SHANGHAI ACROBAT

An inspiring up-from-poverty memoir from a former acrobat for the Shanghai Acrobat Troupe.

Jingjing graduated from the Acrobatic School of Shanghai in 1961; like millions of other Chinese, he was forced to endure many of the cruel excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Dumped in an orphanage at age 2, never having known his parents or why they abandoned him, the author had lived in five orphanages by the time he was chosen at age 9 to be trained in the troupe. Possessing a small frame and a fierce determination to succeed, Jingjing ultimately worked his way up to become a preeminent performer of handstand tricks that few people in the world could achieve. “In order to make life more meaningful, one must look for hope, most of all in miserable times,” he writes. “From my first handstand performance in 1963 until 1980 when I finished my stage performances, no one surpassed me. I was abso­lutely determined to be number one.” The troupe traveled around the world before being targeted as decadent by Mao’s Red Guards, the administrators of his sweeping agenda of societal change. They visited Africa, European capitals, and, later, America, and Jingjing’s narrative offers a detailed, engaging account of a unique life: sometimes enchanting but always peripatetic and physically and mentally rigorous. Along with intensive, repetitive drills, the troupe had to absorb political lessons about the alleged superiority of China. However, when Jingjing traveled abroad, he saw clearly the dawning truth of scarcity, famine, poverty, and oppression in his own country. Ultimately, he was sent to a series of reeducation camps, where the harsh farm labor nearly ruined him physically. Sidelined for “suspicious thinking” and removed from performance and teaching, he was able to immigrate to Australia and start a new life as a revered teacher of a new generation of circus performers.

The richness of detail, along with the photographs, reveal a marvelous story of endurance and fortitude.