Madam Mao's Golden Oldies repeated 26 Oct BBC R4 at 3.30pm

MADAM MAO'S GOLDEN OLDIES
REPEATED 26TH OCTOBER 2013, FIRST BROADCAST 17TH JULY 2012
BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm, Saturday 26th October 2013
Presented and co-written by Anna Chen
Produced by Mukti Jain Campion for Culture Wise

In Madam Mao's Golden Oldies, I revisit the Chinese Cultural Revolution Model Operas that I first heard as a child in the 1960s and 70s and discover how they are, somewhat surprisingly, enjoying a new lease of life.

Growing up as a London-born red-nappy kid with Beatles and Bowie as my soundtrack, I was occasionally dragged by my parents to the Chinese legation in Portland Place (it had lost its official embassy status due to the cold war ruckus) for screenings of the latest movie spectacular to emerge from the arts commissar, Chairman Mao's wife, Jiang Qing. These were the Yangbanxi, the Eight Model Operas; films with titles such as The Red Detachment of Women and Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.

These state-sponsored works combined opera and ballet with simple plots about brave peasants uniting to defeat evil landlords, Japanese invaders and other enemies of the revolution. Heroes looked like heroes with rouged faces, kohl-lined eyes and great hair, while villains were easily identified by their sneaky demeanor and bad porn moustaches.

My Hollywood sensibility found these crude melodramas puzzling and somewhat turgid but then they weren't made for (relatively) pampered East End kids like me: they were made for the peasants and workers who had rarely if ever been represented in their own culture.

Within living memory, mass starvation, imperialist conquest and the horrors of the Japanese invasion had devastated the nation. Barely twenty years into its communist revolution, the population was struggling to get back onto its feet.

Madam Mao not only banned the traditional Beijing operas and their stories about emperors and princesses, but also cast out decadent western music and movies as being a corrupting influence on the masses. Quelle surprise when it later transpired that the former actress was fond of indulging her tastes in the privacy of her own screening room. But Jiang Qing was canny enough to harness the emotive power of these works with the help of the Chinese cultural intelligentsia who hadn't fallen out of favour.

In the programme, a variety of people who were intimately involved in the model operas recount their experience. Among them, Anchee Min, author of Red Azalea, had been plucked from working in the fields because she was used to "carrying 300 pounds of manure". Jingdong Cai is now conductor at Stanford but learnt his trade in Madam Mao's army of young musicians

Madam Mao's favourite films? The Sound of Music and Jane Eyre. No, not the classic Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine version, but the crappy George C Scott remake. Now, what does that tell you about arbiters of taste?

MADAM MAO'S GOLDEN OLDIES
BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm, Saturday 26th October 2013
Presented and co-written by Anna Chen
Produced by Mukti Jain Campion for Culture Wise
Available for seven days after broadcast on iPlayer

Teaching at the Wigan Pier Workshops for the Orwell Prize

Some of the lovely students from the afternoon session of my Poetry Against the Cuts class at the Wigan Pier Workshops, presented by the Orwell Prize.

The workshops are held in the delightful bright and airy Sunshine House Community Centre in Wigan where Barbara and her helpers looked after us, not only laying on a nice lunch, but sending us home afterwards with a box of the most amazing chocolates they make in their chocolatier classes, and a fabulous wood-turned pen!

John Hegley, Will Self, Andrew Norfolk and Femi Martin are among the writers who have given classes for the workshops.

On Wednesday, Stuart Maconie kicked off the day followed by journalist, author and Orwell Prize judge Paul Anderson and myself teaching our classes.

Via a series of games and exercises, I get the students to end up having written a poem they can carry on developing at home or with their teachers.

I gave as examples a couple of my own poems — Credit Crunch Suicide and Margaret Thatcher Died at the Ritz — plus A Case for the Miners written by Siegfried Sassoon in 1921.

Something goes wrong with my synthetic brain
When I defend the Strikers and explain
My reasons for not blackguarding the Miners.
"What do you know?" exclaim my fellow-diners
(Peeling their plovers' eggs or lifting glasses
Of mellowed Chateau Rentier from the table),
"What do you know about the working classes?"

I strive to hold my own; but I'm unable
To state the case succinctly. Indistinctly
I mumble about World-Emancipation,
Standards of Living, Nationalization
Of Industry; until they get me tangled
In superficial details; goad me on
To unconvincing vagueness. When we've wrangled
From soup to savory, my temper's gone.

"Why should a miner earn six pounds a week?"
"Leisure! They'd only spend it in a bar!"
"Standard of life! You'll never teach them Greek!"
"Or make them more contented than they are!"
That's how my port-flushed friends discuss the Strike.
And that's the reason why I shout and splutter.
And that's the reason why I'd almost like
To see them hawking matches in the gutter.

That's a poem that ought to be making a comeback as it describes so well the attitudes of plenty of people in power today when it comes to the poorest and weakest in society.

Thanks to Kat for organising the event, the volunteers and teaching assistants, and Claire and Emma for being such enthusiastic and motivated teachers who obviously love their job. The whole day was an inspiring uplifting antidote to the toxic attitudes towards young people and teachers being created by some politicians and media.

