Ha Jin’s “A Bad Joke”, highlighted not only some of the problems, but the harshness of the Chinese police force under the Communist Party. I especially wanted write a blog post digging more into Mao and what happened under his founding of the People’s Republic of China.
I think the reason the two peasants had good reason for saying, “Damn, all the prices go up, only our chairmen never grows” (144). In the previous quote the peasants are referring to Mao’s poor leadership skills and because of these, they are upset about food and clothing price increases. The police took the peasant’s quote out of context and thought he was referring to the current chairman Deng Xiaoping, which is why they were arrested.
There is also an important detail in “Saboteur” where peasants were sleeping under a Mao statue. This is not a coincidence and I think Jin uses this to show how how bad the poor faired under Mao’s reign. The “Great Leap Forward” in the late 1950’s created mass amounts of famine because of Mao’s inefficient attempt to increase agricultural output. Also, the police force was exceptionally harsh, punishing people for almost anything. In the case of Mr. Chiu, the police punished him for their own spillage of tea on him and his wife. He was immediately arrested for simply standing up for himself and the facts.