S8 Ep296: THE FORBIDDEN MUSEUM OF SHANTOU Colleague Tanya Branigan. Tanya Branigan discusses her book, Red Memory, and her visit to the Cultural Revolution Museum in Shantou. Founded by former official Peng Qi'an, this was the only museum in China dedicated to reco

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Arts, Books, Society & Culture, News

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2026

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

THE FORBIDDEN MUSEUM OF SHANTOU Colleague Tanya Branigan. Tanya Branigan discusses her book, Red Memory, and her visit to the Cultural Revolution Museum in Shantou. Founded by former official Peng Qi'an, this was the only museum in China dedicated to recording the era's violence and chaos. Built in a remote location on a site of mass graves to avoid scrutiny, the museum was eventually suppressed by authorities. Branigan recounts visiting during the Hu Jintao era while being monitored by undercover police. Today, the site is closed, unlike the National Museum, which relegates the decade-long catastrophe to a single "dingy corner." TANYA BRANIGAN NUMBER 1
1905 SHANGHAI MIXED COURT

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor.
0:09.9	Here's John Batchelor.
0:12.5	The Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution, 20th century nightmares, and yet red memory,
0:20.5	the new book, The After Lives of China's Cultural Revolution
0:23.7	by Tanya Bronigan, takes us back to that time of the People's Republic of China, and then
0:31.7	brings us forward again. We begin with an event, however, that is Tanya's reporting as a representative of the Guardian newspaper,
0:40.6	and it is the Hushan Tao era.
0:43.5	This is the first decade of the 21st century.
0:47.5	And we visit the Pagoda Museum.
0:50.4	What is significant about this is that there's a museum that appears to be remembering
0:57.7	the Red Guards, remembering the cultural revolution. And yet, Tanya, congratulations, and a very
1:04.1	good evening to you. Your book is a delight only because all of this is new to me. At the same time, I remember what I was doing
1:13.1	in 1960, 1979, with no knowledge of these terrible events. You go to a museum, and the museum
1:24.9	is the product of one man's genius, Peng Chian.
1:28.9	What is the museum represent?
1:31.0	What was it meant to represent as you visited?
1:34.3	Good evening to you.
1:36.1	Good evening.
1:36.7	And thank you for having me on your show.
1:39.6	The museum in Shanto is really the only place in China that records the history of the
1:47.1	cultural revolution. And this, of course, was a decade that really tore China apart. We saw
1:52.4	extraordinary violence, chaos, then a long period of stagnation in which China was really
	...

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