- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Anchor Canada (Mar 16 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385257015
- ISBN-13: 978-0385257015
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#196,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #28 in Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > History
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
"An engrossing saga of one woman's turbulent life in Cultural Revolution China. I couldn't put it down." —Jan Wong, author of Red China Blues
“…a moving account of struggle and fortitude…”—The Globe and Mail
“…lurks in my memory, demanding to be re-read and shared…”—The Globe and Mail Reader’s Choice
“Ting-Xing Ye tells her story with such vividness of imagery and such a galloping momentum that the narrative reads like splendid fiction.”—Patrick Kavanagh in the Ottawa Citizen
“This account of a woman’s quest to gain ownership of her own life in the face of incredible adversity and devastating, compounding circumstance does not let go easily… It feels like an immersion, one from which you cannot instantly dry off after the last page.”—Horizons
“as powerful as Wild Swans....”—Northern Star (Lismore, Australia)
“Ye writes vividly, with a deal of wry humour and an eye for the absurd… Despite the dark years of deprivation, separation and exile this book records, family relationships are at its heart… Guilt and resentment simmer as Ye and her siblings flail about in the political quicksands seeking, like all those about them, a path to social acceptance.”—The Australian
“It’s a page-turner that can be enjoyed as exquisite grassroots history, or as the simple story of one woman’s triumph over brutish odds.”—Cityview, USA
“Clearly, the writing was a very personal, painful process for Ting-Xing Ye, calling up the treasured memories of her devoted parents and their untimely deaths. We experience, along with her, a range of emotions… We learn to appreciate the true value of friendship, the precious love of family, and the strength and resilience of the human spirit.”—East York Reading Association
“…fascinating yet horrifying…”—The Barrie Examiner
“Ye is not afraid to present herself in a bad light at times. It is all part of her reconciliation with the past… This profound document of oppression and courage is an essential read for anyone who cares at all about freedom.”—Cancontent
“…a moving account of struggle and fortitude…”—The Globe and Mail
“…lurks in my memory, demanding to be re-read and shared…”—The Globe and Mail Reader’s Choice
“Ting-Xing Ye tells her story with such vividness of imagery and such a galloping momentum that the narrative reads like splendid fiction.”—Patrick Kavanagh in the Ottawa Citizen
“This account of a woman’s quest to gain ownership of her own life in the face of incredible adversity and devastating, compounding circumstance does not let go easily… It feels like an immersion, one from which you cannot instantly dry off after the last page.”—Horizons
“as powerful as Wild Swans....”—Northern Star (Lismore, Australia)
“Ye writes vividly, with a deal of wry humour and an eye for the absurd… Despite the dark years of deprivation, separation and exile this book records, family relationships are at its heart… Guilt and resentment simmer as Ye and her siblings flail about in the political quicksands seeking, like all those about them, a path to social acceptance.”—The Australian
“It’s a page-turner that can be enjoyed as exquisite grassroots history, or as the simple story of one woman’s triumph over brutish odds.”—Cityview, USA
“Clearly, the writing was a very personal, painful process for Ting-Xing Ye, calling up the treasured memories of her devoted parents and their untimely deaths. We experience, along with her, a range of emotions… We learn to appreciate the true value of friendship, the precious love of family, and the strength and resilience of the human spirit.”—East York Reading Association
“…fascinating yet horrifying…”—The Barrie Examiner
“Ye is not afraid to present herself in a bad light at times. It is all part of her reconciliation with the past… This profound document of oppression and courage is an essential read for anyone who cares at all about freedom.”—Cancontent
Book Description
One of the best ways to understand history is through eye-witness accounts. Ting-Xing Ye’s riveting first book, A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, is a memoir of growing up in Maoist China. It was an astonishing coming of age through the turbulent years of the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1974).
