The Little Red Guard

by Wenguang Huang

Three generations of a family living under one roof reflect the dramatic transformations of an entire society in this memoir of life in 20th century China

When Wenguang Huang was nine years old, his grandmother became obsessed with her own death. Fearing cremation, she extracted from her family the promise to bury her after she died. This was in Xi’an, a city in central China, in the 1970s, when a national ban on all traditional Chinese practices, including burials, was strictly enforced. But Huang’s grandmother was persistent, and two years later, his father built her a coffin. He also appointed his older son, Wenguang, as coffin keeper, a distinction that meant, among other things, sleeping next to the coffin at night.

Over the next fifteen years, the whole family was consumed with planning Grandma’s burial, a regular source of friction and contention, with the constant risk of being caught by the authorities. Many years after her death, the family’s memories of her coffin still loom large. Huang, now living and working in America, has come to realize how much the concern over the coffin has affected his upbringing and shaped the lives of everyone in the family. Lyrical and poignant, funny and heartrending, The Little Red Guard is the powerful tale of an ordinary family finding their way through turbulence and transition.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Biography, Asia, Asian Literature

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 26, 2012

About the author

Huang was born in China in 1964 and is a writer, journalist and translator based in Chicago He has written for such publications as The Paris Review, Harper’s, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune and the Asia Literary Review. He also is the English translator of "The Corpse Walker" and "God is Red" by Liao Yiwu. He received a PEN translation award in 2007.

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very different kind of Chinese memoir than most I have read. It was more like a psychological portrait of a family. At the center of the book is the grandmother's wish to be buried in her ancestoral graveyard in her home town. This provides a touchstone for the book, as at first this goal is very unreachable due to the Cultural Revolution, but over time, it is more do-able and more poignant in how it affects the whole family. This book seems to me to be at its core a tragedy,very well done and sad in how it shows how China's war against tradition tore families apart.

[Pang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I miss me family :'(

This book focused on the author's life, his parents and his grandmother, particularly around the time the grandmother was preparing for her death. No, she wasn't dying in the beginning; she just wanted to be prepared for the inevitable. All she wanted was to be buried next to her dead husband back in her hometown of Henan. But at the time, communist China banned burial and forced cremation.

Grandma was skeptical. Neighbors had told her how crematorium workers never completely emptied out the furnaces after each cremation. "When they scoop out handfuls of ashes from inside the furnace, how would you know they're mine? You might pay tribute to someone else's mother at Qingming."

What a terrifying thought! But who could blame the grandma, really, if that was the last thing she wanted before leaving this world.

They secretly had a coffin made for her, along with an outfit in which she'd be buried in. The coffin was kept in the house at first, and the author had to sleep next to it (though the coffin was eventually moved to somewhere else.) Grandma didn't die for many more years to come, but we learned more about the author's family and the hardship they endured, especially during the famine.

The book was very touching and reminded me of my own family and the situation I'm facing. As with the author in his later life, I'm living far away from my mom and grandmother. I dread the day when I would get a phone call. The phone call. And all the decisions that have to be made after it. Most Asians are raised with the strong sense of filial piety, thus there's a lot of guilt that come with it (especially for an only child as myself.) And it's not because we wouldn't take care of the elders otherwise, but it's our duty. The author's mother said once that his father was a terrible husband because he tried to be a good son to the grandmother. Is it wrong? Is it right?

It was a slow going at first, with some funny parts, but the book picked up its speed in the last one-third. This was one of the books I'm glad I stuck around until the end.

During the famine of 1942, the family sold the daughter to a wealthy landlord as a maid. When his mother died, the landlord killed the girl by putting mercury in her drink so that she could serve his mother in the afterworld.

[Chad Post · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really excellent and fascinating book--and I'm not just saying that because I spent a week with Wen in a palace in Austria. Nor am I saying that because Wen may just well be the most genuine and kind person I've ever met in my life. No, his story of growing up in China in the 70s and 80s, and his relationships with his family--in particular his father, who tragically passed away, and his grandmother, whose impending death hangs over the entire book--is really illuminating, and written in a refreshingly direct fashion.

