Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China Book

There is lots of material on the exiles, refugees and China based casualties of the Cultural Revolution, but this is the first I've read with confessions. As JP's friend Zhou says everyone in China claims to be a victim, but "do the math". What could the ratio of victim to torturer be? This book doesn't answer that, but sheds light on the Cultural Revolution's environment and aftermath.

Also, westerners tend to see Tienanmen Square through an idealistic lens. JP reports on hunger fasts with 8 hour shifts and petty police actions: "No bicycle here". JP heard little dialog among the protestors. Demagoguery was met with louder demagoguery and sometimes fisticuffs. The major leaders left China when the chips were down leaving behind many followers who lost what little they had. Some, like JP's composer friend, spent years in prisons where they were mercilessly beaten.

Each of JP's survivor friends had to make compromises of a nature inconceivable to most westerners. Some began in youth gangs, empowered by party leaders to harass and destroy parents, teachers, anyone with a modicum of success or talent. Some actually tortured their parents. Others were only steps removed from their parents' murders. The lucky ones merely had to deny or denigrate parents, teachers or neighbors to survive the gangs of angry peasants, the urban poor and probabilistically vulnerable young people with hormones running wild. The immediate mental calculus was simple, you couldn't beat them so you joined them.

There is one generational twist. JP's friend Song has an alcoholic father who dreadfully abused him worse than the "system". For what we know of abusive family relationships we are not surprised that Song returns to China at great risk to himself upon his father's bidding. The father shows no acknowledgement of or care for the danger involved.

JP's "longitudinal" examination of these, perhaps typical, students of this generation is a major contribution. Despite their relative success, their lives are not easy, and their success is vulnerable to the jealousies and connections of others. They continually make compromises, like the composer who lyrics that the Chinese people have won their freedom, or the party propagandist who intimates that China needs a free press and the entrepreneur who teaches Marxism on the side.

The story is not over. This generation will be succeeded by the "little emperors". Will these children, fully indulged by 2 parents and 4 grandparents, emerge with self-esteem (unavailable to the culture revolution generation) or complete selfishness? How will these young people with greater education, travel, material well being and opportunity react to the current immovable system? How will they administer China when they become the system?