The first obscene book of the Cultural Revolution—"The Heart of a Young Girl"

That year, the only ones who read this book were hooligans .

"The Heart of a Young Girl

," also known as "Manna's Memoirs,"

was probably the most widely read book of that era, second only to Mao Zedong's Selected Works and the Xinhua Dictionary. It, along with the sexual consciousness of the youth of that time, was suppressed underground.

One day in 1973, Zhu Dake, a student at Shanghai No. 2 Middle School, attended a sentencing rally for hooliganism held on the playground.

On stage was a senior boy from another school who had secretly read an obscene handwritten copy of "The Heart of a Young Girl." Influenced by this bad book, he began pursuing his own sister, wanting to imitate the hooliganism depicted in the book. His sister refused and tearfully reported him to the police station. The boy was arrested, beaten, and then released. However, instead of repenting, he took his anger out on his family, stabbing his sister in the stomach.

The school's loudspeaker, in a righteous and resounding voice, pronounced the sentence: "Death sentence." The boy on the stage, surprisingly, showed none of the fear typical of death row inmates. Instead, his gaze frequently swept across the audience, and perhaps finally spotting familiar faces, he grinned. He had been sentenced to death multiple times by loudspeakers at various schools, only spared execution because he hadn't fulfilled his "mission" of being publicly displayed at each school.

37 years later, when the case was brought up again, Professor Pi Yijun, director of the Juvenile Delinquency Research Center at China University of Political Science and Law, raised a question: Was this high school student sentenced to death an adult at the time? Was he a teenager?

The criminal was taken away, and the students in the audience, after nearly forty years, could no longer recall whether this upper-grade student was an adult when he was "sentenced," whether he was 17 or 18 years old. What became of his sister after she was stabbed? Only the case itself and the repeatedly mentioned root of the crime—"The Heart of a Girl"—remain in people's memories.

II. The "Hooligans" of That Time

Zhu Dake first encountered *The Heart of a Young Girl* in 1975. By then, he had graduated from high school and was working as a young factory worker. When he secretly read the booklet, he deliberately covered it with the red plastic cover of Mao Zedong's Selected Works to avoid arousing suspicion.

That handwritten copy, whose author has never come forward, was read and copied by approximately hundreds of millions of people at the time. But who dared to admit to having read *The Heart of a Young Girl*? In that era, anyone caught reading *The Heart of a Young Girl* was considered a "hooligan."

In pidgin Shanghai, citizens were accustomed to using Western pronunciations to express connotations that were difficult to convey in Chinese. For example, the pronunciation "lasses" (originally meaning "Miss") referred to a mature, open-minded woman or a female hooligan, while "mug" (meaning face, mouth, robbery, hooliganism, etc.) referred to a male hooligan.

In that era of abstinence, the term "hooligan" in China had an overly broad connotation. In 1970s China, homosexuality was also considered "hooliganism." Zhu Dake vaguely heard people whispering that so-and-so was a hooligan who "sucked semen!"

During the later stages of the Cultural Revolution, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau arrested many teenagers on charges of "hooliganism." Pi Yijun, who was working as a pre-trial investigator at the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau at the time, recalled that those arrested as hooligans, "when questioned, all of them said they had read 'The Heart of a Girl.' Based on this, the public security organs later believed that all hooligans had read 'The Heart of a Girl,' and conversely, anyone who had read 'The Heart of a Girl' would become a hooligan. Thus, a fixed causal relationship was established between reading 'The Heart of a Girl' and sexual crimes."

"At that time, there was no criminological research in China. Without control group data, they used this linear thinking. In fact, this judgment was incorrect," Pi Yijun said. "Back then, no one investigated non-criminal juveniles, or counted how many boys and girls had read 'The Heart of a Girl,' or what percentage they represented. They directly used 'The Heart of a Girl' as a factor influencing the crime rate."

In 1979, the Central Committee issued a notice requiring the entire Party to study the issue of juvenile delinquency. Liao Lingzhu, a researcher on juvenile education, wrote in her article "A Preliminary Exploration of Juvenile Delinquency and Sexual Psychology" in the 7th supplement of the 1980 issue of *Social Union Newsletter*, published by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences: "According to an incomplete survey of a class in a middle school, out of 43 students, 13 admitted to having read pornographic handwritten copies of *The Heart of a Young Girl*, and some students even copied such books during class or self-study periods." However, these children did not commit crimes. In fact, most cases of copying *The Heart of a Young Girl* were uncovered while investigating other cases.

