Life And Death In Shanghai Analysis

Throughout the “Life and Death in Shanghai” article, I learned how life for Nien Cheng and her family was unjust and dangerous. Nien Cheng explains how the education system in China is unfair and how it affected her daughter, Meiping. Meiping is a young 23 year old woman who grew up experiencing the Communist rule. Nien and her daughter were wealthy, so they enjoyed many educational advantages. However, I the government instituted a new system that would discriminate against her social class. If Meiping wanted to be accepted into a good middle school, she would have to score an 80% on the entrance exam. However, children of workers and peasants would only have to receive a 60%. I learned that the new Communist government created unfair systems that would not benefit the upper classes. I was shocked from
To start, a single story is one’s perspective on an event through their own experiences of an event. Nien Cheng shared her experience during the Cultural Revolution. Before I read this article, I did not have any previous knowledge about the event. I assumed that the Revolution was an event where people’s rights and freedoms were stripped because of the Communist ways. Although my thoughts were correct, Nien’s story helped to further understand the horrific troubles women endured. As an example, Nien states “the rice tasted smokey, and the saltiness of the pickled vegetables made it bitter”. Evidently, Nien’s life in prison was horrifying because they received no rights. Due to Nien’s story, I was able to understand how tragic the event was and how many people faced poor conditions. Without her perspective, I would not have known that people physically and emotionally struggled throughout this time. This article relates to the topic of a single story that we learned in class, which showed how Nien’s perspective was a single story to help me understand life during the Cultural