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"Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China
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Item Description...
With a great charm and spirit, “Socialism Is Great!” recounts Lijia Zhang's rebellious journey from disillusioned factory worker to organizer in support of the Tiananmen Square demonstrators, to eventually become the writer and journalist she always determined to be. Her memoir is like a brilliant miniature illuminating the sweeping historical forces at work in China after the Cultural Revolution as the country moved from one of stark repression to a vibrant, capitalist economy.
With a New Afterword
“A sharply observant and admirably crafted memoir. . . . A truly original contribution to our understanding of modern China.”
—Jonathan D. Spence
“A literary gem. . . . Zhang deftly crafts the journey of a whole generation, desperately yearning to break away from the ropes of tradition and living to dream the impossible. It's a book to relish, a volume to cherish and mostly, a life to celebrate.”
—Da Chen, author of Colors of the Mountain
“A beautiful memoir. . . . Our current China literature is heavy with victim memoirs, but this is a true tale of aspiration: a young woman coming of age in a nation desperately trying to do the same.”
—Peter Hessler, Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker and author of River Town
“Beautiful.... A remarkable memoir.... A notable historical document and a vivid, affecting portrait of a young woman's resolve.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Lijia Zhang was born and raised in Nanjing. Her articles have appeared in many international publications, including South China Morning Post, Japan Times, the Independent (London), Washington Times, and Newsweek. She is a regular speaker on BBC Radio and NPR. She now lives in Beijing with her two daughters.
www.lijiazhang.com
“A sharply observant and admirably crafted memoir. . . . A truly original contribution to our understanding of modern China.”
—Jonathan D. Spence
The introduction, questions, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enliven your group's discussion of Lijia Zhang's extraordinary personal journey in “Socialism Is Great!”: A Worker's Memoir of the New China.
1. What are the major insights “Socialism Is Great!” offers about life in China in the period leading up to the Tiananmen Square protests? What are the values and social norms that seem to have most influence over the Chinese people during this time? 2. What is the appeal of memoirs that explore the struggle for personal freedom against institutional oppression? Why are such stories so inspiring? What makes “Socialism Is Great!” an important addition to this genre? 3. In what ways does Zhang's personal life embody the larger cultural and political changes that are occurring in China? What does seeing history through this intensely personal lens reveal that a more objective historical perspective cannot? 4. What special challenges does Lijia face as a woman in Chinese society? How are her ambitions regarded by her mother and by the men with whom she is romantically involved? What roles are available to her? 5. After her desire to learn English is revealed, Lijia is regarded as “a toad that dreams of swan meat” [p. 195]. What is the meaning of this idiomatic expression? What other sayings and proverbs appear in the novel? What do they suggest about the role of folk wisdom in judging human behavior in China? 6. How does learning English change Lijia's perspective on herself and her possibilities? In what sense is learning English literally a life-changing experience for her? 7. What effect does reading have on Zhang? Why does she respond so powerfully to Jane Eyre? 8. “I wondered,” Zhang writes, “if there was an innate Chinese tendency toward conformity that made it easier for us to accept a dictatorial state-the People's Democratic Dictatorship, as our political system was formally called-or did dictatorship itself instill our complacency?” [p. 195-196]. Does “Socialism Is Great!” suggest an answer to this question? 9. During their tearful, final lunch, Red Rock and Lijia observe a blindfolded donkey grinding soy beans. When Lijia asks why it's blindfolded, Red Rock replies that “it will refuse to move forward if it knows he is only going in circles” [p. 133]. In what ways is this a metaphor for the constricted lives of Lijia and other Chinese workers? In what ways does the ruling Communist party try to “blindfold” its citizens? 10. What are the key moments in Zhang's disillusionment with Communist China's “Glorious Cause”? What experiences whet her desire for freedom? 11. What aspects of Zhang's own character and temperament lead her to rebel against the strictures of the Communist Party? In what ways is Zhang typical of Chinese youth of her generation? In what ways is she unusual? 12. Liang's brother, the film director, tells Zhang that, “The worst impact of the Cultural Revolution was that it destroyed Chinese People's integrity and honesty” [p. 316]. Why would Mao's Cultural Revolution have this effect? What instances of this lack of integrity and honesty appear in the book? 13. How do Zhang's romantic relationships with men both limit and expand her possibilities? On balance, are these relationships more helpful or harmful to her? 14. Why does Zhang end her story-which reaches a climax with the dramatic protest she organized and her subsequent police interrogation-by saying: “I handed Policeman Zhou his notebook back, held my head up, and my back straight and erect. Just like my mother”? [p. 357]. Why does she signal this solidarity with her mother, even though she has spent much of her early life rebelling against her mother's limited vision of what is possible for her? 15. How does “Socialism Is Great!” which ends in 1989, illuminate what is happening in China today?
