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Title: Red Sorrow: A Memoir by Nanchu ISBN: 1-55970-638-4 Publisher: Arcade Books Pub. Date: 09 July, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Exposing the dangers of group think
Comment: It was a cold and rainy day and my wife and I were out of town attending a wedding. Checked out of the motel and too early for the wedding we drove around wasting time before we had to arrive at the church. Conversation had become stilted so I thought my wife would like to hear some of the stories from Red Sorrow. So, I told her about the teachers who were ridiculed and beaten by their young students. I told her about the school principal who after being beaten and spat upon by her students was so humiliated that when she escaped from the room where the students had imprisoned her she ran down to the railroad tracks, laid on them and awaited her death. I told her about Nanchus parents who were brought before the student body and tormented and humiliated. By that time, my wife had enough. She did not want to hear any more.
This book gives the reader insight to postwar China- the Great Leap Forward that resulted in the Great Famine where 40 million Chinese perished; the Cultural Revolution and the raise of the Red Guards and the ensuring struggle for power among the leadership of China. It is one thing to understand the ebb and flow of history, but is quite another thing to understand how this history affected real people. In Red Sorrow we see how a family, dedicated to the Revolution becomes sweep up in the currents of history as we follow Nanchu from the age of thirteen to age thirty-three. It is a riveting story, as the tormented becomes the tormentor. Her parents accused of being spies and traitors are beaten and humiliated, the children become objects of scorn and ridicule. Yet, this same child who suffered unimaginable pain, joins the Red Guards and becomes a tormentor herself. We can understand what a child must do to survive, but as she grows up and attends college she still plays the same game. As an adult, she will torment to insure her survival. I also understand that. But what is missing in this book is Nanchus introspection on this behavior. She passes over it too quickly as if she is embarrassed by it. It would have been a stronger book if she reflected more in depth what she was feeling and why she would participate in the degradation of another human being.
Why did these kids who lived decent and honest lives kick to death their High School teacher? The answer is not simple, but could not groupthink be a contribution cause? Decent people will do indecent things when they are in a group that thinks alike. As I read this book I could not shake the uneasy feeling that this madness is raising its head in America. No, we do not have Red Guards who beat and humiliate those who disagree with them; we have students, parents and interest groups who will sue and punish those who disagree with the politically correct thinking of the day. Bernard Goldberg in his book Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite tells of the effects of groupthink in the newsrooms of Americans great newspapers. Editors have to negotiate between the black, Hispanic, gay and feminists caucuses. The sex scandal in the Catholic Church is a case in point. The press describes it as a pedophilia problem. Pedophiles prey on little children of both sexes- these priest are preying on preadolescent and adolescent boys. It is not a pedophilia problem in the Catholic Church it is a homosexual problem. Yet, rarely is this reported lest the homosexual community be offended.
Back to the book- People were punished, their lives destroyed and even killed not for what they did, not even for what they said, but for what they thought or for what others may have believed they thought. This is dangerous and frightening. I cannot help but be worried as my sons and daughter, all products of the American Higher Education, had to be careful of what they said or they felt compelled to write papers which reflected the preferred thought and not their own; and were required to attend sensitivity training on how to not offend minorities, homosexuals and women. I told them to shut up, not argue and get the grade. Um. . . sounds like something I read in Red Sorrow.
Rating: 5
Summary: Coming of Age in the Cultural Revolution
Comment: I still remember my confusion as I tried to understand the angry faces staring back at me from my Weekly Reader. I was a sixth grade student at the school for missionary children in Akita, Japan. The year was 1966. I was skeptical. I didn't believe that these new kids called the Red Guards were really doing anything new. The Cultural Revolution was just beginning. It wasn't called the Cultural Revolution then. It wasn't called anything. How could this be anything new? Of course, my thinking was influenced by my background. My parents were missionaries, and Communists don't like missionaries. The Communists took over in 1949, not in 1966. So when I saw these pictures of the Red Guards, I brushed it off as more of the same. In my mind, I had images of wild kids turning in their Christian parents to the authorities. I concluded that it was just another form of the repression of God-fearing people that had been a matter of fact in China since the Communist takeover.
I was wrong. The Cultural Revolution represented a major paradigm shift. It was not the persecution of religious people by the Communist party as I had assumed. It was the persecution of Communists by the Red Guards, instigated by Mao because of party rivalry between Mao and Liu Shaoqi. The first person to clear this up for me was Jung Chang in her book, "Wild Swans." That book was very helpful in guiding me to a better understanding of what really happened during those years. So what is unique about Red Sorrow?
I think the major advantage of this book, is that it directly addresses the human story behind the angry faces. Most poignant, and profoundly disturbing is the rapidity with which Nanchu became the very thing that had caused her so much pain. She describes in detail how she and her brother were constantly picked on and harassed, and spit on by children in the neighborhood because both of her parents were in detention. Then, when she is given a chance to join the Red Guards, her craving for acceptance is so profound that she joins the group of brutal young people who find their entertainment in bringing pain and suffering to the sick and elderly.
Then to the countryside. Nanchu's description of life in the countryside is the best I have read. Most personal accounts of the Cultural Revolution are written by people who, by some means or another, were able to leave China, and then write of their experiences after they have assimilated into their adopted Western culture. They are not translated from Chinese; they are written in English. Interestingly enough, many of these people have managed, somehow, to escape the worst of the "countryside" experience. Not Nanchu. Her description is rich and painful, mainly because she did not escape the experience. She lived in very Spartan (inhuman) conditions in the northernmost province in Manchuria, basically living the life of a convict who is sentenced to hard labor, even though the program was certainly not presented this way. Her story of life in the countryside seems endless, but finally comes to an end, and she is shipped back to her home in Shanghai.
What was life like on a University campus during the Cultural Revolution? Jan Wang, in Red China Blues gives us some very unique insight, but she is writing as a North American who is really guest of the revolution. Nanchu writes as a disillusioned young lady who is just back from the countryside. One of the most striking features of this book is Nanchu's description of life on a campus where studying is not "politically correct," if you can imagine that. The pure insanity of such an absurd notion is not really discussed philosophically, it is just presented very simply by a series of anecdotes about how Nanchu manages to study without being seen-sitting on the toilet for hours at a time, hiding under her mosquito net, etc.
It is here, at the University, where Nanchu experiences the "redemptive moment" where she stands up for a teacher who is being castigated by radical students for politely correcting a student during a recitation. When Nanchu is put on the spot before her classmates, she states calmly that the professor was just doing her job. It was a very unpopular thing to say, but was obviously the truth.
Coming of age is a testing experience for all young people, not just those caught in the terrible power struggle called the "Cultural Revolution." So I think that some of the "suffering" Nanchu relates is not really something I would put in that category. For example, she talks about her attraction to guys with whom she was not allowed to form a romantic relationship. But is that such a bad thing? If she had grown up in America, encouraged to be sexually active and practice "safe sex," would she really be a better person? Would she be more...moral? I'd have to think about that.
Thank-you, Nanchu. Thank-you for telling your story. Thank-you for being willing to go back and suffer the anguish again for us. And thank-you, most of all, for putting a very real human being behind those contorted faces that so puzzled me as a young sixth grade student.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sad and moving account of China's cultural revolution
Comment: This book should be required reading for every thinking person. For those of us who came of age in the U.S. in the '60's and 70's, it is an eye-opening account of what was secretly being done to our peers half a world away. Nanchu's moving account of her family's experience during China's "cultural revolution" has lessons for us to learn about how lucky we really are. It should also help to open our eyes about what is still going on today behind the bamboo curtain.
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