Life and Death in Shanghai

by Nien Cheng

In August 1966, a group of Red Guards ransacked Nien Cheng’s home. Her background made her an obvious target. Educated at the London School of Economics, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Cheng enjoyed comforts that few Chinese could afford. When she refused to confess that she was an enemy of the state, she was imprisoned and placed in solitary confinement, where she remained for more than six years.

Life and Death in Shanghai is the powerful story of Cheng’s imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. An astounding portrait of one woman’s courage, Life and Death in Shanghai is also a penetrating account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Biography, Asia, Biography Memoir

560 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Nien Cheng is a Chinese American author who recounted her harrowing experiences of the Cultural Revolution in her memoir Life and Death in Shanghai. Cheng became a target of attack by Red Guards due to her management of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at Communist Party moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949. Her book documents her amazing courage and fortitude that enabled her to survive her imprisonment.

Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Cheng was rehabilitated after the Gang of Four (including Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife) were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill. Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the struggle sessions against the interrogators.

Nien Cheng was a long time friend of Nelson T. Johnson, The U.S. Ambassador to China and his wife Jane Augusta Washington Thornton Beck Johnson.

After moving to Washington D.C. Cheng traveled extensively and was a frequent speaker on the lecture circuit.

Canadian singer Corey Hart recorded an instrumental song based on her in his 1990 album Bang!

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE CHILLING REIGN OF TERROR IN CHINA UNDER THE RED GUARD.

The story of one very resilient and immensely brave Chinese lady's humiliation and fortitude under a long imprisonment starting in 1966 - during which her VERY RIGHT TO EXIST was brought into question.

Nien Cheng habitually kept the razor-edged intelligence and vital acumen of her own cosmopolitan life under a veil of guarded discretion.

But when the aged Mao’s grip on the levers of power became weaker with age, his self-willed wife decided to lead China back to a self-contained island of enforced parochialism.

These things happen. They even happened in North America within very recent memory.

So a violent backward force soon surfaced, in the birth of gangs who ran rampant “making China great again” in their own warped minds. A sheltered parochialism often engenders chthonic attitudes - as witness the Red Guard.

China was now endangered by armies of punks.

Nien Cheng had assumed an affluent lifestyle as a matter of course, as the wife of a globe-trotting oil exec. Under Mao’s watch such an influx of foreign investment had been welcomed.

No more.

Nien Cheng’s, and her highly intelligent daughter’s rare and valuable possessions were plundered, their homes ransacked. They themselves were harshly interrogated and forcibly incarcerated in dingy cells. When no confessions were extracted, the interrogations escalated into violence.

Nien was later to learn her beloved daughter had been murdered by the Guard - defenestrated, in fact. All “Carefully refined and sealed over,” as Jim Morrison sang, to Western ears.

The agony that her mother endured must have been unspeakable.

Nien was later released under the ‘glasnost’ of China’s reopening of its doors in the mid-seventies, and emigrated to America, where she wrote this stunning memoir.

I highly recommend it to all my fellow readers, as a warning that anytime, anywhere -

Life can can take a very quick nosedive -

And go horribly wrong.

Five stars!

[Veeral · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept stalling my review of Life and Death in Shanghai because I was in immense awe of Nien Cheng and doubted whether I could do justice to this extremely important book. I still am in awe of her… and going to be for the rest of my life. This woman transcends everything I have read about human resilience.

If I were to be imprisoned and mentally tortured as Nien Cheng was, I would have punched the first person that would have tried to wrongfully accuse me. But then, I would have been a loser, as that is exactly what the abusers want you to do. They want you to physically assault them in order to shoot you, or if they are feeling less upbeat, they can always beat you to death with fists and kicks.

But damn it, I wouldn’t be able to help it even if I knew the outcome. I am not Winston. Whatever the situation, I am never going to love Big Brother. And neither did Nien Cheng. But she survived while I would definitely die in the first wave of a similar kind of revolution. So, if there is a revolution in India and you don’t hear from me for a long time, it would be safe to assume that I was among the first “enemies” of the state who got what he deserved.

“Enemy of the State”. Yes, this term. This term seems to be one of the favorite terms (if not the favorite) of all the totalitarian states that ever existed in the history of humanity.

And that brings us to the Cultural Revolution of China. In order to sabotage Deng Xiaoping’s effort (because it threatened Mao’s position of being the supreme leader; or so Mao thought) to put China’s economy back on its feet after Mao’s disastrous “The Great Leap Forward”, a special committee of left-wing Maoists was appointed by Mao to conduct the Cultural Revolution. Mao’s wife Jiang Qing (Mme Mao) who later became infamous as the leader of “Gang of Four” (other three gang members were Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Hongwen, and the left-wing writer Yao Wen-yuan), enjoyed extraordinary power and throughout the years of the Cultural Revolution, made use of her position as Mao’s wife to become his spokeswoman, supposedly transmitting Mao’s orders and wishes, but in fact interpreted them to suit her motives. She was a ruthlessly ambitious woman who tolerated no opposition, imaginary or otherwise. Tens of thousands of Party officials, artists, writers, scientists, and common people who fell under the shadow of her suspicion were cruelly persecuted. Scores of them died at the hands of her trusted “Revolutionaries.”

Cultural Revolution was anything but “cultural”. Anything (read everything before Mao came into power) that didn’t praise the Communist Party (read Mao Zedong) was considered “uncultured”. Hence, one of the oldest civilizations of the world voluntarily tried to destroy its heritage during that ten year period.




The Red Guards mainly consisted of kids in their teens (along with adult Party members who had their own ulterior motives) who knew nothing about their national heritage, thanks to the brainwashing done by the Party over the years. They grew up under the watchful eyes of the Party reading fairy-tale praises of Mao Zedong.



The mission of the Red Guards was to rid the country of the “Four Olds”: old culture, old customs, old habits, and old ways of thinking. There was no clear definition of “old”; it was left to the Red Guards to decide.

So, the Red Guards even debated whether to reverse the system of traffic lights, as they thought red should mean “go” and not “stop.” In the meantime, the traffic lights stopped operating. Because you know, Red! The colour of the Party.

Nien Cheng became an obvious target of the Red Guards as she was educated in London, and her deceased husband was an official of Chiang Kai-Shek's regime, the Kuomintang, before the communists took over mainland China. She herself was an employee of Shell Oil in China, and was officially allowed to work there by the Communist Party, to serve China’s interest in the best possible way, which she did. But this important fact didn’t deter the Red Guards and she was asked to confess being a counter-revolutionary of bourgeois background. When she refused to confess that foreign education, working for a multinational company (with Party’s permission) and enjoying the comforts of life brought by such a high level job, made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she remained for six and a half years.

Even if someone was not working for a multi-national company as Cheng did, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be arrested as an enemy of the state, as in each organization, three to five percent of the total employees were to be declared the ‘enemy’ because that was the percentage mentioned by Chairman Mao in one of his speeches. It was ‘The Great Terror’ all over again, in different time and place, but with similar consequences.

Millions of men and women were ordered to give up their jobs in the cities and were settled in rural areas to receive “reeducation” through physical labor. Those intellectuals allowed to remain in the cities were assigned the work of common laborers in their organizations. Medical doctors were “assigned” to emptying bedpans in the hospitals, professors cleaning toilets in the universities, and artists and musicians building walls and repairing roads. They had to attend struggle meetings and political indoctrination classes at which they had to abuse themselves by “confessing” to their “crimes.”









During the Cultural Revolution, many young men in China were sent away from their families to work in remote parts of the country, and allowed short “marital leave” only once a year. Children grew up hardly knowing their fathers, while women faced the dual responsibility of bringing up the children single-handedly and holding demanding jobs. The Party imposed this asinine cruelty in the name of “the needs of socialism” and “serving the people.”

