The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

by Zhu Xiao-Mei, Ellen Hinsey (Translator)

Zhu Xiao-Mei was born to middle-class parents in post-war China, and her musical proficiency became clear at an early age. Taught to play the piano by her mother, she developed quickly into a prodigy, immersing herself in the work of classical masters like Bach and Brahms. She was just eleven years old when she began a rigorous course of study at the Beijing Conservatory, laying the groundwork for what was sure to be an extraordinary career. But in 1966, when Xiao-Mei was seventeen, the Cultural Revolution began, and life as she knew it changed forever. One by one, her family members were scattered, sentenced to prison or labor camps. By 1969, the art schools had closed, and Xiao-Mei was on her way to a work camp in Inner Mongolia, where she would spend the next five years. Life in the camp was nearly unbearable due to horrific living conditions and intensive brainwashing campaigns. Yet through it all Xiao-Mei clung to her passion for music. And when the Revolution ended, it was the piano that helped her to heal. Heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Secret Piano is the incredible true story of one woman’s survival in the face of unbelievable odds―and in pursuit of a powerful dream.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, China, History, Biography, Music, Asia

311 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Chinese pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei is one of the world's most celebrated interpreters of Bach's "Goldberg Variations". She began playing the piano when she was a young child, and entered the Beijing Conservatory when she was ten years old, but her education was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. After five years in a labor camp in Mongolia, she moved to the United States and finally Paris, France. She has lived and worked there since 1984. She teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique and has performed for audiences on six continents.

Reviews

[Stacey B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This themed book caught my attention because of its title.
Reading the synopsis only intrigued me more based on the subjects.
To realize at an early age you have an innate gift of piano; having to give it up without choice
because of "the" cultural revolution is something I hope no-one ever has to experience in any type
of opposition.
There was so much to be learned about this specific history as well as music,
and I found this book to fascinating once I could get past the sadness.
I am not aware of anyone who wouldn't love a story with a happy ending.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book attracted my attention because I have read about the Chinese Cultural Revolution (circa 1966 to 1971) but have never before read a first person account from a person who lived through it. I once had an extended conversation with a Chinese expatriate in which we talked about all sorts of things, but when I asked how his family managed to survive the Cultural Revolution I was met with stony silence. That experience only heightened my interest in a first person account.

This book is a memoir by Zhu Xiao-Mei, a talented pianist, who was part of that lost generation that experienced the misfortune of having their youthful years stolen by the Cultural Revolution. It is heart breaking to read this story about these years of her life because of the utter waste of her talent as the Central Conservatory of Music disintegrated, and her time as a student became hell on earth.

At first the conservatory of music became a conservatory without music as the students were required to destroy all bourgeois music (only music written by Chinese and Albanian communists were permitted). Then they became a school with no music classes, and they were required to study Mao's Little Red Book full time. The students were subjected to self-criticism sessions and to witness beatings and humiliation of fellow students and teachers (some committed suicide). Then the students were turned into brigades to travel to parts of China where the revolution was supposedly in peril.

After several years of this the conservatory students were sent to a labor camp and forced to perform hard labor with meager food and accommodations. Zhu Xiao-Mei spent five years in labor camps in the bleak northern region of Inner Mongolia. Even after the Cultural Revolution had officially ended it took years to recover from the disruption it had caused. Zhu Xiao-Mei finally was able to leave China in 1979 at age 30.

Fortunately, her talent allowed doors of opportunity to open up. Her audition at the New England Conservatory in Boston qualified her for a scholarship, and she graduated with a master's degree in piano performance in 1985. She then moved to Paris, and again her talent soon attracted attention and admiration, and she performed her Paris debut public recital in 1994. She is now a French citizen (the English edition of this book is translated from the French), and she has toured the world giving solo piano performances.

Her story of success after so many years of misery and chaos is an emotional account of overcoming adversity. The reader can't help but feel good for her that she was able to let her talent shine through and be appreciated by the rest of the world. It brought tears to my eyes. The following quotation taken from a media interview provides a taste of her spirit and love of music:

... at the end of my appearance on the cultural television program Double Je, Bernard Pivot asked me the famous Proust Questionnaire, which I love.

"If God exists," he asked me, "what would you like him to say to you?"

"You've been courageous enough, come I'll introduce you to Bach."

But Zhu Xiao-Mei confesses that her early experiences have left her emotionally altered by her Cultural Revolution years.

The Cultural Revolutio scarred me for life. Each morning when I get up, I wonder how I can go on living, how I can find peace after what I have experienced. The legacy of that period has left me with a severe handicap.

The sessions of collective denunciation that I endured rendered me perpetually afraid of criticism, unable to trust either myself or anyone else. When one has lived through such a regime, when one has been forced at twelve years old--at an age where one cannot be guilty--to criticize oneself, then what is a friend or family member but someone who will denounce you tomorrow, and that you in turn will criticize? ... ... ...

The Cultural Revolution was debasing; it turned me into a perpetrator. At one point, it even extinguished in me all sense of a moral life. I criticized my fellow human beings, accused them of grave misdeeds, investigated their pasts. I took a part in a process of collective destruction. How can I ever be free of such things?

She has made several return trips to China, and she describes how she has asked forgiveness from some, thanked others for small kindnesses during those bad times, and visited graves and sites of suicide of others who did not survive the Cultural Revolution. She also gives several examples of former classmates who were musically talented but due to the disruption of the Cultural Revolution are no longer using their musical abilities.

She has visited the locations of the labor camps where she was forced to work, and she makes the following observation about the surprising popularity of Christianity in that desolate region.

