Jung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer that is known for her award-winning book, Wild Swans. After having several jobs at a young age, Jung Chang became an English-language student, and an assistant lecturer at Sichuan University. In 1978, Chang left China for Britain, where the University of York awarded her a scholarship. At the university, she acquired a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1982. Interestingly, Chang was the first person from the People’s Republic of China to obtain a doctorate from a British university. Jung Chang’s husband, Jon Halliday, is the collaborating author of the biography. He is an Irish historian that focuses on the history of modern Asia. Halliday was a former Senior Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College, University of London. He had written, and edited his eight previous books. Currently, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday reside in Notting Hill, West London.
The biography focused on Mao Zedong, who was China’s revolutionary, yet erratic leader. The authors portrayed Mao Zedong as a merciless leader that was behind countless committed crimes in China. Under his rule, many people referred to him as Chairman Mao. The chairman left an enormous impact on the modern day China. However, Mao’s immoral philosophy, and hunger for absolute power led to a corrupted government under his rule. The brutality committed by Mao Zedong was heavily emphasized throughout the biography.
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday depicted Mao Zedong’s influence on modern China as the worst role model to follow. Based on the evidence, the authors presented the chairman’s involvement in breaking many human rights. One of the events was when Chairman Mao forced most of China’s population into labor. As it was stated in the biography, “Close...
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...ourageous to include Mao’s assassinations and maltreatment of people. Based on the crimes, I noted that Chairman Mao feared defeat because killing his targets would lead him closer to control over China. The authors had lots of evidence to support, which made me feel part of this cruel story. Also, the background details made some stories extremely exaggerated.
The biography of Mao Zedong was somewhat a success and failure. The book sometimes felt like a textbook since it talked specifically a lot about a particular event. However, the authors provided lots of stories atbout Mao’s achievements and failures. I would recommend the biography to those that are interested in learning about the beginnings of People’s Republic of China, and the mastermind behind all the crimes.
Works Cited
Chang J. and Halliday J. Mao: The Unknown Story. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.
During the Cultural Revolution Mao Zedong , people also knew him as Mao Zedong Tse tung was the Chinese ruler. He ruled the country during this time known as Chairman of the Communist Party of China. Moa was very well educated in Western and Chinese traditions. During the year 1918 Mao Zedong had a job as a librarian assistant at Peking University. He would call himself a Marxist in the of 1920 and he helped found the current Chinese Communist party Communist formed an alliance during 1923 with a man called Sun Ya sen and his Nationalist party. After that Mao Zedong quit the current job he had as a teacher to become a poli...
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
Following the Chinese Revolution of 1949, China’s economy was in ruin. The new leader, Mao Zedong, was responsible for pulling the economy out of the economic depression. The problems he faced included the low gross domestic product, high inflation, high unemployment, and high prices on goods. In order to solve these issues, Mao sought to follow a more Marxist model, similar to that of the Soviet Union. This was to use government intervention to develop industry in China. In Jan Wong’s Red China Blues, discusses Maoism and how Mao’s policies changed China’s economy for the worse. While some of Mao’s early domestic policies had some positive effects on China’s economy, many of his later policies caused China’s economy to regress.
Duong Thu Huong’s novel, ‘Paradise of the Blind’ creates a reflective, often bittersweet atmosphere through the narrator Hang’s expressive descriptions of the landscapes she remembers through her life. Huong’s protagonist emphasises the emotional effects these landscapes have on her, acknowledging, “many landscapes have left their mark on me.”
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
Over the course of history, the strength of China has risen and fallen. At its heights, China stood at the pinnacle of economic and military power; however, by the time of the Second Sino-Japanese war, the nation had significantly declined. At the time, China 's political structure was destabilized by the continued civil war between its Nationalists and Communists. Seeing this political weakness, Japan—the new Asian power—aimed to conquer China. With the invasion of Japanese forces, a wave of oppression and terror spread throughout the country. In this environment, Mao Tse-Tung authored his now infamous book, On Guerilla Warfare. In it, Mao gave his case for the implementation of revolutionary guerrilla forces against the militarily superior Japanese invaders.
