It was time to undertake a pilgrimage to “Red Backpack” propaganda cinema to affirm unwavering loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Time also to slip on a red backpack in reverential memory of the great red backpack victory over commie-induced tribulation.
This was your fate last month if you belonged to the China Taoist Association, which “introduced a new concept of pilgrimage,” not the type involving a journey to a holy religious site.
Members of the government-controlled Association were blessed by an “offer they could not refuse” to be squired to the Red Backpack Spirit Memorial Hall in a village near Beijing (“Red Backpack: Taoist Clergy’s Mandatory Pilgrimage to a Maoist Shrine,” He Yuyan, Bitter Winter, July 4, 2024).
“The Red Backpack” [shown being shown above] was a 1965 Mao-era propaganda movie. It told the story of Wang Yanxiang, a loyal CCP member and employee of the Huangshandian Supply and Marketing Cooperative. He noticed that people from remote villages came to the Cooperative shop walking through the mountains under severe heat in summer and cold and snow in winter. Wang then organized a system of delivery of the goods directly to the villages. He and five (or six) co-workers carried heavy “red backpacks” on their shoulders and made the villagers happy. Wang explained he had found the solution to the delivery problem by studying the writings of Chairman Mao.
Or so the story goes, as critics in the Deng Xiaoping years found it greatly exaggerated. However, no criticism is heard today as the film is Xi Jinping’s personal favorite. It has been re-released in a colorized version and is often proposed on TV.
Mandatory items on the Taoist monks’ to-do list included visiting the Red Backpack Museum to honor proto-FedEx agent Wang Yanxiang (the museum has a statue of him), watching “a part of the old movie,” wearing faithful imitations of the sacred sack in order to emblematically reenact Wang’s heroism, and firmly and resolutely signing a resolution to “resolutely listen to the Party and firmly follow the Party.”
