty service that lets you create free .xml feeds for eBay auctions. Of course I created one immediately for Mao ephemera listings — feel free to subscribe if you have any interest in receiving hourly auction listing updates. Since signing up last week, I’ve stumbled across some nice listing, most of which were coming from Sandra’s eBay store.

As promised, I’ve published a gallery of photos of Mao ephemera for sale at PanJiaYuan antique/flea market over at my personal site.

Paul Noll sends along a link to his small collection of Chairman Mao badges for inclusion here. He also has an entire section of his rather expansive web site dedicated to the time that he and his wife have spent in China, including sections on (among others):

• The Long March
• Chairman Mao Quotations, Books and History
• Cultural Revolution Memorabilia

Well worth a look; many thanks to Paul for contacting me with the link.