To think that people were praying in the same place where, thirty-five years earlier, we had been prisoners...I thought about the success of Christianity in this far-flung region of China. No doubt the local clergy had worked hard to make this happen. but the Christian faith also provided a community, that of Christians, which one could join. This stood in contrast to the great Chinese philosophers, who extolled the virtue of solitude and distance, of withdrawing from the world. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that many Chinese people who had once lived in misery, deprived of a future, had discovered hope.

As for me, I am more at home with Chinese philosophy ...

Zhu Xiao-Mei is not Christian herself, and soon after her arrival in the United States in 1979 she observed some parallels between religious indoctrination and that of the Red Guards that I had noticed before she mentioned it in the book. While she was picking up some clothes to wear from a church's welfare supplies they invited her to stay for Bible study.

"It's a bible study group," he said.

I stayed and took a seat. One of the members began to speak:

"My friends, thanks to Jesus ..."

I listened carefully to him. the longer he spoke, the more memoires arose in me. I felt as though I were hearing a member of the Red Guards:

"Students, thanks to Mao ..."

I need to also mention that Zhu Xiao-Mei describes in depth how she seeks to interpret musical scores in her playing of the piano. I think musicians will find these portions of the book of special interest. She has a particular interests in Bach's Goldberg Variations. Many readers will want to buy her CDs after reading this book. There are several YouTube videos of some of her performances that you may want to check out.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have previously read a couple novels that took place in China during the Cultural Revolution, but being a pianist and musician I was drawn to this one by the title. I did not realize until I started reading it that this was a true story told by the author and was completely blown away by her story and experiences. I was amazed at how unaware I was of what was happening on the other side of the world while I was living my suburban American life. Zhu Xiao-Mei shares her poignant story with a great deal of thoughtfulness and self-examination. It was fascinating and sad at the same time to hear how her family was stripped of their dignity and the horrors she experienced throughout those ten years of hostility and imprisonment. But the hero of the story was her love of music – it literally healed and saved her. As she states:

"I had forgotten the power of music: but it hadn't forgotten me."

Deep inside us, there remained a spark of humanity....Music blew on the spark and revived it."

What I found completely surprising, was the authors wonderful insights on how she approached each piece of music she played. It was very moving and eye opening - every serious musician would benefit from reading this book. When I completed it, I treated myself to a recording of Zhu Xiao-Mei performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations that I found online. It was the perfect ending to a very inspiring book.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s almost impossible, in America, to imagine a totalitarian form of government. A regime that stays in power through an all-encompassing propaganda campaign, which is disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cultism, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of speech, literature, music, art and mass surveillance.

But it happened in China, in the 1960s, and in “The Secret Piano,” Zhu Xiao-Mei tells her story: how, as a child, she met and fell in love with her first piano after hearing her mother “make it talk.” But under Mao, only the bourgeoisie are able to own such an object of capitalist luxury. Like in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, music is burned; the only thing that matters is the Little Red Book.

The regime alienates her from her parents—they are Chusen bu hao—people with “bad family backgrounds.” Eventually, her father is sent away to a camp, with Xiao-Mei soon following—to be reeducated.

What follows is a lost decade—a loss that haunted, and even today haunts, Xiao-Mei—and we understand how those early years, when we are forced to criticize ourselves, admit guilt in the face of innocence, can harry us for a lifetime: we question our purpose, our very worth.

Always, Xiao-Mei is drawn back to music, and it is through music that she finds a semblance of healing. In the Boston Symphony Orchestra she sees diverse musicians, from a host of different countries, led by a Japanese conductor, and she finds hope for the future. Or as Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Acknowledge diversity and you will achieve unity.”

In the end, like Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” which ends where it began only not the same, Xiao-Mei finds her way back to China only to learn you can’t ever go home.

“The Secret Piano” is much more than a tale of a young woman’s journey through oppression to find freedom. Xian-Mei reveals her anger and hatred of Mao, for the tens of millions who died under his rule, for the years he stole from her, for the role she played in becoming a revolutionary. But she also reveals her process—how she approaches learning a piece of music, the long hours of “breathing” a composition until she becomes but a channel to the composer. Xian-Mei has lived in Los Angeles, Boston and Paris, and has traveled the globe to perform for audiences and has received critical acclaim.

Ellen Hinsey translates into English “The Secret Piano” and admirably captures Xiao-Mei’s passion, sincerity, and sense of humor, even if at times she could’ve taken more editorial liberties to tighten up the narrative.

“The Secret Piano” moved me in ways few autobiographies have. It’s a wonderful story wonderfully told and comes with a high recommendation.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

When one first thinks of pianist Zhu Xiao-Mei, those familiar with her works immediately jump to her exceptional interpretations and performances of J.S. Bach and the Goldberg Variations. Finding her autobiography, The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations, was a pleasant surprise, yet autobiographies like this can sometimes be a disappointment to the reader. Happily this was not the case, as the author has presented her life in an interesting and fascinating chronological format, one that expresses the emotions that she felt along the way.

Born in Shanghai into a creative middle-class family during those turbulent years following WW-II, her family moved to Beijing when she was very young. Her first encounter with the instrument that was to shape her life is movingly remembered in her own words:

"I didn't know what it was, a piano. I was barely three years old, and I had never seen anything like it. I was fascinated. I wondered where it had come from, this object that spoke when you touched it. Strangely, my mother never played the piano. But every morning, she dusted it: her first act of housework. `Such dust! In Shanghai, there wasn't so much dust. Why did you bring me here?' she would add, turning towards my father."

