Essay On Ji-Li Jiang's 'Red Scarf Girl'

When I was 10 years old I looked up communism, and it meant ‘a society where property was public, and everyone would be helped according to needs.’ This confused me because I had always heard of communism in a negative context. Such a society would mean that, everyone would have food, water, shelter, an education and job. This is the ideal society. So why was it talked about with disgust and horror? Until reading Red Scarf Girl, I believed in that the ideal society could, no, would someday exist. But now I have been convinced otherwise.

The cultural revolution lasted for 10 years from 1966-1976 the cultural revolution was a hard long time for the chinese youth and elderly. During the revolution there was a young girl named Ji-LI she was a 12 girl at the beginning at the end she is 14 Ji-Li is the main character of the story. Because of her bravery and affection she made it through the cultural revolution. But as her mind matured she realized the cultural revolution was not such a good idea.

Money. Friends. Brains. Ji-li had everything, until the Cultural Revolution. In the beginning, Ji-li loved Mao and also loved his ideas for China because he said if they destroyed all of the four olds, then China would reach its full potential. Ji-li even acted as a red guard as well, naming stores or places that had four olds. However throughout the book, Ji-li’s point of view of the cultural revolution changes. Her father is detained, her house gets searched, she is excluded from activities, and she had to choose between her family or Mao. In Ji-li’s memoir she explains about the cultural revolution and about Mao.

Everybody wants to fit in. In America, the media influences social norms, stereotypes, and acceptable behaviors. In Communist China, Chairman Mao and The Communist Party used propaganda to create ideology that destroyed Chinese culture and values. In the memoir, Red Scarf Girl, citizens of black class status endured severe acts of discrimination from The Cultural Revolution.

Rights and equality for any race, gender, or wealth class defines social justice. Three short stories that perfectly express social justice are “Saboteur,” “A Worn Path,” and “The Lesson.” In the story “Saboteur” the antagonist is a police officer who treats the protagonist unjustly. The social justice issue being portrayed is social inequality. Social inequality occurs when everyone in society does not have equal rights because of their race, age, or gender. In contrast, “A Worn Path” is a story of an elderly African-American woman who is on a quest. While on her quest, racism is illustrated as the social justice issue. Racism takes place when someone makes judgment about another person’s race or culture. Lastly, “The Lesson” is a story

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, written by Dai Sijie, is set in 1971 during the China’s Cultural Revolution. The book starts with two boys, unnamed narrator and his friend Luo being sent from their hometown Chengdu to a small village in Phoenix Mountain to be “re-educated”. The book continues with them skillfully living through the harsh village life with their talent of storytelling and their western knowledge gained from books. Throughout the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Sijie illustrates different types of literature and how it transforms the character’s life, action and their personalities in both good and bad way. This book is one unique novel about two boys and one little girl’s transformation by the magical

“Saboteur”, written by Ha Jin exposes a difficult period in post-revolutionary China and the negative consequences on people’s lives. Mr. Chiu, a scholar who does not view himself as a common citizen, was wrongfully arrested while on honeymoon with his bride. As an egotistical man who thinks he is above everyone else, Mr. Chiu is arrogant and never takes ownership for his actions. This machoism subjects Mr. Chui to maltreatment from the police that ironically transforms the once seemingly innocent Mr. Chiu to a man consumed by vengeance. Ha Jin’s proficient use of ironic tone and conflict told through the omniscient view of his main character reinforces the story’s main theme: life experiences shape our character and have the power to transform us into a person we despise.

The theme of “survival” could be related to any book. In the book, The Red-Scarf Girl: A Memoir Of The Cultural Revolution, Ji-li had to overcome all the challenges such getting called a black whelp, getting humiliated and other things that some people can’t bear that pain. The theme of “survival” does relate to this book because Ji-li had to bear public humiliation and other things in order to survive. Furthermore, the theme of “survival” relates to this book, The Red-Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution.

When T. R. Reid became chief of The Washington Post's Tokyo bureau, he and his family moved to Japan for an extended stay. Moving from the wide-open spaces of Coloroda to the noise, rush and crush of Tokyo. As Reid and his family were opting for total immersion in Japanese culture, they decided to live in a Tokyo neighborhood and send their children to public schools within Toyko. The book “Confucius Lives Next Door” is T.R Reid's account of their experience as an American family living in a country with the population of roughly 28,000,000 people. The book is also an analysis of East Asia's postwar economic miracle and what Reid sees as it’s even more important "social miracle," the creation of ordered, civil societies marked by "the safest streets, the strongest families, and the best schools in the world," where lost wallets are returned to their owners with cash intact, baggage can be left unattended in the busiest train station, and no one locks their cars or bicycles. Reid also documented his way of looking into the Asian century by looking at the crime, the drug use, family, children and the education within the

The novel, Red Scarf Girl, shows a coming of age experience in the main character, Ji-Li Jiang also wrote a memoir about this experience. She goes through hard times in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was started by Mao Zedong (also known as Chairman Mao) in an effort to spread communism throughout China in the mid-twentieth century. Many people supported this, as Mao used propaganda to make people believe that the Cultural Revolution was very beneficial. Ji-Li’s family was rich, which was not supported during the time of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution caused Ji-Li to have a coming of age experience as she went through the experiences. Her point of view is almost opposite from before the Cultural Revolution compared to after.

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.” Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo. Courage is not just any noun. Courage is a noun that frightens many. Some poses this noun, and many do not. Do you have the ability to do something that frightens one?

During the Cultural Revolution the Rae and her generation experienced something new that both their lives and China as a whole. During the end of the Great Leap Forward the president of China Liu Shaoqi urged Mao and some of the other communist leaders to end the Great Leap Forward as it had caused millions of Chinese to die of starvation. Mao felt that it was a betrayal by Liu and other communist leaders and felt that they were against the communist ideals. Mao felt that his power was threatened and he decide to find a way to get rid of Liu among others. He looked at the youth and saw their potential as revolutionaries. Mao gave students, like Rae, the power to do what they thought was right for communism. To clarify that the youth listened

In Shanghai, ten years after the end of Japanese occupation and six years into the brutal reign of Mao Zedong, Sheng Zongliang was born. His mother, a trained pianist, began passing on her craft to her young son as early as age four. By the time he was a teenager, however, Chairman Mao had begun the Great Cultural Revolution to purge China of its ancient heritage and political dissent. As a part of the Revolution, government officials came to households across the land, destroying objects and arresting people deemed to be ‘obsolete’. One of these obsolete objects destroyed was the piano on which Sheng received lessons from his mother. The young pianist was then sent to Qinghai, a remote province bordering Tibet, to perform in the provincial

China’s history has been very bipolar when referring to intellectuals. When using the adjective bipolar, I refer to the treatment of academics. Highlighting the times after the war years (1937-1945) intellectuals in China were highly criticized if the leaned the other way or were contrary to the current system. The criticisms of the system of this time reached a focal point in 1956 with Mao’s Hundred Flowers speech, which actually invited criticism of the party. Though, immediately after the speech Mao quickly changed stances as the criticisms created a negative image, were unpleasant, and numerous (Modern China PDF). This embarrassing and rather quick failure of an initiative resulted in a far greater plan presented by the communist party

China has always had a reputation for having a rigorous education system, as it is characterized by heavy emphasis on rote memorization of texts and the ignorance of critical disposition and rational reasoning. In ancient China, the Civil Service Examination served as a system for the most talented scholars to obtain an official position in the palace. Education has been perfected throughout the years and when Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, rose to power, he altered policies and standard ideologies. The Cultural Revolution, which was mobilized by Mao to reassert his authority and eradicate reactionaries, affected several facets of