The book hinges on Wen's grandmother who, during a time when burials were prohibited, believes that she's about to pass away, and insists--no, INSISTS--that her corpse be transported back home to be buried next to her dead husband. It's through this lens that the nature of Communist China in the Mao era (and the period that followed, leading up the Tiananmen Square tragedy) is revealed. The book isn't overly historical though, instead remaining very personal and touching throughout. (For example, the scene when Wen can't figure out what to say at his father's funeral is heartbreaking. And, according to the acknowledgments, is one of the reasons he wrote this book.)

Definitely worth reading.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very unusual Cultural Revolution memoir. While many CR stories I've read have been written by those persecuted during that time and/or suffered hardships in the countryside, Huang's memoir lacks that bleakness. For one, he was lucky to have grown up in a city at the tail end of the CR. His family belonged to the "right" class (workers/peasants) and he was able to attend prestigious Fudan University, a huge opportunity and achievement. Although life wasn't a breeze, nothing overtly "terrible" seems to have befallen his family in the CR years - they were left alone, found enough to eat, no one was publicly beaten, etc. Again, none of that darkness associated with CR memoirs, though he mentions calamities that happened to other people.

Also unusual is the book's main thread - the focus on his grandmother's desire for a burial as opposed to cremation (required for almost all citizens in Communist China). Huang spins a fascinating story of the pains his family took to procure the wood for the coffin, the relationships and connections they had to nurture. The narrative is both tragic and comic - at one point in the book, Grandmother hilariously wants to convert to Islam so she will be guaranteed a burial (apparently the government left the Muslim burial rites alone).

What I didn't like about the book: it felt all over the place, and part two was very rushed. It felt like Huang was trying to do too much - pay homage to his dad, narrate grandma's quest for burial, expound on Communist China, and in the second half of the book, hurry through the stories of what happened to his father and grandmother in order to muse about his own unhappiness with China and the freedom he found in Western philosophy and, eventually, a life in the States.

Interesting read in the first half, a slog in the second.

[✿ lemon ✿ · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You can be cheap with the living, but spare no expense for the dead” (my fave quote)

This is the first book that I finished in 2019, and I’m glad. I absolutely love this memoir, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. It was so well written, I could not put it down when I started reading it. I highly recommend it if your interested in an intimate look on life during the rise of communism in China, as well as its modernization later on and the affect it had on the author and his family.

[Ngiste · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intimidate portrait of life in 20th century china, capturing three generations perspectives through one family.

[Andrea Cantos Guillén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Después de leer estas memorias del autor y su familia me he quedado un poquito huérfana con todo lo que he aprendido de la Revolución Cultural cuando las tradiciones chinas entraron en contradicción con las políticas comunistas y los valores de Mao. He podido comprender cómo esto afectó a la población y cómo una familia como esta tuvo que renunciar a muchas de las cosas que hasta ese momento les era importante.

En este retrato familiar el gran protagonista es la muerte y el rito funerario de la abuela puesto que muchas de las costumbres chinas pasaron a ser ilegales.

Me quedo con la ironía con la que el autor plasma a su familia pero sobre todo elegiría la combinación de la visión sociopolítica global y de intrahistoria en una horquilla temporal que pasa de principios de la época de Mao y continúa tras la muerte de éste hasta fechas no muy lejanas. Esto nos ofrece un paseo por la historia reciente de China con grandes contrastes la cual se ve enfatizada con la mirada del autor tras haber vivido en Londres y emigrado a los Estados Unidos.

[Maria Villanueva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Son memorias de una familia que simbolizan la evolución de China durante el siglo XX. Por momentos conmovedora, por otros reiterativa y densa. El capítulo sobre la enfermedad y muerte del padre es profundamente conmovedor.
Gran acierto el debate interno del narrador sobre el lugar de la patria y del hogar. Después de todo, con lo que hicieron de nosotros y con la historia a cuestas, armamos nuestra propia subjetividad.

[Hana · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interview with the author.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?306453-...

