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    Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
    Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
    Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution

    By Chun Yu

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    I was born in a small city near the East Sea,
    when the Great Cultural Revolution began.
    My name is Little Green,
    my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom.

    When I was ten years old,
    our leader had died and the revolution ended.

    And this is how I remember it.

    When Chun Yu was born in a small city in China, she was born into a country in revolution. The streets were filled with roaming Red Guards, the walls were covered with slogans, and reeducation meetings were held in all workplaces. Every family faced danger and humiliation, even the youngest children.

    Shortly after Chun’s birth, her beloved father was sent to a peasant village in the countryside to be reeducated in the ways of Chairman Mao. Chun and her brother stayed behind with their mother, who taught in a country middle school where Mao’s Little Red Book was a part of every child’s education. Chun Yu’s young life was witness to a country in turmoil, struggle, and revolution—the only life she knew.

    This first-person memoir of a child’s view of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a stunning account of a country in crisis and a testimony to the spirit of the individual—no matter how young or how innocent.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
    Release dateApr 30, 2013
    ISBN9781442460324
    Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
    Author

    Chun Yu

    Chun Yu was born in China in May 1966. After graduating from Peking University, she moved to the United States to pursue her PhD and a career in science. She now works as a principal scientist in a medical company Chun Yu lives in San Rafael, California.

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    • 4/5
      A book about the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the years 1966-1976, from a child's perspective. The author was born in the mid 1960s and tells the story of her family during the 10 years of revolution, from her earliest memories. Children have a sense of what is happening no matter how young they are. It's not an in depth look at the revolution, but how it was growing up under this oppression. Some similarities are popping up in USA, today.
    • 5/5
      Chun Yu was born at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She grew up during a time of change, which would make for a difficult childhood. Everything she experienced, she detailed in beautiful poems. This text is a different kind of primary source for readers. The poetry gives a more personal look at what it would be like to grow up during a time of radical change. Readers of any age will learn a lot about a new culture and time by reading this book.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Little Green - Chun Yu

    I was born in a small city near the East Sea,

    when the Great Cultural Revolution began.

    My name is Xiao Qing, Little Green,

    my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom.

    When I was ten years old,

    our leader died and the revolution ended.

    And this is how I remember it.

    BEGINNING

    Beginning

    The year was 1966,

    I was told,

    five o’clock on a late spring afternoon.

    Mama had been in labor for eight hours.

    Baba was pacing up and down in the hall,

    having just come from

    a mass political meeting in the city square.

    The doctor held me up in the air;

    I was a ten-pound girl,

    screaming loud with a little red face.

    Outside the world was changing,

    a revolution was in the making for my country.

    Darkening clouds gathering in the sky above,

    smothering thunders rolling on the horizon afar.

    Mama sat on Baba’s bike, holding me tight in her arms;

    Baba peddled toward home against the cold night wind.

    Mama’s face was as pale as paper;

    she caught cold on the way home,

    during the weakest time after her labor.

    Little Green

    Little Green—Xiao Qing—

    was the name they gave me.

    Qing, the green

    of tree leaves in early spring,

    of clear water in a deep pond,

    my baba said;

    of beautiful youth,

    the evergreen of life,

    my mama said;

    and of precious jade worn close to the heart,

    my nainai said.

    Mama’s Name Has a Phoenix

    Mama still says, telling me the story,

    luckily for the illness,

    she escaped the first struggle meeting

    in the school where she taught

    just by a day.

    The beginning of

    the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

    was announced,

    people waving red flags on the streets and

    shouting loud the slogans on their red banners:

    Ten Thousand Years Chairman Mao!

    Ten Thousand Years the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution!

    Chairman Mao called to the country,

    "Let’s hold the large flags of

    the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and

    completely expose the reactionary position

    of those so-called ‘academic authorities.’ "

    The school where Mama taught was in the countryside,

    but there was no escape even there.

    It was declared to be a revolutionary battlefield,

    like many other schools around the country.

    The day before Mama went back,

    in the school ceremony hall

    the Red Guards stood on the stage,

    the teachers were gathered around the stage,

    and other students gathered around them.

    The teachers picked

    were denounced on the stage,

    forced down on their knees and

    beaten in front of the crowd.

    They were asked to slap their own faces

    while denouncing themselves aloud

    until the Red Guards were satisfied.

    Mama’s name has a phoenix.

    The only child of our grandma and grandpa,

    they called her Cheng-Feng,

    which means becoming a phoenix.

    You have no idea what trouble this could be,

    Mama told me.

    Phoenix is too traditional for the revolution.

    Some said the old world needed to be destroyed

    for the new world to come.

    That’s the idea of the revolution

    I was born into.

    That summer

    around the country—our Middle Kingdom—

    so many people died,

    I was told many years later.

    An Uncle Teacher Became a Counterrevolutionary

    Spring 1967

    The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,

    Chairman Mao said,

    is a great revolution that will touch people’s souls.

    A year after the revolution started,

    Liu Shao-Qi,

    the other chairman of the country then,

    besides Chairman Mao,

    was downed with completely.

    People used to call him respectfully

    Our comrade Liu Shao-Qi,

    but an uncle teacher used these words one day too late.

    It was his turn to criticize

    the denounced leader in a struggle meeting.

    Our comrade Liu Shao-Qi, he started with.

    Just as he realized the mistake

    and turned pale,

    his head was already forced down.

    Down with the counterrevolutionary!

    people shouted,

    throwing their arms up in the air,

    trembling at this new discovery.

    The uncle teacher slapped his own face,

    calling himself one who deserves to die.

    He carried the label ever since I remembered.

    A Dream

    A dream was the first thing I ever remembered.

    Mama was holding me in her arms,

    snakes hanging from a big hollow tree,

    wolves and hyenas running on the ground.

    Mama was standing among these things,

    holding me tight in her arms.

    Go Up to the Mountains and Go Down to the Country

    1968

    I have a brother two years older,

    who I called Gege.

    Mama told me that

    until the year I was two years old

    and Gege was four,

    the three of us had lived and traveled

    between our home in the city where Baba worked

    and the country school where Mama taught.

    The city, like everywhere in the country,

    had been deep in revolution.

    The streets were filled with roaming Red Guards,

    struggle meetings were held in every work unit,

    and counterrevolutionaries were downed with every day.

    A time of unpredictable changes,

    a city of unrest.

    Chairman Mao called to the whole country:

    "Go up to the mountains and go down to the country,

    to receive reeducation from poor and lower-middle-class peasants."

    Baba was sent down from the city to labor

    in a May Seventh Cadre School in the countryside.

    We lost our home in the city.

    My gege and I stayed with Mama

    in the country school

    after Baba was gone.

    COUNTRY

    The Country Middle School

    We lived in a long one-story house facing south

    in the country middle school.

    It had gray-blue tiles on the roof

    with a brick wall of the same color.

    Eleven other teachers’ families

    lived in the same building.

    Eight of the families had children;

    there were twelve of us altogether.

    A river ran in front of the house.

    Past the full-moon gate to the west of the house,

    a brick bridge crossed the river.

    On the other side of the river

    was the school where Mama taught.

    Between the house and the river was a long stretch of garden.

    Right along the bank was

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