The hypocrisy of the claim was exposed by the fact that Party officials and their children were seldom asked to make such sacrifices. Instead, they received “special consideration” and were given jobs in the same city as their spouses.

During the Cultural Revolution, no one in China was allowed a private telephone. To make a call, one had to go to a public telephone. The attendant took down the number one wanted to call and listened in to every conversation.

The irony of a tight control over its populace for an authoritarian state is often that that it knows much less about what its people really think compared to what a government of a free society knows about its own. In Cheng’s own words:

“Who knows? When the penalty for speaking one’s mind is so great, nobody knows what anybody else thinks,” Li Zhen said. I had to agree with her. In fact, after living in Communist China for so many years, I realized that one of the advantages enjoyed by a democratic government that allows freedom of speech is that the government knows exactly who supports it and who is against it, while a totalitarian government knows nothing of what the people really think.

Even under normal circumstances, the Communist Party of China was far from being an egalitarian society in which everyone enjoyed equal opportunity and status. Instead, children with “bourgeois” family background, such as Cheng’s daughter Meiping, were introduced to a new system of discrimination. For instance, to be admitted into a good middle school, she had to pass the entrance examination with marks of 80 percent, while children of workers and peasants got in with a pass mark of 60 percent. According to the Constitution, women and men enjoyed equal rights, but in practice there was great discrimination against women. While there was no difference in pay or benefits for women (at least in the cities) doing the same work as men, majority of women remained in specialized occupations that traditionally employed women; textile workers, shop assistants, hospital nurses, and schoolteachers. Men always held the more prestigious positions.

Since good intentions at work and in public life often led people into trouble due to the authoritarian government, they intentionally tried to be as less productive and active as possible. The Chinese people had invented a new proverb that said, “The more you do, the more trouble you have; the less you do, the less trouble you have. If you do nothing whatever, you will become a model citizen.”

The Party lent its own hand to escalate such thinking.

Zhang Chunqiao, an associate of Jiang Qing, said, “We would rather have socialism’s lower production figures than capitalism’s higher production figures.” The radicals in the rural areas took up his statement and proclaimed, “We would rather have socialism’s poor harvest than capitalism’s abundance.” Not to be left behind, other radicals declared, “We would rather have socialism’s trains that are behind schedule than capitalism’s trains that are on time.” As a result, the workers became fearful of doing too much, the peasants became reluctant to go into the field, and drivers of trains, buses, and even mules deliberately slowed down so that they could arrive behind schedule. The already strained economy took another tumble.

Mao just didn’t stop at having failed at Economics 101. He hated formal education and literature (clearly he was no Goodreads material), and firmly believed that one could “be a doctor by being a doctor”. That is, you know, if you wanted to be a brain surgeon, you could become a brain surgeon by performing an actual brain surgery (yes, on a real human being) instead of getting a degree first. Although, reading his Red Book was mandatory for all the Chinese.



There were many reports of cases where untrained hospital coolies were said to have performed operations successfully after mastering Mao’s quotations (hahahahahaha…).

Even here, hypocrisy reigned. When Mao himself or one of the other radical leaders needed medical attention from experts other than their own personal doctors, those experts, trained in Western universities before the Communist Party took over China, were bundled into special planes and flown to Beijing, often hastily removed from the countryside where they had been exiled to perform hard labor.

And while according to its ideology, the Communist Party believed in atheism, Mao Zedong and his followers were very fond of talking about the “soul.” In his writing, Mao often referred to the saving of a man’s soul. Even during the Cultural Revolution, “soul” was mentioned frequently.

The Communist government controlled all goods, services, and opportunities and dispensed them to the people in unequal proportions. The term “internal” was used for goods and services available to officials of a certain rank and a few outsiders on whom the government wished to bestow favor. The term “internal internal” was used to describe goods and services reserved for the very senior officials who received a major share.

Coming back to Nien Cheng, she was imprisoned and made to attend several struggle meetings at which she was abused cruelly and asked to confess her crimes. Which she never did. Never. Not even once. The main reason being, there was nothing to confess (but that didn’t stop numerous others from “confessing” even though they were innocent of any wrongdoing). She took her stand resolutely.

When accused of being an enemy of the state because of being educated abroad and owning books by foreign authors, she replied:

“Well, the tomato is a foreign food. It was introduced into China by foreigners. So was the watermelon, brought from Persia over the silk route. As for foreign books, Karl Marx himself was a German. If people didn’t read books by foreigners, there would not have been an international Communist movement. It has never been possible to keep things and ideas locked up within the national boundary of any one country, even in the old days when communication was difficult. Nowadays, it’s even more impossible. I’m pretty sure that by now people all over the world have heard that Chinese high school students are organized as Red Guards.”

When accused of being a sympathizer of the Kuomintang due to her late husband’s past, she said:

“In fact, by remaining in Shanghai and not following the Kuomintang to Taiwan, my late husband demonstrated his goodwill towards the Communist Party. He was an official of the Kuomintang government. Yet he disobeyed their orders. It’s the Kuomintang in Taiwan who should loot our home and put us in prison. They are powerless to do so. You have done it for them. Now who is acting for the Kuomintang?”

She championed every accusation thrown at her, often leaving her interrogators helpless and seething with anger. She was cajoled, threatened and even once physically tortured to confess her crimes against the state. This went on for six and a half years.

After that, the Party relented and let her go free. Yes, a lone woman beat the Party.

But even after being set free, she was spied on round-the-clock by the Party (often obliging her own relatives to spy on her), hence she decided to leave the country once and for all. She acquired their trust and got a visa to visit the USA and never came back. She wrote her autobiography in US after many years and even then she had to stop many times while recounting the horrific events.

With impeccable writing and clear arguments, her book is the best there is on The Cultural Revolution of China.

Finally, if I have to point out at least one good thing that happened due to The Cultural Revolution, it would be... this:

[William2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grand slam of a book. An essential view of The Great Helmsman's wretched Cultural Revolution as told through the life of this woman—a widow and mother—whose long dead husband had had the misfortune to work for the Imperialist Dog, Shell Oil. A harrowing and mind-numbing read. A book that will make you angry. Prepare yourself accordingly. Not for the faint of heart.

[Louis Muñoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been some twenty years since I read this book, a book that has "stayed" with me in a very powerful way. In fact, I would say that "Life and Death in Shanghai" is among my Top Twenty among the hundreds of non-fiction books I have read.

[Kuszma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Először nézzük magát az elbeszélőt. Nien Cheng kvázi kapitalista buborékban élt a kommunista Kínában jó ideig: a Shell multicég alkalmazásában tengette napjait Sanghajban, három cseléddel és olyan lakhatási körülményekkel, amelyek drasztikusan különböztek a mezei kínaiak lehetőségeitől. Na ja, akkoriban még Maónak szüksége volt - legalábbis mutiba' - pár külföldi cégre, mert önerőből nem tudott beszerezni olyan nélkülözhetetlen termékeket, mint például a rovarirtó szerek. Aztán persze ez a hatvanas évek derekára megváltozott – nem mintha ekkorra képes lett volna minőségi vegyipari termékeket előállítani, egyszerűen nem érdekelte, hogy van-e használható rovarirtó, avagy sem. Úgyhogy elzavarta a Shell-t, szegény Nien Cheng úrhölgy pedig ott találta magát a maga burzsoá allűrjeivel a proletárparadicsomban. Puff neki. Viszont ellentétben legtöbb sorstársával, ő nem hagyta el magát, hanem minden lelkierejével és ravaszságával szembeszállt a rezsimmel. Pedig a rezsim aztán ebben az időszakban elég komoly erőfeszítéseket tett, hogy megkeserítse az életét.

