Preview of Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution Summary:

Faithful to one girl's personal experience, this work narrates personal historical events in the context of one of the more turbulent and destructive periods of modern Chinese history, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It also works at recapturing the innocence of a young person, one of many thousands, who were persuaded that Chairman Mao wanted to help them personally by helping them to change the culture of China. The public image of the Cultural Revolution concentrated on transforming loyalty to family into loyalty to the good of the community and the nation. Jiang admits that she was devoted to Chairman Mao even after her own family was denounced and humiliated because her grandfather was once a landowner. Her story starts with a description of her happiness to be wearing a "red scarf, emblem of the Young Pioneers" as a successful child of modern Chinese society.

But she quickly...