Modern World History Fall 2001
Study questions on Zhu Xiao Di, Thirty Years in a Red House: A Memoir of Childhood and Youth in Communist China (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).
This book, like the book by Fukuzawa, is an autobiography. Zhu (his last name) was born and raised in the city of Nanjing (Nanking) in China. His father and mother (and many of his aunts and uncles) were activists in the Chinese Communist Party and belonged to Communist underground organizations before the Communists took power in 1949. His father was an important mid-level official in the Communist regime who fell out of (and then back into) favor, so Zhu was able to see life in China both from the perspective of the privileged elites and of those who lacked privilege.
Zhu's autobiography tells the story of his family as it lived through the major events of modern Chinese history. He tells us about his parents activities during the long struggle for power between the Communists and Nationalists in China in the 1920s and 1930s (and especially during the Japanese occupation in the late 1930s). He discusses the hardships people faced during the terrible famine in China in the late 1950s and early 1960s that accompanied the "Great Leap Forward" economic programs of Chairman Mao (the leader of China's Communist regime from 1949 until his death in 1976). He gives details of life during the "Cultural Revolution" of 1966-69. He describes the public reaction to events like the fall of the "Gang of Four" in 1976 and the Tiananman Incident of 1976 and he explains how he (and other young people like him) felt about the economic reforms and political crack-downs of the 1980s. Ultimately, he helps us understand events leading to the bloody conclusion of the 1989 Tiananman Square protests.
Zhu generally is careful to explain any terms or "introduce" people or places that might be unfamiliar to the American reader.
As you read Zhu's book, take notes that will help you to answer the following questions (one of these questions will be on the Final Exam):
Based upon evidence in this book, why did people support the Chinese Communist Party before and during the revolution, and why did people like Zhu's father remain supporters of the party even though they had been victims of the "cultural revolution" of 1966-69?
Based upon evidence in this book, why (and when) did people like Zhu loose faith in the Communist Party?
Compare and contrast the reasons that Zhu's father was a loyal Communist and the reasons that Zhu lost faith in the Communist Party.
Based upon evidence in this book, how did people "cope" with the radical (and often violent) changes that took place in their lives under the Communist regime? (How did they manage to go on with their lives?)
Based upon the evidence in this book, what elements of traditional Chinese culture remained important in Chinese life despite the changes that came with the Communist regime?