Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

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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... ... middle of paper ... ...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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