Mao's Last Dancer Essay examples

Mao was supposed to make everyone in China equal and yet Li’s family lived in poverty and there were other families such as the Chongs who lived a significantly better lifestyle. Li is exposed to all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds during his time at the Dance Academy. Li meets Xiongjun Chong and they form a friendship. It soon becomes clear that the Chong family did not live as Li’s family did in the commune. “I brought back some Beijing sweets and a bag of jasmine tea from the Chongs as gifts to my family, and some marbles which were an enormous hit among my brothers and friends” (pg 169). Li’s family never had sweets or jasmine tea, yet the Chongs had enough to give away to another family. When Li went to America and saw how the people from the West lived, he finds it unbelievable. “Ben spent nearly $5000 on presents in a couple of hours…My family could live on this amount for over half a century. It was shocking” (pg 277). Everything in America was so different to life in China. It was also different to how China portrayed

The setting is in Muji, China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. The leader of the communist party at the time is Chairman Mao and ruled based on a Marxist model by the story mentioning the concrete statue of him in the center of the square. The author states that “the Cultural Revolution was over already, and recently the Party has been propagating the idea that all citizens were

The novel ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ by Li Cunxin explores various themes. Two of the main themes displayed are perseverance and self-discipline. Perseverance and self-discipline are significant themes in the novel because they were the attributes that enabled Cunxin to amount to great success.

The Memoir Spider Eaters by Rae Yang is her personal account of her life during the Maoist revolution. In addition, she reminisces about her trials and tribulations during her active participation in the culture revolution and the great North Wilderness. Her family also had various misfortunes due to these changing ideological beliefs spread by the revolution. This memoir illustrates in great detail what Yang experienced under communist rule. Spider Eaters opened up a door to a young girl and her families struggle to be good Samaritans under communist rule and their final disillusionment of the revolution they whole heartedly believed in. Yang and her family struggled with the vast ideological changes during the Maoist Revolution, in turn,

The mental struggle had more of an impact on Li than his physical struggles as he is

Mao Dun, or rather his true name Shen Dehong, was a 20th century novelist and later the Minister of Culture of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to 1965. He is considered one of the most well-known and celebrated left-wing realist writers of modern China and is best known for two of his stories, Ziya and Spring Silkworms, the latter which will be referenced throughout this essay. Spring Silkworms tells the story of an elderly man named Old Tong Bao, his family, and his village as they prepare for the coming silk worm season. Throughout the story, we are able to get a sense of the desperation and turmoil that Old Tong Bao’s village is experiencing. From learning about the debt that his family has, how they had to sacrifice food in

The relationship between Chinese peasants and the Chinese communist party became more close knit during this time. Between circa 1925 and circe 1250 the Chinese communist party and the peasants had a relationship they both had a sense of nationalism, saw Japan as a common enemy and gained social rights.

Life in tenements was tough because as the population was increasing exponentially; the quality of life was becoming increasingly crowded and unsanitary. Since these buildings were in high demand, housing over two thirds of the population of New York, they were commonly made of cheap materials. Maks’ family’s rooms were not well made because “the ceiling is tin. The floor is wood. As for the walls, they’re all faded green with a few cracks” (Avi 54). The buildings themselves were packed with inhabitants so that the landlords could pack more money in their back pockets. The tenement flats were very dimly light, which left many lowlifes living in low light. There was a lack of light put on the subject, and some of the regulations to have better sanitation

“The reality is that if you are poor in a fast, cold city like this, they don't care how you live so long as you are not out on the streets worrying people,? 83 year old Maria Pagan told The Times. Mrs. Pagan lived for a decade in a Bushwick building that was crumbling around her ?the landlord, the City of New York, only began making improvements when her bathroom ceiling collapsed. In comparison, Riis’s description of his photograph of Baxter Street in The New York Sun, “At 59 Baxter Street . . . is an alley. . . with tenements on either side ?so close as to almost shut out the light of day.?

But some of the promises made to the people were fulfilled. In a few short years Chinese peasants were moved from their small plots of land into large communes and cooperatives. On these communes very had enough to eat, everyone shared the work, and there was a real sense of community.

That had changed from the support his family gave him and now loves ballet. Li Cunxin had felt guilty, he was one of the few that was chosen to go to the dancer academy but the problem was that he hated dancing, he had no motivation to dance or to try. Li Cunxin knew and recognized that he needed to change “I knew I needed to work harder.” (P.285). He started to make a change in his practicing, doing it five times a day, because of this his dancing had improved dramatically and knew that this extra work was having an effect “I had made a fundamental change in my dancing” (P.287) After Chairman Mao had died, he was shown a western film on ballet. This film had changed Li’s attitude towards ballet. In the example from the novel: “From that moment on I loved ballet with a passion.” (P.209), he also so resized the potential ballet had. “For the first time in my life, I saw how truly exquisite ballet could be.” (P.209). Li Cunxin hard work and change of attitude made him a great dancer and this is a factor that had helped change his future. This change of attitude affected his future because he was chosen to go to the United States where his point of view of China was

Because the first printing of the Communist Manifesto was limited and the circulation restricted, the Manifesto did not have much impact on society after it was written in 1848. This meant that there were not many people who had access to the document. It wasn’t until 1871, when the Paris Commune occurred, that the Communist Manifesto began to have a huge impact on the working class all over the world.[i]

Housing was deemed a necessity as people were living in poor conditions, families were overcrowded and there was families living in tenements that shared toilet amenities. Also there were homeless people living in the streets.

In addition, as China has become more industrialized, there are far less farmers. Young and old alike have migrated from agricultural pursuits to working in the cities. Today there are roughly 425 million agricultural workers (200 million farming families) compared with 700 million just a decade ago (Hays). In the same amount of time, China’s urban population grew from 191 million to 636 million and counting. Unfortunately, these migrant workers are paid less, work longer hours, and live in worse conditions than local city dwellers. After sending money home to support their families still living on the farms, these migrant workers have very little disposable income to purchase nourishing foods for themselves (Holdaway). These interrelated

Young Li Cunxin was chosen from thousands of children all over China, He was taken from his family that lived in a rural village and was brought to Beijing so that he could study ballet. His is not used to such discipline and harsh circumstances, so he struggles to find his place with the rest. A teacher places his belief in him that he will prove himself and become greater in the future. Li gets help from his teacher to realize his true strength and the potential he possesses to overcome his harsh situation; this will help him overcome setbacks that he will experience in the future. A teacher from the ballet Institute in Houston is drawn to Li and organizes a Scholarship for Li to come and dance in Houston. Li is confused