Merthogy ez volt az ún. „kulturális forradalom” évtizede. Történt ugyanis, hogy a bölcs Mao, akinek kis piros könyvecskéje a cuki idézetekkel szériatartozéka volt minden kínai állampolgárnak, a "nagy ugrás"* kudarca után kénytelen volt visszavenni az arcából. (Még önkritikát is kellett gyakorolnia saját pártvezetői előtt, bizony!) Ekkoriban vette át a gyeplőt a miniszterelnök, Csou En-laj, aki néhány reformmal stabilizálta azt, amit a főnök elpacsált. Csak hát Mao nem az a karakter volt, aki huzamosabb ideig képes meghúzni magát, és elsősorban feleségére, Csiang Csingre támaszkodva átnyúlt a kommunista párt struktúrája fölött, és közvetlenül elkezdett a néphez szólni, arra buzdítva őket, hogy lázadjanak, forradalmárkodjanak kedvükre, mert a pártba beférkőztek a „kapitalista úton járók”, és csak az istenadta nép tudja őket megfékezni. Ez lett a nevezetes „kulturális forradalom”, amelynek során a csőcselék szanaszét díbolta az országot, miközben a fegyveres testületek óvatosan, távolról figyelték az attrakciót. A helyzetet úgy képzeljük el, hogy amennyiben felhúztál egy vörös karszalagot, akkor nyugodtan berúghattad a szomszéd ház ajtaját, megverhetted és kirabolhattad a tulajt, ő egy szót se szólhatott, mert még imperialista ügynöknek bélyegzik. Aztán ha már kirámoltad haverjaiddal az összes házat a városban, hát felpattantál egy vonatra, és elkezdted ugyanezt egy másik városban művelni – jegyet sem kellett váltanod, hisz a kalauzok hülyék lettek volna kekeckedni veled. Nos, beláthatjuk, ez a szituáció a teljes káosz állapotába zúdította vissza az országot: fegyveres bandák száguldoztak mindenfelé, a termelés, az oktatás, az egészségügy és a tömegközlekedés gyakorlatilag megszűnt, az értelmiségieket és egyéb gyanús egzisztenciákat megölték vagy vidékre száműzték, és az lett az élet császára, aki a leggátlástalanabbul vetette bele magát a forgatagba, és a legszemérmetlenebbül tudott bármilyen bűncselekményt egy Mao-idézettel legitimálni.

Ennek a katyvasznak esett áldozatul Nien Cheng is, akinek először szétkapták az otthonát, aztán jól börtönbe is csukták, merthogy imperialista kém. (Ami ebben a kontextusban azt jelenti, hogy látott már elő fehér embert, és ráadásul szebb ruhája van, mint nekünk.) Folyamatosan vegzálták, tegyen vallomást, de Nien Cheng tökösebb ennél – szent meggyőződése volt, hogy ha egyszer vallomást tesz, akkor utána már nincs visszaút, elveszíti esélyét a rehabilitációra. Ártatlannak vallotta hát magát, kerül, amibe kerül. A börtönidőszak leírásának legerősebb jelenetei ezek: a kihallgatók gyakran szürreális igyekezete, hogy kimondassák vele: „Bűnös vagyok!”, bevetve mindent, marxista érveket, nyilvános megszégyenítést, kínzást, ám a hölgyben emberükre találnak. Nien Cheng minden neki szegezett Mao-idézetre Mao-idézettel felel, okosan, taktikusan, kitartóan áll ellent az offenzívának, sőt, gyakran erőt merít a kihallgatásokból, melyek felpezsdítik a magánzárkában eltöltött unalmas órák után. Közben pedig bízik benne, hogy a külvilág pártharcai egyszer végre a javára dőlnek el, és árgus szemmel figyeli a börtönbe beszűrődő politikai híreket, amelyekből a sorok között olvasva néha kihüvelyezhetőek a változások.

A türelem pedig ebben az esetben is rózsát terem, a forradalmi éveket ugyanis valóban felváltja a konszolidáció vágya. Csiang Csing és a „négyek bandája” lassan visszaszorul, és újra előtérbe kerül Csou En-laj a maga reformer-mentalitásával. Nien Cheng hat és fél év után újra beleszippanthat a friss levegőbe – ami persze nem annyira friss, mint amilyen az Alpok ormain lenne, de azért a cellához képest mégiscsak felüdülés. Ezzel pedig kezdetét veszi a kötet második etapja, amelyben a főhős immár szabad emberként feszül szembe a diktatúrával, küzd egyfelől a rehabilitációért, no meg azért, hogy megtalálja azokat, akik felelősek lánya haláláért. Míg a börtönfejezetek egy zárt térben játszódtak, a magányos egyén lelkierejére helyezve a hangsúlyt, addig itt értelemszerűen szélesebb freskót kapunk a korabeli Kínáról, és ez – ha lehet – még tanulságosabb. Ez a Kína ugyanis a folyamatos politikai belháború színtere: hol Csou En-laj gárdája kerül nyerő helyzetbe, és akkor kicsit könnyebb az élet, hol pedig a „négyek bandája” nyer teret, és akkor félni kell**. Ez az ingamozgás, ez a kiszámíthatatlanság természetesen nem tesz jót a kínai gazdaságnak sem, következésképpen a polcok jobbára üresek, a szolgáltatások pedig csapnivalóak. De semmi gond, mert itt van a „kiskapuk” rendszere, ami a kádárista Magyarországról is ismerős lehet. Ami azt jelenti, hogy ha fáj a fogad, akkor nem csak úgy besétálsz a fogorvoshoz, mert akkor sose kerülsz sorra, hanem keresel valakit, akinek ismerőse a fogorvos, teszel neki valami szívességet, és akkor ő cserébe soron kívül bevisz téged hozzá. Ha meg vízvezeték-szerelőre van szükséged, akkor keresel egyet, adsz neki pár karton külföldi cigit, és ő munkaidőn kívül rendesen megcsinálja a melót. Mert munkaidőn belül csak nem rendesen szokta. És ennek a sajátos működésnek a leírásában Nien Chang egyszerűen verhetetlen.

A memoárirodalom egyik jelentős produktuma ez a könyv. Főleg azért, mert írója nem pusztán passzív elszenvedője a diktatúrának, hanem cselekvő személy, aki nem csak arra képes, hogy szépen haljon meg, hanem még (korlátozott) sikereket is elér. Ez, akárhonnan is nézzük, nagyon felemelő. Másfelől pedig Nien Cheng nem elégszik meg annyival, hogy vádiratot szerkeszt Mao ellen, hanem igyekszik megértetni velünk a hatalmas Kína bonyolult belső folyamatait is, és az állampolgárok túlélési stratégiáit, akik a „hajlik a széllel, hogy túlélje a vihart” közmondás szellemében zokszó nélkül csinálták mindig azt, amit mondtak nekik. Nien Cheng nem is kárhoztatja őket ezért – de hogy ő jobb és erősebb ember volt legtöbbüknél, az számomra vitán felül áll.

* https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagy_ug...
** A kötélhúzás közöttük egészen addig zajlik, amíg Mao végre kegyeskedik feldobni a tappancsot. Ekkor lesz elég ereje Teng Hsziao-pingnek (Csou En-laj utódjának – a miniszterelnök ugyanis rákban korábban elhunyt), hogy leszámoljon Mao özvegyével.

[Negin · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the Cultural Revolution in China, the author – an educated, upper-class woman, at the age of fifty, had to undergo six and a half years of solitary confinement. I really admire her and think that she was an incredible woman, particularly given all that she had to go through. Her perseverance, patience, and fortitude were amazing. Plus, she was smart as a tack and I loved her zest for living.



As far as the book goes, it was fascinating and certainly eye-opening, but after a certain point, it started to get repetitive and I was ready to lose my mind. I realize that her experience in the prison with the endless interrogations was repetitive and she was writing her story. It was just burdensome on me as the reader.

