The Memoir Spider Eaters Analysis

In The Red Scarf Girl, the author Ji-Li, Ji-Li talks about her life growing up in China during the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. As a young smart and talented girl, Ji-Li gets invited to audition for the Liberation Army Dance group, but unfortunately, Ji-Li is not able to audition because her family was very wealthy. Chairman Mao proposes to get rid of the Four Olds which triggers the Cultural Revolution. Ji-Li’s life turns completely upside down; she no longer can go to her school, people make fun of her because her grandpa was a landowner, and her dad gets arrested. Mao believed in communism and Ji-Li’s family did not fall under an ideal communist family. Ji-Li supports the ideas of the Cultural Revolution, but when the government requests for her to testify against her

The Cultural Revolution was a time of much confusion in china. The memoir Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang illustrates the chaos of that time. Ji-li’s experiences during this time period led to her point of view changing. Ji-li starts the Cultural Revolution full of progressive thoughts, but this quickly turns to confusion, and leads to an important choice, something that impacts the rest of her life.

According to the Online Dictionary, the “Chinese Cultural Revolution” is defined as “a movement in China, beginning in the year 1966 and led by Mao Zedong, to restore the vitality of communism in China.” To begin, the Chinese Cultural Revolution performed a significant role in establishing the setting and conflicts in the novel of “Red Scarf Girl”. The setting of the story took place in the city of Shanghai, specifically throughout the course of two and a half years from the year 1966 to 1969. The protagonist and narrator of the story, Ji Li Jiang, was a 12-year-old Chinese girl who lived as a wealthy resident in the brownstone apartments of Shanghai. As the story progressed, Ji Li developed alterations in her relationships with her peers at school, the perception of her goals and responsibilities in life, and knowledge of her family history in relation to her class-status in the community. Therefore, throughout the course of the story, it was evident that significant changes and development of the relationships, perceptions, and knowledge of Ji Li Jiang occurred as a result of the events that she experienced.

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

Originally, Liang’s “parents were deeply involved in all the excitement of working to transform China into a great Socialist country” (4). Over a serious of unfortunate events, though, he became the child of a “Rightist’s cap” mother and a “Reactionary Capitalist stinking intellectuals” father (9, 51). Impacted by the shattering of his family and horrific bloodshed created by fighting, Liang Heng began to question the Cultural Revolution. He claimed that his “family had scarified so much… but it had given [them] nothing in return” (148). Liang Heng presents his shift in ideology to demonstrate that most Chinese were no longer in support of a Communist nation. His “troubles were common enough and anyone could see there was a discrepancy between the glorious words of the newspapers and [their] painful reality (232). Even Liang Heng’s father, after many years of devotion, found that he could no longer defend the Party’s policies after he experienced the ill-treatment of the peasants in the country

In the memoir “Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution” written by Ji-Li Jiang and forwarded by David Henry Hwang, it follows the experiences of Ji-Li Jiang during the onset of Chairman Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of China while living in Shanghai, China, 1966. In the memoir, Ji-Li at only the age of 13 experiences first hand the many effects of the revolution which are shown in many ways. These effects include her peers attitudes, her family and classmates relations, as well as personal feelings of the overall event.

She also writes of her experience with Maoism, which she had worshipped as a student before realizing the harsh realities and witnessing the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In one event, a fellow student had asked her to help flee the country but under the influence of Maoism, Wong turned her in to the authorities. She writes she still does not know what happened to the distressed woman after she turned her in. Throughout her book, it is evident that she regrets some of her actions that were misguided under the notion that it was for the better, although she says it was a major part of her life so she doesn’t know if she would change what happened or

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

Book Review: Growing Up in the People’s Republic: Conversations Between Two Daughters of China’s Revolution. By- Ye Weili with Ma Xiaodong

Family- The Only Thing you Cannot Replace Imagine yourself living in China during the period of the Cultural Revolution, your dad gets locked up and punished every day, people around you are committing suicides because life is too tough to be living, people breaking into your house in the middle of the night, messing your house up, searching through your personal things, and taking your precious items away. This is what Ji Li Jiang had been through when she was still a little girl. The story, Red Scarf Girl, by Ji Li Jiang is a memoir about a twelve year old girl who has experienced the Cultural Revolution, and has to make the most difficult decision of her life. Ji Li has to choose between being loyal to her family, which means giving up her bright future, and gets humiliated all her life, or making a clean break with her family and pursue her dream of helping Chairman Mao’s business.

During the Cultural Revolution, China was under the rule of Communist Party leader Mao Zendong, who a majority of China, especially its youth, began to think of more closely to a God than a ruler. Although, because much of China has grown great affection over Mao, they are oblivious to what he is actually doing, and what is happening to the rest of China and the people around them. In both Red Scarf Girl and Someone Named Eva by Joan Wolf, the book is about a ruler who because so many people have begun to greatly admire and look up too, as both a ruler and role model, has forced people to become unconscious to what is actually happening to the world and people around them. In both books because of the people’s great admiration towards their leaders, they have also begun to not only adapt their leader’s thoughts, ideas, and perspectives, but have put them into action. In Red Scarf Girl, Ji-Li Jiang says “But Grandma, we have to get rid of those old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits.

Mao Zedong, “the Great Helmsman of China’s Revolution” (Sijie 6), first launched his re-education process in 1968. He strived to limit education by prohibiting literature and sending “‘young intellectuals’” such as the narrator to the countryside. Through this re-education process, the narrator travels to the mountain of the Phoenix of the Sky, where he evolves into one of Mao’s subjects. The narrator works arduously under Mao’s communal model in the fields and acknowledges his “infinitesimal” (17) chances of escaping the mountain and the re-education process: “three in a thousand.” Later, while laboring in a coal mine, the narrator experiences “visions… difficulty breathing… [and] fear” (30-31). Mao’s

Throughout the last month of this class, we have had the privilege to read the book titled, Wild Swans by Jung Chang. To the extent of the required readings of the book, I have analyzed the context and have become aware that this piece of work was about much more than what life was like throughout China and Japan between 1909-1949. This book specifically, was about the lives of Yu-fang and Bao Qin. Both of these characters have been influenced by their culture and surroundings in some way. For the purpose of this essay, I will be discussing why Bao Qin, formally known as Wild Swan, preferred the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to the Kuomintang (KMT) based solely off of her experiences, while also comparing and contrasting her choice to her

Teacher reads a story book, “The very busy spider”. Oscar listens to the story silently and observes the pictures in the book. When teacher read, “Moo, Moo, said the cow”, Oscar says, “Moo, Moo cow”. Teacher says, “Yes, it is a cow” and continues to read. He looks at the picture and listens to the story calmly till the end. At the end of the story he says, “Spider”

Alicia S.M. Leung writes, “Confucian ethics accepted the subservience of women to men as natural and proper because women were generally regarded as unworthy or incapable of education.” This demonstrates that although Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party might have had the good intentions to advance women through their policies, these polices were destined to not work out from the start, because of the thousands of years of influence Confucianism has on Chinese society.