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Title: Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-Li Jiang, David Henry Hwang ISBN: 0-613-10527-3 Publisher: Bt Bound Pub. Date: October, 1999 Format: Library Binding Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.30 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.66 (67 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Chinese Heroine
Comment: Ji-li Jiang, the writer and main character of the Red Scarf Girl, was a girl who grew up in China. The Cultural Revolution, started by Mao Ze-dong, began the year Ji-li turned 12 years old, in 1966. Her early life was joyful. Ji-li was respected because she was intelligent and she was trusted. However, soon she learns she is from a landlord family, which is one of China's Five Black Categories. Chairman Mao wanted all of China's Five Black Categories to be punished. This would include Ji-li Jiang. She then realized that some of her opportunities would have to be given up, like her not becoming a Red Successor or Red Guard because of her background. The Red Scarf Girl is a worthwhile read because it shows how Ji-li Jiang is a model hero. She is intelligent, mentally strong, and brave.
Ji-li was intelligent and was at the top of her classes. Throughout the book, Ji-li was the smartest student, had perfect test scores, and she was given the biggest opportunities because of her academics. Ji-li helped other students in math because she was the best in the math class. This was one of the honors given to her because she was intelligent. In addition, her perfect tests reflected how she was so dedicated to her studies. Early in the book, Ji-li was given the opportunity to be a Liberation Army soldier because she was intelligent, physically strong, and flexible. However, Ji-li could not be a Liberation Army soldier because of her family background. Ji-li was given many chances to succeed because she was intelligent and she used her gifts to go beyond what her family history limited her to. When she could not be a Liberation Army soldier, Ji-li kept on studying hard because later in her life, she might be given that chance once more.
Ji-li Jiang, in addition to being intelligent, was mentally strong throughout the Cultural Revolution. She went through many tough times, like when she went through reading a da-zi-bao about her and her teacher, Ke Cheng-li. During the Cultural Revolution, a da-zi-bao was a posted note that humiliated people by telling others what the accused person was charged with. The da-zi-bao was about how Ji-li Jiang was Ke Cheng-li's favorite student. During this time, Ji-li used her mental strength to get through her troubles. She did not take revenge upon the people who wrote this about her although she was the one who helped them through their questions and troubles in the classroom.
During the Cultural Revolution, Ji-li Jiang remained brave, in addition to being intelligent and mentally strong. Later in the book, Ji-li Jiang, along with other classmates, went to work on the rice farms as summer labor. Everyone had to work either in the factories or on the rice farms. At first, Ji-li choose to work in the factories so she could look after her family. Her father was forced to work in labor because he had performed a counterrevolutionary crime, which he refused to confess. A counterrevolutionary crime is a crime that is done against the Communist party. Ji-li's family did not see him for more than three months. Without her father, Ji-li had to go work. Her grandmother was too old to work in labor, and her mother had Ménière's disease. Ménière's disease causes one to be dizzy, weak, and nauseous. Ji-li's mother could not work under these conditions. Lastly, her younger sister, Ji-yun, and her younger brother, Ji-yong, were too young to be able to work in labor. However, a friend, Chang Hong, told Ji-li if she worked on the rice farms, she could work hard so the officials would overlook her family background throughout the summer. It was then Ji-li became brave and left her family to work in the rice-fields.
Ji-li was intelligent, mentally strong, and brave. She always tried to succeed, even when she was held back by her family history. Ji-li was mentally strong, even when she was humiliated among friends and neighbors. Lastly, Ji-li was brave, as when she left her family to work on the rice farms by herself. The Red Scarf Girl is well written. Ji-li Jiang's troubles allow us to know how hard it was to grow up in a politically oppressed family during the Cultural Revolution. She was a real life hero.
Rating: 5
Summary: Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
Comment: The memoir Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang is a poignant and true story about a young girl's coming of age during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Set in the late 60s, Ji Li was an enthusiastic Young Pioneer who dreamed of becoming a part of Chairman Mao's renowned Liberation Army. However, the intelligent young girl was about to get a startling insight into the true nature of the Communist Party. This memoir shows how youthful enthusiasm and patriotism were exploited by the political party and plunged the era into tragedy and turmoil.
Throughout the book, there is a constant stream of unpleasant events popping up in Ji Li's life.Chairman Mao was a turgid river,washing away the soil that was Ji LI's revolutionary spirit with the sticks and stones of hard work and poverty until her righteous courage began to shine through. The many hardships she faced only served to strengthen her in ways she had not known she had before. She found out that she had an inner courage and stubbornness, as well as the feeling that what they were doing in school was wrong. Events at school, at home, and even in the street were gradually showing Ji Li that Chairman Mao's Revolutionary China would not be at all what they expected.
Ji Li Jiang had always thought of her family as perfect. In times when rooms were small and cramped,her family had a room ten times as large and a hundred times brighter than many of her classmates. On Saturdays there would sometimes be wonderful parties where her Dad's colleagues would come and visit. Everything was perfect in her life until the Liberation Army Dancer came to Xin Er Primary School. After being tested for flexibility, Ji Li was chosen as one fo the few students recruited for the honor of auditioning for the elite Central Liberation Army Arts Academy. However,when she shared the happy news with her family during dinner, their reaction was different from what she expected. "Don't do the audition" was all her father said, but those words revealed that the political background of her family was not as perfect as she would would like to believe. Should she obey her father or pursue her dream? None of her classmates at school could see the innter battle that wreaked havoc within Ji Li's mind. Then, when some of them turned upon her in revolutionary righteousness, Ji Li was thrown even deeper into confusion.
When she was forced to listen to her bourgeois Aunt Xi-wen read the shameful da zi bao posted about her, Ji Li realized that there was something truly wrong with Chairman Mao's ideology. Surrounded by her revolutionary clasmates, however, she could do nothing but stare at her feet in shame.When her father was detained on the basis of a false accusation of listening to foreign radio, Ji Li was pressured to stand againsd her father in trial. By so doing, she would be allowed to purge herself of her family's bad class status and go on to become a Red Successor. Ji Li knew that it was not the right thing to do. She stolidly refused to betray her father each and every time the matter cameup and it showed that there was a great deal of inner strength in the 14-year-old girl.
The story of the Red Scarf Girl flows smoothly. The honest and staightforward way that Ji Li retells her childhood makes the reader feel as if he/she were really there. However, it is mildy depressing to follow so many tragic events in a young girl's life. For readers who are looking for fun books to read, this is not a good choice.
Rating: 4
Summary: High Recommendation
Comment: The book Red Scarf Girl, A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution, was before I opened this book I was not sure of what it was about. I did not know much about the Cultural Revolution and I did not know if I was going to like it. From the second I opened the book I was hooked. For some reason it made me very interested in it and I found myself actually looking forward to reading it. I usually don't like to read anything other than car magazines and sports books but I actually enjoyed reading it. It showed me how things were during the Cultural Revolution, and what people went through. Even though this book was written by a Childs point of view the author really got her point across. Since this book was based on the early 1960's I think it gives a good perspective on how people were back then. In this book there is a lot of poverty that is shown. Throughout the book the girl, "Ji-Li Jiang has to over come the "fourold's," a group of vigilantes that are sent from the state to make sure that everyone is in fashionable wear. She explains that she does not even want to go to school because of this. This is one of the things that I learned from this book. I never thought that there would ever be fashion police. As I said before, this is just one of the hardships that Ji-Li Jiang over comes in this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the Cultural Revolution. However due to the depressing amounts of events that come in this book, I would not recommend it to someone as a fun read.
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