Imagine you are a small child. Imagine that you live in a state of constant fear of persecution. Imagine your worries for your family and friends when you see men and women painted as counter-revolutionaries paraded down the street, tortured, ridiculed and then shot. Despite your constantly-rumbling and always empty stomach, despite the squalid conditions in which you live, despite the lack of health care your family has access to: despite all of this, you are told that there is an even worse place on Earth. That place is the West. It is a worse place to live, because they live in perpetual darkness…
The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer, by Li Cunxin, is very effective in raising awareness of the injustice experienced by the peasant population …show more content…
In 1958, Mao employed tactics in an attempt to “modernise” China and create an economy that rivalled America’s. ‘The Great Leap Forward’ focussed heavily on factories and boosting the economy and, due to this, agriculture fell by the wayside. Li states that “By the time I was born three years of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and bad weather had resulted in one of the greatest famines the world had ever seen. Nearly thirty million Chinese died” (8). After the Great Leap Forward failed, Mao introduced the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The Cultural Revolution led to the loss of Chinese culture and all connections to the West. Li says of his family’s New Year’s customs that “Before Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution we would have displayed a family tree and a picture of the god of fortune on the northern wall above the table. But this tradition was now considered a threat to communist beliefs. Any family doing this would be regarded as counter-revolutionary, for which there were heavy penalties, including jail” (39). The practice of traditional ceremonies or the suggestion of any Western influence in the home would have resulted in the punishment and rehabilitation of citizens who did not abide by the Communist way of life. Li convincingly documents his family’s fear of persecution and the injustice of Mao’s
The autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer, by Li Cunxin, is very effective in raising awareness of the injustice experienced by the peasant population …show more content…
In 1958, Mao employed tactics in an attempt to “modernise” China and create an economy that rivalled America’s. ‘The Great Leap Forward’ focussed heavily on factories and boosting the economy and, due to this, agriculture fell by the wayside. Li states that “By the time I was born three years of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and bad weather had resulted in one of the greatest famines the world had ever seen. Nearly thirty million Chinese died” (8). After the Great Leap Forward failed, Mao introduced the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The Cultural Revolution led to the loss of Chinese culture and all connections to the West. Li says of his family’s New Year’s customs that “Before Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution we would have displayed a family tree and a picture of the god of fortune on the northern wall above the table. But this tradition was now considered a threat to communist beliefs. Any family doing this would be regarded as counter-revolutionary, for which there were heavy penalties, including jail” (39). The practice of traditional ceremonies or the suggestion of any Western influence in the home would have resulted in the punishment and rehabilitation of citizens who did not abide by the Communist way of life. Li convincingly documents his family’s fear of persecution and the injustice of Mao’s