China is not exactly a walk in the park when it comes to human rights. No country with a totalitarian regime is. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: in today’s world where every time someone doesn’t like a certain politician or someone disagreeing with them, they’re immediately called Hitler or a Nazi; I say, “Hey, why stop there? Why limit yourself to Hitler? Let’s carry it further!” Most people don’t realize that communist governments slaughtered an estimated 120 million people in the 20th century. They outdid Hitler 20-1! Let us stop throwing these labels around and cheapening them. In Communist China, 70 million were killed. Communism should be hated and feared far more than Nazism. How blessed I am, and how grateful we all should be, to live where we have democracy, human rights, and freedom.

I learned so much from this book, but again, I got bogged down with the writing style, repetition, and length of this book. I would give this 3.5 stars, but I’m feeling generous, so I’ll go with four.

Oh, and one final point to consider for Amazon – do not put spoilers in the Kindle book description! That was absolute idiocy on their part.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“It's always best to look ahead and not backwards. Possessions are not important. Think of those beautiful porcelain pieces I had. Before they came to me, they had all passed through the hands of many people, surviving wars and natural disasters. I got them only because someone else lost them. While I had them, I enjoyed them; now some other people will enjoy them. Life itself is transitory. Possessions are not important.”

“One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party’s demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effect on human relationships. Husbands and wives became guarded with each other, and parents were alienated from their children. The practice inhibited all forms of human contact, so that people no longer wanted to have friends. It also encouraged secretiveness and hypocrisy. To protect himself, a man had to keep his thoughts to himself. When he was compelled to speak, often lying was the only way to protect himself and his family.”

“In fact, after living in Communist China for so many years, I realized that one of the advantages enjoyed by a democratic government that allows freedom of speech is that the government knows exactly who supports it and who is against it, while a totalitarian government knows nothing of what the people really think.”

A landlord is put through a struggle session during the Great Leap Forward, a practice popular during the later Cultural Revolution, Guangdong, circa 1953.


Chinese Red Guards, 1966


Red Guards hold up their copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book in Beijing, 1966

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one that I would definitely recommend to all readers. It is eloquently written and very engaging. It chronicles the imprisonment of a Western-educated business woman living in China during the Cultural Revolution.

It is a very intimate look at Mao Tse-Tung and how his philosophies affected the Chinese people--and not for the better. Mrs. Cheng is a wonderful narrator and writes a very excellent true story.

Recommended to all who like an intense story of human survival, and all those who are also interested in the culture and history of China.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true life personal account of the experiences suffered by Nieng Cheng, during the horrors of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China in the 1960s.
It gives us some scope on the total madness and cruel destruction of the Maoist regime which was responsible in 27 years for the death of over 50 million people and the destruction of countless lives.

The type of speech railing against "reactionaries", "counter-revolutionaries" and "running dogs of imperialism" is chillingly close to the rhetoric still used today left wing regimes today, and on left wing university campuses around the world.


Nien Cheng was a cultured and educated lady who had worked in Shell's international offices in shanghai after the death of her husband from cancer in 1957.
In 1966 the Maoist Red Guards who held China in their grip of terror, swept into her house and destroyed all she had, before she was thrown into a Chinese prison, tortured and beaten and starved for six and a half years, by the Maoist authorities who tried to force her to confess to being 'an imperialist spy'.
She refused to relent and maintained her innocence until her release in 1973, and her rehabilitation in 1976.
When she was released from prison she discovered that her daughter had been beaten to death by Revolutionary Guards.
Ultimately her struggle to survive allowed her to alert the world to the horrors of Communist China, through this true life classic, "Life and Death in Shanghai", a must for anybody who is interested in human rights or in the indestructibility of the human spirit.
Millions of innocent people were forced into "cowsheds"- gulags where they would be dehumanized and often die, by the hands of the Chinese Communists.
Note both the destruction of human life and of China's ancient culture, where all that was good and beautiful was destroyed in a campaign to correct the "four olds"- old culture, old customs, old habits and old ways of thinking.
Today despite the economic liberalization that has taken place, Red China still remains one of the greatest tyrannies on earth, with no sign of political liberalization, and in which thousands of political and religious dissidents still languish and die in laogai prisons, where today there organs are harvested in a sick and evil industry directed by the Chinese Communist Party.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. So well written. The author spent over 6 years in prison during the cultural revolution, during that time her daughter was murdered, after release she was harassed and spied upon. Eventually she left China, but had to leave all her possessions, money, etc. behind. Somehow you never feel depressed while reading about all these terrible things. The backbone of this woman is amazing, her poise in these situations that would destroy most people. And never a boring page.

[Dmitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of a lady who was upper class bred; she didn't have a problem trying to keep her family fed. At least until she wound up on the wrong end of the Cultural Revolution that is. To be rich was definitely not glorious then. You could end up in prison, which is in fact what happened.

Cheng was a decent person, well-educated in Britain and a Christian by faith. This, and her successful employment by Shell Petroleum, all but guaranteed a visit from the Red Guards. The only question is why it took them so long to come. Once they knocked on her door things spiraled quickly downward.

She may have been lulled by a life of ease, but by 1962 a less tolerant breeze was blowing in old Shanghai. Rather than grovel before the green-garbed god of Maoism, she spoke the truth to power and consequently paid the price. During imprisonment, her home was confiscated and her daughter beaten to death.

Nien Cheng is no literary luminary, nor would she expected to be. This is the personal memoir of a private business person. At times the book has the stilted cadence of a daytime television drama: "When I said this, then they said that". This detracts from her delivery but not from her message.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, eye-opening book that details what life was like in China during the Cultural Revolution.

[Michael Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

The last paragraph of Nien Cheng’s memoir, “Life and Death in Shanghai“, could not be a more fitting scene to end her tragic story in China:

“Many times in my life I had sailed from Shanghai to go abroad, standing just as I did now on the deck of a ship, with the wind whipping my hair while I watched the coastline of China receding. Never had I felt so sad as I did at that moment. It was I who had brought Meiping back from Hong Kong in April 1949, in response to my husband’s request. The shocking tragedy of her death, I believed, was a direct consequence of our fatal decision to stay in our own country at that crucial moment of history. Therefore I felt guilty for being the one who was alive. I wished it were Meiping standing on the deck of this ship, going away to make a new life for herself. After all, it was the law of nature that the old should die first and the young should live on, not the other way around. Also I felt sad because I was leaving forever the country of my birth. It was a break so final that it was shattering. God knows how hard I tried to remain true to my country. But I failed utterly through no fault of my own.”

Well, quite a literally sad and rhetorically unfinished ending of a memoir. Yet the great irony is that the whole memoir about a resourceful, resilient and determined woman fighting for her innocence and survival during the 6.5 years’ imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution ended her China story with fatalism, total surrender, desperation and ultra helplessness. That is all what she was left with when she quit her native land for good. Nothing is left as meaningful in the homeland for a woman when she learned after being released from the prison that she lost her only child (Meiping), a young actress in Shanghai Film Studio who just “grew from a lanky teenage into a young beautiful woman” at the time when the Cultural Revolution enveloped China. Would she have any courage or reason to endure the suffering and fight for survival had she known in prison that her daughter had already been murdered?

This is a woman that received a good education in the West and strived to maintain a decent and respectful life in the communist China. But the tumultuous political upheavals in the 1960s’ and 1970s’ China destroyed her tranquil life and tore it apart. The memoir keeps a subdued tone as the author recounts her tragedies in China and writes in a limpid style in perfect English–the language she learned so well half a century ago that she would be able to show through her writing no hatred or resentment but sorrow and desperation. This is almost like the mini version of Solzhenitsyn’s ”The Gulag Archipelago” with a more personified rapport. And no less tragic.