In the wave of revolutionary fervour, peasants neglected their crops, exacerbating the widespread hunger. While Ting-Xing was a young girl in Shanghai, her father’s rubber factory was expropriated by the state, and he was demoted to a labourer. A botched operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, and his health deteriorated rapidly since a capitalist’s well-being was not a priority. He died soon after, and then Ting-Xing watched her mother’s struggle with poverty end in stomach cancer. By the time she was thirteen, Ting-Xing Ye was an orphan, entrusted with her brothers and sisters to her Great-Aunt, and on welfare.
Still, the Red Guards punished the children for being born into the capitalist class. Schools were being closed; suicide was rampant; factories were abandoned for ideology; distrust of friends and neighbours flourished. Ting-Xing was sent to work on a distant northern prison farm at sixteen, and survived six years of backbreaking labour and severe conditions. She was mentally tortured for weeks until she agreed to sign a false statement accusing friends of anti-state activities. Somehow finding the time to teach herself English, often by listening to the radio, she finally made it to Beijing University in 1974 as the Revolution was on the wane — though the acquisition of knowledge was still frowned upon as a bourgeois desire and study was discouraged.
Readers have been stunned and moved by this simply narrated personal account of a 1984-style ideology-gone-mad, where any behaviour deemed to be bourgeois was persecuted with the ferocity and illogic of a witch trial, and where a change in politics could switch right to wrong in a moment. The story of both a nation and an individual, the book spans a heady 35 years of Ye’s life in China, until her eventual defection to Canada in 1987 — and the wonderful beginning of a romance with Canadian author William Bell. The book was published in 1997.
The 1990s saw the publication of several memoirs by Chinese now settled in North America. Ye’s was not the first, yet earned a distinguished place as one of the most powerful, and the only such memoir written from Canada. It is the inspiring story of a woman refusing to “drift with the stream” and fighting her way through an impossible, unjust system. This compelling, heart-wrenching story has been published in Germany, Japan, the US, UK and Australia, where it went straight to #1 on the bestseller list and has been reprinted several times; Dutch, French and Turkish editions will appear in 2001.
In the wave of revolutionary fervour, peasants neglected their crops, exacerbating the widespread hunger. While Ting-Xing was a young girl in Shanghai, her father’s rubber factory was expropriated by the state, and he was demoted to a labourer. A botched operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, and his health deteriorated rapidly since a capitalist’s well-being was not a priority. He died soon after, and then Ting-Xing watched her mother’s struggle with poverty end in stomach cancer. By the time she was thirteen, Ting-Xing Ye was an orphan, entrusted with her brothers and sisters to her Great-Aunt, and on welfare.
Still, the Red Guards punished the children for being born into the capitalist class. Schools were being closed; suicide was rampant; factories were abandoned for ideology; distrust of friends and neighbours flourished. Ting-Xing was sent to work on a distant northern prison farm at sixteen, and survived six years of backbreaking labour and severe conditions. She was mentally tortured for weeks until she agreed to sign a false statement accusing friends of anti-state activities. Somehow finding the time to teach herself English, often by listening to the radio, she finally made it to Beijing University in 1974 as the Revolution was on the wane — though the acquisition of knowledge was still frowned upon as a bourgeois desire and study was discouraged.
Readers have been stunned and moved by this simply narrated personal account of a 1984-style ideology-gone-mad, where any behaviour deemed to be bourgeois was persecuted with the ferocity and illogic of a witch trial, and where a change in politics could switch right to wrong in a moment. The story of both a nation and an individual, the book spans a heady 35 years of Ye’s life in China, until her eventual defection to Canada in 1987 — and the wonderful beginning of a romance with Canadian author William Bell. The book was published in 1997.
