The Red Mirror: Children Of China's Cultural Revolution [Paperback]

Chihua Wen (Author), Bruce Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0813324882 | ISBN-13: 978-0813324883

These evocative stories bring to life the tragic personal impact of the Cultural Revolution on the families of China’s intellectuals. Now adults, survivors recall their childhood during the tumultuous years between 1965 and 1976, when Mao’s death finally drew a curtain on a bitterly failed social and political experiment.A series of first-person narratives eloquently describes the life-long influence of this seminal period on China’s children. Those who were teenagers in the late 1960s joined the Red Guards and the revolutionary rebel groups, following Mao’s directives to make revolution, often to their own undoing. Those who were too young to participate directly were even more vulnerable. Although they had little understanding of the political firestorm that engulfed their parents, they were old enough to understand and feel the terror it brought. Vividly capturing the emotional intensity of the time, these stories explore what it was like to be caught up in revolutionary fervor, to be sent to the countryside, to be separated—either ideologically or physically—from one’s parents, often forever.By undermining families and family structure, the Cultural Revolution created a generation of Chinese who view politics, the Communist Party, and life itself with deep cynicism. Presenting a spectrum of individual stories of people who saw the Cultural Revolution through the eyes of a child, The Red Mirror offers rare insights for understanding the crippling legacy of the Cultural Revolution.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Collecting these 14 narratives must have been painful work. The author, a U.S. journalist with degrees in sociology and Asian studies, and herself a child in China during the Cultural Revolution, returned years later to interview her contemporaries about their experiences in the tumultuous years from 1965 to 1976. The narrators, now in their mid-30s to early 40s, recall how their families and lives were changed forever by Mao (and the Gang of Four) as he attempted to root out bourgeois and capitalist influences in Chinese society. There are touching instances of self-sacrifice and bravery, and everywhere symbols of dashed hopes: one girl killed her pet hen and made it into chicken soup to bring to her imprisoned father; two brothers, finding their mother's dead body abandoned in the street, surreptitiously buried her. Children were separated from their parents-sometimes forever-or saw their politically disgraced elders imprisoned or sent to brutal reeducation camps. In other families, parents neglected or abandoned their children, and children enthralled by the Red Guards denounced their parents. Years later, the narrators are still overwhelmed with guilt, shame or remorse at the painful recollection of selfish-or simply childish-acts that jeopardized their families. The author's introduction, which contains her own narrative, and the foreword by Richard P. Madsen, provide valuable historical background. The stories here reaffirm that the Cultural Revolution is a scar that continues to mark China for years to come.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A former editor/reporter for the Xinhua News Agency in Beijing here collects first-person narratives of the era.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (December 30, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813324882
• ISBN-13: 978-0813324883
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,925,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars well written and poetic, August 23, 1998

By 

H.S. Cross - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Red Mirror: Children Of China's Cultural Revolution (Paperback)

This is a collection of interviews with people who were children during the Cultural Revolution. The author writes in English and translates the narratives herself, which gives the book a poetic unity, made even more enjoyable by the fact that she writes well. Unlike Feng Jicai's Ten Years of Madness, Chihua Wen's own writing is evocative, complementary, unintrusive, and poetic. The narratives aren't as diverse as Feng's, but the writing here is better.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, August 18, 2000

By 

Chiara H. (Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Mirror: Children Of China's Cultural Revolution (Paperback)

In this compilation of stories, readers will learn about the horrors that many children in China had to live through. All of the stories are told by Chinese who were children or adolescents during the peak of the Cultural Revolution. Many were torn from their parents, some never forgot or forgave the pain that Chairman Mao's reforms put them through. This book is an intensely emotional window into China. Though some stories are disturbing, it is an important book to read if you want to know where the Chinese people are coming from. The experiences they had in the 60's and 70's have shaped who they are today, both individually and as a nation.