[Edith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The theme of this book could be titled “Grandma’s coffin and her obsession with death”. This Chinese grandma, who raised the author Huang while his own mother was off working like a good Communist for the benefit of the Revolution, had her bound feet in the “old ways” of traditional China and would not be reconciled to the new way of handling death by cremation. Grandma put the entire household in strife for YEARS over this issue. Her insistence on a traditional burial in her place of birth became the main conversation in the household and an albatross around the neck of Huang’s father, a dutiful member of the Communist Party attempting to steer clear of censure by adhering to Party dictates, but still compelled by tradition to respect his old mother’s wishes.

Growing up in 1970’s and 80's China, Huang shows us an ordinary family struggling to live with the new changes mandated by the government while still honoring the values and teachings of tradition. The dilemma for many Chinese is that they have been in the midst of great upheaval in their society ever since the Communists took over in 1947 - there was great disparity between the “old ways” of Confucius and the Communist Party teachings of Chairman Mao. The people lived anxious lives, attempting to keep one foot in each camp. Give up tradition and you will have the ghosts of your ancestors forever wandering and suffering; give up adherence to the Party line and you will suffer demotion and any chance of prosperity, however meager.

Wenguang Huang, now a US citizen, wrote this memoir as a tribute to his deceased father because he was ashamed of his disrespectful behavior at his father’s funeral when he was 24 years of age- an arrogant son with some education, unappreciative of the agonies and tremendous contradictions that his father had attempted to juggle all his life. He writes about the difficult relationship he had with his father from the “mellowness that comes with middle-age". Huang wholeheartedly adopted western culture as a young adult studying abroad and wanted to put his Chinese personae behind him, but growing older, he found memories of family and home invading his thoughts more frequently. He also wrote this story to come to terms with all the conflict he experienced growing up in this era.

It is particularly interesting to compare what you were doing in the 70's to what was going on clear across the globe in Huang’s life. This is truly a touching story about people trying their best to live good, dutiful and meaningful lives in a less than perfect world.

I heard about his book on a booktv.org broadcast- http://www.booktv.org/Watch/13577/201...

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read anything set in Communist China since Dal Sijie's novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress & was delighted to win Wenguang Huang's The LittleRed Guard: A Family Memoir from First Reads. The author is only slightly older than I am so I found myself comparing his experiences in the 1970s to my own. During those years, my cultural/historical education was pretty much limited to reading about the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria--or, the American Bicentennial celebration. My later education really didn't add much to my knowledge of life in China in the mid-twentieth century. I didn't realize that women with "toes bent inward" into pyramid shapes, resembling "pig trotters" were still around in that era. For some reason, I'd thought foot binding to be a much older practice. Huang's grandmother is terrified of not being able to outrun an earthquake on such little feet!

Although other reviewers have commented on the tensions that developed between family members as a result of a promise made to this extravagantly stubborn grandmother, I found myself concentrating more on the many humorous moments that arise as a result of the community's subterfuges. So often we're only exposed to fear and treachery in accounts in which neighbors and children are encouraged to betray loved ones in order to prove their allegiance to Chairman Mao and company (or their counterparts if the narrative transpires in Russia). While Huang's memoir is certainly mindful of the risk run by his family's attempts to honor his grandmother's desire to be buried in a coffin instead of being cremated, as demanded by law, I found his story to be lightened by the revelation of how many people conspired to assist in the plot to defy the government. The coffin in the bedroom is a frequently shared secret.

Overall, I was greatly entertained by interactions between characters who might be described as likeably annoying. I can only hope that someone will adapt this memoir for the big screen.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dysfunctional family tale, Chinese style.


In the 1970s, when the author was a little boy in the central Chinese city of Xi’an, his grandmother’s death loomed large over his family. The details of her funeral consumed her. A small woman with a domineering personality, she spent years milking her son and grandchildren’s loyalty to get what she wanted, causing PTSD in young Wenguang in the process.

In part, this the story of the family’s attempts to carry out their matriarch’s wishes, a task made both complex and risky by sweeping policy shifts imposed by Mao's communist government. Burial became illegal in China in 1949, leaving cremation the only permissible way to handle the remains of the dead. Officials ramped up their enforcement of this rule during Huang’s childhood. Still, Grandma insisted on a traditional burial.