And that curiosity sets the pace for this book in which she takes us on a journey in which we witness first hand a side that is usually veiled to most Westerners. Learning the piano during those young years, she was a prodigy who played the piano in radio and television in Beijing when she was only eight, and at ten, she entered into the Beijing Conservatory of Music in a program for unusually gifted children.

As a teenager her studies there were putting her on the path for a brilliant musical career, but that was stopped cold by Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. As it took hold, even music at the Conservatory faced the consequences of the time, as we witness through her eyes:

"Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit. I imagined the bonfire where the Red Guards were melting down our records and burning our scores...a thin veil of smoke lifted towards the sky. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven vanished into the air. But in the end, the Red Guards were right: it had to be done. As Mao said: `The Revolution is not a dinner party. It is an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.'"

Through her eyes we see her family split apart by forced relocations. We observe the five years she spent in a work camp in Mongolia, her own political indecisions, the sometimes painful memories, yet where despite many difficulties she managed to practice the piano in hiding... the Secret Piano.

Zhu Xiao-Mei's story reads like a novel, with all of the color and dimension that keeps the reader glued to her words, page after page. She left the work camps in 1974, after being `assigned' there for five years. During her stay in Beijing, her life again changed as through her music she began to explore ways to get to America, a dream that she realized finally in February, 1980, thinking of Jonathan Livingston, "the seagull who wanted to fly higher than all the others."

It was during her flight to Los Angeles that she learned of the Chinese philosopher Laozi, and this from an American woman, a teacher in a university. This was the profound beginning of a new philosophy for her, and one that with her music would help to guide her. Xiao-Mei's sojourn to California resulted in her living with friends and relatives and working menial jobs to survive. She went to the New England Conservatory in Boston to complete her music education, then beyond, dealing as she went with problems with her English pronunciation. She paints a sometimes witty picture of her experiences, such as a waitress job in Boston's red light district. It's a fascinating tour of what the US looks like to someone from China, and the adversities that one must overcome to just survive, right down to a marriage of convenience just to stay in the country.

And in December 1984, Xiao-Mei's odyssey led her to Paris, starting over again, with a diploma from the New England Conservatory that meant little in France. Yet it was during a return trip to Boston that she truly blossomed with her first attempts to tackle what she became so well known for: her interpretations of the Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, the musical encounter of her life:

"Buddhists always depict Buddha smiling. There are always two aspects to everything, to every being. There is no single truth--everything depends on the way in which one wants to see reality. That is life, and that is the Goldberg Variations. Through it, I also now understand why polyphony, Bach's in particular, affects me more deeply than any other type of music. By means of its various voices, it alone is capable of simultaneously expressing multiple and contradictory emotions, without one necessarily taking precedence over another."

And Xiao-Mei lives those words, as can be heard in her J.S. Bach: Variations Goldberg. She teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in France, and has performed for appreciative audiences on six continents. She is one of the world's most renowned interpreters of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" as one can hear on this album.

Zhu Xiao-Mei is also the inspiration behind and subject of Andre Leblanc's book for children, The Red Piano, a touching work of fiction in which a young girl stuck in a Chinese Cultural Revolution Camp where the Communist Party conducts "learning through labor and self-criticism."

It's also worth mention that the translation was beautifully done by Ellen Hinsey, whose own works as a poet and author include The White Fire of Time. Her expertise shows through in this beautifully-formatted Kindle edition.

This book is more than an autobiography; it's a moving story of the human spirit prevailing over incredible odds. It's highly recommended not just as a beautiful autobiography, but as a background to those who enjoy Xiao-Mei's interpretations of the Goldberg Variations.

[Ninel · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★☆ - That's a really good and kinda sad book

I read this book for my thesis about Cultural Revolution.
This book is not completely a history book. It's more like a novel set in a very particular historical era. Those of you who know a bit about the Cultural Revolution in China probably know that artists were persecuted. Zhu Xiao-Mei, the author of the book, was a pianist. Because of this, she was sent to a reeducation camp where she was not allowed to play the piano and has to read Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung for hours.
The part about the Cultural Revolution takes almost half of the book and I think it's a very great occasion to learn more about this time period. It was mainly for that part that I read this book because as I said, it's a material for my thesis. However, I don't think it will be super useful, because it is a biography, not a really a history book. Sure, you will learn some facts, but only seen through the eyes of Zhu Xiao-Mei (which is not bad at all; and by the way, she has a pretty critical view of what Mao did. Just saying in case if you were wondering if it's a propaganda book or something).
The second part of the book is about her life in the US and in France and it wasn't that interesting to me. Also, I'd like to say there are quite a lot of very long paragraphs just about music (because she's a pianist) and she is describing very precisely partitions and musics and that was just way too long and boring for me. I'm not a pianist, I barely know anything about music so these paragraphs were really annoying to read. However, I think people more into classical music and piano would like it.
My conclusion is that it's a good book. Read it if you have the occasion; if you like history and especially want to learn about the history of China, go for it.

[Georgiana 1792 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un memoir toccante, una testimonianza della difficilissima vita in Cina durante la Rivoluzione culturale soprattutto per chi, come Zhu Xiao-Mei faceva parte di una famiglia di origini borghesi e, soprattutto, amava la musica classica occidentale.
Le umiliazioni che l'autrice deve subire facendo autocritica per colpe che non ha commesso mi hanno commossa profondamente. E, soprattutto, mi ha commossa il potere salvifico della musica, che riesce a riaccendere in Xiao-Mei l'istinto di conservazione, la voglia di andare avanti e un briciolo di autostima.

