A recent article entitled “Xiao Hong’s Misadventures in Textbooks” by a Chinese “self-publisher” (i.e., a private communication platform) found that the Chinese People’s Education Publishing House had included the textbook of the late modern writer Xiao Hong, which had been censored in several places, and that the authorities’ textbook had modified Xiao Hong’s original text, which was criticized by Chinese domestic scholars and netizens, saying that the Chinese Communist Party had used modern The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has forcibly changed the author’s text and context with the modern political and social environment, which is not justified.
According to a self-published article, the 2019 textbook of the Chinese People’s Education Publishing House for the third grade language class, the chapter “Fire Clouds” from Xiao Hong’s famous novel “Hulan River Biography”, with an original text of about 550 words, was altered by the authorities in many places, deleting more than 200 words, and the remaining about 350 words were altered in more than 100 places; Xiao Hong’s other article “Grandfather’s Garden”, which was collected in the second book of the language textbook for the fifth grade of elementary school and originated from “Hulan River Biography”, was also altered by the authorities. Xiao Hong’s other article, “Grandfather’s Garden,” which was included in the second book of the fifth grade language book, was also censored in more than 120 places by the authorities. The official Chinese media, Red Star News, found that the claims made by the self-published media were true, and the official media, China News Network, also quoted them.
〈Fire Clouds〉 is about watching fire clouds in the countryside, describing the color and extent of the fire clouds. The first paragraph of Xiao Hong’s original text, “As soon as dinner was over, the burning clouds came up,” was changed to “after dinner”; “The old man who fed the pigs old man, leaning against the wall”, was changed to “the old man feeding the pigs leaned against the wall”; the second paragraph, “the clouds in the sky burned from the west to the east, red, as if the sky was on fire”, was changed to “The clouds in the sky burned from the west to the east, red, as if the sky was on fire.”
The report quoted Guo Yubin, a professor at the School of Literature and Media at Suihua College in Heilongjiang, as saying that from the perspective of language learning, “After all, it is a famous piece of writing by a famous writer and is very exemplary. The editors have changed some very spiritual, characteristic, regional features, in line with the psychology of children, all changed. To do this with an adult’s vision, adult language, and adult normative terms is not in line with the learning psychology of children.” According to Guo Yubin, the editors have the right to make certain changes to the texts selected for inclusion in the textbooks. But there must be some limits on the size of the right to make changes.
An article by Tang Xiaomin, a professor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies’ South China Business School, published Friday (23) in the Communist Party’s official media Guangming Daily, said there are several broad approaches to revising textbook articles, including modifying language to accommodate social and political changes, making changes to individual scientific and intellectual errors, and making changes to standardize language, as well as making changes to reduce difficulty.
Tang Xiaomin pointed out that the revision of Xiao Hong’s article seems to make the words of the work more common and close to what most people say. However, such a revision has turned the article, which has its own characteristics in terms of language expression, into a “standard piece”, and the words that students are exposed to when reading are all the “big-ticket items” of today’s social and political environment, which “depersonalizes” the author’s article and loses its distinctive character. The words that students are exposed to when they read are the “big stuff” of today’s social and political environment.
Xiao Hong’s article was altered, causing heated debate among netizens. Some people left a message on “Zhihu” that the right to adapt works has boundaries, and that the word “national” should not cross the line of “literary aesthetics”, and some even cited Xiao Hong’s husband Duanmu Hongliang before he died. “Some people even brought out Xiao Hong’s last wish that her husband, Duanmu Hongliang, should not be allowed to delete and edit his works at will before he died. Some netizens criticized that the authorities’ censoring of many original texts is an idea of “killing with a knife”, and the censors should not change the author’s lines to avoid distorting the intention.
Xiao Hong was a modern Chinese writer, born in 1911, who died at the age of 31 in Hong Kong. She was the author of many famous works, including “The Field of Life and Death”, “The Ox Cart”, “Ma Bole” and “The Legend of Hulan River”. Xiao Hong died in Hong Kong in 1941, and some of her ashes were placed by her husband, Duanmu Hongliang, on the slope of the backyard of St. Stephen’s Girls’ School.
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