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Title: Bitter Winds : A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag by Harry Wu, Carolyn Wakeman ISBN: 0-471-11425-1 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: March, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Perhaps the most engrossing book I've ever read.
Comment: Unbelievable memoir, one that stays with you and perhaps changes your perspective on life. Harry Wu brings a voice to those many Chinese who, arrested often without cause, spent and lost their lives in the grossly inhumane conditions of Chinese prison labor camps. The unjustness is beyond vast and continues today. This book should be required reading in college sociology, political science and history classes as it is unequivocally insightful and informative as well as meaningful. I hope that Harry Wu can continue to carry his important message in this newly adopted country that adores him and cherishes his very important work. We are listening, Harry.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Glimpse into Hell
Comment: Syndicated pundit Don Feder once referred to modern day China as "the reincarnation of the Third Reich with lo mien noodles." Harry Wu's autobiographical tome of the hellish conditions inside Chinese labor camps lends substantial credence to that caustic description. As tragic as the nightmare he endured is, the situation in modern China has in many ways has deteriorated even further. Harry Wu is one of many children; such a family would never be allowed under the current one-child policy. Actually, it is easy to see why a depraved and violent population controlling policy has been instituted. As the Wus demonstrate, the family is the hardest institution to destroy, and with large and strong families the norm, China's insensate government would be hampered in its drive for domination over all aspects of life.
More than a few of the horrors he documents have a frightening familiarity. Anyone familiar with the opinion-controlling practices currently at place Ivy League colleges will see an eerie counterpart to China's universities in the late 1950. Harry Wu writes of "the official encouragement of divergent opinions" as the nation transformed over to socialism. Like the modern diversity fad, the semantics did not match the policy. "Divergent opinions" yielded blind devotion to the Communist state, just as diversity training demands the surrender of individuality in favor of group labels and a collective mentality. Hostility to religion has become chic among the U.S. hoi polloi which also corresponds to China's ferociously enforced atheism. As a boy Harry Wu attended a Catholic School, but with little warning the nuns and priests were forcefully expelled from China. In another scary correlations, certain segments of American illuminati similarly disdain large families as impractical or burdensome upon women.
America's most admirable heroes are now under heavy fire from much of the elite establishment. Who hasn't heard George Washington denigrated as a slave owner or Abraham Lincoln as a racist who reluctantly freed the slaves? China also mastered the art of rewriting history. Wu discusses how Confucius was condemned as a reprobate because his teachings brilliantly controverted Communists doctrine.
The labor camp conditions he graphically describes are inhuman and heartbreaking. The fact that he even survived such brutality is astounding; his willingness to return to China and document the still thriving barbarism is nothing short of miraculous. Wu deserves much credit for that act of doughty selflessness.
As the Unites States Congress prepares to debate extending China's undeserved Trade Status, "Bitter Winds" should be read by every concerned American, and those issues should be raised with his or her congressman.
Rating: 5
Summary: Now I Know
Comment: I've been very aware of the Holocaust and all its horrors and injustices. I have seen movies, read articles, read books; all the information is there. But the Cultural Revolution? I only knew that it happened in China - I wasn't even sure what years it occured. I had no concept of its irrational and unjust practices. No idea of the horrible lengths of time people were incarcerated, no idea of the revolting conditions and unspeakable starvation. Harry Wu is right. He did need to write this and inform us. I kept thinking back to my own life during the years he was describing. 1960-61-62? graduating from college, getting married and having my first child. Did I have my head in the sand or did we not have the coverage of events that we have today? I didn't know (or maybe wasn't interested) in events on the other side of the world - except to urge my children to clean their plates because children in China were starving. I had no idea! Harry Wu writes candidly, clearly and courageously. This is a book that I will not forget and will urge friends to read. I travel to China in June for 3 weeks. All the people I will see who are my age (62) experienced some form of repression, indignity, involvement - the list goes on. How I admire them and honor them for their perserverance. Thank you, Harry Wu!
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Title: Laogai: The Chinese Gulag by Hongda Harry Wu, Ted Slingerland, Fang Lizhi ISBN: 081331769X Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: November, 1992 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Courage to Stand Alone: Letters from Prison and Other Writtings by Ching-Sheng Wei, Wei Jingsheng, Kristina M. Torgeson, Wei Jingsbeng ISBN: 0140275355 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng ISBN: 014010870X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1988 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhi-Sui ISBN: 0679764437 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 02 April, 1996 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: China's New Rulers: The Secret Files (New York Review Books Collections) by Andrew J. Nathan, Bruce Gilley ISBN: 1590170466 Publisher: New York Review of Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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