Helen Praeger Young: The Values Of Communist China

Experiencing the torment of a label is difficult, especially if it is given to your whole family. In the memoir Red Scarf Girl, set in the time of the Cultural Revolution, being within the upper middle class was frowned upon and proletarians were seen as the leaders of society. The label of black class status tainted the bourgeoisie, including the Jiang family, with torture, ridicule, and incrimination by others influenced by the governmentally coercive ways of Communism.

In response to Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, all texts focus on young women as they attempt to maneuver throughout the changing state. Mao’s attempted to preserve communist ideals after the failure of the Great Leap Forward by targeting the female youth. Red Azalea, Anchee Min endures tough labour on the farm while conforming to the Communist ideals of the female gender. Similarly, Rae Yang’s Spider Eaters focuses on the personal changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. However, Wang Zheng’s Call me ‘Qingnian’ but not ‘funü’ was not written during the historical period. Instead, she writes of her propaganda filled childhood from a disillusioned state. I think Wang Zheng’s would pay attention to the usage of women’s bodies in the Red

“Her actions remind me that, even under unbearable circumstances, one can still believe in justice,” in David Henry Hwang’s foreword, in Ji-Li Jiang’s memoir Red Scarf Girl, commemorated even during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution anyone can overcome adversity (9). Ji-Li Jiang was a young teenager at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, and living through a very political time in China’s history made Ji-Li into the person she is today. Ji-Li’s intelligence, her choices, and family devotion made her into the headstrong and successful person she is today.

The Chinese communist party gained much power after going after and attacking the Kuomintang and its anti communist policies into Taiwan. With the growth of the communist party’s power, the peasant and lower class experienced major influence that would change the course of their lives forever. Chinese peasants and the Chinese communist party between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had a relationship in which the party fostered and cared the state of the people. This created a sense of nationalism and pride for the peasants, while they were advocating social equality, and showing anti-Japanese sentiment.

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.

Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893, in a peasant family in Shaoshan, central China. He was a Chinese communist Party leader from 1935 until his death in 1976, and he was a chairman of the People 's Republic of China, which he governed from its establishment in 1949 to 1959. Mao Zedong occupied a critical place in the story of the country’s resurgence. His motivations were to make China classless country and to promote the Cultural Revolution, he also wanted to make China great, modernized and strong country. Mao Zedong was a great leader because he changed China in a much better country by transforming it into a modern nation, strengthening the economy, and achieved gender equality.

Dave Berry once said, “There 's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you 've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent..” By the outside, someone may look like they fit in, while the adversities one deals with internally are hidden on the inside. The struggles one goes through needs to really be brought up to attention and the attempt to understand what one goes through day to day must happen. In From Silence to Words Writing as a Struggle, Min-Zhan Lu explains the struggles experienced growing up in China and the influences of

While the role and treatment of women in China and Persia were alike in that they were inferior to the men because of the patriarchal societies at the time. They differed in that woman in Persia had a greater role in government while women in China were overshadowed by the men in all aspects of society due to Confucius beliefs and filial piety.

Confucius only taught around 3,000 students during his lifetime in the Zhou Dynasty, but his ideas and values became integrated with the Chinese culture of the past and the present (Ames). He created a syllabus for mastering the “six arts” and inspired those who followed his principles to become effective citizens. Although no one knows much about his life, he greatly influence the way China grew into what it is today.

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

Satire is used in literature to criticize and point out society’s flaws. The criticism is usually masked in humour. Irony is commonly used in satires to expose flaws, an effective example is John Smith’s A Modest Proposal, he effectively uses irony, to communicate his argument about the poverty in Ireland at the time. Similarly, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale she criticizes the society that women live in. Atwood uses allusions to the Old Testament, Cultural Revolution, Salem Witch Trials, and the Taliban to satirize the oppression of women in political, religious and social aspects.

Chinese peasants and the Chinese Communist Party between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had had more close relationships. The major relationships that are shown in the documents is that relationship of peasant and Communist party supports to spark the nationalism in the peasants, creates an anti-Japanese sentiments, and to promote a sense of social equality. Documents 1,2, and 3, demonstrate that peasants had raised the national pride due to Chinese communist party. Documents 4 and 5 show how the Communist Party fosters the sense of anti- Japanese sentiments. Documents 6,7,8, and 9 illustrates the the sense of social equality through the Communist Party associating with the peasants. If there was a document, such as peasants’ diary about explain

The scene when the mother is plunged into a dilemma between life and death for her children hit people’s most vulnerable emotional nerve, no matter what kind of persons they are. To the mother, she loses husband during the sudden earthquake and the twins’ lives are endangered but only one can be saved by the rescue team. In the moment of desperation, she reluctantly chooses her son instead of the daughter. On the one hand, audiences may feel sorry for the result. For parents from anywhere in the world, they would be collapsed about the same situation. On the other hand, it leaves a kind of profound thinking about the typical ordinary Chinese ideology and how great is the impact of such a decision on people’s

Have you read or heard of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It’s a difficult period in Chinese history, and was a massive upheaval launched by Chinese leader Mao Zedong to renew the spirit of revolution in China. The book “The Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Chinese Revolution” in which the author is Ji-li Jiang, talks about this major event in Chinese history and tells the story of one girl's struggle to keep her family together during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Ji-li changed many times in different sections of the book. One of the main events that changed her the most was during class when one of her classmates revealed her class status because she first felt that she should have never existed and that she had never had a grandfather

The Great Leap Forward took place during 1958 and 1960 (C). Mao introduced the Great Leap Forward as a means to catch up to the West’s development through agricultural and industrial development. The key factors of this movement were Propaganda, the introduction of communes and hard labour. While this was claimed to be in the interests of the Chinese population, the manner in which Mao lead this campaign, in addition to its devastating consequences, cannot prove these claims true (A). Mao’s goals for China were impossible to achieve as he believed the country could make a century’s worth of achievements in as little as a few decades (B). Although Mao claimed that these achievements were to be accomplished in the interests of the Chinese population, it is clear that the damage caused by the Great Leap Forward was too extreme to reflect a policy which was in the interests of the people.