Note: This post is cross-posted at my book blog.

I’m currently reading a book about the education system in China from 1960 to 1980. It kind of reads like somebody’s dissertation (which it probably was), but I’ve found it to be an interesting read with some nice insights (and it specifically looks at the schools in Guangzhou, my hometown). One part of the book discusses how the classroom curriculum in the 1960s emphasized political ideology starting from primary school. While doing some additional research into the topic, I came across some images of Chinese textbook covers from different eras in the last 60 years. These are textbooks for first-grade Chinese class.

1950s

1960s

1980s to 90s

2000s

It’s interesting, and kind of disturbing, how clearly you can deduce the political mood of the respective eras just by looking at the covers of first-grade textbooks. Also quite telling are the first sentences of the first lesson in each of these books (translations below the original passage):

During the Great Leap era (late 1950s to early 1960s):

爷爷六岁去放羊，爸爸六岁去逃荒。今年我也六岁了，公社送我上学堂。

When my grandfather was six, he went to herd goats. When my father was six, he fled famine. I’m six this year, and the commune is sending me to school.

During the mid-1960s (beginning of the Cultural Revolution):

毛主席教导我们：在现在世界上，一切文化或文学艺术都是属于一定阶级，属于一定政治路线的。

Chairman Mao teaches us: In the world today, all culture or literature and art belong to a certain class, to a certain political line.”

1970s (latter stages of the Cultural Revolution):

最高指示：学习马克思主义，不但要从书本上学，主要还要通过阶级斗争、工作实践和接近工农群众，才能真正学到。

Highest directive: In order to study Marxism, one must not only study from books. Only primarily through class struggle, practical work and being close to the workers and peasants can we truly learn Marxism.

According to one source I found, the “highest directive” was at the beginning of every chapter in Chinese and math textbooks from the era.

1980s-90s (Beginning of new economic policies and China’s opening up to the world)

冰雪融化，种子发芽，果树开花，我们来到小河边，来到田野里，来到山岗上。我们找到了春天。

The ice and snow have melted. The seeds are sprouting. The fruit trees are flowering. We come to the bank of the stream, to the fields, and to the hills. We’ve found spring.

2000s

一去二三里，烟村四五家。亭台六七座，八九十枝花。

远看山有色，近听水无声。春去花还在，人来鸟不惊。

Both of these are classic Chinese poems and they are the first lessons in the reading and literature sections of the first-grade Chinese textbook for the new millennium, respectively. The first poem, which was written in the Song dynasty and is about a sightseeing trip, goes something like this:

Without realizing it, I had already gone two or three li. In the distance I see four or five houses with smoke coming out of their chimneys. As I walk, I see six or seven pavilions on the side of the road, and eight, nine, no, ten flowers on a branch near me.

The second poem, a Tang dynasty piece titled “Painting”, goes something like this:

From a distance, I can see the colors of the mountains, yet when I get close I cannot hear the sound of the waters. Even after spring has passed the flowers still remain, and when one approaches, the birds are not startled.

Perhaps the most striking thing about these two poems are the lack of political undertones in them. Both of these poems, by the way, are brilliant examples of classic Chinese poetry in terms of efficiency of words and the vivid imageries they convey with a meager 20 characters.

Side note: The book covers from the 1980s triggered a bout of nostalgia for me, as those were the books I used while in elementary school. Looking at the scans of the inside pages and reading the text from the chapters that people have posted online, it’s amazing how much of it seems so familiar to me even though until last week I had forgotten about all of it. There might be another blog post on the topic of Chinese textbooks as I scroll down memory lane.