Chapter 1
Inheritance
“Would you like to be a worker, if you have a chance?”
“Of course not, Ma. Why?” I answered my mother flatly, without even looking up from my homework. To be a worker? What an odd question! I was only sixteen, in my first term at senior middle school, and I –was doing well.
Across the table, Ma tugged threads into a tassel for an Islamic prayer mat, made for export. For years we had been taking in embroidery work for sorely needed extra cash. Nai, my grandma, also clutched a prayer mat to embroider, but had dozed off. She dozed off more often now. If we asked her to go to bed she would straighten up and resume her work, only to fall asleep again within minutes.
“Not even working at a first-class enterprise like Liming, a real ‘iron rice bowl'?” Ma had spent her entire working life at Liming Machinery Factory, the largest state-owned enterprise in our city, Nanjing. Under the authority of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry, our factory had nearly ten thousand employees. Its prestige derived from not only its scale but also its status as a military factory. With free services from nurseries to cremation, and countless bowls of rice in between, the life of a state employee meant cradle-to-grave security. Plus free showers and subsidized haircuts.
“Not even Liming.” Finally I raised my head to look at Ma, who was frowning in my direction. I liked to look at Ma. She was pretty—when she didn't frown. She had lovely high cheeks, and bright, slanted eyes. Her arched eyebrows were like two new moons. Her name was fitting too: Yufang, fragrance of cloud.
Now she seemed at a loss for words. After a while, she added: “I would think twice if I were you, Little Li.” That was my pet name at home, though I hardly merited its meaning, “little beauty.”
It was the beginning of December 1980. Winter had come early. My hands, swelling red with chilblains, were carefully copying English words into an exercise book. How fascinating! This language system, reintroduced to schools recently, was completely different from Chinese. Our characters developed from pictographs, real pictures of actual things. Jia, for example, means home, where a roof shelters a pig and reveals our farming roots. Hunched over a naked bulb of low wattage, just about bright enough for our tasks, three generations of Chinese women, bundled up in padded cotton jackets and trousers, sat around three sides of a table pushed against a window. The lack of heating was geographic fate: the Communist central planners permitted no central heating south of the Yangtze, the river that splits China in two. The “southern capital” Nanjing lies on the lower reaches of its southern bank, where, though temperatures never fall as low as in cities to the north, the damp cold goes straight to one's bones. To fight the chill, we stuffed our feet in a straw basket warmed by a copper hot-water bottle. I could always tell which pair were Nai's—the tiny, bound ones. A warm, womanly intimacy hung in the air.
There were others in my family, but they weren't around. My father had spent his whole working life in another city. My elder sister Weijia was studying at her college in a far corner of the city. My naughty brother Xiaoshi was out playing in our village, Wuding New Village, the largest residential area for Liming employees.
Located just outside Wuding Gate, one of the thirteen city gates that once defined and guarded Nanjing, the village was still classed as rural, although the sprawling urban landscape was slowly swallowing up the green patchwork of fields that surrounded it. With few trees and little green space, there was none of the rustic beauty or tradition that the word “village” suggests. There were several thousand villagers, packed into three dozen or so concrete blocks, identical but for being either three or four stories high, depending on the year of construction.
Our flat, on the second floor of a four-story block, felt matchbox-sized, with low ceilings, one main room, and one side room. The walls of peeling yellow paint were bare but for a factory calendar and the two school certificates of merit that my sister and I earned each year without fail. Two beds took up much of the main room where we sat, but the bedding was neatly folded, for the beds also served as seats and worktables. An old wardrobe, a wedding gift from my mother's in-laws, gave off distorted reflections in its full-length mirror. The once intricate carvings were cracked, like an old worn face. A white tablecloth, crocheted by Weijia with sewing threads, covered a coarsely made cupboard. On top sat a colorful biscuit tin, long empty, but kept for decoration. Beside it stood a “hero” clock. “The masses are the real heroes” read one of Chairman Mao's quotations, printed on the clock face. A worker grasping a hammer, a peasant her sickle, and a soldier his gun were painted waving aloft his Little Red Book.
Looking at the painted worker, I smiled to myself. A worker? How funny I would look if I wore his canvas uniform and peaked cap.
