In the story Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang, Ji Li Jiang is a model student and she has always been a determined person. Ji Li is a kindhearted girl that is always helpful to her classmates and has a good leadership. When Ji Li was little, she “[donated their] cast-iron kettle to [support Chairman Mao,] and when natural disasters had caused food shortages, she “[grew] pots of seaweed on the balcony”(27). This shows that Ji Li strongly believes in Chairman Mao and she tries to participate in the Cultural Revolution as much as she can. Ji Li “[knows that] the movement [of the campaign of destroying the fourolds is] vital to [their] country's future”(27) ,so she tries to help out anyway possible. Ji Li [feels…
The respondents came from various walks of life and different places in China, and the result is a book that goes into the lives and experiences of Chinese people ranging from artists to businesspeople, former Red Guards to rural migrants, prostitutes to Olympic athletes. However, for this assignment, it was asked to only read the interviews of a wealthy business man, a worker, and a Red Guard. I have heard about China Candid before and that’s why I know a lot about it. Sang Ye shows great interest in the personal experiences of his informants and they were presented not as representative of their occupation or class, but as interesting individuals with rich stories to tell. But with the context being modern China, political considerations affected the lives of all three people with whom he had conversations with. How the political expression was managed differed with every person. Some went along with the party line such as the Red Guard, while others distanced themselves from the authorities or make local officials a part of their schemes. Together, the personal stories told in this collection open a window onto what life is really like for both the Mao and post-Mao generations of…
Ji-Li was a good student and when things were not going well she was positive. She is a good role model for students, and by reading this book seventh graders could become better students. For example, when Ji-Li thought she was not a good student anymore she and her classmates found out she did not have a good class background. She still maintained good grades. This quote “Your Mandarin is excellent and you won several speech contests” states she was a great student and always tried her best! By understanding that Ji-Li is a wonderful student, some students can change and get better grades and have a positive outlook like Ji-Li. All in all, Ji-Li is a great role model in showing students to try their best and always keep positive. This is another reason why Red Scarf Girl is a good book for seventh grade…
8. Leah begins to learn about the political history and events in China. What does she learn about life under Mao and Deng? What is Grandfather’s attitude to the protesters and why? (pages 37-38)…
During the Cultural Revolution, Ai WeiWei’s childhood was like a desert. Many people were killed or died due to starvation. And they were suffered stomach without medicine. His whole family and many citizens were living…
The political environment depicted in the story is revealed in the line which stated that: “The cultural Revolution was over already”. This information is given blatantly to give insights into the story. The cultural Revolution is the period of which, Ha Jin tries to stress. And when the protagonist, Mr. Chiu, a professor from Harbin University is discriminated, he tries to make some senses from what…
Ji Li Jiang was a girl that did well in school and did not want to be talked about. She goes through endeavors of self truth like when she was going to change her name to get rid of all the bad luck and humiliation the name Jiang gave her. She hated her family of landlords and was ashamed to be part of a family that everyone hated. Later she realizes her family was too precious to forget and too rare to rare to replace.…
Jan Wong starts out as a naïve, nineteen year old, Canadian student who is displeased with the capitalistic nature of her surroundings. It was the early seventies and to the author, she was experiencing a cultural revolution all her own. Opposition to the Vietnam War was strongly prevalent, the notion of feminism was beginning to arise, and there was a strong desire against conformity of any nature. The author grew up middle class to second generation Chinese citizens and was fueled by bourgeois guilt, and by a feeling of separation from her roots. “Curiosity about my ancestry made me feel ashamed that I couldn’t speak Chinese and knew so little about China” (14). After devouring every morsel of information that she could, she firmly believed Mao and his “comrades” were the only people who had a legit shot at establishing a utopic society. It was official. Jan Wong was going to Beijing.…
Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong’s implemented the Cultural Revolution and spread perpetual fear of death during his rule in China. Educated citizens faced humiliation, exile, beatings, and millions of youths had no choice, but to relocate to the countryside for their “re-education.” He classified books as propaganda and the owners as traitors who should suffer severe consequences. In Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the narrator and Luo risk getting caught with novels in their possession so that they can continue to escape the harsh reality of their life through them. Dai Sijie chooses to specify the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Count of Monte Cristo, and Ursule Mirouët to emphasize the main theme of love, supported…
