Song Binbin: Difference between revisions
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
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Song was born in 1947<ref>{{Cite web |last=Buckley |first=Chris |date=January 13, 2014 |title=Bowed and Remorseful, Former Red Guard Recalls Teacher's Death |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/bowed-and-remorseful-former-red-guard-recalls-teachers-death/ |access-date=February 25, 2023 |website=Sinosphere Blog |language=en}}</ref> |
Song was born in 1947, the daughter of [[Song Renqiong]], one of China's founding leaders known as the [[Eight Elders|Eight Immortals]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Buckley |first=Chris |date=January 13, 2014 |title=Bowed and Remorseful, Former Red Guard Recalls Teacher's Death |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/13/bowed-and-remorseful-former-red-guard-recalls-teachers-death/ |access-date=February 25, 2023 |website=Sinosphere Blog |language=en}}</ref> In 1960, she started studying at the [[Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University]]. In 1966, she was a senior leader among the leftist Red Guards at her girls' school in Beijing. The Red Guards worked to overthrow China's institutional frameworks to demonstrate their devotion to Mao.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Song Binbin Offers New Apology for Death of Teacher During China's Cultural Revolution |url=http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/13/fresh-cultural-revolution-apology/ |access-date=February 25, 2023 |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |date=January 13, 2014 |language=en-US}}</ref> |
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==Cultural Revolution== |
==Cultural Revolution== |
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Latest revision as of 04:17, 6 October 2024
 | This article needs attention from an expert in China. The specific problem is: to review the various uses of Chinese name meanings in the text, and to decide if any one of those appearing—drawn from at least two published sources—are relevant and appropriate to the lead, which summarises the article (esp. regarding interpretation of a key historic image central/germane to the article). (October 2024) |
Song Binbin | |
|---|---|
| 宋彬彬 | |
 Song in the 1960s | |
| Born | 1947 |
| Died | (aged 77) New York City, U.S. |
| Other names | Song Yaowu |
| Citizenship | American |
| Known for | Student Red Guards leader during the Cultural Revolution, involvement with death of teacher Bian Zhongyun |
| Political party | Chinese Communist Party |
| Movement | Cultural Revolution |
| Parent(s) | Song Renqiong (father) Zhong Yuelin (mother) |
| Song Binbin | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 宋彬彬 | ||||||||
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Song Binbin (Chinese: 宋彬彬; 1947 – September 16, 2024),[1] also known as Song Yaowu (Chinese: 宋要武), was a Chinese woman who, as a 19-year old, began engaging in violence that led to a role as a senior leader in the Chinese Red Guards during the call to violence by Mao Zedong that was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.[2] Although Song denied involvement, she was presumed present when a 50-year old teacher, Bian Zhongyun, was beaten to death by the female students of her school, reportedly the first killing of the Cultural Revolution.[2]
After the Cultural Revolution, Song studied geology and moved to the United States, eventually receiving a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. After becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen, she worked for the Massachusetts government before moving back to China and becoming the chairwoman of several companies. She apologized for her actions in the Cultural Revolution in 2014, though this was met with mixed reactions. She died in 2024, at the age of 77.[1]
Early life
[edit]Song was born in 1947, the daughter of Song Renqiong, one of China's founding leaders known as the Eight Immortals.[3] In 1960, she started studying at the Experimental High School Attached to Beijing Normal University. In 1966, she was a senior leader among the leftist Red Guards at her girls' school in Beijing. The Red Guards worked to overthrow China's institutional frameworks to demonstrate their devotion to Mao.[4]
Cultural Revolution
[edit] | This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2024) |
Song joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1966 as a reserve member.[citation needed] She led a rebellion at Experimental High School which was attached to Beijing Normal University, in Beijing, China.[citation needed]
Andreas Lorenz of Der Spiegel writes that Beijing Teachers University was Song's school at the time the Cultural Revolution claimed its first victim;[5] at age 19 years old, Lorenz reports that she was presumed present when the female students of the school beat to death a 50-year old teacher, Bian Zhongyun, with wooden sticks spiked with nails.[2] Song would later claim that the Communist Party's paper, the People's Daily, had forced on her the name "Yaowu", that she "was always opposed to violence", and that she had had no involvement in the murder of her teacher.[2]
The attack of Bian Zhongyun, sometimes reported as a "deputy principal",[citation needed] was in August 1966, and also seriously injured vice-principal Hu Zhitao.[citation needed] That night, Song and others are said to have reported the cause of Bian Zhongyun's death to Wu De, the second secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP at the Beijing Hotel.[citation needed]
Bian's slaying led to further killings by the Red Guards,[according to whom?][dubious – discuss] and eventually over one million of the Guards gathered in Tiananmen Square, where Song famously pinned a red band on Mao Zedong's arm.[citation needed] At that time, Mao mentioned that her name "Binbin", meaning (as variously reported) "properly raised" or "polite" or "elegant", did not suit her well and suggested her to change it to "Yaowu", which means (again, as variously reported) "be violent" or "needs to be militant".[2][6] The scene was captured in a famous photograph, and it was followed soon after by the Red August.[citation needed] On August 20, 1966, Guangming Daily published an article signed by Song under her pen name "Song Yaowu", "I Put a Red Armband on Chairman Mao", which was reprinted by People's Daily newspaper the next day.[7]