La Rivoluzione culturale mi ha dilaniata. Ogni giorno, quando mi alzo, mi domando come continuare a vivere e come trovare la pace dopo quello che ho patito. Mi ha procurato un handicap psicologico distruttivo.
A causa delle sedute di denuncia collettiva cui per anni sono stata costretta, ho sempre paura di essere criticata, non riesco a fidarmi né di me stessa né degli altri. Quando hai conosciuto un simile regime, quando a dodici anni, a un’età in cui non si può essere colpevoli, sei stato obbligato a fare la tua autocritica, che cosa rappresentano un amico, una persona con la quale hai un legame, se non qualcuno che domani potrebbe denunciarti o che tu potresti criticare?
Quando salgo sul palco, c’è sempre un momento in cui mi domando perché il pubblico sia venuto ad ascoltarmi. Gli sono follemente riconoscente ma sono tentata di rimborsarlo: non merito la sua presenza. Poi si insinua il dubbio. In realtà, il pubblico è lì per criticarmi, per giudicarmi come in una seduta di autocritica. Solo la fede nella musica mi dà la forza di arrivare fino in fondo.

[Cecily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I happened upon this book in Kindle's Lending Library and read it, not knowing a thing about it. I am richly rewarded! It is the remarkable story of a Chinese woman attending the Beijing Conservatory of Music during the Cultural Revolution. Under Mao Tsedong's influence, the Conservatory first becomes a "conservatory without music," then a "conservatory without education," then a "conservatory without students." Although she is swept up by Mao's political aims and becomes a faithful revolutionary, she is sent to a labor camp where she, with several other artists, gradually remembers that music is more powerful than might. This book is like a long piano masterclass. It is amazing to sit beside her at the piano and listen to her various teachers--Chinese, American, and French--as they help Zhu Xiao-Mei develop her genius. This book makes me want to sit down at my own piano and try once again to bring Bach, Mozart, and Shumann to life. It is a remarkable book.

[Simona F. 'Free Palestine, Stop Genocide' · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo romanzo autobiografico è una storia di infanzia negata, di innocenza negata, di istruzione negata, di socialità negata, di libertà negata e potrei continuare.
Ma è anche una storia di riscatto, di coraggio e tenacia che mi ha commosso fino alle lacrime.
L’aspetto più disgustoso della Rivoluzione culturale, è stato l’imposizione (anzi, l’istituzionalizzazione) dei momenti di autocritica e delazione, che ha trasformato i cinesi (giovani e non) in animali braccati, pronti a tradire il prossimo per sopravvivere.
Ho molto apprezzato i momenti in cui Xiao-Mei parla di musica, anche quelli in cui parla di tecnica musicale che, in questo romanzo, sono stati affrontati da un punto di vista veramente divulgativo ed emotivo.

[Karolina Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I was a child, I lost everything, but music helped me to survive.

This memoir is a very delicately woven story of a young musician who is thrown into an unforgiving machine of Mao Zedong's revolution. It tells a story of an individual in the country that tries to break every sign of individualism.

The memoirs of Zhu Xiao-Mei, may not give too much details about the Cultural Revolution, nevertheless they offer a compelling story of a person who grows up soaked in propaganda and who regains a sense of oneself through music.

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

First from this writer, Zho Xiao-Mei...don't ask me to pronounce it as I am an ugly American...rotsa ruck with that one!

There is something called Aria to start out, some sort of prelude...then, part one is titled "China" with these chapter headings:
1.The Solemn Hour
2. Mother's Library
3. First Teacher
4. Downfall
5. From Mozart to Mao
6. This Piano Was Acquired by Exploiting the People
7. A Bonfire of Bach
8. A Revolutionary
9. Departures
10. Camp 4619
11. A Piglet and Five Kittens
12. A Friend Arrives
13. The "Villa Medici"
14. From Mao to Mozart
15. A Seagull in Hong Kong

Part 2 is titled "The West

16. The Land of Freedom
17. A Western Master
18. With Oliver
19. An Act of Love
20. The Power of Emptiness
21. Dreaming of Paris
22. Starting Over
23. The Goldberg Variations
24. A Haven
25. The Tree of Mama Zheng
26. Life Starts at Forty
27. A Wounded Life
28. Music, Water, and Life
29. Wisdom and Non-Being
30. RETURN

Ends with another "Aria"
Dedicated to "My Mother"

Begins: Aria

My grandmother liked to tell this story:
"The evening you were born, I looked out at the sky over Shanghai. The setting sun was breaking through the clouds. I had never seen such a beautiful sunset. I remember thinking that your life would be a resplendent tapestry, just like that palette of reds. I was sure of it"
That was a few weeks before Mao Zedong's proclamation of the People's Republic of China. "Never again will the Chinese people be enslaved," he had declared on that occasion in Tienanmen Square. Rarely has a prophecy proved so true, and at the same time so false.

Onward and upward

Mon Dieu! This is Animal Farm! Brave New World! Christ, Marx, Wood & Wei, led us to this perfect day! This is what is happening now with the Obama Administration!

Incredible, how the undesirables were defined, as whosoever at whatsoever time, and the herd trampled on them. The noisy rocks were crushed! So much like our Marxist president and his crusade against "the rich"...so much like Leland Gaunt in Needful Things by Stephen King with Gaunt's/Obama's appeal to envy and greed!

So often you hear the expression, how could this have happened? and here it is in this story...it happened, the way the story is told, so easily. First, focus the peoples' hate on an object, in this story they are the Chushen bu hoa...the Marxist Mao Zedong, like our president here in the United States, focused their animal-like hatred on a group--this group is to blame! Blame them!

What is also incredible is that there were those who thought they were better off with Mao! There is nothing, as yet, 33% done, to indicate that the poor were any better, that they were no longer poor, there is everything to indicate that people were targeted and killed, or driven to suicide!