Anna sings Jolene at the St Ives Arts Festival.

Look, no hands! Here's me having a go at singing again at the St Ives Arts Festival in September. Dolly Parton's "Jolene" backed by Charles Shaar Murray and Marc Jefferies, both doing a great job.

Why cats need collars and bells: poem by Barbara Finch

You've had cat gifs galore. Here's a cat poem from my animal-loving friend Barbara Finch — a tale of the bird-murdering Nefertiti.


Nefertiti Puss
Oh God made creatures great and small
And Nefertiti kills them all.
Bad Nefertiti Puss.

That bird you see upon the wing,
It dare not part its beak to sing
For fear that down on it will bring
Fierce Nefertiti Puss.

And when she pounces, claws aglitter,
Upon a lizard or some critter,
It will not even know what bit her
Was Nefertiti Puss.

Her fur and whiskers she does preen
And then she purrs just like the queen
She is, or thinks she should’ve been.
Oh Nefertiti Puss!

And when the cat flap bursts asunder
And in stalks Nef, her face like thunder,
And growls and threatens at your feet,
A bowl of salmon works a treat
On Nefertiti Puss.

When a canine comes to visit,
Nef, on a table so exquisite,
With only slightly ruffled fur
Stares down with ease the quaking cur.
Brave Nefertiti Puss!

When, in the evening, mollified
She deigns to sit down by your side
And, purring as she licks your arm,
You know she really means no harm.
Sweet Nefertiti Puss!

Barbara Finch
September 2013

A few facts and figures challenging the Tory economic narrative

A few facts and figures to slash a path through the thicket of misinformation perpetrated by greedy swine who'd make the poor pay for their tax cuts.

Gleaned from The Sunday Times Rich List figures, the collective wealth of the UK's 1,000 richest rose 30 per cent in 2009 in wake of economic crisis. The combined wealth of the top 1000 rose by over £77bn to £333.5bn, the biggest annual increase in the 22-year history of The Sunday Times rich list. The cost of benefit fraud is £1bn. Unclaimed benefits amount to £16.5bn. Estimated tax owed to us: £70bn. Sunday Times Rich List published 2010. The Daily Telegraph reports Britain's richest sees wealth rise by one third.

Another nugget I stored away ...

From 1997 to 2007 the average income of the top 1 per cent of UK earners increased from £187,989 to £301,325 – an increase of just over 60 per cent (income of the top 0.1 per cent almost doubled).

The increase in the tax contribution by the top 1 per cent, from 21 per cent in 1997 to 26 per cent now, means that their contribution is around 23 per cent higher (or 28.5 per cent if you go with the 27 per cent current figure), relative to what they were paying in 1997.

Either figure is far less than the increase of at least 60 per cent (and probably considerably more) in their incomes. The wealthiest are now paying substantially less toward our national upkeep than they were 15 years ago, relative to their wealth.

When is the penny going to drop that the bedroom tax is actually draining the public purse?

For the sake of argument, tax expert Richard Murphy takes the Tories' claim that the punitive bedroom tax saves £500mn and points out that this is less than the cost of shoving £200 per year at married couples via the new marriage allowance, estimated at some £600mn.

However, we all know — especially now that SPeye's on the case — that the bedroom tax is an expensive indulgence of Tory sadism and yields no saving. It would be cheaper if we bought them their very own Miss Whiplash sessions.

Anna's Resonance 104.4FM radio series starts 15th October, 5.30pm

I read some pert, perky and pertinent poetry at last night's pre-The Fu Manchu Complex public debate at the Oval House Theatre.

The main event in the evening, a satire by actor Daniel York who was at the centre of the RSC The Orphan of Zhao controversy, is a satirical view of the yellow peril scare that is going through a revival at the moment.

The diminutive Paul Chan is an inspired bit of casting as Sax Rohmer's Scotland Yard hero, Nayland Smith — surely a star! The whole cast was terrific in this wonderfully witty, boisterous romp and attacked Daniel York's script with gusto, knocking down all the stereotypes and tropes like skittles. A most enjoyable game. If UK Chinese don't see this they'll have missed a treat.

Dan and I have been interviewed for Overwhelming China, a programme examining the origins of the anti-Chinese mania ratcheting up as China heads for superpower status. To be broadcast 11am, Friday 1st November on BBC Radio 4.

I am hosting a short series of Madam Miaow Says on Resonance 104.4FM commencing Tuesday 15th October at 5.30pm for an hour. We launch with "Oh Other: Where Art Thou?" exploring yellowface, the return of blackface and the general backward march of representation for effniks. With Daniel York, Julie Cheung-Inhin and Emily Seu-see Hung, and music from Charles Shaar Murray plus Melody Brown and C Amanda Maud who, together with Dan, make up Wondermare.

Also on the Madam Miaow Says radio wishlist and hopefully to come: Dr Diana Yeh, Aditya Charabortty, Ben Chu and tax expert and all-round good guy, Richard Murphy.

UPDATE:  Ben Chu, Independent newspaper economics editor and author of Chinese Whispers, now added to the launch programme 15th October.

Listen to Madam Miaow Says on air and on the internet at Resonance 104.4FM Tuesdays at 5.30-6.30pm from 15th October.