This “once read and never forgotten” memoir is a depressive read, but what’s more terrible is that, after such a horrific, tragic and devastating life experience in China, the author never gets a satisfactory answer to the question raised by herself in the book: why did the power struggle at the top of the government masterminded by Mao Zedong inflict so much pain and tragedy on ordinary people? Nobody dares or bothers to look into the question even to this day. The tragedy goes beyond the personal scope. The evil is just too great to be touched by moral conscience. Nien Cheng tells an ordinary Chinese woman’s tragedy blow by blow, but the story has its end. When it is finished, it is just evanescent and lost in ever evolving human history–notwithstanding a great memoir with thorough narrations and of great literary value.

This is not just a book about a failed life among millions during the Cultural Revolution in China. It is about the failure of humanity that we cannot feel too great about. Yet, the remarkable woman, with her typical candidness, offers her sharp and incisive observations of the communist China in the epilogue of her memoir which was written in January 1987 but looks as fresh as written in these days. The final words of the epilogue are a great political assessment of China not only of her time but also of China nowadays.

Constant change is an integral part of the Communist philosophy. The Chinese Communist Party leaders expect the people to rush headlong into whatever experiment they wish to carry out, whether liberalization or collectivization. For the whole thirty-eight years of Communist rule, the Party’s policy swung like a pendulum from left to right and back again without cease. Unless there is a change in the political system, China’s road to the future will always be full of twists and turns. There will be uncertainty and sacrifices. And there will be factional struggles for power. But Communist China today is different in one important aspect. She is no longer isolated and ostracized from civilized international society. World opinion and the China policy of major powers that are the source of foreign investment and trade, such as the United States, can and do influence the course of events in China. The abrupt crumbling of the anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign in 1984 and the restraint displayed by the police towards the recent student demonstrators are instances proving that the Party leaders are conscious of China’s image in the eyes of the world and are anxious to project a good one. Those wishing for stability and moderation in China may have their voices heard.”

It is simply more remarkable for a Chinese woman to offer such insightful reading on China’s politics for us to peruse–even after more than 20 years.


-From

[Kid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a thrift store find. . .if you peruse my list of books (not likely) you might notice a number of stuck-in-prison-for-some-reason memoirs. I'm drawn to the brutality. What's amazing about this book is its umm "insider's" view of the Cultural Revolution. Nein Cheng was a "capitalist roader" - i.e. someone who associated with capitalists or sympathized with capitalism or had any appreciation for aesthetics that might be supported or cultivated in the west. Well - we all have a bit of class hatred in us. . .the Cultural Revolution seemed to unleash the worst extremes of this sentiment. It basically destroyed China for a number of years.

Ms. Cheng describes the absolute abject intellectual poverty (and just plain old poverty) that came hand in hand with the revolt against the remaining strains of capitalism and the rampant cynicism and corruption that accompanied day to day existence. But this is the end of the book - after she was released from prison.

Nien Cheng spent 7 brutal years in a re-education style prison denying any involvement with any crime - even though her interrogators accused her of everything from spying to un-revolutionary thoughts. Ms. Cheng describes her ordeal clearly and without excessive self-pity. Yes - she is at pains to illustrate the bland totalitarian idiocy of most of her oppressors, but at the same time this is mostly about her refusal to cop to their unreasonable accusations. How did she have such clarity in light of her brutal treatment? So many people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit simply to make the struggle disappear. I don't think I could have lasted like she did.

A blurb on the back of this calls her strength a kind of "martial art" - and I love that description. A women saw me reading this in the elevator and was like, "That's a great book."

Yes - it is. . .there are more poetic ones and perhaps stories with more grace and beauty but "Life and Death in Shanghai" is never pretentious, always self-aware and a testament to an incredible warrior. It's a great read and an amazing story. She just died this year!

[Konnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find myself rating books five stars, not especially for literary merit as much as for the window they are into a world unfamiliar to me. I am in awe at the moral and spiritual strength of Nien Cheng, a former Shell employee who lived, despite torture and imprisonment, through China's cultural revolution. I read this book shortly after reading "Wild Swans: Three Women of China." If you really want to learn about China, I recommend reading them in that order. Wild Swans gave me a wonderful broad introduction to the history of Communism in China, as experienced by one family. Life and Death in Shanghai gave me a closer look at just the period of the cultural revolution, from the perspective of a woman from a different walk of life in a different part of China. Both books are immensely moving. Both make me grateful for freedom to speak, think and act for myself. Both made me wonder at the resilience of the Chinese people, and of the human spirit.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an Incredible book! EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT. I can't recommend it strongly enough. It is a memoir by a Chinese woman about her experience during the Cultural Revolution, when she was taken prisoner (she was in her late 50s at the time) and held in a dark, dank cell in Shanghai for six years while the Communist Party lackeys and Red Guards tried to force from her a confession that she was an enemy of the state and a spy (since she had lived and studied abroad and worked for a foreign company in Shanghai), which she refused despite extreme pressure, some physical abuse, and the dismal state of her imprisonment. It describes the political upheaval and mood of the period very well, as well as the machinations and propaganda of the Party, and the general psychological effects the Cultural Revolution had on the Chinese people. For someone like me who knows embarrassingly little about China, it was very enlightening. An extremely interesting read. Nien Cheng is the epitome of grace under pressure, and her story is incredibly inspiring. Cheng was able to leave China in 1980, about eight years after her release from the detention center, and settled in Washington, D.C. where she wrote this book. I was sad to learn that she passed away at the age of 94 just last November (2009). Apparently she received all readers who wanted to meet her in her D.C. apartment, so I only wished I had read this book in high school, when I lived in D.C. and could possibly have met this remarkable woman.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

a terrifying account of one person's experience with the torments of Mao's Cultural Revolution ... Nien Cheng was a high-ranking manager at Shell Oil in Shanghai, for which she was demeaned, beaten, robbed of everything and sen to prison ... she survived to go to America and tell her story ... I've read less than half of her account and look forward to the rest

[Laureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable autobiography for several reasons: one - Nien Cheng wrote this later in her life - I want to say her 50's or 60's in English, not her native language. Secondly, it is an amazing account of the cultural revolution in China during the 60's, political and cultural events that leave an eerie sense of deja-vu. Thirdly, this woman was wrongfully arrested, and even though she could have been released if she had lied, she told the truth - every time she was interrogated - and was kept in prison for seven years. She tells her own story beautifully and with great honesty.

[Donna Michel-dow · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's reading historical facts (very dry) and there's reading personal accounts from someone who lived through a time in history (ie Nien Cheng, Anne Frank). I don't think I fully appreciated how recent the cultural revolution was (launched in May 1966 - Oct 1976) and how it affected he population then how it continues to affect the Chinese people to this day. Although I have read books about China before, they were usually based on stories from long ago. The people were subjected to rhetoric in speeches and "meetings" they were forced to attend. Country was put before family. Family was encouraged to turn in family and friends lest they be guilty by association. Intellectuals (teachers, professors, students) were suspect to be traitors and sent to be brainwashed or killed. Nien takes us step by step into the processes that she faced during this turbulent time that cost her freedom, way of life, and her daughter. People often say to me that they don't understand the Chinese for giving away their children (they must be unfeeling).....there is no one answer.... it is not just because they are girls or boys with health problems (though those are contributing factors) . For me, this book helped me have a little look into Chinese history that helped formed the problems that they are faced with today. Things are getting better in China now...but the ghosts of the past are still a factor with everyone living there now. Several generations will be suffering as a consequence...... not because Chinese people are unfeeling or alien in their thinking (Nien shows us that she feels/thinks/acts in a way that we can all identify with) ..... but because of a government that took total control. Don't take freedom for granted .... power breeds deception and perversion and fear. This was the Chinese Holocaust and it was during my lifetime.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In August 1966 a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kaishek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts that few of her compatriots could afford. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years. Life and Death in Shanghai is the powerful story of Nien Cheng's imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. It is the story, too, of a country torn apart by the savage fight for power Mao Tse-tung launched in his campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, rare personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, Life and Death in Shanghai is also an astounding portrait of one woman's courage."

