Anchee Min grew up in turbulent times. Raised in China during the Cultural Revolution, her childhood was anything but idyllic. Fortunately for Min, she was blessed with a set of parents who guarded their dreams, and nothing the Communist regime threw at them could dampen their spirits. Then reality struck home.

Revolution Nation
Red Azalea is Min's account of these times. She delivers an enthralling story of physical and psychological survival against a backdrop of totalitarianism. Her writing is rich for its sparseness. It appropriately reads like a rough draft about a period in China's history in which the Maoist government was playing at their own rough draft, still figuring out what Chinese Communism should look like.

In 1974, at the age of seventeen, Min was sent to work on a farm. She writes of that day, "My family stood in front of me, as if taking a dull picture. It was a picture of sadness, a picture of never the same. I was out of the picture." A People's collective, the Red Fire Farm is too close to the sea to produce well. The work done there is laborious, repetitive, and not dissimilar to that of a prison labor camp. The difference is the workers have been all-but convinced their labors are for the good of society, and in turn, their own good. It's a demonstration of the great benevolent Chairman Mao's love - the saviour of China - that they've been chosen to serve. In turn, the propaganda machine tells them, they love him back. It's a craftily styled secular-based faith in which Mao is God.

Madam Mao's Opera
Begun in 1966, the Cultural Revolution was the brainchild of Jiang Ching, aka Madam Mao. A key component of the Revolution was the erasure of class distinction. To accomplish this, every family in China had to have at least one member of its immediate family classified as Peasant, the lowest of the classes. The thinking - convoluted at best - reasoned that all classes would be linked to the revolutionary struggle if every family included members of the lowest class, by definition the champions of the revolution. For the Min family, that distinction fell on Anchee.

Madam Mao's Cultural Revolution was about reinventing China. That included rewriting history - including art and literature - and creating a new Chinese ideal. The new ideal portrayed the Chinese proletariat as a fierce nationalist, bold and committed to Communism. His heart was pure. A pleasing aesthetic dominated his features, and his dedication to Mao was unwavering. Through a series of operatic films, a new kind of heroism was pressed on China, one devoid of individuality and dedicated to myth. The regime was the star of Madam Mao's operas; the players its pawns.

Anchee Min's Opera
To ensure her actors met the new Chinese ideal, Madam Mao's agents scoured the countryside for the right look. On one such visit to Red Fire Farm, Anchee caught the eye of a scout. She was looking for faces for Madam Mao's latest opera, Red Azalea. Working on a sound stage was a huge step up from the farm, so competition was fierce among the workers. In the end, Anchee is chosen - though she has mixed feelings about it - from among a handful of finalists, and resettles in Shanghai for what would become a year-long audition process. It would prove to be a year of growth for Anchee, both personally and professionally, and one that would open her eyes to the ambition and intrigue of Communist China as never before.

Min's gift is honesty. The wide arc her life takes during the Cultural Revolution is fascinating, but it's her personal reflection on the period that makes the story endearing. That it's true is mind-blowing; that it found its way out of the Middle Kingdom, a testament to the human spirit. While Madam Mao's Red Azalea was never completed, fortunately Min's was. Red Azalea is Anchee Min's opera, a production more profound for its honesty than anything Madam Mao and her well-oiled propaganda machine could dream up. For that, the literary world shall be forever grateful.

posted 12/10/16

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