We wanted to watch TV, but it would have disturbed the meeting, so I would try to imagine what the episode of Starsky and Hutch we were missing might have looked like. I remember that my parents participated in a production of The East is Red, a revolutionary opera that told the story of the Communist victory in China. They sang in the chorus. I remember the lyrics of the opening choral number being something like, the Yellow River is boiling over, the horses are straining at their bits. The Communists are streaming through the land.
Victory is at hand.
The Light of Chairman Mao will shine through the country. The People's Liberation Army are vigorous, brave, incorruptible, and selfless. They love the People. Despite the fact that most of the Overseas Chinese who participated in this kind of activism were very well educated and well established in the American middle class, they accepted that intellectuals were to be criticized for being too easily seduced and corrupted by Western ways. The writings and teachings of Chairman Mao had value because they were based on the Marxist principles of dialectical materialism crossed with the common sense of the Chinese peasant.