At the end of August, Wang Renzhong met Liu Jin and Song Binbin at the Diaoyutai Guesthouse and mobilized them to go to Wuhan to protect the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP. Before Liu Jin went, Song and her classmates went to Wuhan in early September. Soon after, they wrote an article with the keynote of protecting the Hubei Provincial Party Committee of the CCP and handed it to the Provincial Party Committee. Immediately, the local newspaper published an open letter signed under pen name "Song Yaowu".[7]
The content was different from the original article by Song and others. The wording was stronger to protect the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP. Song was dissatisfied with this. She asked the person in charge of the provincial party committee and issued a statement through the provincial party committee stating that the open letter was not written by her, but she still did not agree to overthrow the provincial party committee.[7]
After returning to Beijing, Song became a member of the "Xiaoyao Faction", and did not participate in the old Red Guard organizations. In April 1968, Song and her mother were taken to Shenyang under house arrest. In the early spring of 1969, Song escaped from Shenyang and went to the pastoral area of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where she moved to the Xilingol League.[7]
In the spring of 1972, at the recommendation of the local herdsmen and the brigade commune, Song was accepted by a university and then returned due to rumors. According to reports from fellow villagers and educated youths, the teacher in charge of university enrollment in Xilingol League admitted Song under pressure, and Song entered Changchun Institute of Geology (now College of Earth Sciences, Jilin University) as a Worker-Peasant-Soldier student.[7]
In 1975, Song received a bachelor's degree from Changchun Institute of Geology.[8]
Later life
[edit]After the Cultural Revolution, Song was admitted to the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a graduate student, from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, she went to the United States to study. She received a master's degree in geochemistry from Boston University in the United States in 1983. She completed a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989.[8]
After becoming naturalized as a U.S citizen, Song worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection as an environmental analysis officer from 1989 to 2003. In 2003, she moved back to China, where she served as chairwoman of the British-owned Beijing Cobia System Engineering Co., Ltd. and Beijing Cobia Innovation Technology Development Co., Ltd.[9]
In September 2007, the Experimental High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University (formerly the Women's Affiliated High School of Beijing Normal University) named Song Binbin as one of the 90 "honorary alumni" when celebrating the 90th anniversary of the school. This matter caused controversy when Wang Jingyao, husband of Bian Zhongyun, protested because he believed that Song Binbin was the main person in charge of the Red Guards in the school during the Cultural Revolution and thus responsible for the death of his wife.[10]
Controversy over the death of Bian Zhongyun
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In 1995, Normal University High School for Girls 1968 alumna Wang Youqin published a text in Hong Kong, "1966: Students play the teacher's revolution", for the first time since August 5, 1966, where Wang wrote that Song and other guards played a role in the death of Bian Zhongyun, are linked to form a causal relationship during those times.[11]
In 2003, Carma Hinton, a graduate of Beijing 101 Middle School, directed the Cultural Revolution documentary Morning Sun, which was not officially released in China, but was released in the United States. Song was interviewed, and for the first time publicly stated that during the Cultural Revolution, she had never participated in violent actions such as beating people, ransacking homes, or destroying the Four Olds. She claimed that Guangming Daily signed her article without seeking her opinion in advance. Song denied that the article was written by her, nor did she authorize the reporter to ghostwrite.[12]
In 2004, Wang Youqin published another article "The Death of Bian Zhongyun", where she pointed out that Song was responsible for the Red Guard violence that led to Bian Zhongyun's death. The evidence was a list of seven people who had pledged to the hospital to rescue Bian Zhongyun at the Beijing Posts and Telecommunications University Hospital in Changping District[clarification needed], saying "Six of the seven are Red Guards students. The first name on the list is Song Binbin, a senior in the school and the head of the Red Guards." Song responded to the claims in the article saying that the first name on the list of seven is Li Songwen, a teacher, while her name is ranked last, suggesting that she could not have played a major role in the death of Zhongyun.[12]
In 2002, a collection of publications related to sexology seminars, Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities: A Reader, included research articles by American female scholar Emily Honig on the death of Bian Zhongyun. According to Wang Youqin's article, Honig claimed that Song Binbin was responsible for some of the violent activities in the early parts of Cultural Revolution.[12]
Apology
[edit]On January 12, 2014, at a meeting held at High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, which was attended by more than 20 students and more than 30 teachers and family members of the alumni, she apologized for the actions of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.[13]
The apology was met with mixed reactions in China: some people welcomed her words; some people said that these words came too late and are inadequate; others said that the CCP should apologize for the incidents that happened during those times.[14]
Cui Weiping, Beijing Film Academy professor and social critic, said in a telephone interview:[15]
Considering her identity, this is not enough. She is an important figure in the Red Guards, and the demands on her should be higher than ordinary people. She said she had witnessed a murder. It's meaningless to say you witnessed a murder and then say you don't know who the killers were.
