By now the world is familiar with the disastrous consequences of
the ten year period (1966-1976) in China's history known as the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The mistakes of Mao Zedong's
later years have been officially acknowledged, and the infamous
Gang of Four publicly tried and sentence for their crimes. But on
the cultural front the thaw had no sooner come than gone. A
campaign against what is regarded as "spiritual pollution" is being
waged to inhibit free expression among creative writers. Thousands
of scholars, authors, respected professors and academicians, who as
a class were the most persecuted in what some observers called
China's "holocaust," are back at their respective stations, bent
over the task of modernization. For understandable reasons, few
have written candidly about their experiences during the Cultural
Revolution. Yang Jiang is an outstanding exception. In this memoir
she give a poignant account of the more than two years she and her
husband were sent "downunder" to the barren countryside for
reeducation through labor. Yang Jiang touches upon any horrendous
acts only in passing, or by indirection; mainly she relates in
well-tempered tones the everyday incidents at their "cadre school"
which add up to a harrowing tale. Patterned after Shen Fu's "Six
Chapters of a Floating Life," a minor classic of the Qing dynasty,
Six Chapters form My Life 'Downunder' is a testimony of remarkable
sophistication, and at the same time a powerful indictment of the
madness of ignorant, totalitarian rule.. The author writes in a
subtle, almost allegorical style, letting the reader share in her
skepticism, disappointment, and frustration with the people, or the
system, responsible for what was done to her family and her fellow
victims. More in sorrow than in anger, here and there with a touch
of wry humor, she records the backwardness and distrust of the
peasants who were their "masters"; the utter waste of human
resources; the vicious nature of political campaigns and the people
involved in them; and, above all, the devotion between husband and
wife which kept them going throughout their ordeal. While
describing a society in one of its darkest moments, Yang Jiang
reaffirms the endurance of humanity. Although Yang Jiang lives in
Beijing, Six Chapters from My Life 'Downunder' first appeared in a
Hong Kong magazine in April 1981, and was published in book form
there in the following month, attracting wide attention. it was
published in the People's Republic of China later that year. The
edition sold out quickly and no subsequent printings have been
available. The present English translation, first published in the
journal "Renditions," is issued here in slightly revised form and
with the addition of footnotes and background notes.
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