III. Yao Wenyuan's "Anti-Pornography Order"

Under normal circumstances, if no criminal offense occurred, the "readers" of *The Heart of a Young Girl* could mostly remain safely "hidden." Unexpectedly, just as 1975 began, Yao Wenyuan, a member of the Central Cultural Revolution Group and a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, who was in charge of ideology, issued an order to investigate handwritten copies of books. The first book targeted was *Return* (later renamed *The Second Handshake*), followed by *The Heart of a Young Girl*, and others including *A Pair of Embroidered Shoes*.

*The Second Handshake* was investigated as "pornography." On January 7th of that year, Zhang Yang, the author of *The Second Handshake* and a sent-down youth in Daweishan, Hunan, was arrested and looked bewildered. The male and female protagonists had only ever had physical contact in their lives, limited to handshakes, and in nearly half a century, they had only shaken hands twice. How could this be considered pornography?

Yao Wenyuan saw the news about the handwritten copy of *The Second Handshake* in an internal document in October 1974. After reading the book, he felt the problem was serious: "This is a very bad book, not just bad in general." In his view, *The Second Handshake* was particularly reactionary, not only promoting the bourgeoisie and the patriotism of scientists with overseas backgrounds, but also praising Zhou Enlai! This book had to be thoroughly investigated and destroyed. However, it couldn't be investigated under the banner of political reaction, as that would be tantamount to openly opposing Zhou Enlai. Therefore, the love story of the male and female protagonists in the book became the basis for the investigation, classifying it as pornography and investigating it nationwide under the guise of a crackdown on pornography, thus making it legitimate.

After Zhang Yang was imprisoned, he was unaware that his manuscript had been widely copied and circulated among educated youth, becoming a "non-mainstream" popular novel. At that time, there was only "one writer" in the mainstream Chinese literary world: Hao Ran, who created the character "Gao Daquan," who had no worldly desires. *The Second Handshake* was certainly a handwritten copy with a clear ideology, while *The Heart of a Girl* could be said to be a "book" that completely laid bare the sexual instincts in human nature. In a stifling China where class struggle reigned supreme, *The Heart of a Young Girl* was one of the few books during the Cultural Revolution that didn't touch on ideology. However, precisely because of this, it became a "poisonous weed" openly defying proletarian ideology.

The 1975 court charges against Zhang Yang for *The Second Handshake* included: "Your *Return* is essentially the same as *The Heart of a Young Girl*," and "*The Heart of a Young Girl* is arsenic, *Return* is opium." This "opium" had four major poisons: first, anti-Party; second, glorifying the "stinking intellectuals"; third, advocating science to save the country; and fourth, knowing full well that writing about love was forbidden, why did he insist on doing so?

IV. Suppression and Rebellion.

In an era where writing about love was forbidden, Zhang Yang "insisted" on writing about love, thus his book "descended" to the level of the pornographic *The Heart of a Young Girl*. The latter was a pornographic handwritten copy with no plot, no description of love, and only explicit sexual content from beginning to end.

Even by today's standards, *The Heart of a Young Girl* cannot be considered a literary work, or even a story. However, where there is repression, there is resistance; the more taboo the topic of sex, the more sexually stimulating the voyeurism becomes.

At that time, there was a term called "moral conduct issue," specifically referring to "relationships between men and women." Pi Shijun, in analyzing the impact of sexual repression on the Chinese people, said: "Sexual repression at that time affected everyone. Cadres at all levels developed abnormal work styles under this repression, becoming highly sensitive and overreacting to any 'moral conduct issue' of their subordinates. If someone had even slightly more contact with another, they could send someone to catch them in the act, projecting their own perverse repression onto their subordinates. Their own work style also became perverse and brutal because of this repression."

It was precisely in this barren and repressive environment that even a few seconds of embracing or kissing in some foreign films could captivate many. In that era, films like *Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*, *The Magnificent Family*, *Homecoming*, and *The Actress* were watched repeatedly by many young people.

A juvenile delinquent Pi Yijun spoke with recounted that he watched the Japanese film *Homecoming* seven times. The last six times, after buying a ticket, he would wait outside the cinema, entering precisely at the last second before the scene of an early brothel appeared. He bought so many tickets just to see those few seconds more often.