Three weeks later, I was summoned after supper for a “little talk” in Ma's bedroom. I knew it was serious when she shut the door. Our last closed-door session had been nearly four years earlier, when I was in my last year at primary school. My teacher had recommended I study at Nanjing Foreign Languages School, an exclusive place whose graduates all went on to university, and were later trained as diplomats or interpreters for high-ranking leaders. “Would you like to go there to study?” she had asked. I had jumped up with joy. But my happiness was premature: I failed the political censorship—my father had “political problems.” I was therefore rejected.
Ma's room was always so dim—high wattage would use too much electricity. When I started middle school, she arranged for me to sleep with her, thinking I was too big to share a bed with my brother and Nai. While Ma, next door, made endless tassels into the night, I was scared on my own—the eight-watt fluorescent lamp flickered in the darkness like a jack-o'-lantern. To forget my fear, I began to read books. Within months the characters on the school blackboard became as blurred as crawling ants. A pair of black-framed glasses came to reside on my small nose. When Ma discovered why, she banished me back to Nai's bed—it would have been wasteful to install a bright light just for my reading. I slept better, holding Nai's thin legs.
Now I looked expectantly at Ma as she sat down on the bed. What could it be this time? Even in the semidarkness, I could see her “two new moons” knitting together in a frown.
“Remember I asked if you would like to be a worker?” she began, her voice husky and low. She cleared her throat.
“You are going to take over my job.”
The sentence fell like thunder from a bright blue sky.
“What?! NO!” I jumped up again, this time in protest. “Why? I'm still young!” I pleaded.
“I became a worker myself at your age, only half a year older,” she said matter-of-factly. I remembered Ma once boasting that she had been a promising student, too, but was forced to give up school because her family was too poor.
“But surely, Ma, you can support me to finish school, then...”
“Poverty is only part of the reason.” Then, calmly, she began to explain the rest. When the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, China was a mess, its economy on the brink of collapse. To tackle the soaring numbers of jobless, a temporary policy appeared called dingzhi, literally, “replacing job.” If parents could secure retirement, their children could take over their jobs. Several rounds of dingzhi had followed until it was strongly rumored that December 1980 was the last such opportunity. Despite excellent health at forty-three—some seventeen years away from the normal retirement age for women—Ma had decided to take advantage of the opportunity. When she first raised the issue with me, she had already applied to retire early on the grounds of poor health: she had been working for many years on the hazardous acid-pickling line. My poor reaction had not deterred her in the least, and now her application had been approved.
“I don't want to be a worker!” I insisted, stamping a foot in disgust.
In my mind's eye, I saw the blue canvas uniform and Ma's coarse hands. A worker? I knew it was the likely fate for children from our village, but I had grand plans for myself.
“I want to be a journalist!”
“I told you before, don't even dream about it,” she replied. “A journalist? Writing is a dangerous thing to do in this country. Your dad is a good example.” She frowned: the sheer mention of my father seemed to vex her. “Anyway, becoming a journalist is just one of your flights of fancy. You also wanted to be a pilot, a barefoot doctor, and an interpreter, just to name a few!”
Ma had a glib tongue, but I was far from convinced.
“I'm good at writing, my literature teacher said so.” At school, teachers often read out my compositions, and fellow students copied my prose. “Whatever happens in the future, I want to go to university first,” I added assertively.
“Getting into university is harder than climbing to heaven!” she retorted. “I know you're a good student, but your school is very bad. Look, this year they ‘drew an egg' again—not a single student passed the university entrance exam.”
That much was beyond dispute. My middle school, like my primary school, had been established by Liming for its employees' children. Only later was the school's administration transferred to the city's education authority and children from nearby areas allowed to attend. No self-respecting teacher would choose to work at either of these remote and poorly equipped schools. After the humiliating failure of last year, the school introduced a new strategy—streaming students into classes based on their abilities, so that the most resources and attention would be spent on pupils with the greatest hope of reaching university.
But I was in the fast class, wasn't I? As if reading my mind, Ma continued in a crisp and clear voice, with a fluency that spoke of many rehearsals in her mind. “Even if you do pass the entrance exam, your bad eyesight will probably fail you. Look at Weijia, she scored quite well but only got into a teacher-training school.”