Wang Youqin said in an interview that Song and various other Red Guards, in the past decade, have been actively denying persecution and involvement during the Cultural Revolution and mass killings during that time and believes that Song's responsibility in all the violence in the Women's Affiliated High School should be obvious, due to her position as one of the deputy directors of the school and organizer of the meetings by the school's revolutionary committee.[14]
In 2014, Bian's husband Wang Jingyao issued a statement accusing Song and others of covering up their evil deeds during the Cultural Revolution. He called their apologies hypocritical and he would not accept their apologies until the truth about their involvement in his wife's death was revealed to the world.[16]
Death
[edit]Song died from cancer in New York City, on September 16, 2024, at the age of 77.[1][17][18][19]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Qi, Liyan (September 27, 2024). "Song Binbin, China's Most Famous Red Guard, Dies at 77". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Lorenz, Andreas (May 15, 2007). "The Chinese Cultural Revolution: Remembering Mao's Victims". Der Spiegel. Retrieved September 27, 2024.
Thirteen days earlier Song, 19 at the time, was presumably present when the female students at her school, which was part of the Beijing Teachers University, killed their teacher, Bian Zhongyun. The girls brutally beat the 50-year-old woman to death using wooden sticks spiked with nails. ... Bian went down in history as the first victim of the Cultural Revolution... In a US documentary about the Cultural Revolution, she denied any involvement in the murder of her teacher. 'I was always opposed to violence,' she said, adding that the People's Daily, the Communist Party paper, had forced the name Yaowu upon her.
- ^ Buckley, Chris (January 13, 2014). "Bowed and Remorseful, Former Red Guard Recalls Teacher's Death". Sinosphere Blog. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
- ^ "Song Binbin Offers New Apology for Death of Teacher During China's Cultural Revolution". Wall Street Journal. January 13, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
- ^ For this reporting, see Lorenz, Der Spiegel, op. cit. Elsewhere it is reported that "Bian was the first teacher killed in the Cultural Revolution" [emphasis added].[citation needed]
- ^ "China's Brave Underground Journal—II". ChinaFile. December 18, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e "四十多年来我一直想说的话". China Studies Service Center (in Chinese (China)). The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ a b "宋彬彬：往日的辉煌与今日的眼泪" [Song Binbin: Past glory and today's tears] (in Chinese (China)). rfi.fr. January 16, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ Buckley, Chris (January 13, 2014). "Bowed and Remorseful, Former Red Guard Recalls Teacher's Death". Sinosphere Blog. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
- ^ "毛澤東欽點紅衛兵 宋彬彬為文革道歉". storm.mg (in Chinese (China)). January 13, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ "宋彬彬为文革恶行道歉新动态：遗属声明斥"虚伪"" (in Chinese (China)). Voice of America. January 30, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ a b c "宋任穷之女向文革中受伤害师生道歉 数度落泪" (in Chinese (China)). sohu.com. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ "Song Binbin Offers New Apology for Death of Teacher During China's Cultural Revolution". China Realtime. The Wall Street Journal. January 13, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
- ^ a b "宋彬彬为文革中校长被打致死道歉". 储百亮. The New York Times (in Chinese (China)). January 14, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ "宋彬彬：我的道歉和感谢" (in Chinese (China)). 21ccom. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ "金鐘就宋彬彬對文革作出道歉訪問文革研究者王友琴" (in Chinese (China)). cnd.org. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
- ^ "著名红卫兵领袖宋彬彬逝世 享年77岁" [Famous Red Guard leader Song Binbin died at the age of 77] (in Chinese). Radio France Internationale. September 17, 2024. Retrieved September 17, 2024.
- ^ "Song Binbin, Red Guard whose beating to death of a teacher heralded Mao's Cultural Revolution". The Daily Telegraph. September 20, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
- ^ "Song Binbin obituary: teenage symbol of the Cultural Revolution". The Times. September 27, 2024. Retrieved September 27, 2024.