Learning Lessons

In response to Joan Chen’s Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl, I try to imagine what my life would have been like, not only experiencing what Xiu Xiu went through, but if I were a girl that grew up in China after the Cultural Revolution, listening to the stories of her and others sent into the countryside to be re-educated by Mao Zedong and his government. Xiu Xiu tried to defy the government in the only way her limited education and experience taught her – by using her body as a something that could be used in lieu of payment for her freedom. The basis behind her being sent to the grasslands along with thousands of other youths of her generation was for Mao to regain control of a campaign that had exceeded his expectations in fighting his opponents and was currently destroying what authority was left within the Chinese government. Besides the sadness one cannot help but feel at Xiu Xiu’s predicament, one cannot also help but feel the despair at her simply being forgotten out there in the grasslands. No one was coming for her, and no one would be.

If I grew up listening to her story, and I lived in China during the more recent political battles, I would like to think that I would take part in them. Xiu Xiu went willingly to the grasslands where she and countless others believed it was the appropriate thing to do for their family and their country. Xiu Xiu had the misfortune of coming across people who used her patriotism against her, people that preyed on her naivety and ignorance of the ways of life. China is not perfect; no country is perfect, and I would like to believe that I would not so ignorantly just sit by and let them take advantage of me in the name of patriotism.

If I had the opportunity to take a part in the student riots of Tiananmen Square, I would willingly oblige. The riots of those times were remarkably similar to those of the Cultural Revolution – people fighting against a political policy/economy/authority that did not follow with the beliefs of the majority. However, the riots of the 1980’s lacked one crucial element that drove the Cultural Revolution to the conclusion it had – the charisma of Mao Zedong. Mao was able to persuade the people into believing and acting the way they did. Without him, no “campaigns” reigned forth over China. Uprisings rose and fell with the times, but no all out propaganda ruled China the way it had previously.

If I was a young girl, and my parents had told me the story of Xiu Xiu and the Cultural Revolution, I would consider it my duty to make my voice heard. If they felt the need to impart such an important lesson to me, it would only be my duty to listen to it. I may not take part in the riots, but I would be with them in spirit. She was a young girl, just like me. I must learn her lesson, or her fate would be my own.