A fair point. My sister Weijia was training as a primary school teacher at Xingzhi Secondary Normal College, not a “proper” university and hardly a place for an ambitious youth. However, poor sight (as in my sister's case) or any other physical defect was held against you. The university entrance system, only reintroduced in 1977 after the chaotic years, demanded almost perfect physical health—a useful way to reduce the pool of candidates. China's proper universities could accommodate fewer than 4 percent of those who took the entrance exam. In other words, only one out of six hundred Chinese children was lucky enough to experience higher education.
“But at least I can try, and if I score really high, some university will surely accept me. Can you wait for three years, Ma?” I knew someone from Weijia's class had gotten into Beijing University, China's Oxford, despite his bad eyesight. I didn't need to remind Ma that university was one of few guaranteed routes to success for an ordinary family like ours.
“Wait? I can, but not dingzhi. You know government policy is like a child's face—three changes in a day.”
I wasn't good at arguing with Ma. To be a good child meant tinghua, “to listen to words,” a phrase that conveyed obedience, the most desirable quality for Chinese children. So I listened, obediently, to the words of my teachers at school and my mother at home.
Barely comprehending, I listened as she went on. If I failed the university exam I would end up one of those jobless youths, or get a job in a collectively owned factory, if I was really lucky. A good job with Liming? No chance!
The prestige of state-owned firms remained high. “The working class leads everything!” newspapers reminded us. “Workers are our elder brothers” and “the masters of the nation.”
“Look at this house. We are so poor,” grumbled Ma, kicking her bedside table. One of the legs slipped from its brick support. That table and a bed were the only furniture in the cramped room. “We can't rely on your dad. He is useless, and Nai is getting old. She nearly died from the stroke. It hurts me to look at her hunched over the embroidery, like an old shrimp. After you become a worker, I can find another job, and our lives will be better.”
Irritated by my wooden expression, Ma raised her voice. “But above all, Little Li, let me tell you I'm doing you a big favor! I simply don't understand why I have to beg you to take over my treasure.” She blew her nose. “Your mouth still smells of breast milk; you don't know what's good for you! You'll go to work at the factory next week. That's it!”
She got up and walked out, her back straight and erect. For me, her back always spoke volumes about her proud, stubborn nature. Once she had set her mind on something, a four-horse cart couldn't hold her back.
I followed her lamely to the main room and met Nai's concerned look. Wide-awake in her usual place, she was still clutching her embroidery.
Ma banged and clattered around the flat for a while, voicing her displeasure, and then went into her room.
“You didn't agree?” Nai whispered.
I didn't answer. If I'd been wearing a hat, the force of my rage would have shot it into the air. Agree? What was the difference if I agreed or not? Everything had been decided. Although it was common practice for parents to decide what was best for their children, I still felt shocked, even wronged. But how could I bring myself to say anything unkind to Nai, the dearest person in my life? After raising Ma, her only surviving child, Nai had cared for her grandchildren like a faithful servant. We called her Nai, slang for paternal grandmother: Chinese people held paternal grandmas dearer than maternal grandmas.
“Dingzhi is the best for you,” said Nai, her soft eyes focusing on me as I sat down heavily. “If you can't go to university, no point in finishing senior middle school, right?”
My semiliterate grandma would not make such a connection herself. Ma must have fed her the lines. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 384
Dimensions: Length: 0.75" Width: 5" Height: 8.25"
Weight: 0.8 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date May 5, 2009
Publisher Anchor
ISBN 0307472191
EAN 9780307472199
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Great topic but not amazing writing Dec 15, 2009 |
| I think the exposition of typical life in China in the 80s and 90s is truly fascinating. That said, there is no great artistry in the writing, even some typos or grammar issues. A very interesting read, nonetheless. | | | | An insight into China's recent past Dec 5, 2009 |
Socialism was not quite as great as the Party authorities used to say it was, according to Lijia Zhang in her autobiographical book. The book starts with the story of how Lijia, much against her will, inherited from her mother a rather uninspiring job at the Liming Machinery Factory, meaning that she had to leave school at the age of 16 and give up her dreams of going to university and becoming a writer.
As was the case with many other decisions made in China in the early 1980s, the person most affected by the decision -- Lijia -- did not get consulted when her mother decided that Lijia would take over the factory job, in order to maximise the family's income. The book describes how Lijia coped with an essentially boring job within an authoritarian workplace, and how attempts at expressing individuality by wearing slightly different clothing were met with stern disapproval.