A few seconds of footage in *Homecoming*, or a few lines of text in *The Insulted and Persecuted*, could have a profound stimulating effect. Pi Yijun believes that because sex was considered the most obscene and taboo subject in China at the time, the Chinese people, living under sexual repression, had not yet become "desensitized."

Because of this allergy to sex, they couldn't talk about it, and because of this allergy, the sexual descriptions in *The Heart of a Young Girl* became a stimulant. Some teenagers commit crimes because of this. The law and public opinion only notice the sexual assaults they commit against others, but fail to see the crimes society has committed against these young people—they should have received normal sex education. Thus, a pornographic book becomes a monstrous threat. V.

An Investigation in a County

In 1977, Li Wansheng was the head of the Public Security Section of the Public Security Bureau of Linshui County, Sichuan Province. Linshui County is located on the eastern foothills of Huaying Mountain. Like all remote small counties at that time, it was closed and conservative. At a routine meeting of the Public Security Bureau at the end of that year, the leaders mentioned the trend of teenagers circulating pornographic handwritten books when assigning work—at that time, the Public Security Bureau had not yet seen such handwritten books. This work was brought back by the Public Security Bureau leaders from an ordinary work meeting held by the higher-level public security organs.

Li Wansheng, the head of the Public Security Section, assigned this work to various streets, neighborhood committees, and offices, hoping that these grassroots mass organizations could assist in the work.

More than a month later, Du Huazhen, the director of the Second Street Office, reported to the Public Security Bureau that several junior high school boys and girls in her jurisdiction were behaving abnormally in their speech and behavior. Further investigation revealed that the

five boys were secretly copying "The Heart of a Young Girl." They believed they were being discreet—they only read the handwritten copy under the covers at night. Some of their siblings shared a room and a bed, yet none of them noticed one of them secretly reading the copy, let alone their parents.

However, their behavior and demeanor on the street aroused suspicion among the neighborhood committee and elderly residents.

Because it hadn't yet escalated into a public security incident, Li Wansheng didn't deploy the police. Instead, he had Du Huazhen arrange for several street office staff to speak with the five students individually.

The matter was now clear, and Li Wansheng considered whether to notify the school and parents a crucial issue concerning the students' future. Considering the students' resistance to school education and the pressure they faced, Li Wansheng chose to handle the matter discreetly.

Not all children are so fortunate.

The experiences of the protagonists in the film "Peacock," which depicts the growth of young people in a small Chinese town in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are typical.

While reviewing his lessons, the younger brother, Gao Weiqiang, secretly looked at a hand-drawn picture of a nude woman. His conservative and strict father discovered this and dragged him into the street, beating him severely. While beating his son, the father cried out in despair and grief to the neighbors, "Look, our family has a hooligan!" The older brother, Gao Weiguo, who was mentally challenged, went to the school to find his brother and followed a girl towards the girls' restroom. When discovered, he was chased and beaten by the entire school. The younger brother rushed into the crowd and stabbed his brother repeatedly with an umbrella. In the film, the Gao siblings navigated adolescence in this hazy and depressing environment. From

the winter of 1977 to the early spring of 1978, a crackdown on prostitution was conducted in Linshui County for about three months. Only this one case of viewing "The Heart of a Young Girl" was discovered in the county seat; no cases were found in the rural areas.

33 years later, Li Wansheng recalled this investigation with great satisfaction: "Through years of follow-up investigations, it was found that these five students developed normally."

He said that Linshui County was small, so there weren't many problems. The small county town, nestled by the river, thankfully and peacefully weathered its "adolescence" during those extraordinary years.

VI. The Lucky Children:

Entering the 1980s, the confiscation of "The Heart of a Young Girl" continued, but with much less intensity. The main force behind the confiscations had shifted from the police to schools.

Chen Weidong, then a second-year junior high student at a middle school in Hubei, still remembers a massive class search in 1983. It was the last period of the afternoon, and he anxiously awaited the school bell. He had a handwritten copy hidden under his pillow at home, soon to be passed to the next student in line; he needed to read it again before his parents left work.

All day, Chen Weidong was preoccupied with the story of Manna and her cousin in the book, regretting not daring to bring the booklet to class to read it secretly. The copy he had was copied by a classmate in a grid notebook, almost filling an entire book. At the time, he even thought the language of this "novel" was poor and grammatically incorrect, and considered rewriting it himself. Years later, he saw the real *Girl's Heart* online and realized the original author's writing skills were quite good; the one in the exercise book was probably something the students had added themselves.