And yes! It can happen so easily--witness these United States!

Bizarre. That's the only word to describe what happened in China in this telling--September 9, 1976, the Tangshan earthquake-which killed hundreds of thousands of people....and the death of Mao Zedong. Nixon had visited China some time before this...was it '73? Somewhere in there...and though all this violence, the "revolution" that led to people committing suicide--imagine the powers that be trying to round up bullies--when the entire country was encouraged to be a bully! Yet after these things...and was it prior to Mao's death?--that a few films were allowed.

...Love Story and Jonathan Livingston Seagull..."they allowed us to dream"...the books "were readily available....read and reread the books." Bizarre, or what? It's like the country turned on a dime...or almost. Prior, it was Brave New World, Animal Farm...

She left China on February 1, 1980...for Hong Kong for a couple months, then on to America. Noted...she met a teacher on the plane, an American who told her about a Chinese philosopher, preceded Plato by a century, a contemporary of Heraclitus...wrote the Dao de jing before disappearing forever, said,

The best man is like water. Water is good, it benefits all things and does not compete with them. It dwells in lowly places that all disdain. This is why it is so near to Tao." --Laozi

On another note, apparently Fearless Leader has a new slogan, "Forward" and that is so much like Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward it is uncanny. China is becoming more like the U.S.A. was...and the U.S.A is becoming like China was. There will be water if God wills it.

update, finished, 1 MAY 12, Tuesday evening, 11:06 p.m. e.s.t.

Here's a quote from the story, the true story:

The world needs to reflect on this lesson of the Cultural Revolution: to ensure peace and the future of the world, the absolute first priority is education.

Not indoctrination, as was performed in China (and elsewhere, then and now), but education.

She returns to China toward the end of this piece, her father asking her help to visit the grave of a friend. "Lao Xue was the only person who trusted me during the Cultural Revolution," her father told her. His family did not stand by him..."later, the regime taught us to mistrust him, to withhold our love." A naked fact and she lays it out there.

As she did so many other stories within this larger story about China and that time period, and her escape from then.

This is truly a good read, more should read it, more so because so much of what is presented here is true--these thing happened--they could, so easily, happen again.

What happened with so many of her friends, friends who were in prison with her, being re-educated..."The Cultural Revolution destroyed their idealism. But by an odd twist of fate, it turned them into capitalists instead of communists!"

She writes of that time: "We had all been turned into puppets, into machines programmed to blindly obey the regime's every command." Music saved her and others.

Anyway...there is surely a lode of history that could be explored, but what would be the point? What would be the point when we have a Marxist president who panders to envy, hate, and greed, every bit as much as Chairman Mao did in China for all those years? She writes about Mao's "extremist obscurantism"....something that is prevalent in this country...the nightly news, the American academy...honestly, how much different is what we are witnessing in this country, how is it different from what happened in Mao's China?

She writes about a passage from Hannah Arendt that friends gave her to read, about the "arbitrary selection of victims". In this country that selection is more systematic--the bankers...insurance companies...corporations...(and we're supposed to be a capitalist country....yet our president and his media makers act like Mao's China)....who was the latest? schools who are "cheating veterans"?...and before that it was credit card companies, no? Am I wrong? Didn't these things happen?

Be afraid, be very afraid...or simply keep quoting the karaoke machine and text your friends....all is well...all is well...all manner of things are well.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as an Audible book. Having someone pronounce the names was very helpful.

The Secret Piano recounts the life of Xiao-Mei from a young child, about three years old, when a piano is delivered to her home. She immediately recognizes the importance this instrument will play in her life and eagerly begins to learn.

As she grows and her talent develops she qualifies to enter a prestigious Chinese music conservatory. Unfortunately, this is just as the Cultural Revolution begins.

I have read other books/memoirs from people caught up in this terrible time but this was the first from a young person's point of view. How she believed that her family was truly a danger to the new order of things, how she denounced them and others. Even when she made mistakes and had to participate in grueling, public self condemnation sessions she still believed it was for the greater good. It took many years before she began to see the harm that had been caused, the people lost or hurt during this dark time.

Xiao-Mei stays devoted to her music, smuggling her piano into the camp where she is detained. She eventually makes it to the United States where she can continue her training and musical education. From there she immigrates to France, where she finally finds the musical culture that sustains her.

I was impressed at her determination. She doesn't graduate from a music conservatory until she is past 30. Still she continues on.

I was even more impressed with the family, friends and strangers who sacrificed to help her along the way.

[Renato Bonasera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most powerful novel. Really helped me during a difficult time - in a round about way. ALways great to hear a story of survival against all odds.

[Book Concierge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtitled: From Mao’s Labor Camps to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Zhu Xiao-Mei was just a little girl when Mao Zedong took power in China. Her family moved from Shanghai, where her father ran a clinic, to Beijing, but were tainted by a family member’s having fled to Taiwan. Still, Xiao-Mei was accepted at the Conservatory of Music to study piano and became a boarder there at the age of eleven. When the Cultural Revolution began in earnest, the teenager struggled with her beliefs – or lack of beliefs – and lost a decade of her youth to “re-education” in various labor camps. Eventually she found her way back to music, and in particular to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

This is a story that speaks about the irrepressible human spirit and the power of music and art to elevate and inspire. I was completely fascinated and couldn’t put down Zhu’s recollections of her time in China. I found it particularly interesting to read the philosophy of the revolution as espoused by Mao Zedong, Madame Mao and their followers because I was also listening to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, wherein a similar philosophy of revolution was being espoused (with far different results).

The book did bog down somewhat for me after Zhu arrived in Paris; the last quarter of the book contains a lot of her contemplations on what she has endured and where she is headed. Her indecision, while certainly understandable, was just not compelling reading (and, truth be told, simply drove me crazy). I flew through the first 250 pages, then took two days to finish the last 50 pages.

But I’m glad I persisted, because very near the end Zhu writes: “What good is an existence without the hope of growth – an existence that can only imagine before it the darkness of ignorance – and submission, which is ignorance’s handmaiden? … The world needs to reflect on this lesson of the Cultural Revolution: to ensure peace and the future of the world, the absolute first priority is education.”

Zhu’s memoir has certainly educated me, and I am grateful to her for that.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zhu Xiao-Mei's gripping memoir depicts, in horrifyingly vivid first-person detail, the little-known history of Mao Tse-Tung's decade-long reign of terror known as the Cultural Revolution. Sentenced to ten years of hard labor because of her "Bourgeois" background, the budding young pianist was forced to live in miserable conditions, reduced to near starvation. As Xiao-Mei puts it, her life was "reduced to a series of deadening tasks," to which were added regular brain-washing sessions, including forced denunciation of oneself and others. Although she eventually gained her freedom, she admits that the Cultural Revolution had robbed her and her entire generation of their youth. After years of perseverance following the death of Mao, Xiao-Mei achieved considerable success as a professional pianist, yet she admits she never ceased to pay for those long years of "education-less re-education" under the merciless oppression of Mao's dictatorship.

Despite the stark horrors depicted in Xiao-Mei's memoir, the modicum of happiness she managed to eventually achieve derived, ironically, from the wealth of cultural learning and interaction between East and West that Mao was so determined to eradicate. For example, her favorite music for piano is Bach's "Goldberg Variations," in which she admits she was "astounded to find the most basic elements of Chinese culture...as though Bach had had a premonition or was the reincarnation of a great Chinese sage."

Xiao-Mei's conclusions about her debilitating experiences in Communist China can best be summed up in her own words: "The Cultural Revolution was debasing: it turned me into a perpetrator. At one point, it even extinguished in me all sense of a moral life. I criticized my fellow human beings, accused them of grave misdeeds, investigated their pasts. I took an active part in a process of collective destruction. How can I ever be free of such things?"

[LaCitty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bellissimo e toccante. L'autobiografia di Zhu Xiao-Mei racconta la sua infanzia e adolescenza negli anni della rivoluzione culturale di Mao in Cina, lo fa senza farsi sconti, senza nascondersi, ammettendo con dolore di essere stata lei stessa vittima del lavaggio del cervello perpetrato dal regime maoista e di avere fatto cose di cui poi si è pentita.

Il desiderio di rinascita e di fare ammenda per gli errori commessi permea fortemente il libro. La chiave, l'elemento salvifico per lei è stata la musica, l'amato pianoforte di cui è stata privata dal regime e che, solo nel momento in cui l'ha ritrovato, ha avuto la forza di cercare una via verso la libertà prima di tutto interiore e poi anche fisica con il trasferimento all'estero.

La parte che mi ha colpita di più nel suo racconto è quella dell'avvio della rivoluzione culturale, quando il mondo così come era conosciuto fino ad allora dai cinesi viene spazzato via, gli insegnanti diventano bidelli, gli studenti li accusano delle peggiori colpe nei confronti del regime, i legami sociali e familiari saltano e la vita diventa una lotta di ciascun individuo contro tutti, un continuo sospetto perché un amico o un familiare oggi, domani può diventare un accusatore. Storia tragicamente comune a tanti regimi dittatoriali. È impossibile terminare la lettura senza chiedersi perché succedono cose così in continuazione.

[Raquel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look into China at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Xiao-Mei studied the piano from a young age. Communist indoctrination almost literally beat the music out of her. While at a labor camp, her mother was able to secretly ship her her little piano and she rekindled her love of playing in secret. It was inspiring to see her try hard to reclaim her humanity along with the other artists at the labor camp. Through their actions we watch the whole of the Revolution unravel until she can finally escape to the States.

The sections about her life in China were detailed and fascinating--Westerners are just now learning about the true horror of Mao's China during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and this book is a worthwhile edition to the collection of personal narratives about that period. The rest of the book, once she traveled to the West and began studying piano again from master teachers is less interesting and somewhat lacking in detail and nuance (the language is rather flat, which may be because of the translation), but it was still inspiring to see all that she endured in her quest to play the piano for audiences.

Not the greatest writing, but the story was pretty riveting and interesting so it kept me captive till the end. A quick read and a great look into what China was like in the twentieth century.

[Alesa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gem of a book. Xiao-Mei was a very gifted pianist, and still a student at the Beijing Conservatory when the Cultural Revolution hit. She was sent to labor camps, and practically starved to death. Through unbelievable courage, she went on to become a world-reknowned concert pianist.

What makes this book truly remarkable is a mixture of many things: a) Insights into classical music, as seen by a non-Westerner; b) Acquisition of a Taoist point of view, but not from living in China; c) Triumph of a passion for art over incredible difficulties; d) Total humility of an artist, who transcends ego through her art. At heart, this is a very spiritual book, but not in the way one would normally expect.

