Life and Death in Shanghai, by Nien Cheng
New York: Penguin Book, 1988,547 pgs.
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng is a book that I would recommend to all readers who want to engulf themselves in Chinese Culture during the mid 1900’s. The book is perceived as more descriptive story and much different than any other book you will find. It immerses you in both the elements of perseverance and bravery. A magnificently-written account of an educated, intellectual, and well-connected woman living in Mao’s China during the Cultural Revolution will surely make you tremble as you learn of the never ending turn of events she was painfully put through.
During the Cultural Revolution, a political movement from 1966 to 1976, everything about Nien Cheng was suspected: she was the descendant of a rich landlord, had been educated in England, had lived in Australia, was the wife of a former Nationalist officer, and worked for a foreign firm, Shell Oil, after her husband died. It was inevitable that Mrs. Cheng would be persecuted. The book opens with the first days of the Cultural Revolution in Shanghai. Shell, Mrs. Cheng’s employer, had pulled out of China, and she was left without a guardian from the dark days ahead. The book follows her whirlwind experience attending struggle meetings, in which her former colleagues were humiliated and abused. The book’s disposition immediately turns when the looting and ransacking of her home by the teenage Red Guards occurs. Nien Cheng tells the story of her suffering at the hands of Mao’s Red Guards. The Red Guards were human nature in action, responding to the circumstances of social revolution and empowered by a man they considered a hero — a man of courage, self-sacrifice and intellectuality gone rotten — Mao Zedong.
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The middle of the book shows her experiences during her six years of imprisonment in which she refuses to confess of being a spy and in turn is viciously beaten and tortured. She is continuously accused of unheard crimes day after day like a sea of never ending waves. One of the interrogators explained to her that, the first requisite to confession is an admission of guilt. You must admit your guilt not only to the People’s Government, but also to yourself. The admission of guilt is like the opening of the floodgates. When you admit sincerely that you are indeed guilty . . . your confession will flow out easily. The feeling of gratitude followed me throughout the book as I realized just how difficult one’s life can be, and just how fortunate we are to have food, protection of the law, and even the basic necessities such as food and water.
I think the book certainly achieved its goal of informing people about the horrible events that occurred in China that was largely unseen by people during the time. The book could have been sped up a bit, and the author could have limited some of her ramblings. I see no other books that compared to this book on the subject of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Cheng’s style is effective because it’s frank and spirited. She doesn’t attempt to add an affected abstraction to her story; instead she describes things exactly as they happened and felt. Example: In the weeks following that first meeting, I was called by the same men for several interviews. Our conversations varied very little from the first occasion. Once they asked me to provide them with a list of all the Americans and Europeans I had known together with their occupations and the place and circumstance where I had met each one. Another time they asked me to write about the activities of our office. But when I handed them the pages I had written, they barely glanced at them. While exhorting me to denounce my former employer, they did not ask me any concrete questions about the company. They never went beyond insinuating that Shell had done something wrong and that I was a part of whatever the crime was.
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Ordinary People is the story of both Conrad and Calvin Jarrett. Because the novel focuses on two different people, there are several conflicts throughout the novel that are specific to those individuals. The central question in Conrad's story is whether he will be able to recover after his suicide attempt. As Dr. Berger points out, half the people who attempt suicide will try to do it again at ...
Without editorializing, Cheng shows the exact motives of the interrogators. They incessantly propagandize and misrepresent, hoping that their diligence will eventually convince Cheng otherwise. Cheng doesn’t waffle in potentially destructive super-descriptive territory. Imagine how easily this could’ve become something like…I was seated in a destitute room with empty gray walls, not a Picasso or Monet on them. I placed my hands on the mahogany table, waiting for the interrogators to arrive. Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Eventually they came. Cheng’s determined pose, parallel her personality, keeps the book interesting. The people’s activities are also succinctly expressed. The eerie verisimilitude urges the reader to think vicariously. As the revolutionaries chant, Down with the running dog of the imperialists! Down with the capitalist class! Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution! Long live our Great Leader Chairman Mao!, a hopeless sense pervades us, fully aware of how easily this could happen. Cheng’s narration of her lengthy imprisonment is the book’s most powerful portion of the book. From her separation from her family to her freedom, Cheng places us right inside her world; the reader’s suspicions and convictions occurring simultaneously with hers. Her fortitudeduring interrogation continuously galvanizes; it’s amazing that she can evade the party’s mind-control techniques so consistently. They insist “that she confess her crimes” so that she’ll slowly become convinced that they’re right, but her awareness keeps her afloat. When they finally free her, saying that she’s “like no other captive they’ve had before,” it is a triumphant and edifying moment, inspiring us to have the same courage.
The last fifty pages of Life and Death deny its chances of perfection. The story’s structure succumbs to its potential weaknesses, and Cheng starts rambling. The last three chapters are quiescent and garrulous; Cheng rambles on about personal business that doesn’t seem to fit into the book. The book is stunningly written, which is all the more impressive given that Mrs. Cheng’s first language is not English. She does a very remarkable job of telling her story in a clear manner, and weaving in the history of the Chinese Communist Party. As well as the power struggles and excesses of the leaders that were common knowledge to the Chinese but largely concealed from the United States and Europe. This book is a must-read for anyone trying to better understand the Chinese Communist Party, the Cultural Revolution, or the triumph of the human will. This book surely changed my outlook on life, and will definitely change yours.
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