Red Azalea

Anchee Min remembers with clarity and poignancy growing up during China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). She experienced abject poverty, brutal physical hardship, first love, and loss, all during this extraordinary and terrifying period of China’s history.

A Pretty powerful and amazing book. ( )

Born in 1957, this memoir is the story of Anchee Min growing up during China's Cultural Revolution. From work on a collective farm to work in Chinese theatre. Gripping. Erotic element: she does go on a bit.Read in June 2012. ( )

This is Anchee Min’s memoir of her struggle to survive in China under the power of Mao Tse Tung’s communist government. But it is also a story of the pain and anguish that all of China endured during those dark terrifying years... years when the communist party controlled every aspect of everyone’s life including where they lived, how they lived, and if they lived.

Anchee Min was born in 1957, but never experienced childhood. From the age of 5 she was tending to her younger siblings while her parents worked. In elementary school she was a leader of the “Little Red Guards” and a Mao activist. Anchee accepted this responsibility without question, trying to bring honor to her family and increase the family’s chances of survival. Party loyalty and party connections were everything, and many times meant the difference between life and death.

A common school song students were forced to sing was “I’ll go where Chairman Mao’s finger points”. Anchee had no clue that upon graduation Mao’s finger would be pointing for her to attend military camp where she lived in a primitive barracks on a remote, isolated, barren, mosquito laden country farm working in the rice fields.

And then a life changing event occurred. Mao’s wife, Jiang Ching, launched a program to indoctrinate the public and to pacify the masses; propaganda through opera. Communist scouts traveled the country looking for hidden talent. Like every other young woman in China, Anchee hungered to get the starring role in the most acclaimed opera, Red Azalea. But even this golden opportunity could not bring solace. Anchee and her loved ones continued to suffer pain and hardship at the hands of the tyrants.

Anchee explains in the preface of "Red Azalea", that the government and Chinese historians call the Cultural Revolution “Mao’s tiny flaw” deeming it not worthy of mentioning. She says, “I despise the Communist government’s attitude to the past. I consider the regime’s new slogan ‘lets forget about the Cultural Revolution’ as an act of betrayal against humanity.” She humbly states, “I haven’t taken the publication of Red Azalea for granted, I know that millions of my people did not live to tell their stories”.

On October 1st, 2011 China’s National Day celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic of China, I was in China. I watched the multitudes make the pilgrimage to Tiananmen Square to honor Mao by visiting his tomb, a waiting line as far as the eye could see. Our Chinese Communist interpreter and guide proudly assured us that Mao has been forgiven for his atrocities because his intentions were good. Everything he did was for the good of the people. But back in my hotel room, later that evening, after a long day of sightseeing, I was curled up on the sofa reading Red Azalea. The Chicago Sun Times describes the book as “scorching - powerful - a remarkable story”, and indeed it is. ( )

In the West we have a vague idea of the violent mayhem of the Cultural Revolution in China (1964-1976). Millions likely died, directly or indirectly because of the policies of Mao and the politburo. Any dream, ambition or desire that could be characterized as reactionary was mercilessly crushed by party cadres. Even sex was generally regarded as "anti-revolutionary."

Anchee Min somehow survived this upheaval and its aftershocks, first in an agrarian labor camp and later as a film star in Jiang Chang's (Mao's second wife) opera school. While life at the school was certainly less physically punishing, both places were filled with rivals and spies ready to turn the slightest indiscretion into a harsh, penalizing offense. An atmosphere of rampant paranoia and utter, stifling banality permeated the labor camp and the school, and undoubtedly China entirely.

Anchee Min managed to cultivate a scrap of sensuality and sexual appetite while suffering; first with a woman at the labor camp, and later with an effeminate male director at the opera. What is also astounding is that Anchee escaped China in 1982, immigrating to the U.S. I'd love to read about what happened in the two-year span when she made the decision to leave China and landed here.

This is where the book ends abruptly, but somehow it feels right. Her prose moves along in short, matter of fact, desperate sentences that evoke the wrenching unpredictability of circumstances. Your life is not yours to decide what to with; this is a world rife with people who will do this for you, One minute you could be swinging a pick 14 hours a day in a rice swamp. The next you could be the star of the opera. Tomorrow you could be sent back to the labor camp or scrubbing toilets at the theater (if you're lucky). Imprisonment or possibly even execution awaits you if you're caught having sex.

Anchee Min is a hero not just because she survived and escaped this terrible period, but because she risked everything by not subsuming her natural sexuality and sensuality. This book is a paean to that idea, that no political or social system can crush this craving that possibly keeps us alive. ( )

Received this morning, managed to get to it before the dog savaged it! I have read 2 others of her books, so am looking forward to this more personal account.
Very different from her other books, I was really caught up in it. She survived a very difficult time in modern China's history, and I don't use the word survived lightly. Denouncements, working in the country, in the film industry, all the while trying not to fall foul of the often conflicting policies of the day.
Thanks for letting me take part. ( )