There are so many facets and dimensions to this book that it is truly unforgettable. It has made me long to know more about Bach and Beethoven, too.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

An autobiography of another person's struggle to live through Mao's Cultural Revolution. At age 10, Zhu Xiao-Mei went to the Beijing Conservatory to continue her piano studies, but by the time she was 17 she was sent to a Mongolian work camp to be "re-educated". Her love of music helped her live through that difficult time and contributed to her recovery when the Revolution ended. Today she is a concert pianist living in Paris. I've read many stories about the Cultural Revolution and this one is consistent with the horror many Chinese people suffered during that crazy time. This story is a little sketchy and left me with many unanswered questions.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography of a woman who was sent to a labor camp when her music school was shut down. She spent 5 years in these camps, but never gave up on her passion for playing the piano. She is now a world renowned pianist and lives in France.
The description of life in China during the "Great Cultural Revolution" of the 60s is striking. Many people were killed, others had their lives destroyed

[Melissa Bair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the many ideas presented in this book, perhaps the most important is the universality of music. People in America would have us ban the music of Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach because they represent white supremacy. But Xiao-Mei risked her life to be able to play music by these composers, because the music they created is objectively beautiful. It would be better to add music from other cultures into this canon, not to take away this music that brings such joy to people all over the world.

[Drilli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una storia toccante che non può non commuovere chi la legge. Una storia che parla di ingiustizia, ma anche di quanto possa essere terribilmente facile lasciarsi convincere dalle propagande di un certo tipo a considerare giusto e lecito ciò che normalmente non considereremmo tale; una storia che parla di dolore, ma anche di determinazione; una storia che racconta la perdita di tutto, ma anche la riconquista, lenta e faticosa, di quanto si è perso; una storia che parla di Storia (e in particolare di una fetta di Storia di cui si sa e si racconta ancora troppo poco), e di famiglia, di legami, di affetto, ma anche di arte e di musica, e soprattutto del potere salvifico della musica.
Non si può restare indifferenti all'idea che bambini di pochi anni vengono obbligati a sottoporsi a sedute di denuncia collettiva, e dunque abituati all'idea di dover immediatamente segnalare qualunque deviazione dalle regole del regime, chiunque l'abbia commessa. Sedute che quindi li portano a non potersi fidare di nessuno, e a considerare un nemico persino chi fino a un momento prima era amico, insegnante, genitore. Così come non si può restare indifferenti all'idea che studenti e intellettuali, o semplicemente chi appartiene a famiglie che in passato erano borghesi e benestati, debbano essere deportati in campi di lavoro per essere "rieducati", anche se si sono già adeguati a tutte le regole imposte e si comportano da "perfetti rivoluzionari". E ancora, come restare indifferenti davanti alla deliberata cancellazione di ogni traccia di cultura occidentale, alla distruzione di spartiti e libri che fino al giorno prima erano studiati e accettati e di colpo diventano da abolire e rinnegare?
Un libro che vale la pena di leggere, anche solo per ciò che mostra.

Peccato che la narrazione sia piuttosto piatta e fredda, che manchi di pathos. Il coinvolgimento emotivo l'ho avuto, ma non per merito dello stile o della capacità narrativa dell'autrice. E' che, come detto, è una storia che non può non commuovere, ma dalle cui parole non traspare tutto il dolore e l'emozione che sicuramente ci sono dietro. Se non nei momenti in cui l'autrice parla di musica e di pianoforte: lì sì, la passione emerge, e con forza: quando descrive le Variazioni Goldberg, ad esempio, e ciò che suscitano in lei e negli ascoltatori. Ma quando dovrebbero sentirsi dolore, frustrazione, paura per tutto quanto subito, o anche l'emozione di ritrovare finalmente uno strumento musicale e di poterlo usare, di poter leggere di nuovo uno spartito... nella scrittura queste emozioni mancano, purtroppo.
Nella parte finale del libro l'autrice scrive:

La Rivoluzione culturale mi ha dilaniata. Ogni giorno, quando mi alzo, mi domando come continuare a vivere e come trovare la pace dopo quello che ho patito. Mi ha procurato un handicap psicologico distruttivo.
A causa delle sedute di denuncia collettiva cui per anni sono stata costretta, ho sempre paura di essere criticata, non riesco a fidarmi né di me stessa né degli altri. Quando hai conosciuto un simile regime, quando a dodici anni, a un’età in cui non si può essere colpevoli, sei stato obbligato a fare la tua autocritica, che cosa rappresentano un amico, una persona con la quale hai un legame, se non qualcuno che domani potrebbe denunciarti o che tu potresti criticare?
Quando salgo sul palco, c’è sempre un momento in cui mi domando perché il pubblico sia venuto ad ascoltarmi. Gli sono follemente riconoscente ma sono tentata di rimborsarlo: non merito la sua presenza. Poi si insinua il dubbio. In realtà, il pubblico è lì per criticarmi, per giudicarmi come in una seduta di autocritica. Solo la fede nella musica mi dà la forza di arrivare fino in fondo.

E non fatico a crederlo, visto quanto ha raccontato. Ma il dilaniamento e la paura di cui parla qui, nei momenti narrativi in cui dovrebbe provarli... non ci sono.
Peccato. Perché se tutto il racconto fosse fatto "col cuore in mano", come questi ultimi capitoli in cui si guarda indietro e riflette su quanto precedentemente narrato... beh, il libro sarebbe stato un capolavoro.

[Kay Pelham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really don't like that Goodreads makes the 5-star rating mean "It was amazing." Without that description I would have rated this book 5 stars. Just not amazing. What it was was a very thorough story of the life of Zhu Xiao-Mei, including life with family during the first years of Mao's takeover in China, her beginning piano studies with her mother and then on to conservatory, 15 years in re-education camps, and then life outside of China in the US and France. Her story was very inspiring to me as someone interested in history and political philosophy, as well as a learner and teacher of piano.

Near the end she talks of one of the difference between Christianity and Chinese philosophies being the need to convert. Chinese culture doesn't include the need to congregate and spread your teaching, she says. (Read the book to find out exactly how she explained this.) It made me wonder, then, how a culture that doesn't believe that all should believe the same --- that there is one truth and one way that I must persuade others of --- could be persuaded to follow and conform to Mao. Yes, they were physically and mentally threatened, but in her story you will see that many were true believers.

