Red Flower of China: An Autobiography

by Zhai Zhenhua

"When I first saw a Red Guard remove her canvas belt to beat her victim and...his clothes tear and blood appear on his skin, I was afraid. I was not the most bloodthirsty person in the world....However, I was a Red Guard leader and a member of my school's Revolutionary Committee....If by beating these people....I could prove my valour in the class struggle, I would do it. Thus, when that Red Guard left off, I removed my belt and learned to beat like her....After a few beatings, I no longer needed to rehearse the rationale behind them. My heart hardened and l became used to the blood. I waved my belt like an automaton and whipped with an empty mind....The Cultural Revolution had transformed me into a devil."
So writes Zhai Zhenhua in Red Flower of China, a brutally honest portrait of the Cultural Revolution, as told by someone who was not only a witness to this dramatic period of history, but was also a participant in it. Zhai Zhenhua was born in 1951, two years after the Communist Party took over China. Her parents were revolutionary supporters of Chairman Mao, and she was schooled in political correctness and party loyalty. But 1966 brought the Cultural Revolution, and fifteen-year-old Zhenhua was swept up by the events taking place around her. She joined the Red Guard, led raids on homes, and cold-bloodedly beat her fellow citizens.
Soon, however, the Red Guard also fell into disfavour. Zhai was purged and sent to one of the most destitute regions of China to do back-breaking work and be re-educated before becoming one of a handful of students selected to attend university.
Zhai Zhenhua does not minimize her role in the excesses of the times. Red Flower of China is an intensely personal account of her eventful early life and of acts which still torture her conscience.

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

245 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really struggled to finish this book. Instead of flowing, like a good book should, it was choppy, way too peopley and felt thrown together without rhyme or reason. It could easily be edited down to 100 pages and tell the story more concisely.

[BookOtheDay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps the most controversial, in my own mind, book I have ever read.

We read this for school with I assure you the best of intentions. But if you want a piece of propaganda for encouraging xenophobia, this is it. Yes, it is a relatable, informative, interesting autobiographical look at life during Communism in China. And then it takes something of a turn. Kind of. Our author talks about how one day at the school politics club she joined, they give her a gun and encourage her to kill a random guy who is a traitor or something. Just a stranger and club members telling her (w/o evi) that he committed some political crime. And she kills him.

Ok, fine. Never underestimate pressure from groups esp in a regime etc. But this is a woman's autobio written years later. How long does she spend addressing the fact that she murdered a stranger in cold blood? A couple paragraphs, tops. No real reflection or remorse. Creepy. If she didn't want to talk about this moment in her life, Then why did she write an autobio and include it?????????

Later, she is sent to work in the country because even the gov is scared of it's fanatical young followers. There is nothing to do in the country and our author wants to go back to the city. But to do that she needs a transfer and the local gov official in charge of such things isn't budging. She's stuck. Until she learns that an acquaintance just bribed the official with city goods. So she lies to the official about all the things her family will (not) send him and he approves her transfer.

So. How much time do we spend on our author's anger over having to bribe an official? (Of a gov that encouraged children to murder strangers! Who could've expected!) Pages. Pages are devoted to the indignity of having to bribe a gov employee. Not sure what gov has ever eliminated bribery, but whatever.

As a kicker to this autobio about a woman more upset about basic, essentially harmless corruption than random murder, she decides to share wirh us that she married an American, moved to the USA and is now somebody on a college campus. Oh and she decided that she didn't have to tell anyone about how she murdered someone in cold blood and doesn't seem to care much about it. Yikes.

There have to be other books about living in Communist revolution China, I'd suggest checking out those.

[Tifnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a difficult time reading this book. I not only found the author to be juvenile in her writing, but the style was choppy, disorganized, and unemotional.

However, with that being said, the story was informative.

Red Flower of China is about a young girls plight during the Cultural Revolution. How Chairman Mao started Red Guards in primary school, which brainwashed young leaders who then turned on fellow friends, neighbors, and even their own families to denounce anyone who was Anti-Cultural Revolution or who didn't support Chairman Mao's vision. Punishment would ensue, often by our own author who at one point beat a woman to death. Chairman Mao created a military/protection framework starting with kids. Hmmm - sounds like the Middle East in today's standards.

As the story moved on, Zhai Zhenhua, our author, joined Chairman Mao's Call to Join the Brigade in Yan'an, with the idea that she will be thought of as "progressive" and further her career as a Red Guard and Communist League. However, the Mao's Supreme Instructions was really to re-educate leaders in hardship. Though life was extremely hard and most women left Yan'an with gynecological problems due to malnutrition, Zhai Zhenhua was indeed re-educated. Re-educated in the sense that Chairman Mao was not always right and that his vision had not been the best for China.