This is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I first read it in 1988 or 1989 and it has stuck with me all these years. I am now reading it again and finding it equally as riveting and relevant.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a number of personal narratives from the Cultural Revolution, but most of them have been from authors who were still in school when the turmoil began in 1966. Cheng's account provides the perspective of someone who was middle-aged and who was imprisoned for much of the struggle in a vivid and highly-detailed account.

Her analysis of the political struggles taking place among the top party officials also is much more sophisticated than most of the other narratives out there, again probably because she herself was older, wiser and more politically sophisticated, having already lived through some of the earlier political upheavals and the 1949 Communist Revolution. It also fills in some gaps that exist in narratives written by younger authors. Those narratives speak of life for the then-children whose parents had been denounced for one reason or another. This narrative speaks from the perspective of one who was herself denounced and who worried about the effect it would have on her 24-year-old daughter. This is without a doubt an essential read for anyone interested in China's Cultural Revolution.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whilst I appreciate the hardships and struggles that the author went through I didn't manage to finish this book - the style was just a bit too grating. She seems to possess a picture perfect memory of conversations and justifies herself just a bit too much.

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding testimony to the power of the human will to survive adversity. Insightful documentation of the Cultural Revolution and its effects. I have always been interested in Chinese history, especially modern era. This book sparked my interest further and I continue to collect additional works on the topic. This is perhaps the most inspirational of the ones I have read.

At the time I first read this book, I taught a high school course in Asian Studies and needed personal accounts that might engage the students in the history and culture of China. One of my students, moved by Cheng's courage, invited her to come speak to our class. Ms. Cheng was gracious to oblige. What a good fortune for my students to have had the opportunity to meet her and hear the first-hand accounts of the history.

The Chinese government imprisoned Cheng during the Cultural Revolution because of her ties with Shell Company International. In an effort to revive a fervor for the communist party goals, the government branded those with Western connections as capitalist dogs or enemies of the state. Rooting out the enemies would unite (supposedly) the people under a common goal. Cheng is one of millions of victims of the over-zealous policies of the Cultural Revolution. Families were torn apart, promising careers derailed in the name of revolution, workers and students were forcibly relocated, teachers were vilified, and neighbors turned against neighbors. Schools and community organizations taught children to turn against parents. Opportunists took advantage of the situation to advance their own personal or familial causes. False accusations against a neighbor could improve one's stature in the eyes of those in power. This is just some of the context behind this incredible autobiography. Cheng lost everything as a result of the Revolution. The government took her home taken away, destroyed her possessions (Red Guards dismissed her traditional Chinese art and heirlooms and her Western books as signs of her corruption), imprisoned her based on false allegations of espionage and beat her daughter to death for failing to renounce her mother (something Cheng only learned after her release from prison). During the course of her imprisonment Cheng endured torture, solitary confinement, forced re-education programs, and endless mind-games. She became proficient at playing the mind-games and defeating the illogical reasoning of her captors. One goal of the prison guards and administration was to extract a confession of her wrong-doings. The government used forced confession to educate the wider public about the dangers of non-conformity, the evils of the Western world, and the beneficence of Mao. Cheng did not confess to the false charges brought against her. She was eventually released and moved to the United States.


This is without a doubt my favorite autobiography. It is well-written and inspirational. It is engaging both as a personal account and as a riveting history of a perilous time. Cheng exemplifies grace and dignity under duress. I doubt that I could ever be as strong as she was given the horrific physical and emotional traumas she endured in prison.

The book underscores the value of perseverance and self-preservation. Rather than be defeated by hatred and bitterness, Cheng focused on survival of body and spirit. She kept her mind occupied by inventing mental challenges and reciting poetry. Deprived of all of her freedom, she maintained her individuality and commitment to the truth, most likely what the government had sought to destroy.

Highly recommended

[Deb Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first bought the paperback edition when it was quite new, fresh off the press. I have always been interested in all books pertaining to the Cultural Revolution. After reading it, I thought I would never have the stamina to read it again!
But last June, I was privileged to visit Shanghai for the 2nd time in my life. First time was about 10 years ago. So, after coming home, I saw this on my shelf and chose to read it again. This edition is not the original one I bought. Somebody threw or discarded his/her hardbound copy and my friend managed to pick it up from a collection bin to give to me! Whoo hoo! So, I gave away my original copy and kept this one.
After this second reading, I gained a better understanding of the Chinese youth who were swept into the Cultural Revolution and they must be about my age now. The author was admirably a Godly lady of courage. She never wavered during her many years of incarceration and hardship. And all the details she remembered vividly. It's a pity I never got to acknowledge or write her about how much her book taught me.
Excerpts from the book:
"Party members were the survivors and achievers. They were mindless robots, unburdened by the capacity for independent thinking or a human conscience. They made the best cadres for any Party secretary in any organization, as they were always willing and ready to serve him without question as long as he represented the power of the Party and could give them promotions. But should he fall into disgrace, they were always the first to denounce him. They were the new type of people produced by the Communist Revolution in China. Because they seemed to maintain their positions through every twist and turn of the Party's policy, they became the example for the youth to emulate. The result was a fundamental change in the basic values of Chinese society."

"It seemed China had changed during the years I was in the detention house, and the change was not in the direction the Cultural Revolution was supposed to lead the nation. ........Although the waiting room (of a dental clinic) was packed and a number of patients had no seat, we were taken straight into her cousin's clinic. Other back-door patients were also called in by other dentists. The most astonishing thing was that no one protested."

"For so many years, the official propaganda machinery had denounced humanitarianism as sentimental trash and advocated human relations based entirely on class allegiance. But my personal experience had shown me that most of the Chinese people remained kind, sensitive and compassionate even though the cruel reality of the system under which they had to live compelled therm to lie and pretend."

This is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the current Chinese mindset and values. The author wrote this in English using very clear and concise words that go direct to the point. I would surmise that this book still touches hearts and minds today! Thank you, Nien Cheng, for your legacy!

[Sizhe Liang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nien Cheng and Life and Death in Shanghai

Sizhe Liang

As a man who was born in China, it’s especially important to know the truths of the passed days .Because of the political reasons, many history facts are sensitive to talk about, The Cultural Revolution, undoubtedly included. So today, until 2016, we still have to read the books writing in English to know about our own history . What a joke!

Nien Cheng was born in 1915, Beijing. She had a good family background and was educated in London. In 1966, she became a target of attack by Red Guards as the widow of the former manager of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at Communist Party moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949. Just as we can know from her book, Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Cheng was rehabilitated after the Gang of Four (including Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife) were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill. Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the struggle sessions against the interrogators.

There are many things we can learn from her unfortunate life story. When she was forced to attend criticism meetings, when she had to see her house being occupied by the Red Guards, when she was arrested by the state and when her daughter was forced to death, it pushes you to think what is the institution that we should choose to live in. As Aristotle said, “Men is born as political animals.” ,though Nien Cheng cared little about the political issues and hardly took part in the political campaigns, she inevitably enrolled in it. So for individuals, there is not so many choose. And that is why democracy is better that than despotism. However, although we can’t choose to bear in a country with a good political institution, we still can choose to live in the country we really like if we make an effort.

Never be forced to confess the sin that doesn’t belong to you and give yourself a choose, you can make a difference.


