Red Azalea by Anchee Min
	List Price:   $13.00 Unit Price:   $10.40 You Save:   $2.60 (20%) ISBN-10:   1400096987 ISBN-13:   9781400096985 Publisher:   Random House [MD]; Anchor Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   April 2006 Pages:   306 Format:   Paperback
Subjects
CHINA_HISTORY_CULTURAL REVOLUTION, 1966-1969
Description/Notes
'[An] extraordinary story. . . . This memoir of sexual freedom is [both] a powerful political as well as literary statement.' —The New York Times Book Review 'The book sings. It is a small masterpiece. . . [No one] has written more honestly and poignantly than Anchee Min about the desert of solitude and human alienation at the center of the Chinese Communist revolution.' —Vogue 'Gripping. . . .reads like raw testimony. . .epic drama, and. . .poetic incantation. . . . It was passion and despair that made [Min] fearless; it was fearlessness that made her a writer.' —The New York Times 'Stunning. . . . Min's is a distinct and moving voice speaking out of a cauldron of history.' —Los Angeles Times Book Review 'Brave and heartbreaking.' —The Miami Herald Part One I was raised on the teachings of Mao and on the operas of Madam Mao, Comrade Jiang Ching. I became a leader of the Little Red Guards in elementary school. This was during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution when red was my color. My parents lived like--as the neighbors described them--a pair of chopsticks: always in harmony My father was an instructor of industrial technique drawing at Shanghai Textile Institute, although his true love was astronomy. My mother was a teacher at a Shanghai middle school. She taught whatever the Party asked, one semester in Chinese and the next in Russian. My parents both believed in Mao and the Communist Party, just like everybody else in the neighborhood. They had four children, each one a year apart. I was born in 1957. We lived in the city, on South Luxuriant Road in a small two-story townhouse occupied by two families. The house was left by my grandfather, who had died of tuberculosis right before I was born. I was an adult since the age of five. That was nothing unusual. The kids I played with all carried their family's little ones on their backs, tied with a piece of cloth. The little ones played with their own snot while we played hide-and-seek. I was put in charge of managing the family because my parents were in their working units all day, just like everyone else's parents. I called my sisters and brother my children because I had to pick each one of them up from kindergarten and nursery school while I myself was only a kindergartner. I was six when my sister Blooming was five, my second sister Coral was four and my brother Space Conqueror was three. My parents made careful choices in the names they gave us, They were considered eccentric because the neighbors named their children Guard of Red, Big Leap, Long March, Red Star, Liberation, Revolution, New China, Road of Russia, Resist U.S., Patriotic Forerunner, Matchless Red Soldier, etc. My parents had their own ideas. First they called me Lin-Shuan--Rising Sun at a Mountain. They dropped it because Mao was considered the only sun. After further contemplation, they named me Anchee--Jade of Peace. Also, it sounded like the Chinese pronunciation of the English word 'angel.' They registered me with it. Blooming and Coral were named after the sound of chee (jade). There were two reasons why my parents named my brother Space Conqueror: one was that my father loved astronomy; the second was to respond to Mao's call that China would soon build its own spaceship. As I understood it, my parents were doing work that was saving the world. Every evening I would pick up the children and fight with the kids on the block all the way home. It was like eating a regular meal that I got a purple cheek or a bloody nose. It did not bother me too much. Although I was scared of crossing at traffic lights and dark alleys, I learned to not show my fear, because I had to be a model for the children, to show them what bravery meant. After I arranged for the children to play by themselves in the living room, I went to set up the stove to cook dinner. It always took me a long time to light the stove, because I did not understand that wood and coals needed air to burn. I stuffed the stove as I sang songs of Mao quotations. One time, when I tried many times and the stove would not light, I lost my patience. I went out to play, thinking that the stove was not burning. Then a kid came and told me that there was smoke coming out of our house window. This happened three times. I tried to put the children to sleep while the sky was still bright. The children's little feet kicked the cotton blankets and made new holes over the old. The blankets soon became rags. When the room quieted down, I would lean on the windowsill staring at the entrance to the lane, waiting for my parents to appear. I watched the sky turn deep blue, Venus rising, and I would fall asleep by the window. In 1967, when I was ten yea Red Azaleais Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China, Anchee Min’s memoir is exceptional for its candor, its poignancy, its courage, and for its prose whichNewsweekcalls 'as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting.' This 'New York Times' Notable Book tells the true story of what it was like growing up in Mao's China, where the soul was secondary to the state, beauty was mistrusted, and love could be punishable by death. 'Newsweek' calls Anchee Min's prose 'as delicate and evocative as a traditional Chinese brush painting.' Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, this national bestseller tells the true story of Min's life in Mao's China, where the soul was secondary to the state, beauty was mistrusted, and love could be punishable by death. & quot; [An] extraordinary story. . . . This memoir of sexual freedom is [both] a powerful political as well as literary statement.& quot; -- The New York Times Book Review & quot; The book sings. It is a small masterpiece. . . [No one] has written more honestly and poignantly than Anchee Min about the desert of solitude and human alienation at the center of the Chinese Communist revolution.& quot; -- Vogue & quot; Gripping. . . .reads like raw testimony. . .epic drama, and. . .poetic incantation. . . . It was passion and despair that made [Min] fearless; it was fearlessness that made her a writer.& quot; -- The New York Times & quot; Stunning. . . . Min's is a distinct and moving voice speaking out of a cauldron of history.& quot; -- Los Angeles Times Book Review & quot; Brave and heartbreaking.& quot; -- The Miami Herald