Product Description

This is a first-hand account of China's cultural revolution. Nien Cheng, an anglophile and fluent English-speaker who worked for Shell in Shanghai under Mao, was put under house arrest by Red Guards in 1966 and subsequently jailed. All attempts to make her confess to the charges of being a British spy failed; all efforts to indoctrinate her were met by a steadfast and fearless refusal to accept the terms offered by her interrogators. When she was released from prison she was told that her daughter had committed suicide. In fact Meiping had been beaten to death by Maoist revolutionaries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14840 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Customer Reviews

A remarkable book, written by a remarkable women
Never have I finished reading a book with tears in my eyes. Even though I have read quite a few of the flurry of autobiographies set in "20th century China. This one is set apart. Written by a remarkable, intelligent women whose spirit and insight into humanity will stay with me for ever. I have never thought or looked for personal inspiration from one person, after reading this book one cannot help but be inspired.
Set apart from other biographies of the same ilk, in that this is one persons story,(not family) articulating a remarkable understanding of such a complex countries politics all while suffering the inhumanity of (wronged) imprisonment. Never have I read a book and wanted to know more about the author. Just to know if she found peace of mind (or some semblance of it)

What an eye-opener!
When this book was chosen as our latest book club text, initially I felt really unsure about it. I'm not a big reader of biographies, and somehow the cover made it look dry and uninteresting, so I placed it on the pile of books 'to be read - sometime' and overlooked it. What a huge mistake I nearly made! Without a doubt, this is a MUST READ type of book.

When I eventually opened it this Half term, I found myself totally engrossed - enthralled by the horrors and longing for some evidence of justice within its pages. Although I already knew something of the horrors of the Cultural revolution from previous reading and from my own, recent visit to China - where we had been lucky enough to have had a local guide who was a Social Historian and who wasn't afraid to tell us about his life; this was still something of an eye-opener, focussing as it does on the experience of one, normal, upper middle-class person.

As I read on, I found myself asking...
... how could one man have such a cult following that it took over such a huge nation so totally - particularly so soon after the rest of the world was still reeling at the horrors of the 2nd World War?
... what made them think that he was right? Some of his ideas were so ridiculous, but millions of people jumped at his every word as his "awesome power (spread) like a banket over China, threatening to smother whomsoever he chose." (p.199) And even now, many years after his death, this blanket is still evident.
... how could cultural anihilation to this extent be called a Cultural revolution? And how come so many wonderful treasures survived? How many must have been lost?

But more than anything else, I found myself asking ...

... how could one woman suffer so much pain (both mental and physical) and so much injustice - and yet still survive?
...where did she find her strength?

Our book club discussions have never been so deep or so involved. Every one of us had been caught up by this one woman's story. Her amazing strength of will and courage is an example to us all. I feel priveleged to have read her autobiography. Thank you for sharing your story with us, Nien Cheng.

A cool informative account of what led to China today
Yes, Nien Cheng suffered and was courageous - all the reviewers will tell you that. But this book is distinguished by also being intellectually stimulating. She was a business woman working for a foreign company in China before commercial enterprise was really accepted in China and she was a careful observer of modern Chinese history. She kept sane in prison through a simple method of constant intellectual self challenge. The content of this process alone makes the book a must read. It shows how, under huge pressure, she continually analysed what was going on; constantly reinterpreting history, small behavioral signs, snippets of information; taking advantage of the slight shifts in perspective afforded her. That she shares this process and her conclusions with you in such detail and with cooly argued logic, makes this book a treasure. That, in this tragedy, there is also so much humour in the mental repartee is a bonus.