Lijia eventually taught herself English and managed to obtain an education through courses run by Teach Yourself University. She describes how she worked her way through a series of secret relationships, and how she eventually encountered trouble with the police after organising a march in support of the Tiananmen Square protesters. The book is written in an engaging style, and it provides a useful insight into the recent past of many who live in China. | | |  | Entertaining and great insight into Chinese Culture Sep 19, 2009 |
This is an excellent book from two different perspectives. First, it provides a fascinating look into the life of an ambitious person born into a society that doesn't always reward personal ambition. Second, for those of you interested in Chinese culture, it provides great insight. I practiced international law for many years, and this book would have been very helpful to me at that time. Ms. Zhang's openess and honesty give constant glimpses into the value system and thought patterns of Chinese people in general, and a young Chinese woman in particular.
I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting a look inside of China, or wanting an entertaining book. | | | | ONWARDS AND UPWARDS Sep 15, 2009 |
It was on 13 June 2009, while hiking on the Great Wall above the hamlet of Sancha near Huairou north of Beijing, that I met Lijia Zhang. She introduced herself as `Lijia author of Socialism Is Great', and that is how I come to have heard of and read this book.
It is a very readable and interesting piece of autobiography, and its readability is largely down to the author's command of English. Normally when `perfect English' is attributed to someone whose first language is not English, there is an implication that we would still know that. Not here. If I had read Socialism Is Great knowing nothing of the author's background I could have believed that she was (somehow) a born Anglophone. In fact she had to struggle, against parental and official opposition, to learn the language, and her success in the matter suggests to me a completely exceptional talent, one she perhaps does not fully recognise in herself.
How the book's title relates to the rest of its content is quite an interesting question. The narrative starts in her impoverished family home in Nanjing, and develops through her unfulfilling early experiences as a factory worker. Obviously this is socialism Chinese-style in action, but although Lijia has plenty to say about that I would not say that her angle on it is mainly political. It's more about the inner struggles of an independent-minded spirit confined in a culture of conformity and conservatism. Towards the end of the book we come to the really political bit, but it is brief, it reads almost like a postscript, and it is tantalisingly incomplete. In 1989 Lijia led a demonstration in Nanjing in support of the rebellion in Beijing's Tienanmen Square in that year. We all know the basic story - the central government panicked and instituted a witch-hunt throughout the nation to nail sympathisers with the protests. Lijia was hauled in front of an interrogation panel, and the way she tells it at one moment she was being grilled intensively, and then with one bound she was free, or you might think so. The narrative moves on suddenly to her departure from Nanjing with her husband-to-be, a Scottish student at Oxford, and I wonder what happened in between.
What a lot of the book is about is the not particularly political issue of a young woman's early initiation into men, love and sex, and the particularly sharp series of lessons she got in the fact that the second and third of those items do not always move in lockstep with each other. Whether it is the story itself, or the way it is told, or both, I found this tale far more interesting than I normally find such stuff. It all seems completely sincere, there is no real recrimination, and there is even some delightful humour - I loved the advertisements intended to attract suitors to unmarried and ageing virgins, such as ownership of or at least access to a flush toilet. I can well understand how the iron entered into her soul after her experiences, and I notice that her marriage has not lasted, although she gives no details and indeed thanks her former husband cordially for help with this book.
The last mention of socialism is a brief aside to the effect that the communist cage has become less cramped and oppressive. This seems to be true particularly in sexual respects, that particular culture in the author's early years making the kind of presbyterian Catholicism I was brought up in seem like a public holiday in Gomorrah. I'm not really sure, and I don't greatly care, how well the book's title describes what the book turns out to be about. It all hangs together exceptionally well, it has an air of honesty and authenticity about it, and one question that Lijia did resolve for me was how she can get away with such candour - it reads as if she is no longer a citizen of the People's Republic, although she lives in Beijing these days. When I bade her farewell at Sancha on 15 June I had not really thought of reading her book, but somehow the idea grew on me, and I think I made the right life choice at least to that extent. | | | | enjoyable read that opens your eyes Sep 1, 2009 |
As maybe the case with many potential readers, I had quite a few preconceived ideas about China and the Chinese. Lijia Zhang's book proved a healthy antidote.
This charming and entertaining (near-)autobiography tells the story of individualist Lijia. In the midst of a restrictive political and economic system, she is not afraid of dreaming. And she does not let her surroundings deter her from chasing (and catching!) those dreams.
Lijian writes openly about her longing for freedom, openness, wealth and sexual expression. The book made China and the Chinese much more real and approachable to me. If you're curious about the upcoming world power that China is, Lijia's book is not to be missed. And it's a good read to boot. | | | Write your own review about "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China
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