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
The book Lives on the Boundary, written by Mike Rose, provides great insight to what the new teaching professional may anticipate in the classroom. This book may be used to inform a teacher’s philosophy and may render the teacher more effective. Lives on the Boundary is a first person account composed of eight chapters each of which treat a different obstacle faced by Mike Rose in his years as a student and as an educator. More specifically in chapters one through five Mike Rose focuses on his own personal struggles and achievements as a student. Ultimately the aim is to highlight the underpreparedness of some of today’s learners.
In the accounts of a professor during the Cultural Revolution, “...Her husband’s voice declaring with icy piety that he could never live with her again... that she is no longer the mother of their three children” (Doc. 11), she voiced that the husband was more dedicated to the country’s cause, and chose to abandon his wife for a “correct” life. The unity in this situation was disrupted, for a marriage was based on dedication and harmony, but those aspects were ignored when the husband denounced her while she was being tortured by the students who caught her commenting negatively on the Chinese Communist Party. This placed the wife and the husband on different levels and equality was ruined, for she was beaten while her husband could walk away by divorcing her, which further supports that a faultless community cannot be established. Equally important, quoting Mao, “Always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions” (Doc. 9). This thought explains the decisions of the husband; for Mao clearly expressed that the citizens should be “against all incorrect ideas and actions”. However, he did not elucidate the consequence of completely cleansing the population of tradition and rightist ideas, which was disruption of unity, and the values in his utopian vision were not emphasized; therefore, the people primarily focused on eliminating those who were against Mao, unconscious that this action led them further from the “ideal Communist society”. Fundamentally, Mao encouraged the people to purge the “wrong”, while being oblivious, or so he pretended, of leading them away from the society in his
Jung Chang, who wrote Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China was the first of her 3 generations to be raised under the Communist regime. Her parents worked for the Communist party and throughout her childhood she had to follow a set of rules that forced her respect orders under Mao’s rule. Like most Chinese people, she indeed followed Mao’s words and perspective, but in the end she knew that it was Mao that was responsible for China’s suffering. Her views are very biased because she hated Communists, and primarily wrote about the bad that Communism brought to China. She watched her family suffer for years, hating the Communist regime.
This essay has critically analysed and examined the effect of Communism on the Chinese Society during the period of 1946-1964. The overall conclusion that can be drawn is that the Chinese Communist Party managed to defeat the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party and achieve victory in the Civil War, in spite of alienation by the Soviet Union and opposition from the U.S. This was primarily because of the superior military strategy employed by the Communists and the economic and political reforms introduced by this party which brought more equality to the peasants in the form of land ownership and better public services. This increased China’s production and manufacturing which not only boosted the country’s economy but also provided a more sustainable supply of food, goods and services for the Chinese people.
He’s very patriotic. He worked for the CIA and specialized in assassination. The tight relationship that the narrator, Bon and Man,a mutual friend, have been put to test. Bon didn’t know that the other two were communists. The narrator and Bon even shared a room together in California. Before leaving Vietnam, his family was killed. This left him very depressed. The first sign of happiness that he have shown since then was when he assisted with the assassination of the major who was a suspected communist. It seem that the author was trying to convey the boiling point of hatred that a significant amount of American felt about communist the Vietnam War era. Bon have even immediately volunteered in the general’s plan to go back to Vietnam to fight the communists. The surprising turn of event was that at the end of the book he was let go even after all the crimes he have committed. Man was able to buy his
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
Dao, Bei. “Notes from the City of the Sun.” One World of Literature. Ed. Lim, Shirley G., and Spencer, Norman A. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. 231-233. Print.
...ng the time of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mayhem was a part of everyday life. Mao Zedong encouraged rebellious actions from the Red Guards, and rewarded those who shone as leaders. He also targeted his political rivals by provoking the Red Guards to follow his ideas, and annihilate all remnants of china?s old culture. After the revolution ended, the Red guards received the disciplinary actions they deserved, and the tortured victims finally inadvertently received the vengeance they deserved.