So her dutiful son, a Communist Party member whose honor and livelihood could be devastated if he were discovered to be violating a law, roped his wife and children into a series of stealthy maneuvers. The family sneaked seamstresses into their home to craft special burial robes, and schmoozed train conductors and drivers to transport the body. And they lived on a shoestring so they could pay back a massive loan taken out to buy the black-market coffin that Huang slept beside for years in the family’s cramped apartment, causing nightmares for years to come.

The memoir is a fascinating look at unhealthy family dynamics: a wife who resents her husband’s blind devotion to his mother, grandchildren who begrudge their grandmother the sacrifices she forced on them, and a grandmother who blatantly favors her son and eldest grandson. But this tale isn’t just about Huang’s family. Vignettes of scrounging for food when rations were scarce and forcing tears at school when Mao died so no one would question Huang’s allegiance to communism provide insight into the cultural landscape of China in the tumultuous 1970s.

[Tamar · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading The Little Red Guard, I thought I was in for just another run-of-the-mill memoir growing up oppressed by Communism. However, I was pleasantly surprised with Wenguang Huang’s fresh take on the subject; maybe the content was similar to other books covering the same time period of the 1970s, but the lens through which Huang views the era makes this a compelling and unique read.

Huang’s grandmother spends years fixated on her inevitable death and funeral. In an era where traditional funerals are illegal (cremation being the state sanctioned way to go), Huang’s grandmother implores her son to prepare for her funeral in advance. The filial son’s devotion to his mother and preparations for the funeral have major ramifications on the everyday life of Huang’s family. In addition to exploring the various plans his father makes for the funeral, Huang discusses the relationships in his family - complex relationships that undergo a lot of stress thanks to the grandmother’s machinations, schools’ influences and parental pressure to succeed. The Little Red Guard is an excellent, well-written book that I would highly recommend to anyone, not just fans of history or memoirs. Note: I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Program.

[Dario Çorkan Landi · Rating 5 out of 5]

All'inizio sembra "solo" un racconto, attraverso la lente familiare, del rapporto della società cinese con i suoi retaggi ancestrali e con il regime comunista, ma nei capitoli finali si trasforma in una commovente riflessione sui legami familiari, sull'incombenza della morte e su come le nostre radici danno forma a quello che siamo, assumendo un valore non più solo antropologico ma anche universale.

[Preeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful well-written family memoir. This book is highly recommended for anyone who's interested in learning more of China's culture, political, and economic past. A heartwarming and heartbreaking memoir.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Little Red Guard (2012) by Wenguang Huang recounts the the author's life in Communist China from 1973 on. The story is held together by his grandmother's obsession with death and her burial. She is a product of the old ways--having had her feet bound and growing up with the rituals and superstitions of the past. Even though the Party has outlawed extravagant burials and now requires everyone to be cremated, Grandma makes Wenguang's father promise that he will not burn her up when she dies--that he will take her from the city of Xi'an, where they live now, back to her home in the Henan Province to bury her beside her husband. And she doesn't just want him to sneak her body back home; she wants the traditional funeral ceremony.

This causes great tension between her son and his wife and also puts the entire family on pins and needles for years. Wenguang's father spends a great deal of time and money making friends and doing favors for people who will be able to help him when his mother dies--from finding a the wood and the carpenter to build the coffin to securing a truck and driver to transport Grandma to Henan to making sure that members of Grandma's family will be prepared to help get her into the right grave. Meanwhile, Wenguang's father is doing all the right things within the Party to make sure his family's fortunes will prosper while he keeps his mother's wishes secret and Wenguang and his siblings are studying to be proper little Communists who will bring glory to the Party and honor to their family.

Wenguang is very close to his Grandma and at first he sides with her and his father in the struggle to fulfill his grandmother's wishes and protect her (and the family) from Party displeasure. But as he grows older, attends college, and becomes exposed to more Western thinking, he becomes disdainful of his father's kowtowing--both to tradition and to the Communist way of life. He behaves disrespectfully at his father's funeral (who winds up preceding the grandmother in death) and it isn't until Wenguang moves to the United States and reaches middle age that he realizes how arrogant he was and how unappreciative he was of his father's struggle to be a dutiful son, and devoted husband & father all while maintaining the position that would allow him to support his family. It was quite a juggling act--and sometimes he couldn't keep all the balls in the air.

