Swimming to Freedom Quotes

“Most crimes were political, and almost all accused were from Black classes; they had said things critical of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. One “criminal” had said that Mao was too old and had lost his mind. Another had said that Mao was not as able as President Liu at running the country. One had said that Madam Mao had been a disaster for China.”
― Kent Wong, Swimming to Freedom: An Untold Story of Escaping China and the Cultural Revolution

“36 million Chinese died from starvation during the Great Famine. As a comparison, the Holocaust killed 6 million Jews. Every educated person in the world knows about the Holocaust. How many in the world have heard of China’s Great Famine?”
― Kent Wong, Swimming to Freedom: An Untold Story of Escaping China and the Cultural Revolution

“The Chinese Communist Party did not cut him any slack for having been an insurrection hero eight years earlier. Indeed, like Papa, almost all his fellow insurrectionists were declared “capitalist rightists.”
― Kent Wong, Swimming to Freedom: An Untold Story of Escaping China and the Cultural Revolution

“Mao’s Act III was from 1966 to his final year, 1976. The people who drew the shortest straw then were high school students, including Lily, Ning, and me, who were still in high school in 1966. Many of us were misled into brutally purging Mao’s political enemies, who were innocent, and indiscriminately destroying Chinese culture.”
― Kent Wong, Swimming to Freedom: An Untold Story of Escaping China and the Cultural Revolution