The 1990s saw the publication of several memoirs by Chinese now settled in North America. Ye’s was not the first, yet earned a distinguished place as one of the most powerful, and the only such memoir written from Canada. It is the inspiring story of a woman refusing to “drift with the stream” and fighting her way through an impossible, unjust system. This compelling, heart-wrenching story has been published in Germany, Japan, the US, UK and Australia, where it went straight to #1 on the bestseller list and has been reprinted several times; Dutch, French and Turkish editions will appear in 2001.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is the REAL communist China,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Leaf In The Bitter Wind (Paperback)
I don't want to describe this marvelous book in depth since so many have done this. I wanted to have my rating recorded because I believe this is the type of secondary school reading which should be required. Our kids have no idea what the real communists are like today and what hell they put their citizens through. Before they become too complacent, they should read this real life story of a Chinese girl's existence before, during and after the Cultural Rev.We have never lived under suppression or had even the smallest freedom removed. Ye brings to life what that existence would be like and I doubt any of us would have the courage and fortitude to endure. It's no wonder the suicide rate is so high there! I can't even empathize with her plight because I have never in all my 71 years had to experience such paranoid. All through my reading of A Leaf in the Bitter Wind, my thoughts drifted to the total hypocracy of communism. Where is their concern for the peasant who still is no better off than pre 1940's? Why do so many officials live palatially? Why is communism so frightened of individual freedom of thought and expression? I know the answer - THEY ARE FRIGHTENED OF THE TRUTH! Scripture says "the truth will make you free" and this is still applicable to China. Living in Toronto, one cannot avoid seeing many Chinese nationals, in fact, they are now the 2nd highest ethnic group. I am only too happy we can provide them a free haven where they can think and behave like a "maple leaf in the warm embracing winds".
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book I read in 1998,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Leaf in the Bitter Wind (Hardcover)
This was my first Chinese autobiography and I was absolutely blown away at how incredible it was, how engagingly written it was, and what an amazing survivor Ye Ting-Xing is. Witnessing her family ostracised by the government as Capitalist traitors, losing her parents at such a young age, seeing her family scattered everywhere for a great cause that no-one seemed to really understand, humiliated, tortured, - this is only the half of it. Many of us have read about people around the world living such hardships, but it's easy to forget and not to sympathise when their lives seem so far away and different to ours. But with Ye's intimated and captivating style of her life, we are drawn into her world, and walk away feeling a small part of the pain ourselves. Sometimes the best way to learn about something is through feelings. And it makes you appreciate your life's comparatively small burdens by comparison, makes you appreciate the fact that you can wash yourself with warm water every day. It's also a great eye-opener about 20th Century China - not by the history books which tell us what they want to, but by someone who was actually there, directly affected by it. Brilliant reading absolutely recommended to anyone.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book - and here are some discussion questions,
By
This review is from: A Leaf In The Bitter Wind (Paperback)
Our book club just did this book, and was lucky enough to have the author attend as well. This is a very good book, and does give you a great view of the cultural revolution, through the eyes of one of the millions of people who got tossed back and forth during this time.If you're looking for book club discussion questions, here are some we used: 1. It is probably fair to say that the language used in this book is very simple and straight forward - there is no flowery prose, or desperate attempts to appeal to the readers' emotions. How do you feel about the use of simple language to describe powerful and often terrible experiences? Does it work well in this book? 2. In describing things like the one-child policy, and the advances made upon the author by her mentor and boss Lao Peng, we are given a good picture of the life of women during the cultural revolution. After reading this book, what is your overall impression of the life of a woman in communist China during and after the cultural revolution? 3. What - if any - similarities do you see between the life of a woman in China during this time period, and a woman in North America? 5. A Leaf in the Bitter Wind developed a number of characters throughout the novel. Which character were you able to relate most to, and why? 6. What - if any - lessons stand out for you in this book regarding love, family, friendship? Does the author seem to survive the cultural revolution due to the strength of personal relationships, or through her own will-power? 1. A review of the book, in a 1999 issue of Canadian Literature, describes the book as "written from a displaced intellectual consciousness". How do you think that settling into a life outside China influenced the author's perception of her home country and her life there? 5. A passage from the Quotations of Chairman Mao reads "Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the socialist transformation of society as a whole!". In your experience, was there any real attempt to create gender equality during the cultural revolution?
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