Customer Reviews

Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution (Melanie Kroupa Books)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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A wonderful read. This marvelously crafted book tells of a young girl's growing up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The exquisitely gentle yet powerful prose conveys not only the pain and pathos of that turbulent period in modern China but also the characteristics which enable us to endure and overcome adversity. There are many special characters such as Ms. Li's grandmother Lao,Lao and the influential teacher Mr. Hu. Highly recommended!

A beautiful and powerful account of life during the Cultural Revolution and a must read for anyone who wants a greater understanding of China and her people. It is also a universal story about the strength of family, friendship, and hope in the face of tremendous adversity. Li's compassionate look at the people and experiences that shaped her life during one of China's most turbulent periods flows effortlessly, and will continue to touch you long after you've finished reading it.

In Li's outstanding book "Snow Falling in Spring" the true ettiquite and character from this author comes out in it's pages. If you're looking for some history without the negative drawbacks of dates, confusing times, and dull facts this is the book for you. This is an easy book to read yet is full of information and knowledge. Combining an authors point of view in a life's story, and history, this book is a real find. Many thank-you's to Moying Li for this pleasurable experience for the reader within me. I reccomend it to all. Two Thumbs Up!

"Snow Falling in Spring" is a very smooth and pleasant read from the beginning to the end, despite of the dark period that the story was set in. I have read several books about the Cultural Revolution in China, and Li's book is one of my favorite because it is really a story about ourselves, a story when everyone in the book was trying to define and redefine themselves during the most chaotic and tragic period of time. Li not only told the story about struggling and suffering, but also told the story of hope, of how to keep hope alive in a seemingly hopeless time. I really enjoyed the book and would like to recommend to readers of all age.

A beautiful,inspiring story. This wonderfully written book tells of a young girl's growing up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Li's spare but powerful prose paints a portrait of a turbulent period in modern China. She also reveals the power of and indomitable human spirit. Li's recall is truly remarkable and she has the ability to bring her characters to life for the reader. A special find - don't miss this one.

Reading Li's heart-wrenching and eye-opening account of growing up during the Cultural Revolution in China would be equally instructive and enjoyable for youth and adults alike -- there is much to learn from both her trials and her triumphs. The fluid telling of her story in a language that she fought so hard to be allowed to learn reveals that freedoms should never be taken for granted.

Moying Li's memoir serves as a balance to traditional Chinese literature. The women in her story are strong, self-directed, and anything but subservient! Moying's grandmother was especially inspirational.

"Snow Falling in Spring" is a wonderful book, telling stories about a difficult period of Chinese history and making the reader feel a part of that experience. The story from a child's point of view opens up the reader's experience and allows the reader to step into the child's shoes and feel and see the author's experiences. This is a book about human experience. "Snow Falling in Spring" is definitely a book to be shared with the whole family. I gave this book to my parents and my son who loved it. They all insisted that I give this book to my nieces and nephews as well. I recommend this book as something that the whole family, can read and talk about.

Most people cannot remember when their childhood ended. I, on the other hand, have a crystal-clear memory of that moment. It happened one night, in the summer of 1966 when my elementary school headmaster hanged himself. I was twelve years old."

Moying Li's headmaster is the first casualty of the Cultural Revolution in her memoir, SNOW FALLING IN SPRING. Written with clarity and eloquence, Li's story is about the difficulty of being separated from the people and places she loves. It is also about the solace she finds in banned books and forbidden education during those years of darkness.

SNOW FALLING IN SPRING begins with a brief overview of the events leading up to the Cultural Revolution. After a struggle to repel Japanese invaders, China was divided by civil war. The fighting finally ended with the founding of The People's Republic of China. Some of Li's earliest memories involve melting down household goods for the Great Leap Forward, which was a plan for China to catch up and compete with the industrialized world. It was not a success. The failure of industrial and agricultural policies led to widespread famine. Her father's struggle to understand what happened introduces one of the overarching themes of the book: the redemptive power of education. "'Ignorance,'" her father tells her as he stays up late reading each night, "'that's our enemy. In the future we need to educate ourselves.'"

Li is sent to a special school for learning foreign languages. But her education is repeatedly interrupted by the political turmoil, including the Chinese Cultural Revolution, "a political movement initiated by Mao Zedong.... characterized by political zealotry, purges of intellectuals, and social and economic chaos."

Li's teachers are denounced by zealous students who dress in army uniforms and swear their loyalty to Chairman Mao, the architect of the cultural purge. One of the central features of the Cultural Revolution was "reeducation," in which people were sent to labor camps to help purify the pollution of Western influences and a bourgeois (privileged, middle-class) lifestyle. Li's father, previously a writer of film scripts, spent most of the Cultural Revolution in a labor camp cleaning out pig stys. Like many teenagers during this time period, Li's cousin is also a candidate for reeducation. She is sent to live in a mountain village in Mongolia, subsistence farming with peasants.

