Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng
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Book Reviews of Life and Death in Shanghai
Book Review: An Inspirational Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Life and Death in Shanghai, written by Nien Cheng, is an autobiographical account of the events in her life during the Cultural Revolution in communist China. Accused of being a foreign spy because of her job with a British company, Cheng is incarcerated and forced to suffer physical and mental tortures. During the time when false confessions were common, Cheng is driven in the opposite direction by a statement made by a former co-worker: "... the Party officials often include people whom they dislike, such as those who are disgruntled and troublesome, in the list of enemies. But no individual should make a false confession, no matter how great the pressure is. That has always been my policy during each political movement."Cheng, displaying incredible bravery and intelligence, is able to see beyond the hazy lies of the government officials and see its hypocrisy clearly. She has answers for everything - she returns the blows, one by one. For example, when her guards reprimands her for cleaning her cell, she replies, "I cleaned it according to Chairman Mao's teaching on hygiene" and proceeds to repeat quotation from the Little Red Book. When accused of being "unpatriotic" to her country by dancing with a foreigner, she retorts that she was "useful," because she made the man she danced with unpatriotic to his country by dancing with her.
In her book, Cheng also portrays how familial relationships were affected by the manipulations of the Chinese government. It was really sad when she learns that her brother falsely confessed and stated that she is a spy and that she forced him to take her to the Sun Yatsen Memorial in Nanjing and took a picture in front of the Kuomintang flag. She wonders about the torture they must have put him through to say that - "What had the Maoists done to my poor brother to make him lie like that? I could imagine the agony he must have gone through before he succumbed to their pressure." This reminded me of one of the themes from Machiavelli's The Prince; that it is "better to be feared than loved." The communist government must have known that fear keeps people from doing things to harm the people they fear, whereas it is easier to betray someone you love because there are no significant short-term consequences.
Throughout the book, I marveled at Cheng's acuity in seeing through fake people - when a man posing as a friend of her daughter comes to see her, she is able to tell that he really did not know her daughter and tells him forcefully that the should never visit her again because he works for a secret lab at a factory and that that will make her look bad I the eyes of the communist officials. I was also amazed at her incredible heroism - any other person would have buckled under the pressure of the Communist regime... Cheng never seems to complain or whine, even when things get really bad. Instead, she holds onto the belief that she did nothing wrong and she tries everything to get herself out of her terrible position.
Cheng's generosity is also to be commended. When the Red Guards comes to ransack her home, she is able to save some of the priceless art, her heritage and culture, from being destroyed by telling them that they are worth a lot of money and would be invaluable to the government. After her release, she declines to sell any of the pieces - instead, she freely gives them to the Chinese museum, even after her long imprisonment.
In all, I really enjoyed reading this book. Life and Death in Shanghai showed that the human spirit is resilient and that when people have the will to live and survive, they indeed can and accomplish a lot with their lives. I am glad that she was able to write this book because books like this are inspirations to people all around the world - that they may not despair and give up. I can only hope that we will all be able to show such courage under awful conditions and prevail even when our hope is running rather low.
Book Review: The iron will to survive in a horrendous moment of history.
Summary: 5 Stars
Growing up in the Philippines in the 1970s, we were taught in school about references to mainland China as "Communist China", "Red China", and "The Sleeping Giant", but I do not recall learning about the Cultural Revolution, Mao's red book, and the pervasive hunt and pursuit of counterrevolutionaries and capitalist roaders by the Red Guards. I do, however, recall President Marcos and his wife making slow diplomatic inroads to Mao Zedong and his formidable regime. The recognition of China by the UN, Nixon's early 1970s visit, Zhou En Lai's, then later Mao's death, and the news about the Gang of Four slowly peeled away layers of seclusion and gradually brought images of life in China to the outside world, including its nearest neighbors.The Cultural Revolution really hit hard on people like Nien Cheng, who, having worked for Shell Corporation, having known many professional contacts who were foreigners, and having lived a comfortable and privileged life in Shanghai, was accused of being a spy and a Kuomintang loyalist, among other things. It was hard to put the book down from the start---Nien Cheng first writes about the "calm before the storm", political upheavals are about to change the life of every Chinese person, more so with people like her and her friends who are educated and well-respected and recognized in their professions. Soon, she becomes the next target of the Red Guards, her house is nearly defiled, and treasures are destroyed or taken away from her. Nien Cheng's will to survive and last whatever time she was supposed to serve for the crimes that she never did was only driven by her hope to be reunited with her daughter. Anyone would have lost hope if he or she were put in Nien Cheng's position. Nien Cheng, with an exceptional character molded by education, moral upbringing, and professional experience, maintained her mental and emotional equilibrium by mentally reciting ancient poems, thinking positive thoughts, reading and rereading Mao's books, and ingesting every bit of news that allowed her to make a coherent picture of the goings-on in the complex Maoist government. The passage of seasons foretold changes in the political situation that might bring her close to freedom, reunion with her daughter, and reparation by her wrongdoers. Despite her day-to-day travails in prison---when the next interrogation was, how long, if it was going to help her at all, if she was going to miss a meal, how they were going to coerce her to confess, how serious her sickness was---the reader is comforted by occasional fast-forward references to the future when Nien Cheng is a free person. The road from freedom to rehabilitation took almost just as long as her detention, but as the reader who sympathized with the author, I was deeply moved by the end of the book.
