MORNING BREEZE: A True Story of China's Cultural Revolution

by Fulang Lo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1988

Mao's Cultural Revolution as experienced by a teen-age girl caught up in the turmoil of a nation seeking an answer to centuries of repression and injustice. As an idealist, it was natural that 17-year-old Fulang Lo should be caught up in the movement to remake Chinese society. Convinced of the rightness of the cause, she becomes the leader of one of the largest Red Guard groups in southwest China. Her gradual disillusionment is clearly delineated here, as she finds that the policies of the government change from day to day, that her fellow revolutionaries are as venal as their Guomindang predecessors, and that promotions are, despite official protestations of universal equality, based on ""class."" Intent on entering the university, the author is frustrated by bureaucratic policies and by her contemporaries' jealousies and ambitions. Rejecting her position in the Red Guards, she becomes a singer in a theatrical troupe touring the asbestos-mining regions bordering Tibet; a farm worker; an elementary-school instructor; and even a ""baretbot doctor"" ministering to the peasant population. Eventually, even these activities are frustrated by local officials, and in despair the girl attempts suicide. Saved from the river into which she has flung herself, she is introduced to a sensitive doctor, marries him, and has a child. In 1985, she comes to the US, where she now studies at American University, apparently intending to return to her native country shortly. As intriguing as her story is, Lo herself remains something of a mystery here, and the scores of individuals with whom she comes in contact are largely two-dimensional. Nonetheless, this is, even in its present form, a unique and revealing document of human courage and commitment.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: China Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION