Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution ― A Young Girl's Deeply Moving True Story of Growing Up in Mao's China

I somehow stumbled upon this book suggestion and gave it a go. First, I'll say that this book is suggested for Y/A audiences but I am an adult. It was a really easy read for me and it is now in my 11 and 13 year olds' queue. It was written I a fashion that would be easy enough for 10+ to read. (If you are not of Asian culture, point out the glossary in advance to your child or tell them to have a google translator or something similar nearby because there are a few things outside of Asian culture they may be unfamiliar with.) The reason why I was so intrigued by the story was hearing this first hand from someone that truly experienced it. It would have made an interesting novel. But this was her real life. A must read, for sure .

Ji-li Jiang's account of her adolescence which took place during China's Cultural Revolution made this reader appreciate that we live in a country where one can be totally unaware of politics and get along just fine. So often I get frustrated that people I know and love are interested in politics but don't have a deeper understanding of what is at stake and what the current issues are affecting the US. In Red Scarf Girl we see a girl living in a country and a time when even children would have been relentlessly indoctrinated with the governments political views and anyone who stepped outside of those proposed ideals for any reason at all, even one that is not of their choosing at all such as long-dead familial relations, can be segregated and driven out of the community. It is at times a hard story to take seriously because the world they are living in is almost a fun house mirror of our political system. Imagine if left wingers in the United States literally dragged the rich out of their homes subsequently beating and stoning them in the streets while their horrified family members looked on without saying a word to defend them and you have an approximation of what was going on during the Cultural Revolution. The most jarring and maybe problematic part of the book for an American reader like myself is that there is no resolution to the issue, no hero that swoops in and saves the day, no justice for those wrong or punishment for those who abused the power they had. But I suppose that that is the great enigma of modern China. They suffered so much during the hardcore Communist days with people occasionally killed by neighbors, others exiled to work in labor camps and many millions starved to death by heavy-handed utopian-minded economic maneuvers by an omnipotent party apparat gone wild. Despite all this they never renounced Communism like their Eastern European political brethren but they did embrace capitalism on an incredible scale while still referring to themselves as Communists without ever admitting to or even acknowledging the massive hypocrisy it implies. Statues and humongous portraits of Mao still adorn public buildings, cultural landmarks and peoples' homes and the majority of those who suffered underneath his despotic rule don't even have any hard feelings. One of the characters in the book even says something along the lines of "I never blamed Chairman Mao, I always assumed he was just trying to do what was best for the country." It made me think of the time Britney Spears said of Bush during the run-up to the Iraq War that "he is just the President and we should just follow him" or some such nonsense. At the end of the day this book made be even more cynical about any political process that involves more than a few million people that haven't all been living together for the past 3,000 years. When I said in the title for the review that the book may disappoint more mature readers, I say that because I think as you get older you crave definite resolutions to the different stories you're told. When you listen to or read a very tragic story with a definite antagonist, you need to know that that person was punished and that those who were wronged at least got to "have their day in court" or whathaveyou. For this reason I think younger people should read this book to learn that things in life aren't always divided into black & white or good & bad and that sometimes people who do horrible things often get to live out mediocre lives with no punishment ever for the crimes they have committed. I guess what I'm saying is I liked this book for allowing me to wallow in my pessimism a little while longer.

I know, when I say "educational" you start to shrivel up a little inside. But this book is actually really interesting and amazing and beautifully written. Jiang Ji-Li has spoken the truth without holding anything back and shed light on what it was like to be a "black whelp." And when I say educational, I mean educational. We were studying the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Social Studies at my high school and I wasn't doing very well in that unit, until I read this book. I felt like I understood what it was like to be in the Jiangs' shoes and I knew and could synchronize information I had learned in class with the book and it made me feel really smart. What's more, I aced the class after reading this book! Not only that, but I completely enjoyed this book and I am sure you will too.

Red Scarf Girl. Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang was the first book to make me cry. Bridge Terabithia? Sad but not a true tale. Harry Potter? Sure a lot of great characters and people die in it and you'll claim you cried for certain people but you don't really cry. Red Scarf Girl however is-is a whole different category of sad. It gives you a knew look on sad. The book is a peace of a girl's life. Not only that but it doesn't show the good, it shows the bad, hard, and painful moments. When my teacher told me we would be reading another memoir I groaned. We've already read one, and that one was bearable. So naturally this one would be unbearable. When I got the book I read the first page. I was already thinking I can't read this. The author was already bragging about there perfect life. You know the type. Anyways that's what I don't like about memoirs. If it was any old book I would've stopped reading there. But unfortunately it was homework. Reluctantly I continued reading. And I started to forget, forget it was a memoir. This book is like Harry Potter but real and not magic. Then the book became the kind of book you can't put down. As I got further into the book I started crying at parts. It made me realize that however bad my day is this girl's day for 3 years is even worse. Filled with worry, fear, confusion, and all sorts of miserable and negative things. And to top it off. Almost every single thing she owned was taken from me. This is the part in a normal book when I would come back to reality and remember that it's not real. But in this book I don't get that. Instead I remember that this was real and this girl who would other wise be brilliant, respected and loved is slowly becoming more and more depressed and lost. The brilliant girl who was at the beginning of the book respected by everyone is bow nothing but a black welp. A dirty thing that nobody likes. Red Scarf girl is a true heart warming story that can make anybody's bad day a good one.