Nien Cheng spent two weeks on a mountain retreat outside Hangzhou before she left Shanghai for good and ultimately went to the United States. It was all for the best for her to leave her native country, yet her love of China was unquestionable. Considering what she had gone through, to move on and out of the country that brought her so much pain was the only way for her own personal redemption. I salute Nien Cheng for her eloquent personal testimony to the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and for giving her readers a look into yet another example of fortitude and character amidst adversity.
Book Review: RED Guard Cultural Revolution '66-75: Does it relate to USA today?
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a MUST read for any one interested in the Red Guard, China's Cultural Revolution, and one woman's very moving experience spending nine years in prison in Shanghai without being charged while it occurred.
In a very personal way the reader learns much about the Chinese governmental political intrigue and conflict during this period of time. All of the conniving subterfuge that is played out between Mao, his wife, "The Gang of FOUR", Zhou Enlai, and others who are fighting for power . These names were only vaguely mentioned in USA newspapers of 1966-1975. They are not mentioned because USA had its own domestic problems AND CHINA was very closed off so VERY little information seeped out. Even after President Nixon formalised relations between US-China in 1972, the writer of this book was still in prison.
One does not need to have been to Zhou Enlai's home, nor to have visited Sun-Yat-Sen's home in Shanghai. Though both houses give one a great historical perspective of what happened.
One does not need to see the all the destroyed Buddhist Monasteries, nor hear about the thousands and thousands of scrolls burned by the Red Guard. But when you see the remaining damage and hear about the loss of priceless scrolls of knowledge... Then you can picture how the University students were turned against learning to be RED GUARD.
THAT WAS The exact opposite of what happened with the Chinese University Students at Tienamen Square. Last year was its 20 Year anniversary in 2009. Since I was in Beijing Dec. 2006 I looked at BBC maps and I saw where the picture of the single man confronted the Chinese WAR Tank. I, then, was able to say, in my mind, "I know where that happened because I crossed Chang'An and Wangfujing Road (Bejing Hotel) and looked west toward the square". It made it so much more personal for me.
See the video here: [...]
I also have seen the US movie, "The Red Violin", with one section relating to this era in Chinese History, it shows about that the Cultural Revolution '66-'75
The Chinese Cultural Revolution was horribly wrong and misguided. This book and its recollections made me see it even more so viscerally.
But the reason I remember the Chinese Cultural Revolution the most is, don't laugh, "MY WEEKLY READER" in 1967 when I read about the RED Guard in China. I was intrigued and was lucky enough to read, see, be, and travel China and Tibet.
Because of "Life and Death in Shanghai", I learned how my Fuzhou, Fujian, CHINA friend's mother gave him the name of GUOFENG. In 1979 my friend was born. In 1979, Hua Guofeng was Prime Minister. Hua Guofeng was instrumental in getting rid of the Red Guard's "Gang of Four", leaders of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. [...]
The parallels I see between the behaviour and actions shown by the Chinese Government in 1966-75 in this book regarding the "Cultural Revolution's Gang of Four" and the US government's use of the "Patriot's Act" toward US citizen's and prisoner's in Guantánamo to be frightfully and terrifyingly similar.
Read this book and make your own conclusions. BUT READ THIS BOOK before you comment.
Book Review: A window into the horrors of Red China
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
The same mass hysterical hate rampages described during the Cultural Revolution remind me of the hysterical "anti-war" rallies (in truth pro-Saddam Hussein rallies) that gripped world when the USA liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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.
Book Review: Superbly written, interesting and objective.
Summary: 5 Stars
I never thought that I could love a true account of tragedy, suffering, and grave injustice, but I have to admit that I love "Life and Death in Shanghai". I don't mean that I read this book for entertainment or recommend it to everybody. Like some of the works of Solzhenitsyn or Elie Weisel, the subject of Nien Cheng's book is real, painful, and sometimes very difficult to read. Yet I find myself constantly rereading "Life and Death in Shanghai" and it is one of the few books I refuse to part with. How can this be?Nien Cheng writes of personal loss, suffering, and injustice with unusually lucid and mature prose. She is impressive as story teller, an historian, but most of all as a writer. One of the most effective qualities of Nien Cheng's writing is the remarkable restraint she employs when describing unfair and frankly inhumane actions perpetrated against her and her family. She describes her arrest, captivity, and daily efforts to challenge her tormentors with cool objectivity.
One of the most impressive parts of the book is the account of how Nien Cheng studied Chairman Mao's collected works in prison. Despite the fact that Mao's policies had personally harmed her and were tearing China apart, she studied his works in earnest and evaluated them objectively. She concluded that Mao was a brilliant guerrilla warfare strategist but that he was only capable of destruction, not creativity.
Nien Cheng enhances her personal narrative by describing relevant Chinese historical events. As a result, the reader acquires a sense of context and is better able to understand why certain things happen to her. For example, Nien Cheng is repeatedly persecuted for her alleged support of Liu Xiaoqi. During one of her interrogations she is bold enough to declare that his policies, as elucidated by her jailers, sound perfectly sensible. Then after years in captivity, she is suddenly treated with more kindness and praised for her positive remarks about Liu Xiaoqi. Nien Cheng explains to the reader that during this time, political tidings had turned against the radical Gang of Four and that moderate factions in the Chinese Communist Party had rehabilitated Liu Xiaoqi.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in modern Chinese history, in survival and triumph, or to anyone who enjoys encountering the English language at its best. My deep respect and appreciation go out to Nien Cheng.