On March 4, the One Book, One College main event was held in the Meramec Theater and featured Ling J. Thumin, who presented the lecture “My Life in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.”
Andrea Royals
– News Editor –
Each year, STLCC libraries agree on a publication to include in the One Book, One College program and urge faculty to incorporate the book in classroom activities and assignments. This year, “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” by Dai Sijie has been chosen and various lectures and discussions have been held to explore the novel.
“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” tells the fictional story of two city youths who were banished to the countryside during the cultural revolution of Mao Zedong in China during the 1960s and 1970s. Mao Zedong, chairman of the Communist Party of China, feared that bourgeois intellectuals and Western idealists were a detriment to society and must be re-educated.
On March 4, the One Book, One College main event was held in the Meramec Theater and featured Ling J. Thumin, who presented the lecture “My Life in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.”
Thumin had grown up during Chairman Mao’s rule, and she and her family were persecuted for their intellectual position in society and targeted as enemies to the Red Guards. “There are many stories in ‘Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress’ that I can relate to,” Thumin said.
According to Thumin, during the Cultural Revolution, approximately 17 million Chinese youths were “brainwashed,” and that China “was madly driven by political propaganda.”
Thumin and her sister enjoyed dancing and reading books, but were soon prohibited from such activities. “There were no books to read except Mao’s book, and there were no songs to listen to except revolutionary songs,” Thumin said.
Mao’s book, entitled the “Red Book,” was written in a series of four volumes. “You had to read it and remember it by heart,” Thumin said.
Mao provided “Eight Model Operas” as entertainment for the country. The operas, which were performed continuously, featured proletarian heroes and attendance was mandatory.
Because Thumin and her siblings were the children of Chinese intellectuals, they were labeled as “bad kids.” She and her sister, like the young men in “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress,” stole a book that contained a Western love story.
“My sister and I would take turns reading it,” Thumin said. “We made a pact to never tell where the book came from… We learned that there was such a thing as individual feelings and they were cherished and beautiful. The book provided an escape from the cruel world.”
When Thumin was in school, she said she took pride in leading her fellow students in traditional dances. One particular day when Thumin was in the sixth grade, she taught her class a Western dance she had learned from her mother. Her teacher removed her from her position and she was no longer allowed to teach Western songs. The teacher said to Thumin, “Stop poisoning your classmates with bourgeois ideas.”
Her family was constantly ridiculed for their position in society and her father became the victim of constant ridicule.
She said she would refrain from using the public restroom in her neighborhood, for her father’s name was written as negative graffiti on the walls.
Thumin said her brother faced such a great deal of mistreatment that he attempted suicide by swallowing rat poison.
“That’s how they can ruin your mind, your confidence, and your integrity,” Thumin said.
At age 15, Thumin was banished to the countryside to endure long hours of physical labor as part of Chairman Mao’s plan for re-education. Thumin remained in the countryside until she was 22 years old.
“I wanted to go. I felt like I was a bad kid, so I wanted to be educated by farmers,” Thumin said.
She worked as a rice grower and remembers her time in the southwest countryside as “my happiest adolescent-hood.”
Thumin, who was the only “bad girl” in the village in which she worked, said, “For the first time I felt like I was somebody.” Thumin was able to take pride in her Western knowledge and avoid persecution. “The farmers did not know the difference between bad kids and good kids,” she said.
Thumin worked very hard and was later recognized as “Young City Girl of the Year.”
Her “bad girl” tendencies never left her, and she and her family later moved to the United States after the Cultural Revolution, where they were able to embrace Western ideas and intellect. She attended Southern Connecticut University and Fontbonne University, and received two bachelor degrees in literature and education, as well as a master’s degree in library science.
Thumin’s story is parallel to the fictional novel “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” and several opportunities for book discussion will be available throughout March.