1. How does Ji-li’s opinion about the Communist Party and its leader, Mao Ze-dong, change over the course of her story? Name some of the most crucial events and explain how they change Ji-li’s feelings about the party.…
“...the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers are...creatively studying and applying Mao Tse Tung's thought...”(Source 2)This quote uses the word creatively to create a more positive outlook on the revolution, while in reality, people are experiencing harsh and crueler treatment. For example, in this quote, “...beatings were a collective activity...no sense of guilt...rather an excited, giddy atmosphere”(Document 8)This shows that the way the citizens are “creatively” applying Mao’s thoughts is through the beatings. In the present time, people would consider cruel and harsh, but in China during the Cultural Revolution thought beating was ok, and it was more positive. These positive feelings come from the first piece of evidence in the beginning of the paragraph. The citizens are trying to instill Mao’s thoughts to people who were still part of the old customs. Using the word creatively makes the citizens think, “Ok, all the citizens can do anything special, like beating and writing dazibao to denounce them and make them realize their mistakes.” In the end, the messages conveyed by the government were more positive because most of the propaganda was used to convince the citizens that everything they are doing to apply Mao’s beliefs is ok. This made some of the citizens’ experience harsher due to the beatings(if you were being a “disobedient”…
Throughout the film, Li shows that he struggles to adapt to a capitalist life in America and his homesickness because of no longer seeing his love ones on a regular basis. During the film, Li often had nightmares of his family in China getting punished because of his decision to stay in America and betray his country. Cunxin frequently expresses his struggle to adapt to a non-communist country and feels that you should never question the government. Loyalty has always been a big factor of Li’s personality especially when he expressed that Chairman Mao “is leading us to the first stage of communism”. This suggest to the audience that Li is not realizing the struggle his country is going through compared to America and that adaptation was one of the obstacles he had to overcome. Through this, the film shows that it is a struggle to live without your love ones.…
Most Chinese and Western views of the CR treat it essentially as a conflict of high (not local) elites, as a response to the concerns of a few people (not of many). Many explanations of this event fall into four types, relating it to (1) Chairman Mao's personality and cultural or political habits, (2) power struggle among high leaders, (3) ideal policies for radical development in an impoverished society, or (4) basic-level conflicts, induced by previous policies, of the sort suggested above. Let us examine these in order.…
The Cultural Revolution urged the Red Army to see people and their group’s perspectives guarantee that they were loyal Maoists. This was frequently done in an exceptionally savage way as diverse units tried to make themselves seem, by all accounts, to be the genuine delegates of Mao's vision. Therefore numerous individuals were verbally abused as well as physically misused. Even Anchee was frightened by people because who side she was supporting. This prompted numerous passing’s and casualties. In the early phases of the Cultural Revolution, there were substantial scale changes in the initiative of the Communist party. All through the gathering, including the Politburo, authorities who were not considered to be strong of Mao's vision were evacuated and supplanted by individuals all the more in accordance with Mao's vision. The citizens including Anchee min were not doing well under the control of the leader and they lived in a dangerous time…
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution or the Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976) was one of the most dramatic and bleakest periods in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The roots of the Cultural Revolution date back to the late 1950s to the early 1960s when the Great Leap Forward ended in catastrophe. The leader, Mao Zedong lost a lot of his influence among his revolutionary comrades, supporters and eventually, he was removed from actual powers by the members of the party. During his eradication, Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi came to power. They introduced China to “economic reforms based on individual incentives where families are allowed to cultivate their own plots of land - as an attempt to revive the crippled economy. Mao detested such policies, believing that the CCP was becoming too bureaucratic and the Party officials shied away from the values of Communism and revolution.” (Spence, 1990)…