Hou Ren Wei's Life

Although Iris Chang’s book provides meaningful details and thoughtful interviews about the Nanking massacre, many argue that her book is seriously flawed. Donald Zagoria asserted, “Chang’s account, based on extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, is utterly compelling yet, at the same time, in places unbearable to read” (Zagoria 163). The novel is full of good intentions from Chang, but is also full of misinformation and harebrained explanations. Joshua Fogel suggested, “The book begins to fall apart when she tries to explain why such a horror took place. Part of the problem is her lack of training as a historian and part is the book’s dual

“As one of the Red Guards in the middle school, I was given power through Mao to torture and humiliate our teachers, headmaster or anyone we didn’t like. I didn’t know it was wrong. I thought I was doing the right thing to continue the revolution, to fight and win the class struggle”- Zhao, Lin Qing. As a teenager Zhao was a Red Guard in Guangzhou during the Cultural Revolution. When asked what her impression was a member of the Red Guards, Zhao answered with two words: “naïve and senseless”. She refused answering anything more about her experience. She said, “The memories are still too painful to recall.”

In the short story “A Decade”, Ha Jin further enforces the power and control the government had on everything. The story is told in the perspective of girl who left her village then came back years later in which she recalls her time in school there. More specifically her time with a teacher named Wenli, a shy, soft spoken, innocent teacher who seemingly was not fit to teach under a Communist government. First, she is ridiculed for her singing, then she is publicly shunned for her intimate relationship with a fellow teacher, but the incident that brought her all the way down, was her attempt to teach the class what a metaphor was. She did this by referring to the statement Chairman Mao in which he expressed that americans and russians were dirt. As she explained this was not the case for they were humans as everyone is it all went downhill as the narrator stated, “How dare she change Chairman Mao’s meaning! How could we trust such a teacher?” (Jin, Pg. 204) This in turn causes an uproar amongst the school which causes Wenli to be sent to the countryside. She comes back a monster of a woman compared to who she was. When the narrator sees her teacher in her present cruel self she states, “...similar to how I had felt when my first boyfriend left me for another girl.” (Jin, Pg. 207) This statement allows the reader to have the narrator's real feeling for she witnesses a woman far from the woman she had known only to question herself in a “what have did I

Even with her previous experiences at Beijing University and at Big Joy Farm, Wong still held some belief that the Chinese system wasn’t as bad as it was sometimes made out to be. This event proved to her that it was. “The enormity of the massacre hit home…Although it had been years since I was a Maoist, I still had harbored some small hope for China. Now even that was gone” (259). As a reporter Wong was able to view the progression of the protests in leading up to the massacre, and in viewing it understood that the Chinese people were much more independent than they had previously demonstrated over the past 50 years. She had continuously seen the Chinese people following what they were told between learning in school or with physical labor, yet this protest was one of the first large scale displays of the unacceptance of the regime by the people, and the government did not know what to do with it. But because of this, Wong was able to recognize that the people were not reliant on this way of life that they had previously been bound to, but truly could lead for themselves and take control. The massacre awakened Wong both to the reality that the government was not acting to benefit the people, and that the people were more than capable of acting for

Zhang Yimou’s To Live is a powerful indictment of communist authoritarian rule and blind patriotism. The film places the viewer in the position of an insider as the Communist Revolution alters the political and social landscape of China. By using dramatic irony, Zhang Yimou appraises communist collectivist culture, class structure and power in revolutionary China, and the Cultural Revolution. In addition, by using shadow puppetry as a symbol of indoctrination, Zhang Yimou examines the link between political change, personal tragedy, and bureaucratic incompetence.

