Life and Death in Shanghai [Audio Cassette]

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.