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A nice article in Modern China<\/em> on Mao\u2019s teacher Yang Changji. The article draws on Yeh Wen-Hsin\u2019s work on the provincial background of many of the second group of Communist leaders. The early years of the party were dominated by \u201can urban radicalism; in contrast, the later, revolutionary communism was an outgrowth of conservative, Confucian-bound rural China.\u201d Liu demonstrates this by looking at the ideas and activities of Yang Changji, who might have been just another provincial schoolteacher had one of his students not been Chairman Mao.<\/p>\n The article is not too Mao-centered and Liu provides a nice picture of a provincial intellectual. Two things struck me. One is the description of Yang as an intellectual celebrity<\/p>\n \n within two months everyone who attended Mr. Yang\u2019s lectures admired and respected him. Although he did not talk much in class, each short statement meant a great deal. Within a year, the entire school accepted him and he became the \u201cConfucius of First Normal.\u201d Other schools in Changsha invited him and he conducted classes [in schools] as far [away] as the high school at the foot of Yuelu Mountain. Soon he was known to the students throughout the city as \u201cConfucius\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n The perfect modern version of the Confucian pendant, complete with gnomic lectures and a personal following. In the old days students would have come from distant places to hear him rather than him having to trek out into the boonies to talk to them. Yang taught a lot of foreign stuff (he studied in Japan) but he always claimed that a New China had to be built on native foundations. Liu gives the following quote as an example of Yang\u2019s interest in western-style individualism<\/p>\n \n \n In the physical world, the center is my body; in the spiritual\/mental realm, the center is my mind. In short, among the ten thousand things in the universe, I am the essence. The emperor is my<\/em> emperor; the father is my<\/em> father; the teacher is<\/em> my teacher; the wealth is my<\/em> wealth; heaven and earth are my heaven and earth\u2026Mencius said: \u201cAll things in the world are complete in me\u201d\u2026Everything in the universe is also my responsibility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n