Red Flower of China : An Autobiography - Softcover

Zhenhua, Zhai

3.53

90 ratings by Goodreads

9781895555059: Red Flower of China : An Autobiography

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1895555051 ISBN 13: 9781895555059

Publisher: Turnerbooks, 2002

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"When I first saw a Red Guard remove her canvas belt to beat her victim and...his clothes tear and blood appear on his skin, I was afraid. I was not the most bloodthirsty person in the world....However, I was a Red Guard leader and a member of my school's Revolutionary Committee....If by beating these people....I could prove my valour in the class struggle, I would do it. Thus, when that Red Guard left off, I removed my belt and learned to beat like her....After a few beatings, I no longer needed to rehearse the rationale behind them. My heart hardened and l became used to the blood. I waved my belt like an automaton and whipped with an empty mind....The Cultural Revolution had transformed me into a devil."
So writes Zhai Zhenhua in Red Flower of China, a brutally honest portrait of the Cultural Revolution, as told by someone who was not only a witness to this dramatic period of history, but was also a participant in it. Zhai Zhenhua was born in 1951, two years after the Communist Party took over China. Her parents were revolutionary supporters of Chairman Mao, and she was schooled in political correctness and party loyalty. But 1966 brought the Cultural Revolution, and fifteen-year-old Zhenhua was swept up by the events taking place around her. She joined the Red Guard, led raids on homes, and cold-bloodedly beat her fellow citizens.
Soon, however, the Red Guard also fell into disfavour. Zhai was purged and sent to one of the most destitute regions of China to do back-breaking work and be re-educated before becoming one of a handful of students selected to attend university.
Zhai Zhenhua does not minimize her role in the excesses of the times. Red Flower of China is an intensely personal account of her eventful early life and of acts which still torture her conscience.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

A candid memoir of the author's participation in China's Cultural Revolution--as well as a cautionary tale about youthful patriotic excess. Daughter of two dedicated Communists, Zhai (now a teacher in Canada) was a high-school student when the Cultural Revolution began. But even before that cataclysm, she explains, all aspects of Chinese life had been politicized. Young urban schoolchildren had to help with the harvest; indoctrination was incessant; and status was determined by one's family's political standing: As the child of low-ranking ``common office staff,'' the author was ignored by her teachers until her father was promoted. Ambitious, and determined to be a ``progressive''--the approved ranking--she was an ideal candidate for membership in the Red Guard when, in 1966, Mao set in motion the events that led not to only years of turmoil but to the destruction of a whole generation of gifted young Chinese. Zhai chillingly describes how, as a 15-year-old, she exhorted her school's detachment of Red Guards to root out class enemies; conducted humiliating self-criticism sessions of faculty and neighbors; and participated in fatal beatings. Her zeal was soon tempered not only by growing personal disquiet but by her political disillusionment, as she saw the Red Guards purged and replaced by even more revolutionary groups. By now, all education had stopped, and the author was sent with classmates to work with the peasants. Back-breaking work and bad food affected her health, and she despaired of ever going to college, since students were expected to live in the fields permanently. In time, though, Zhai moved on to factory work and was nominated for higher education. She admits that she was lucky--and that many of her peers weren't so fortunate. A searing tale of a regime that, in the name of patriotism, cynically manipulated the ideals of its most vulnerable members and then effectively ruined them--and a brutally frank mea culpa as well. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

This autobiography shares many similarities with Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro's popular Son of the Revolution ( LJ 2/15/83). Both authors adopted the chronicles of the Chinese Communist Party as a framework for their individual experiences during the Cultural Revolution. Zhai provides a detailed account of her fervent involvement with the Revolution. As a Red Guard leader, she participated in the home-raiding, beating, and torturing of innocent people. Her book is full of haunting memories delivered in a cynical and remorseful tone. Zhai is careful to keep the narration accurately dated and to provide background about various political events, which is helpful for American readers. However, Zhai seems too absorbed in her personal recounting of the past to offer much insight into this tumultuous period. For public and academic libraries.
- Mark Meng, St. John's Univ. Lib., New York
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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