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What Is Mao's Last Dancer Summary

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“The Americans' happy smiles also made us nervous. This is not what it is supposed to be like. Something is wrong here. They are our enemies. Behind those smiling faces will be a hidden agenda. I'll find out what it is soon, I said to myself.” Mao’s Last Dancer was written by Li Cunxin, in 2003, and is an inspiring, motivational novel. The book displays the tough life Li lead in his small town home of Qingdao, China. Li was born into a large family consisting of nine people including himself. He was the second youngest of seven sons. His Niang (mother) was a stay-at-home mum who took care for her boys and the housework while Li’s Dia (father) worked two jobs all day every day and travelled to and from on a rickety, old bike. When he is chosen to study ballet at Beijing Dance Academy, Li goes on a journey that shows him there is more than China, more than Chairman Mao and more than the communistic empire he was brought up in. Li Cunxin successfully explores the social moral and ethical issues of poverty and his life in communist China through the narrative …show more content…

In Chairman Mao’s China, if you were poor, there was a minimal chance that you would go to school, go to university or get a well-paying job to support your family. Qingdao was an extremely poor part of China which meant not very many were not able to school, and even if they did, they were taught right from the start, that Chairman Mao was everything and everyone loves Chairman Mao and they should aspire to be part of his Red Army to support Chairman Army. “He is our saviour, our sun, our moon. Without him, we’d still be in a dark world of suffering.” Children learnt only about Chinese politics and if they asked about America they would’ve been punished severely. A Communistic country was all they

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