Explore "China's Son" by Da Chen on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Volumes have been written about China's Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, the time of my childhood. Each account is a horrifying testimony to a time gone bad at the hand of a demonic leader. During Mao Tse-tung's crazy drive to purge all his political enemies, millions died bloodily and many more were wrongly imprisoned. Factories were closed as workers rushed into the streets to shout "Long live Chairman Mao," and schools were shut as Mao stirred youngsters to beat up their teachers, burn down the temples and destroy the ancient arts, and even turn against their own parents in the devilish hunt for more victims.
Books were trashed and classrooms ruined. Factories stood eerily quiet, weeds growing out of cracks in the walls. School campuses became brutal battlefields. Young students, armed with rifles, became roamers jumping on trains, traveling all over the country, toppling buses that would not take them, storming food stores that would not serve them. Fear and hopelessness gripped us all.