REPORTER: Ali Moore
1966, Mao takes millions of ordinary teenagers and turns them into Red Guards, sending them out on a rampage to destroy everything old and bourgeois.
the Red Guards went wild, doing all they could to fulfil their mission from Mao. But then once they were done, Mao banished them to the remotest corners of China to live and learn from the peasants. Seventeen million saw out their teens in the countryside. For some of them it would be ten years before they came home.
Man # 1: We're all classmates - we studied together. We now gather here together. We've suffered.
Man # 2: 26 years ago today, we all left Beijing to go to inner Mongolia.
1994 Mao's Red Guards now middle age, gather to remember the past.
Man # 3: In the past we could only eat this - but now we can eat this! This is meat!
Woman # 1: The snow was as thick as that in winter. I was frightened to touch the water, it was so cold. It still frightens me today.
Man # 1: Cry? We cried! When we cried, we dared not let others hear.
After years of wanting and trying to forget, the Class of 66 now feel a strange nostalgia for their past. Like our baby boomers, China's 60's generation dominates the economy and all over Beijing, restaurants are raking it in by playing on the best years of their lives.
Man # 4: We call this dish "Class of '66 reunion" because it mixes sour, sweet, bitter and hot.
The restaurant even runs a special register to put members of the Class of '66 together again.
Man # 4: One man discovered from the book the name of his old girlfriend at school. They'd been separated by political struggles but through the book, they found each other again. We feel proud of our experience.
We "Class of '66" people say "We've had something that others haven't had - the young people today haven't lived."
The restaurant is full of China's generation 'X' trying to share the feeling.
Man # 5: Most of us want to have this purer time of the hard times but for me it's better time.
REPORTER: You earn money now, you have a good job, you have a comfortable life. Why would you want to go to hard times?
Man# 6: We think, in life we must get over the difficult, and we can get successful, some business or other life, something special.
Man # 4: This generation is very fragile. They don't realise there are many problems in society - in life. We need to change it.
Changing that was the point behind one of this summer's more bazaar activities for Chinese teams.
TELEVISION REPORTER: Children of the Red guards had the opportunity to see where their parents had been sent in the Sixties.
Meet 11 year old Song Ning. His father went to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution and that's where Song has just been on his summer holidays.The trouble is Song Ning looks like he had a good time. The nearest he got to hardship was when the bus got bogged.
Man: When we tell kids today what a tough time we had they really don't understand. It's like a story to them.
This is the story the kids are being sold. That during the Cultural Revolution, life was terribly hard and kids today have never had it so good. But no everyone is selling the same story.
Wang Shuo is arguably China's most popular writer -not with the authorities. They dislike him intensely but with the young, his stories celebrate the hooligan life.
WANG SHUO: The first time I got arrested was just there. I was in a big brawl, dozens of us ganged up on six people.
Wang Shuo grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Too young to be a Red Guard, he enjoyed the years of chaos, and now he's made a movie about it.
WANG SHUO:When they see how we just mucked around they're going to be really jealous! Life then was really cool if you were young. If teachers tried to control us, we'd put up a big character poster criticising them.
Right now Wang Shuo's movie is with China's censors and at a time when young people are being asked to learn from the hardships of the past, it's hard to imagine they'll like it.
WANG SHUO: All there was back then was fighting and picking up girls.
Wang Shuo and the old Red Guards agree on one thing. The kids today are certainly missing out on something.
1966, Mao takes millions of ordinary teenagers and turns them into Red Guards, sending them out on a rampage to destroy everything old and bourgeois.
the Red Guards went wild, doing all they could to fulfil their mission from Mao. But then once they were done, Mao banished them to the remotest corners of China to live and learn from the peasants. Seventeen million saw out their teens in the countryside. For some of them it would be ten years before they came home.
Man # 1: We're all classmates - we studied together. We now gather here together. We've suffered.
Man # 2: 26 years ago today, we all left Beijing to go to inner Mongolia.
1994 Mao's Red Guards now middle age, gather to remember the past.
Man # 3: In the past we could only eat this - but now we can eat this! This is meat!
Woman # 1: The snow was as thick as that in winter. I was frightened to touch the water, it was so cold. It still frightens me today.
Man # 1: Cry? We cried! When we cried, we dared not let others hear.
After years of wanting and trying to forget, the Class of 66 now feel a strange nostalgia for their past. Like our baby boomers, China's 60's generation dominates the economy and all over Beijing, restaurants are raking it in by playing on the best years of their lives.
Man # 4: We call this dish "Class of '66 reunion" because it mixes sour, sweet, bitter and hot.
The restaurant even runs a special register to put members of the Class of '66 together again.
Man # 4: One man discovered from the book the name of his old girlfriend at school. They'd been separated by political struggles but through the book, they found each other again. We feel proud of our experience.
We "Class of '66" people say "We've had something that others haven't had - the young people today haven't lived."
The restaurant is full of China's generation 'X' trying to share the feeling.
Man # 5: Most of us want to have this purer time of the hard times but for me it's better time.
REPORTER: You earn money now, you have a good job, you have a comfortable life. Why would you want to go to hard times?
Man# 6: We think, in life we must get over the difficult, and we can get successful, some business or other life, something special.
Man # 4: This generation is very fragile. They don't realise there are many problems in society - in life. We need to change it.
Changing that was the point behind one of this summer's more bazaar activities for Chinese teams.
TELEVISION REPORTER: Children of the Red guards had the opportunity to see where their parents had been sent in the Sixties.
Meet 11 year old Song Ning. His father went to Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution and that's where Song has just been on his summer holidays.The trouble is Song Ning looks like he had a good time. The nearest he got to hardship was when the bus got bogged.
Man: When we tell kids today what a tough time we had they really don't understand. It's like a story to them.
This is the story the kids are being sold. That during the Cultural Revolution, life was terribly hard and kids today have never had it so good. But no everyone is selling the same story.
Wang Shuo is arguably China's most popular writer -not with the authorities. They dislike him intensely but with the young, his stories celebrate the hooligan life.
WANG SHUO: The first time I got arrested was just there. I was in a big brawl, dozens of us ganged up on six people.
Wang Shuo grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Too young to be a Red Guard, he enjoyed the years of chaos, and now he's made a movie about it.
WANG SHUO:When they see how we just mucked around they're going to be really jealous! Life then was really cool if you were young. If teachers tried to control us, we'd put up a big character poster criticising them.
Right now Wang Shuo's movie is with China's censors and at a time when young people are being asked to learn from the hardships of the past, it's hard to imagine they'll like it.
WANG SHUO: All there was back then was fighting and picking up girls.
Wang Shuo and the old Red Guards agree on one thing. The kids today are certainly missing out on something.