Perry Link > Quotes

“In writing about Red Guard activists during the Cultural Revolution, Anita Chan has observed that the “playing of a role in China was more than a sociological abstraction. Role-playing involved literal play-acting: a conscious assumption of the mannerisms and ways of speaking appropriate to the activist status and role.”187”
― Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics

“More broadly—and not just for activists but for everyone in Mao’s China—zhengzhi biaoxian 政治表现 ‘political performance’ was something that could determine job assignments, living conditions, admissions to schools, and a variety of other crucial matters. Biaoxian comes literally from biao ‘surface’ plus xian ‘appear’, and this combination of notions puts the matter exactly right. A person had to present the right appearances in public even if they were different from what he or she was feeling inside. The public persona formed of one’s biaoxian was on display in the workplace or at school. It was especially relevant during political study sessions. One had to pay attention to it, craft it, and guard”
― Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics

“Schoenhals calls the rigidity of tifa a “form of power.” This simple claim has greater profundity than may appear on the surface. In an obvious sense, it means that holders of power can insist that people say certain things in certain ways and expect that, over time, thought and behavior will follow.”
― Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics

“George Orwell has written that “political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”1”
― Perry Link, An Anatomy of Chinese: Rhythm, Metaphor, Politics