During this time it became dangerous to criticize the government. The offense that leads to Li's father's imprisonment is a stray comment made while having difficulty cutting out a picture of Chairman Mao. "'It's like cutting meat with a dull knife,'" he jokes. But any comment or opinion can easily be taken out of context to denounce co-workers and neighbors. SNOW FALLING IN SPRING is filled with scenes of people being denounced for equally minor offenses. Schoolmates turn on each other, friends become enemies, and people are forced to denounce their own family members in the hopes of protecting themselves.

The relationships that remain sustaining in this environment of suspicion become all the more poignant. Li's Lao Lao (grandmother) is a foundation of strength and generosity throughout the book. Li also has a remarkable number of dedicated teachers, many of whom form the membership for her secret reading club. Li's father sends her a reading list from labor camp with instructions on where to find the banned books on the list. "'Even though school is not teaching you much, and all our books were taken away,'" her father writes, "'I want you to try to educate yourselves.'"

It is through this reading list that Li finds a renewed sense of hope. Her engagement with books and her commitment to educating herself, in an environment in which both of those activities are dangerous, is the most moving aspect of the memoir. She speaks to reading not just as an escape, but as a place of survival, solace and possibility. It is a profoundly positive, creative approach to reading, an activity that is often regarded as passive.

SNOW FALLING IN SPRING also has the advantage of being a memoir, which means it provides the immediacy of first-person experience but also a human face to historical events. This makes it easier to separate the horrors and excesses of a totalitarian regime from the people living under it. As the author says herself at the end of the book, as she leaves China to come study in the United States, "China was the land that had given me birth, love, and friendship. It was also the place of my darkest nightmares. People would judge it in different ways. Some would appraise it kindly; others would be harsh. To me, however, China was simply home --- breath and life of my childhood and of my youth."

--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

Moying Li was 4-years-old in 1958 and lived with her maternal grandmother and grandfather, Lao Lao and Lao Ye in a traditional Chinese house. It was also occupied by her mother and father, her 3-year-old brother Di Di, aunts and uncles, the family of a tailor, electrician and a clerk.

In the fall of 1958 Moying returned home one day to find the backyard, her beloved playground, strewn with: "...bricks, holes, and scrap metal". A huge big black furnace, as tall as her father, was standing in the center. Her family was gathering materials for the "Great Leap Forward", launched by Chairman Mao. The leaders believed: "...they could catch up with the West..." mainly Britain: "...in just ten to twenty years - in a giant single stride. The family was trying to gather strong construction materials and using the furnace to melt them into steel. Women were giving up their favourite frying pans and woks. Too little Moying the furnace looked like: "...a roaring dragon".

Between 1958 and 1961, China underwent a siege of disasters. First a plague of insects, then a serious drought and finally far reaching famine in which millions of people died.

Moying remembers with clarity the day her childhood ended. It occurred one evening in the summer of 1966, when her elementary school Headmaster hanged himself. Moying was twelve-years-old.

In the summer of 1963, Moying was packing to attend a school , two-hours away from her home. She would reside there Monday to Friday. Moying was one of many students selected to attend this school were they would learn nine languages! The expectation was that after: "...ten years of training, many of the students would continue their studies in leading universities, with the possibility of diplomatic careers".

In late spring of 1966 disturbances at Beijing and Tsinghua universities began. Large character posters were accusing school authorities of: "...departing from Chairman Mao's teachings". The posters demanded that these educational facilities be opened to workers and peasants instead of the privileged minority. Classes were cancelled and the students began to form groups, calling themselves, "Red Guards", and displayed red arm bands on their sleeves.

In midsummer, Chairman Mao stood at Tinanmen Square, on top of the "Gate of Heavenly Peace" telling the large gathering crowd that he supported the Red Guards. Like piles of newspapers catching on fire one after another, Red Guard units appeared in all universities and high schools denouncing authorities.

One afternoon there was a scuffle in their headmaster's office. Moying and her friends went to see what was going on. The high school students were pasting a sign up in the room saying he should confess his crimes, he was poisoning their minds with western ideology and that he was training students to follow capitalism instead of communism. Moying and her friends were shocked and wondered why their headmaster would try to poison them? After speaking to a friend's sister, they were told that she was denounced the right to become a Red Guard as they believed she was following the headmaster's teaching. Moying and her friends were more confused.

Every day uncertainty abounded. There were posters everywhere and some now included not only the headmaster, but teachers as well.

The Cultural Revolution continued on with every family losing someone to a labour camp. I have left a lot of information out of this review as I didn't want to give away any spoilers, expect maybe one.

Moying Li's memoir was penned with deep thought, deep feelings, and the love of her country which touched her heart and soul. This is an excellent memoir that I would recommend to all and at 176 pages you'll be done in 2 hours. This book had more information and histories packed into it than some books of 300 pages do, truly amazing!