Conference:Wikipedia

March 26, 2016

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book shortly after my first trip to Shanghai in 1992. At the time it resonated with me as I had just seen many of the places she mentions in her book, from the French Consession, to the Park Hotel (which is next door to my Shanghai office). The story, an autobiography of her life during the cultural revolution, tells the sad honest truth of what Mao's revolution did to the cultural and educated. The guise of permenant revolution is nothing more than an excuse to torture and maim, to punish those who have created wealth for themselves.

While I am not an ultimate beliver in Capitalism, this book, which was written in English, not translated from Chinese, pushed any romatic notions of communism created in my mind by writers like Scott Nearing and John Reed.

The book is hard to read, Cheng discusses frankly her time in prision, her daughters "suicide"/execution and life as one who was educated during some of the darkest years in Chinese History.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the late 60s in the US were a time of radical change, but they're nothing compared to how Mao's Red Guards turned China upside down. I live in Shanghai where this memoir took place. Surprisinly, there's very little local history preserved. No walking tours, nothing much in the Shanghai Museum. While reading I wanted to run out and find her former house and the prison where she spent six years. No luck yet finding them.

The author does a great job of blending her personal narrative with enough background history lessons that when you're done reading her story you come away with a much deeper understanding of why and how thousands of Chinese were persected. But for me, I have more questions about Communism than ever before. What Mao preached as class struggle and a new revolution was just the usual dictatorship diatribe. Maybe after reading up on it and comparing the Chinese revolution with the Cuban revolution I'll understand Communism better.

Read this book.

[Carol]

This one is on my list of books that are most memorable. Inspiring example of the resilience of the human spirit.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite memoirs. I read it in the late 80s and still often think about Cheng's experience and strength. It might be time for a re-read.

[Marcus Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful story of determination and mental strength of a 51 year-old woman. A perfect book for International Women's Day! Accused of being a spy, she survived more than six years of harsh imprisonment by the Red Guards in China. It is a story of adaptability, courage, and bravery.

This is an autobiographical account of Nien Cheng who, after her husband died, became an assistant advisor to the manager of Shell Oil in China. Shell was one of the few companies that stayed on in China after the Communists came to power in 1949. Chinese by birth, Nien Cheng and her husband had been educated in England. Her husband was head of Shell Oil for many years. He died of cancer in 1957. Nien was then asked to assist in the running of Shell in China.

In 1966 The Chinese Cultural Revolution burst onto the streets like the 1938 Nazi Crystal Night. It was a highly organised, political movement, aimed at removing all opposition, all disagreement to Mao Tse-tung. Anyone who showed the slightest opposition to his authority was murdered by the Red Guards. If you have read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, then you have a very good idea of The Cultural Revolution in China. The similarities are uncanny.

As the attack on intellectuals, teachers, artists, became more intense Nien Cheng was denounced. Her daughter, a member of the Communist Youth, selected for a position in the National Film School as an actress was allowed to go free.



In the following weeks Nien Cheng was questioned often. It was hinted that Shell had done something wrong, something illegal, but no one knew what or by whom. The ex-staff had to write out criticisms of themselves and Shell, then they were questioned about their actions. Nien had amazing mental strength, despite great psychological pressure, she always maintained neither Shell or herself had taken any action harmful to the Chinese Government.

The Cultural Revolution was a struggle for power between the Maoists and the less radical faction led by Liu Shao-chi and Deng Hsiao-ping. To assist in this power struggle the Red Guards were created, they were mostly teenagers, manipulated by older Maoists. They were formed into roving bands, like Vikings, attacking everyone, and becoming more and more extreme in their views and self-righteousness.

In the beginning the Red Guards' enemy was the "capitalist class", so most people felt safe. Before long, it widened to include anyone who was not a Red Guard, and even then, suspicion could come to them for not shouting loudly enough.

Those in professions, like university staff, were required to denounce everyone else within the organisation. If they could not come up with criticism, and lists of betrayers, it meant that they must be protecting enemies of the state. So people made up false stories about other members of their organisation to protect themselves, which led to more and more people being questioned and imprisoned.

It was not long before people were indiscriminately attacked by the Red Guards. Houses were smashed, people dragged through the streets by ropes, beaten, accused of all kinds of sabotage, and then came looting and murder. Maoists congratulated the Red Guard, encouraging them to accuse, destroy, steal, and murder.

The Red Guard was now recruiting everyone they could, schools and universities were closed. If you did not wish to join the Red Guard it meant that you must be against the teachings of Mao Tse-tung. The country was falling into ruin. Farmers became revolutionaries and left for the cities, Red Guards took what they wanted, factories were closed down, law and order decayed. The Red Guards felt important and declined to pay for travel or goods. Food became scarce, banks ran out of money, no one was paid; everyone was the enemy. Schools and universities were shut down. Intellectuals -- people who had been to high school -- doctors, teachers, skilled people, were sent to the countryside to work as farmers.

The cultural revolution, lasted for about ten years, in which time a million people were murdered by the Red Guards, thousands committed suicide, and hundreds of thousands of people were beaten, interrogated, robbed, tortured, and imprisoned.
As the war against intellectuals, rightists, capitalists, artists, continued in ever widening circles, it came to include children of capitalists. This meant that Nien's daughter was no longer considered innocent, but was denounced as a class-enemy. Like others, she had to spend her time writing confessions and self-criticisms over and over in an attempt to purge herself of impure political thoughts, even though she was a member of the Communist Youth.

In September Nien Cheng was called to a large meeting, where she was blamed for every bad thing that had ever happened to China. Shell was denounced as a spying company that took exorbitant profits out of China. The audience was encouraged to shout slogans of Mao. She was accused of spying on China for foreign powers. At the end, the enraged crowd spat on her, shook their fists in her face, and screamed insults. The Red Guards demanded that she confess.

Remaining calm she told them that Shell was in China because they had been invited by the Premier Chou En-lai. She tried to explain things, but it was hopeless, the crowd ready to lynch her. The smiling officials, said they would now extend mercy and give her a chance to confess, rather than kill her.

At 51 years of age, she was handcuffed and taken to prison, placed in solitary confinement. She had previously decided that she would not make any false confessions. She was placed in her cell, a bucket for the toilet, cobwebs on the ceiling, the walls yellow and mouldy. There was a wooden bed, dust thick everywhere, mosquitoes, the cell damp and cold.



She came to realise that the only laws that applied were from the teachings in Mao's Little Red Book. She decided to study the book so she could quote from it when necessary. Although life was harsh in prison, what hurt her the most was missing her grown-up daughter, who she knew was being interrogated, accused of some crime or other.


After two months, she had her first interrogation, full of defiance, she argued with her interrogator, who told her she must write out a full confession, an autobiography of crimes she had committed. People she had worked with, or knew socially, were accused of being spies that had collaborated with her.

But within a week there was another revolution, the first of many occurring within the country. It seemed anyone could put on an armband, collect a group together, proclaim they were the true Maoists, march into the streets, take over factories, and issue orders.

Winters were cold; inside the cell it was zero degrees Celsius, the winds were persistent and strong enough to penetrate the loose window. Her clothes and food were poor, but she managed to stay alive. After sixteen months of harsh detention she developed a continuous cough and was taken to a hospital, she spent a week there recovering from pneumonia. Sent back to prison she never fully recovered because of the cold, the poor watery food, the lack of sunshine and fresh air. Mentally, she found it difficult to think clearly. Her interrogator had been moved on, and the new one, simply screamed political insults at her, not asking her questions. She realised the purpose was to impress his seniors, not to gather information.

After two-and-a-half years locked away, the interrogations became more regular, there were always threats of being shot for spying. Some days she was questioned from morning to evening, standing up, without even a drink of water. She was required to write out her self-confessions over and over, then sent to "struggle meetings" which were a longer version of the Two Minute Hate meetings described in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

The remarkable thing about Nien Cheng was despite all the pressure, the exhaustion, the rough treatment, the pain, the illness, and the claim that if she confessed they would go easy on her, she never confessed. Instead she repeatedly told them she was innocent, and someone had made a mistake. She told them she had full faith in the Chinese leadership, and knew that she would be released when they examined her case properly.