Through all this terrible story of upheaval of families and a nation, she tells stories of her various teachers and the wonderful things they taught her about the music. There were many details that I highlighted to apply to my own playing and teaching. I know that she laments the lost years, but what she has done through her studying and playing and recording, and now writing her memoir, is much more than many, many people do when given their entire lifetime to make a difference.

I would recommend this book to any musician, as well as anyone who cares to find out what can happen when a government decides it is the papa and mama of us all and that we should none of us be unique people with our own ideas and desires.

[Antonio Gallo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro tutto da leggere. Ecco come Susanna Tamaro ha chiuso la sua recensione sul "Corriere". Non saprei scrivere di meglio:

"Per chi crede che nell'umano ci sia qualcosa che non sarà mai assimilabile alla pura tecnologia, questi tempi di slogan assertivi fanno davvero paura. Pensando proprio al libro di Zhu Xiao-Mei possiamo trovare il coraggio di dire che l'assenza di cultura è una delle più grandi forme di povertà. Essere poveri di parole, di pensieri, di sentimenti vuol dire essere poveri nelle proprie relazioni e nella comprensione della realtà. La storia della pianista cinese dimostra con esemplare chiarezza che la storia ci può privare di tutto, della nostra cultura, della libertà, della dignità, spingendoci a vivere al limite dell'umano, ma non può spegnare l'anelito alla bellezza che è nascosto in ogni persona che abbia la forza d'animo di seguire la voce della propria coscienza. Primo Levi è sopravvissuto ad Auschwitz grazie anche alle poesie imparate a memoria, Zhu Xiao-Mei non si è fatta sopraffare dalla bestialità dei campi di lavoro grazie alla musica di Chopin e a Bach che continuava a risuonare dentro di lei. Nell'opacità di questi tempi forse è bene ricordare che solo l'arte e il riverbero della bellezza riescono a illuminare i momenti più bui della storia."

[Joood Hooligan · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.platypire.com/j-hooligan/t...

I picked this book to read because I saw it was a Kindle Unlimited whispersync available that was narrated by Nancy Wu. I had recently enjoyed a story she narrated, so I picked this one up without hardly reading the synopsis. I had no idea she was a real person and this wasn't a work of fiction. I have since listened to her playing, and she really is a beautiful player.

It is hard to put in to words my thoughts on what I read, especially about her first hand experience of China's Cultural Revolution. I had never heard of it told in this way, and it makes it more real. There's a certain level of disconnect just reading a text book, but hearing a personal account changes that.

Writing-wise, it was not one of my favorites. In many areas it just dragged on. Honestly, I liked this more as an audiobook. Nancy Wu really helped bring out the story. I plan on listening to more of her narrations after this.

I learned a lot reading this, both about China and music. This has created more of an interest in listening to more classical music, especially Bach's Goldberg Variations (of which I didn't know existed). I would recommend this to those who have an interest in Chinese history and music.

[Tori Samar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A particularly captivating memoir if you love music and history, as I do. I've not read anything dealing specifically with the Cultural Revolution in China, so to encounter it through Zhu's lived experience was eye-opening. The level of brainwashing that she and so many others underwent is absolutely terrifying. I can't help but wonder how things might have turned out if not for the providential circumstances that allowed her to keep playing music in the labor camp and to pursue a music career after she was freed. Would she have had the strength to keep going? Would she have ever again found the humanity that was so unfairly taken away from her as a youth? Certainly in many ways, Zhu was saved by the beauty and transcendence that she encountered through music. Borrowing from C.S. Lewis, I pray she someday comes to "look along the beam" of music to the One it reflects.

Bonus content: Here's video of Zhu Xiao-Mei performing Bach's Goldberg Variations.

(The Literary Life Podcast's 20 for 2020 Reading Challenge - A biography or memoir)

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about young musician, Zhu Xiao-Mei's, coming of age during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It explores the loss of Xiao-Mei's sense of self as she endures the intelectual re-education and physical hardship of the labor camps of Maos political regime. More importantly it tells the story of her relationship with the music that helps Xiao-Mei find herself again.

I found the first half of the book to be a poignent, emotional, and fasinating telling of Zhu Xioa-Mei's experiences growing up in China. I really wanted to love this book. However, the second half of the book which deals with Xiao-Mei's experiences in coming to the west, lost the momentum and urgency of the first half of the book and left me feeling a little flat. With that said I still found it to be an interesting and educational read.

[Andy Lopata · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want an insight into the history of 20th century China, there are better books than this; most notably Wild Swans by Jung Chang. But Xiao-Mei's story is fascinating and heartbreaking in equal measure and, although fragmented at times, reasonably well told (3/5 as a biography).

Where this book comes into its own is both in the humility of the author and the blend of philosophy and insight into the mind of the classical artist. It makes you think, it challenges you and it educates you.

Reading this book has made me want to explore more fully many of the themes within, themes about myself rather than someone else's story. Unexpectedly, this has turned into one of the most inspiring personal development books I've read

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth the read

This is a powerful story if a time in history I have been unfamiliar with, hearing about it in passing but not understanding the magnitude until reading this book. I gave only 3 stars because the chapters where the author only discusses music theory and interpretation were kind of tedious for me. And I love music! Yet I understand the importance of sharing it as part of the author's journey.

[Danielle McCoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was beautiful. At times the world the author lives in seems alien, yet she manages to bring out the humanity that unites us. I feel inspired as a human and as a musician.