When the long-awaited school bell rang, the homeroom teacher walked in.

The teacher told everyone to empty their bags onto their desks so he could check them carefully. Chen Weidong couldn't help but exclaim how lucky he was that he hadn't brought the book to school! The teacher finished checking and let the students leave after dark. Two days later, he learned that it was a school-wide inspection, specifically of *Girl's Heart*. Later, he heard that there was also a story about "Manna and her cousin" at his school, wondering if it was because of the handwritten copy.

For over a decade, *Girl's Heart* spread almost throughout the country. In the 1980s, besides handwritten copies, it also infiltrated schools in the form of audio cassettes. Liu Hongfeng, a student at a key middle school in Liaoning Province, heard an unnamed cassette tape from an unknown source during junior high school. The cassette tape was secretly passed around among classmates. It featured a girl named "Manna," her cousin, and her boyfriend. All their romantic interactions were read aloud by a female voice, sending chills down the spines of the junior high students and making them blush. It wasn't until 1988, when Liu Hongfeng, now in high school, first saw a handwritten copy of *The Heart of a Young Girl* and saw the opening line, "My name is Manna," that he realized the tape he'd been listening to was this banned book.

But at that time, their class only had one handwritten copy, and it was too slow for so many people to read it. What to do? They decided to "circulate" it from dormitory to dormitory. In Liu Hongfeng's dormitory, they used a role-playing system: three people read, and all eight could hear the content simultaneously. On the very first day of reading, the homeroom teacher came to check the dormitory during lunch break, discovered their secret, and confiscated the less than 10,000-word pornographic "book.

" Countless "Chen Weidongs" and "Liu Hongfengs" who had read *The Heart of a Young Girl*, like their peers, went on to university, work, get married, and have children—busy but peaceful lives. When "The Heart of a Young Girl" was mentioned again, they said it was a kind of sex education book, but too extreme, lacking theory and focusing only on emotion.

Seven, A Complete Change:

After the school checked their bags, Chen Weidong dared not look at the handwritten book anymore. They became fascinated with celebrity posters and female spies in movies. Many classmates tore out small stills of Kuomintang female spies from movie magazines and placed them in the transparent space on the inside cover of their plastic diaries. The female spies' long hair and boat-shaped hats were very stimulating to them, directly arousing their physiological reactions.

Around this time, a book titled "Newlywed Sexual Knowledge," written by a renowned gynecologist, became popular among students. The entire school began circulating magazines and books containing "New Knowledge for Newlyweds"—this time, there was no need to copy by hand, as they were publicly published. Chen Weidong remembers that these books cost 17 cents each in bookstores, but he has forgotten the titles. In fact, since Dr. Lang Jinghe of Peking Union Medical College Hospital published his article "Newlywed Sexual Hygiene" in the first issue of *Science Pictorial* in 1980, the taboo surrounding sex in China has slowly begun to open. In 1985, Dr. Hu Yanyi's *A Casual Talk on Sexual Knowledge* was published by Jiangxi Science and Technology Press, after which bookstores began openly selling books related to sex.

In the movie *Peacock*, the woman in her twenties also wanted to read such a book; her only way to do so was to go to the county Xinhua Bookstore to buy the *Handbook of Sexual Knowledge*. Embarrassed to buy it herself, she asked her sixteen- or seventeen-year-old brother, Gao Weiqiang, to buy it for her. When she asked Weiqiang to buy her the book, she couldn't bring herself to say its name, hence the classic line: "I want this book, 24 cents, pink cover, five words."

The scientific publication by gynecologists finally broke down the taboo surrounding sex that had existed for thousands of years and for decades. Chen Weidong felt this book was much more detailed than the little green-covered "Physiology and Hygiene" textbook given in school, and since the teachers in physiology and hygiene class didn't cover the chapter on puberty, he had to find it himself and read it with great eagerness.

Chen Weidong felt lucky; from reading "The Heart of a Young Girl" at age 15 to having a sexual relationship with his first girlfriend at age 17, he was never discovered, let alone arrested as a pervert: "If I had been arrested by the police back then, they would definitely have said I was a delinquent because I read 'The Heart of a Young Girl.'"

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The first obscene book of the Cultural Revolution—"The Heart of a Young Girl"

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