For me, just ending J.R.R. Tolkien's series, I found the writing to be atrocious. I often had to re-read paragraphs thinking I missed something because Zhai Zhenhua skipped around so much.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult

I ordered this book because I like learning about other ethnicities and cultures and belief systems -- even those I don't agree with such as the Chinese.
I found this book to be disappointing for several reasons. One being, I am a college graduate who did so with high honors but I had difficulty understanding this book in several areas. I obviously don't know about Chinese way of life and so it was sometimes difficult for example to understand their educational system and use it to mentally estimate a person's age when they went through a certain hardship or harsh experience.
Also, there are many, many names and people mentioned who feature in the telling of the author's story even if only in a minor way. It is difficult to keep track of them all and really, some could be omitted with no impact to the story.
Lastly, the editing process missed spelling and grammar mistakes but I suspect some of that at least, could be due to the language differences. I noticed for instance that each time the author meant to use the word "in" either alone or as part of a word (ex. inside, within, individual etc) she would write it as "m". So the word " inside " will appear as "mside". I think this must have to do with either her inability to visually see the separation between the letters "i" and "n" or perhaps how they draw out their letters. But either way, the mistakes should have been caught if someone else edited it!
The story did have some areas that held my interest and flowed well. But this has been the only book I can think of that I wasn't eager to get back to.

[Kira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent read- memoir on the Red Guard movement and Cultural Revolution. Zhai starts off a passionate and progressive student who aims to be a Party member and takes part in dismantling the system only to become disillusioned as she realizes too late- like so many before her and so many after that Communism is and always will be a failure, the result of the writings and rantings of an envious madman angry at God.

Lack of opportunities, assigned jobs, locations she is not allowed to leave without permission and rampant corruption, bribery and nepotism reigned free in Maos China- hers is one story of many and definitely worth reading.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the reader wants to learn what it is like to live in China during all the revolutions and desperate situations, then this is a book for you. Reading about life in China was very interesting to me. The book made me appreciate living in The United States. I can't imagine what this author experienced. I got bogged down at times with the story because of the circumstances, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to read this book. I read the book in one day, so that tells you how much I liked the book.

[Augusta Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

China

If you want to know what life in communist China was really like, read this poignant biography of a young girl growing up in China during the time of Mau Zedong. It was stifling and very hard but she eventually got out. After reading this biography you would never want to have a Socialist president in America. There is little difference between socialism and communism.

[Ethan Freckleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been many years since I read this chilling autobiographical account of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I think about this book a lot in the context of the rise of fascism and a violent alt-right - everyone should read this if only to have a better understanding of what people are capable of when they're brainwashed and manipulated.

[Andrew Kaplan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting memoir of the Cultural Revolution

Reveals the chaos imposed on young Chinese students and the disparity between their public personas vs their real thoughts during the Cultural Revolution in China.

[Jennifer Dejager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Red Flower of China begins when Zhai is a young, little girl. She grows up in a poorer family. Zhai's mother and father are workers with a very low income. Zhai goes to school, but when she reaches middle school, one day the teachers stop coming. Mao Zedong, a leader in China, wants a revolution. To do so he uses students as Red Guards to persecute men and women who were known as those against the revolution. When Mao ended the revolution things changed, now it was the Red Guards turns to stand and confess their wrong. After this time Zhai was accepted to a senior school. Finishing senior school, Zhai chooses to go out to the country to live and work with the peasants. Here, she struggles with the tough labor. After a few years of these living conditions, she goes in a traveling group, and ends up getting excepted to university. Her life long desire was fulfilled, and she went to university to study mechanical engineering.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a long time ago as a sophomore in high school, when I was roughly the same age as the girl in the book. Because of this, I identified with the main character, yet was profoundly shocked by the things she willingly did in the name of communism. Vivid memories remain with me to this day, especially the scene in which she goes with some classmates to beat up one the their own school teachers who has fallen out of favor with the new regime. Educational and readable. Recommended.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating first-hand account of China's Cultural Revolution. Though the writing style isn't very impressive, the message is. Zhenua does a wonderful job explaining how individuals got caught up in the revolution without really understanding it due to social pressure and national pride. Though she wants the reader to understand the emotions and thoughts of the time she does not try to justify the many atrocities that occurred nor her own role it.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A badly written autobiographical novel of a young woman swept into the hysteria of the Cultural Revolution. I had hoped for some sort of answers about motivations for actions other than "that's the way it was" but I didn't find them in this book - and maybe coming to terms with one's motivations for harmful mob mentality actions aren't helpful anyway.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shocking story about a young girl during the Culture Revolution in China.

[J.M. Sommers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

Interesting to hear about Communist China from the Chinese point of view. I'd be interested in knowing what happened to her family.