COLORS OF THE MOUNTAIN

A moving evocation of life in a remote village in China in the 1960s and ’70s. The Chens had the misfortune to be descended from a landlord, and the consequences followed all the descendants, even the grandchildren, as ineluctably as race in the worst days of the old South. Their property was confiscated, they were forbidden to go to school, they could be abused and beaten up with impunity by their neighbors, their father was sent to a work camp, and most of the children worked for long hours in the fields, “farming the land the same way we had done thousands of years ago, the only difference being that we got paid less.— And yet, for all the cruelty and humiliation, there is an exuberance about this book. The Chens— remote village escaped—was hardly even aware of—the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. At the same time, China itself was changing. Chen was allowed to go to school, and even though he was persecuted and victimized, and on one occasion had to escape to another village to avoid being branded a counterrevolutionary, his school and village took occasional pride in his achievements. Chen taught himself to play the violin and consorted with local toughs who discouraged the school bullies. All the while, his family, even by Chinese standards, remained exceptionally loving and supportive. His father’s talent for acupuncture was so helpful to the party hierarchy that he was discharged from the work camp, credited with a miraculous repentance. Chen’s triumph comes after the Cultural Revolution, when college places are opened up to competitive examinations, regardless of class status, and he wins the supreme prize of a place at the Beijing Language Institute. Chen’s memoir displays an unusual and remarkable insight into Chinese life, and into the resilience of the human spirit. (Author tour)