“Most peasants did not miss the school. "What's the point?" they would say. "You pay fees and read for years, and in the end you are still a peasant, earning your food with your sweat. You don't get a grain… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
“So the story of Wild Fox Kang’s attempted coup and murder of Cixi lay in darkness and obscurity for nearly a century, until the… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
My father said he was going to write to the Jinzhou City Party Committee asking for permission to 'talk about love'...My mother supposed it… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
For anyone to open their heart, they need the right atmosphere, and something to prompt them. For my mother it was her trip abroad:… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
“Meanwhile, Mme Mao and her cohorts were renewing their efforts to prevent the country from working. In industry, their slogan was: "To stop production is revolution itself." In agriculture, in which they now began to meddle seriously: "We would rather have socialist weeds than capitalist crops." Acquiring foreign technology became "sniffing after foreigners' farts and calling them sweet." In education:… — Jung Chang Copy Share
“I was extremely curious about the alternatives to the kind of life I had been leading, and my friends and I exchanged rumors and scraps of information we dug from official publications. I was struck less by the West's technological developments and high living standards than by the absence of political witch-hunts, the lack of consuming suspicion, the dignity of… — Jung Chang Copy Share
“Unlike most founding dictators—Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler—Mao did not inspire a passionate following through his oratory, or ideological appeal. He simply sought willing recruits among… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
“MAO TSE-TUNG, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world’s population, was responsible for well over 70 million… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
“mosquito-netted open windows was an enormous privilege. ‘You must not think you are superior to them,’ he would say. ‘You are just” — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
When he asked my grandmother if she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy just to have her daughter and himself:… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
“Poverty drove their parents to have them castrated as young children, hoping they would earn a better living at court. Usually the father would take the boy to a specialist castrator, who operated by the appointment of the court. After a contract was signed, absolving the castrator from any responsibility in case of death or failure (both highly likely outcomes),… — Jung Chang Copy Share
I was not allowed to take notes but my friend and I memorised those two and a half pages. Most people talked to me… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
If children were brought up to become non-conformists it would only ruin their lives. So parents all over China who loved their children told… — Jung Chang Copy Share Image
