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Sizhe Liang's Reviews > Life and Death in Shanghai
Life and Death in Shanghai
by
Nien Cheng and Life and Death in Shanghai
Sizhe Liang
As a man who was born in China, it’s especially important to know the truths of the passed days .Because of the political reasons, many history facts are sensitive to talk about, The Cultural Revolution, undoubtedly included. So today, until 2016, we still have to read the books writing in English to know about our own history . What a joke!
Nien Cheng was born in 1915, Beijing. She had a good family background and was educated in London. In 1966, she became a target of attack by Red Guards as the widow of the former manager of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at Communist Party moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949. Just as we can know from her book, Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Cheng was rehabilitated after the Gang of Four (including Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife) were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill. Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the struggle sessions against the interrogators.
There are many things we can learn from her unfortunate life story. When she was forced to attend criticism meetings, when she had to see her house being occupied by the Red Guards, when she was arrested by the state and when her daughter was forced to death, it pushes you to think what is the institution that we should choose to live in. As Aristotle said, “Men is born as political animals.” ,though Nien Cheng cared little about the political issues and hardly took part in the political campaigns, she inevitably enrolled in it. So for individuals, there is not so many choose. And that is why democracy is better that than despotism. However, although we can’t choose to bear in a country with a good political institution, we still can choose to live in the country we really like if we make an effort.
Never be forced to confess the sin that doesn’t belong to you and give yourself a choose, you can make a difference.
Conference:Wikipedia
March 26, 2016
by
Nien Cheng and Life and Death in Shanghai
Sizhe Liang
As a man who was born in China, it’s especially important to know the truths of the passed days .Because of the political reasons, many history facts are sensitive to talk about, The Cultural Revolution, undoubtedly included. So today, until 2016, we still have to read the books writing in English to know about our own history . What a joke!
Nien Cheng was born in 1915, Beijing. She had a good family background and was educated in London. In 1966, she became a target of attack by Red Guards as the widow of the former manager of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell. Maoist revolutionaries used this fact to claim that Cheng was a British spy in order to strike at Communist Party moderates for allowing the firm to operate in China after 1949. Just as we can know from her book, Cheng endured six-and-a-half years of squalid and inhumane conditions in prison, all the while refusing to give any false confession. Her daughter Meiping Cheng, a prominent Shanghai film actress, was murdered by Maoists after the young woman refused to denounce her mother. Cheng was rehabilitated after the Gang of Four (including Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife) were arrested, and she used the opportunity to leave for the United States, as she was still a constant target of surveillance by those who wished her ill. Cheng used Mao's teachings successfully against her interrogators, frequently turning the tide of the struggle sessions against the interrogators.
There are many things we can learn from her unfortunate life story. When she was forced to attend criticism meetings, when she had to see her house being occupied by the Red Guards, when she was arrested by the state and when her daughter was forced to death, it pushes you to think what is the institution that we should choose to live in. As Aristotle said, “Men is born as political animals.” ,though Nien Cheng cared little about the political issues and hardly took part in the political campaigns, she inevitably enrolled in it. So for individuals, there is not so many choose. And that is why democracy is better that than despotism. However, although we can’t choose to bear in a country with a good political institution, we still can choose to live in the country we really like if we make an effort.
Never be forced to confess the sin that doesn’t belong to you and give yourself a choose, you can make a difference.
Conference:Wikipedia
March 26, 2016
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March 25, 2016
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Victor
(new)
Apr 23, 2016 02:01AM
Yes ,agree with you mostly,wanna say politics in china is always different from west,and community party's mainland is like------oh,I need to hold my tongue.
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