This was a touching family memoir which revealed a great deal about Chinese traditions and the struggles under Chairman Mao's rule. It was very interesting to compare Wenguang's childhood to my own growing up in the 1970s and early 80s. There was a lot--from the variety of food on the table to the freedom of thought in the classroom to the entertainment available--that I took for granted which Wenguang never experienced as a child in China. There were also a number of things that were the same--particularly the devotion to family. Growing up close to my dad's family--I knew that family always came first. His mom exemplified that and Dad (and his siblings) followed her example. A compelling story of a family trying to reconcile the old ways with the new and which tells of the failures as well as the successes.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to confess that memoirs are not my favorite, especially those without any great trauma and conflict because relatively happy childhoods don’t leave much of a sense of accomplishment. (As in “I succeeded despite…”) I think, you succeeded but what was there really to stop you? This is a story of growing up in Red China in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s with the political terrain constantly shifting, based on who was alive and in charge at the time. This is in parallel the story of the paternal grandmother who, despite the restrictions under Communism, demands to be buried next to her husband where she was born and he died and was buried decades ago. For this, she demands that a forbidden casket be built for her, and that all the preparations be made, so that she can be ready when her time comes. This causes a great deal of ideological and marital turmoil for the father, and financial sacrifices for the family as he must decide between being a good Communist and being a good son while the family must learn to do without a lot of small pleasures as money is funneled into not only the coffin and clothes for the death of the grandmother but bribes and gifts to other parties to insure that all goes as planned while tension between family members grow. This sort of situation is probably universal, a mother-in-law coming between the husband and wife, financial squeezing, etc., so I wasn’t particularly moved by it; in spite of the humor of the family being forced to live with a coffin as part of the furniture, family friction isn’t exactly a purely Chinese concept. As for the ideological propaganda, there was a lot of the same thing, but in reverse, when I was growing up in the USA – plus, a lot of the success achieved by the author was gained by hard work and paid for by the government, again not a big difference here. This is more an anecdotal memoir than anything else, a nice story but not anything spectacular for me.

[Talbot Hook · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a good many reasons to read this book. As a memoir, it tackles history in an incredibly personalized manner, and it simultaneously has the freedom to delve into myriad psychological and sociological quandaries. It also doesn't shy away from (sometimes brutal) honesty and tragedy, even while it retains a sense of optimism about growth and change. Centered around a casket and an impending burial, the book flits between memories of life and visions of death, all set against the complex backdrop of a changing China - one of the most fascinating stories of social development to be found anywhere in our world. The characters, while sometimes seeming one-dimensional, slowly deepen into complexity as the author explores his ever-evolving perceptions of past events, conversations, and people. In this way, we get a glimpse into personal historical revisionism, as human memory adapts to fit transient moods and persistent temperaments. The trite sayings of a Party-faithful father eventual inspire and inform, the fixation of a grandmother upon her own death reveals itself as the strongest binding agent of the author's family, and a mother's stiffness and anger eventually give way to compassion and love, as she is freed of the societal pressures which previously bound her.

There are many beautiful aspects to this book. It isn't a full treatise on humanity and society, of course, but it does put one in a mood to read one.

[victoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an excellent book that offers a unique perspective on modern Chinese history, told through the firsthand experiences of someone born and raised in that reality. Thanks to Huang’s memories, we gain insight into the lives of ordinary citizens who experienced many rapid changes during the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping’s era, and even under the most recent regime.

Moreover, through the figure of his grandmother, the book explores ancient Chinese traditions and their rejection during the communist rule who perceived them as incompatible with the new ideology.

I highly recommend this book, as it is more than just a piece of reportage—it is a journey through time that immerses readers in the harsh realities of communist China, a world marked by fear, secrecy but also unwavering love.

[Beata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ciekawa historia o życiu w Chinach z perspektywy widzenia pisarza - dziś ponad 50-letniego mężczyzny, który opisuje życie swojej rodziny w Xia`nie w czasach Mao i późniejszych, aż po całkiem współczesne czasy. W tytule nie na darmo pojawia się trumna, bo właśnie przygotowanie do śmierci babci wymagającej tradycyjnego pochówku, są dla rodziny Huang wielkim wyzwaniem egzystencjalnym.
Polecam tę książkę jako lekturę pozwalającą lepiej zrozumieć chińską mentalność oraz historię tamtej części świata. Choć nie tylko, bo przyglądając się motywacjom bohaterów, można zauważyć jak wiele łączy nas wszystkich - zwłaszcza jeśli chodzi o postawy w czasach opresji i zmian.

[Chris Clevenger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a memoir of man growing up in 70's Communist China under Mao, and the story of his family as they prepare for his grandmother's illegal funeral. I found the early parts of the book very interesting and frightening when you consider the restrictions communism places on their civilians. Anyone who hates capitalism should read this book. Overall I thought it was pretty good, it seemed to trail off at the end but it's a memoir not a work of fiction. I highly recommend if you are interested in learning about other cultures or need to feel grateful for the freedoms we have in the West.

[Miosz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have finally finished this book after a few months of it sitting on my shelf with only like 50 pages left. I'm really happy I was obligated to read it for one of my classes as I would probably never pick it up myself. With a whole semester of informations about Chinese history and culture this book painted a very interesting and even entertaining picture of how it was to live in communist China across 3 generations. It was a time well spent. Both the class about Chinese culture and this particular book.

[Łukasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wzruszająca opowieść o tym jak odkładać śmierć na lepsze czasy, a drewnianą trumną "uszytą na miarę" wyposażyć pokój niczym stolikiem LACK z Ikei za 39,90PLN. Uczy, bawi i porusza, z komunizmem czasów Mao w tle, chińskimi rewolucjami ludzi walczących z ustrojem i ludźmi, dla których komunizm jest życiem. A w końcu przepiękna historia rodu Huangów i miasta Xi uwieczniona w mistrzowski sposób słowami Wenguanga! Kocham szczerze!

[Oamiya Haque · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most compelling feature of this book was its title as a "family memoir," a phrase that was absolutely accurate. Stitching together theme and memory in equal measure, I felt as though I was given an authentic, yet still sensitive, insight into the complicated behaviors of Huang's family and history. I also learned a lot about the fickle nature of the dominant Chinese political and cultural currents from this era.

[Toreisii · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author's memoir about his life during Mao to post-Tiananmen Square China is an honest reflection about his relationship with his family. The pragmatic love and squabbles between relatives and the anecdotes told to him by an older generation made me think of some of my own family members whom have passed. Every time I put this book down, I looked forward to reading it again.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir about the author growing up at the end of the Cultural Revolution in China. It includes the story of how his grandmother, who lived with the family, was determined to be buried instead of cremated when she died.

[Juan de Dios Reyes · Rating 2 out of 5]

En realidad más que una novela me pareció un relato periodístico escrito por un "converso". Hay muy poca profundidad en el trato de los personajes (incluso del protagonista que relata su autobiografía) y la trama se basa en los anecdótico principalmente. Le falta mucho para ser una buena novela.

[Janet Cobb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed being immersed in the Chinese culture that I've loved since living in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 80s and early 90s but I found this piece a little bit slow-moving and repetitive. I struggled to stay engaged.

[jooj · Rating 4 out of 5]

started reading this book for school and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as i thought it’d be. in the beginning, it’s a bit boring but as it progresses it becomes more and more interesting. chapter 8 was the best!!

[Paky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wenguang Huang nos cuenta su vida, la de su familia, la historia reciente de China, unos años de intensos cambios. Nos cuenta que los muertos deben dejar paso a los vivos para el progreso, que las aldeas y ciudades que consideraban sus hogares de antaño se estaban transformando y ya apenas se las reconocía. Las excavadoras pasaban por encima de los familiares cementerios ancestrales. El autor nos habla desde los últimos tiempo de Mao hasta nuestros días, vivió desde los momentos de esplendor y exaltaciones comunistas hasta su posterior hundimiento con los cambios de líderes y gobierno. Vivó en primera persona las protestas de la Plaza de Tiananmén de 1989. En fin, un libro entretenido e instructivo, un testimonio en primera persona que nos ofrece un verídico acercamiento a las últimas décadas de la vida rural y urbana China, al pensamiento de sus habitantes y a la auténtica historia de este país.