There are many things that most people take for granted. Things people do regularly, daily and even expect to do in the future. These things include eating meals regularly, having a choice in schooling, reading, choice of job and a future, and many more things. But what if these were taken away and someone told you want to eat, where and when to work, what you can read, and dictated your future. Many of these things happened in some degree or another during the Chinese Culture Revolution under Mao Zedong that began near the end of the 1960’s. This paper examines the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie and a book by Michael Schoenhals titled China’s Culture Revolution, 1966-1969. It compares the way the Chinese Cultural Revolution is presented in both books by looking at the way that people were re-educated and moved to away, what people were able to learn, and the environment that people lived in during this period of time in China.
In the beginning of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, the narrator of the book and his friend, Luo, are being moved from their past city life to living in a small village in the mountains the villagers called ‘the Phoenix in the Sky’. They were being re-educated, moved to the village and made to work as one of villagers and be “re-educated” as a poor peasant while working the land. The narrator says in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress that during China’s Revolution, universities were closed and that all the young intellectuals, or youths who had graduated from high school, were sent to the countryside to be “re-educated by the poor peasants.” In China’s Culture Revolution it says that “8 million or more students ‘went to the countryside’ before they en...
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...hinese Seamstress gives an accurate depiction of things that occurred during the Chinese Culture Revolution. It shows that youth were re-educated in villages by poor peasants and that material of western influences that opposed Mao and his ideas were considered bad and were banned. It shows that in order to re-educate them they were to do manual labor and live in communes. They were removed from their families and the things they took for granted. Their lives were no longer under their control, they were told were to go live, where to work and what they can and cannot do. The Chinese Culture Revolution had a profound impact on the people in China from every aspect of life, men, women and children and from every age were affected.
Works Cited
Schoenhals, Michael. China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-1969: Not a Dinner Party. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Print.
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Gerald Tannenbaum, ‘China’s Cultural Revolution: Why it had to happen’, and Richard Baum, ‘Ideology redivided’, in Baum and Bennet (eds)
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Dai Sijie’s “{Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,” is a unique historical fiction book that follows the path of two young males as they try to make the most of their days at the dreadful place they are being reeducated in. Sent away to a camp where they would be taught about the Communist values, they try their best to cope with their new home by reading forbidden Western Literature Books. They learn get many new insights on the Western world and even share their findings with a girl. They are completely changed in the end, but throughout process of changing, they have the opportunity to witness freedom and salvation from all the hardships they were in. Having to work all day without the slightest bit of enjoyment,
Creel, Herrlee. Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-tung. New York: University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Communism came to power in China in the year 1949 and was dictated by Mao Zedong, who later ordered for all educated men and women of China to be reeducated in the countryside. Lou and the narrator were just two of many thousands to be sent off to be reeducated. Lou and the narrator then meet the Little Chinese Seamstress, and Lou, as well as the narrator to an extend fall in love with her.
Gittings, John. The Changing Face of China: From Mao to market. Oxford University Press, 2005.
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