The truth is they didn't know what to do with her. They wanted her confession to incriminate other officials, they didn't care about her, it was part of an elaborate political plan. When she was accused of being a spy, she told them that if they had proof they should stop wasting time and shoot her. Because she was continually reading Mao's books she was able to quote his words to them. She was politically and historically educated and could argue any point with them. She knew they had no evidence, just false confessions obtained under extreme duress.

Physically she was deteriorating, she had extreme menstrual bleeding, and heavy bleeding from her gums, making it difficult to chew bread crusts. In the cold of prison, her joints ached with pain. She was sent to a hospital for brief stays when she developed pneumonia, or bleeding.

Interrogators came and went, often becoming angry at her steadfastness, her political shrewdness, but they never got what they wanted from her, a confession of wrong-doing, or a denouncement of someone else.

In 1970 things became more serious, they now increased the pressure on her. It started with physically pushing, face slapping, throwing her against a concrete wall, while five interrogators screamed insults. When she did not confess, they put special handcuffs on her. Her hands were behind her back, and they were so tight the circulation in her hands was cut off. They told her they would take the handcuffs off when she confessed, if it took a month, then she would have to wear them till then. If she never confessed, then she would die with the handcuffs on.

Then they put her in a totally black cell, with no window, thick dust everywhere. During the first night her hands became hugely swollen and she began to worry that they would be permanently damaged, or have to be amputated. In the morning they took her back to the interrogation.

Confess! Confess! But she said nothing. She was returned to her own cell, still wearing the handcuffs behind her back. To drink water she had to pick the cup up in her teeth, and lift it slowly. Going to the toilet was awkward and painful. And all the time her swollen hands gave her great pain. Eating was difficult, she had to try and dig the rice from a small tin with a plastic spoon held by her teeth.

As days passed, her hands became pus-infected and bled. She grew weaker and weaker, unable to get to the prison door to receive food. Eventually, she collapsed on the floor. The guards came and after yelling at her for pretending, removed the handcuffs. They wanted a confession, but if she died they would not get it.

One day in October 1971 the guard came to her cell and demanded she hand over her book of Mao's quotations. When it was returned, the preface had been torn out. It had been written by Lin Pao, lavishing praise on Mao. Now it seemed that Lin Pao was in disgrace, everything he did was now explained as a betrayal of the Chinese revolution. Pages of history had to be removed. Does this sound familiar? Yes, that was the same job that Winston Smith performed in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, re-writing history after a political figure had been uncovered as a spy, a revisionist, or a traitor.

It was soon after this that it was announced that President Richard Nixon was coming to China to meet with Mao Tse-tung. This was controversial, since the United States had always been presented as the worst opponent of China in the world. Now they were to be brothers.

After Nixon visited China in 1972, she was interrogated again, and asked to write out her personal life story, including her family, her friends, her associates. Theses interrogations lasted months, but now there was no more shouting or arguments. The interrogators had a milder attitude, after all there could be another revolution on the way.

In March 1973, she was told her to pack her things. In the interrogation room she was told that she was to be released, but first they would read out her case conclusion. It stated that she had divulged information to a foreigner, and that she had defended the traitor Lin Pao. However, because she was politically backward and ignorant, they decided to give her a chance to realise her mistakes. After six and a half years of political education in the detention centre, and because they were magnanimous, they were refraining from pressing charges against her.

Hearing this she became furious at the hypocrisy. She told them she could not accept the conclusion and would remain in her cell until a proper conclusion was reached. It should contain a declaration that she was innocent of any crime, and an apology for wrongful arrest. Furthermore the apology must be published in newspapers in Shanghai and Peking.

They had never heard the like of it before; they had to forcibly remove her from the prison.

When she left the prison, she was hoping to see her daughter, but it was her god-daughter that met her and took her to a house. The god-daughter told her that her daughter had committed suicide shortly after Nien had been arrested. During the long six-and-a half years of imprisonment, it had been the thought of her daughter that kept her alive, now she learnt that she had been dead all that time.

After her release she began having nightmares where she saw the bashed, tortured, and blood-splattered body of her daughter. She thought she needed to investigate the circumstances of her death, since she was not convinced it was suicide. Nien had been told that her daughter jumped from the 9th floor of the Shanghai Athletics Association building. When she went there to see it, she noticed that there were bars on the windows. Speaking to a tenant, she discovered that the year of her death, the building had been surrounded by scaffolding.

In 1978, 12 years after her arrest, she was officially rehabilitated and declared a victim of wrongful arrest and persecution. Eventually a man was arrested for the murder of her daughter, but sentenced to a suspended death sentence, meaning he was set free after two years imprisonment.

Although Nien Cheng had been released, the Public Security Bureau had people spy on her, report what she did, where she went, who she talked with. They sent agents who tried to trick her into condemning officials, but she was always careful about what she said. This aspect of her life went on until 1980, when she was finally granted a permit to go to the USA to visit her sisters. Of course she never returned to China. She lived in Canada for a while, but found it too cold for her arthritis. Eventually she settled in the US.

This autobiography is fascinating in its battle between an individual and the state. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the political background of modern China. There is much more to the story than this outline. For me, it was a wonderful story of courage and determination outlasting hate, fear, and lies.

Marcus Clark, 2014-03-10
http://booksforlife.website/

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[em_wemily · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

This was a fascinating, heartbreaking, well-written self-account of N. Cheng's terrible experience during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I'm glad that I've read it, but it wasn't easy. I applaud Cheng's strength and courage to write this and inform the world.

V. Quick Plot summary (w/f 'spoilers')
N. Cheng endures 6+ years of solitary confinement as a political prisoner for refusing to give a false confession that she was spy during her time working for the English Shell Company. She's tortured, physically and emotionally, and when she's finally released, she realizes that she's lost not only her home, but also her 24-yr-old daughter. Eventually, after trying to achieve justice regarding the matter of her daughter's 'accidental' murder, she leaves China.

What I liked
1. This book was extremely informative. I learned about the Tiananmen Square Massacre when I was in high school and haven't thought a lot about it since then. This was an eye-opening look at what it was like to be a Chinese citizen during such a tumultuous period in 20th century China.
2. This was a fastidious book. In some ways, it was both a weakness and a strength. While I really appreciated and learned a lot from the lengthy sections about the political and historical backgrounds of the politicians and political climate, it sometimes took away from the story itself and began to read like a textbook. At the same time, it was very useful for me to understand the significance of certain events that took place.
3. I strongly admire the author! I can't even begin to imagine going through what she experienced. She wasn't just strong and courageous; she was also quite clever and adaptable. From making wall paper out of toilet paper and old rice to memorizing quotes from Mao's red book to recite back to her persecutors, I relished in seeing how she devised a way to overcome every obstacle she faced.

What I didn't like
1. This is a very straightforward book. Everything, from historical timelines to personal reflections are stated with little adornment. In this way, it's just as emotionally withholding as Cheng herself admits is the Chinese way. I don't imagine she would want to romanticize her terrible memories, but this made the style a little flat - more academic and less personal. I think this could have been more reflective than it was. I also think the epilogue could have contained less about historical fact and more about her opinions and impressions or a message from her. Perhaps she spent so many years hiding her true thoughts and feelings that it was a habit she could not easily break.
2. This book was captivating because of the subject matter, not because of the writing style. I stayed for the story and the hope that she eventually would find peace, but I don't think I would have continued reading this if it had not been a true story. That said, I know this is her second language, and she had no experience as a writer before writing this. So with that in mind, I think she did spectacularly.