Writer Shen Congwen is not as straightforward politically involved as Lu Xun is in his short stories. Shen Congwen writes about revolution through a series of lenses that is quite different from that of Lu Xun. Where Lu Xun takes a more rational stance on how things should progress in China through revolution, Shen Congwen wants the reader to see the beauty in revolution and life as a Chinese citizen. In his short story “The New and the Old,” the reader experiences a dramatic scene about a soldier who is called upon to carry out an execution. As the story continues, the reader discovers that this executioner is the best one in town, and that his executions are seen as a true art, not very many people can take off a head with one swing of the

Today, throughout most of China, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is realized as one of the most chaotic and deadly times in chinese history; often referred to as the “ten lost years.” However, during the revolution, many hopeful individuals sought after change and looked toward Mao as

Feng Ru was very interested in industrialization. In paragraph 4, the text states, “He understood that industrialization made the country great, and felt that industrialization could do the same for China.” Industrialization inspired Feng to start learning about aviation. Feng Ru also faced many obstacles and challenges. Feng had to translate all of the information on aviation into Chinese but Feng never complained. In paragraph seven, the text states, “Feng turned his attention to aviation, laboriously translating into Chinese everything he could find.” He also had to relocate and work in a very small workshop. Even though Feng had to relocate because of San Francisco's earthquake, and having to relocate again after setting his workshop ablaze, Feng Ru never gave up. He was so determined to become the first aviator in China. In paragraph six, the text states, “And Feng himself, who rarely finished work before 3 a.m.” In the end, Feng ended up being the first aviator in China. Feng Ru was a hero in his country and even though he died in his last flight, he impacted China in a positive

Li’s story took place during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of China, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution. This revolution took place from 1966 to 1976, lead by Mao Zedong, who was the leader of the Communist Party of China at the time. The Cultural Revolution led to millions of people being persecuted and thousands more being killed. Because of the Cultural Revolution, people no longer had freedom of speech and actions. If

This memoir of Ma Bo’s sent shock waves throughout China when it was published and was even first banned by the Communist Government. This passionate story paints a clear picture for what the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution was really like. Many Chinese living today can attest to similar if not identical ordeals as expressed in Ma Bo’s story. The toils of being a young Red Guard in inner China were experienced by many if not millions. The horrors and atrocities were wide spread throughout the country, not just in Inner Mongolia. The experiences illustrated in Blood Red Sunset uniquely belong to Ma Bo’s entire generation of mislead Chinese. As expressed in the books dedication the Cultural Revolution

The book is a written as conversational memoir between two women, Ye Weili and Ma Xiaodong about their experience during the first three decades of Mao’s era. The two women had gone through almost similar position and situations in their life, faced equivalent hardships, their approach or attitude towards those experiences in a completely different manner. This book is meticulous in its historical detail, making it a standout among similar memoirs of twentieth-century China. It also tries to add another dimension of the general perspective of historic events. The events are described in a chronological sequence and with the right amount of proper relevant information so the reader can understand the conversation.

Master Hsing Yun grew up in an impoverished, rural village with his family, but the influence of his maternal grandmother helped develop his compassionate and hardworking nature. While his family was out at work, he would do everything he could, including but not limited to tidying up the house, in the hopes of giving his parents a pleasant surprise when they got home. His hard work

“To treat illness without understanding the viscera and bowels is no different from a blind

In the book, From Every End of the Earth by Steven Roberts (2009), there are many themes and topics that can be explored in the chapter 1. One theme that is continuously raised is that never give up even in big troubles. Everything began when Bao decided not to leave without Tuyen. He chose love instead of freedom. They met when they were teens but the accident happened. This is in stark description to the example he gives on p. 10 of the communists took Bao for reporting to a local high school. He was taken through the jungle with the inequity treat. But he did not give up. He thought about his wife and volunteered for harsh duty. He copied his personal story and wrote the same one again and again. Tuyen did not live well too. She lived with

Ji-li Jiang during China’s cultural resolution. During this time, Ji-li was humiliated, bullied and witnessed people very close to her heart, suffered horrible atrocities. Both book’s share a fascinating story, where socialist governments inflict such grief and lack of freedom upon the people. In some ways, I can infer similarities of both these phenomenal-books within certain aspects of my own life. As well as, to the current social and governmental trends of the world and most of all I can relate both books together!