This is an interesting book for young adults that is found in some middle school classrooms, and that can also be a good book for children as young as fifth grade. Like many books for youth that have a serious message, as this one does, it is suitable for adults as well. This provides a good education for young people and children, to get a first hand perspective on China and the Cultural Revolution. It will help children to understand that not everyone is "free" to do as they please, and the cherish their freedom. It is a character-building book of value for young people. It should be one of those must-read book for the summer, one of those books that every classroom grades 5 through 8 should have.

Red Scarf Girl Ji-Li-Jiang Harpercollins Publisher 1998 285 pages $9.95 ISBN:0-06-446208-0 “ Another day.” I took a deep breath and shook my head. “ I will do my job . I will.” The book Red scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang is a memoir about a girl during the cultural revolution in China. A girl named Jiang Li Li a smart and flexible girl wants to join the Red Guards, but her family’s reputation makes her so she can’t join. Everyone makes fun of her family’s reputation. Jiang Li Li feels embarrassed and sad. When the Red guards come to check her home.... This book doesn’t have a sequel or prequel. I think this book wasn’t for me. I don’t like it when the main character doesn’t try to save the day. I read the chapters one at a time because the chapters were long. The theme of the book was to never give up.In the book I felt the main character cried a lot and was a little moody. I would recommend this book to ages 10-12. I would recommend people who likes less action and a lot of violence. Surprisingly, Ji Li Jiang did pretty good for writing her first book. Her writing was descriptive and extremely emotional. Comparing this book to other books I would say I have never seen this type of a story. now I’ve told you a little bit about the story now it’s your decision. Do you want to read this book? After you read the book what are your opinions of the book? - Ariel Kapil

This is NOT a book about the "big picture" of what happened in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution. Rather, it is a memoir of the lives of a young girl and her family and her friends' families. For the Chinese people, society's rules about what is good and bad were reversed, first when the Communists conquered China in 1949, and then the reversal was emphasized seventeen years later, when the Cultural Revolution began. The result was that families who, before Communism, had worked hard and intelligently and had prospered suddenly became national enemies. Even those who had chosen not to flee China, out of a strong sense of Chinese patriotism, like the author's parents and grandparents, were declared by the state to be "enemies of the people". Even worse, no way was allowed for such a family to "make up" for its past, and even the children who were born into Communism, like the author and her siblings and friends, were declared to be guilty of the "crimes" of their ancestors. For the author, the Cultural Revolution was a turning point in her life. Until then, her parents and grandmother had kept their heads down and been left alone, but now they were denounced and actively persecuted. What the author was seeing daily in her life conflicted with the propaganda she was getting at school, which, before, she had accepted without question. Now her confusion kept increasing, as she tried to make sense of her new world. Finally, she was told bluntly that she had to choose between her country and her family, and only if she publicly rejected her family could she have the life she had always expected to have. Of course this was an agonizing decision, and took much time, but she finally made her choice. The book is well-written, and does an excellent job of showing life in this tumultuous time as seen by a highly intelligent girl who was only twelve years old when the Cultural Revolution began. I highly recommend it.

I liked the book very much. It's a good story about "communist" China, and it actually tells me why China never was a Communist country, but rather (and not actually, when looked at it deeper*) a proletarian country. In fact it shows that the people in chine weren't equal (as it should've been in communism) but it was rather like: The proletarians were everything while the Burgeois were nothing, their children bearing their mark, and actually becoming as worthless as their parents in the eyes of the community. Well except if they betrayed their family, which is hardly acceptable by anyone. In fact, it was in this book mostly, where I've got to understand why communism is so criticized, while it seems so good on Carl Marx's Communist Manifest. It simply got abused (atleast in china). * Checking it deeper, it wasn't even proletarian, as they weren't worth as much as the red guards, and they not as much as Mao... (and maybe we could put some other groups there inbetween... So much for equal rights) But well that's how I saw it. I believe many saw the whole story through a diferent perspective. Just give it a try, it's worth it.

平易な英語からすると子供向けの本であり、かなり評判になったことは米国アマゾンのレヴュー数が数百であることから分かる。欧米に帰化した中国人による類書は多いが、本書は上海での少女時代の数年をカバーしており、家庭背景が悪く（運悪く、元地主階級）悲惨な境遇におとしめられる、その不幸の極致で話が終わっている。短い後書きで後にアメリカにわたり、今はハワイで暮らしているとあるが、当初、英語も満足でなかったというから苦労したのだろうが、そんなのは彼女にとって苦労のうちに入らなかっただろう。つくづく文化革命時代の洗脳のむごさを知らされる体験談である。 それにしても、本書の英語は平易、簡潔であり高校生・大学初級レベルの英語の勉強にとても役立つだろう。また、常に共産党の宣伝・洗脳にさらされている中国人向け英語テキストにはぴったりだろう・・・嫌味か。

A historia eh interessante e fiquei envolvida, mas acho que para adolescentes ele não eh muito legal.

Very good. Thank you very much! Fully recommended seller!

Could not put this book down!!!! I would highly recommend that anybody with an interest in history read this book. Also a great read for our youth.

A good read, showing how children and adults alike were victimised and abused during such a terrible and lawless time in Chinese history. I enjoy these first hand accounts, which have more humanity attached to them than text books. However, it seems to have been written for a 12 year old to read, and even has strangely large print. A good read, but I was turning pages every ten seconds...