Word: mao
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Literature chronicling the cultural Revolution is rife with memoirs written by China's best and brightest-the doctors, artists and intellectuals who were sent to the countryside to toil miserably as field hands during Mao Zedong's program to "reeducate" the intelligentsia. Not all who were targets of class warfare were destroyed by it, however. Mao's Last Dancer, the latest biography set in the Cultural Revolution, tells the story of a peasant boy from northern China who was propelled to international stardom by Mao's social engineering...
...Written by first-time author Li Cunxin, Dancer is a poor-boy-makes-good memoir populated by a strange cast of historical figures. Chief among them is the rabid Jiang Qing, Mao's infamous wife, who was a fierce proponent of the Great Helmsman's postulate that "There is in fact no such thing as art ... detached from or independent of politics." To Madame Mao, all presentation was propaganda; she drafted armies of performers to edify the masses through highly politicized operas and films, such as the epic revolutionary musical The East is Red. She also revived the once outlawed...
...escape starvation, but ballet school during the Cultural Revolution was not all tutus and toe shoes. Beloved teachers cleaned toilets; students spent their summers toiling alongside farmers or factory workers; and more class time was devoted to the study of political movements than to dance movements. At Madame Mao's insistence, kung fu kicks and death stares were introduced to mincing ballet routines. "The dancing looked all right," she once observed during a visit to the school, "but where are the guns? Where are the grenades...
...Unlike the elegant prose of novelist Anchee Min's 1994 memoir Red Azalea (Min was similarly plucked from serfdom to join Madam Mao's cultural crusade), Li's straightforward narrative rarely delves into agonizing emotional battles, nor does Li use his experiences to comment on social and political issues. Mao's Last Dancer is nonetheless a moving story, and considering the books dedicated to Cultural Revolution horrors, it's heartening to read that someone was able to dance his way through...
...humor have blown through the league like a gust of fresh air, reinvigorating a sport grown weary of spoiled, misbehaving superstars. All-American companies such as Visa, Apple, Pepsi and Reebok have flocked to seek his endorsements, making the Shanghai native, 23, the most recognizable Chinese icon since Chairman Mao...