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Excerpts from
Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution
by
Chun Yu
copyright 2005, Simon & SchusterI was born in a small city near the East Sea,
when the Great Cultural Revolution began.
My name is Xiao Qing, Little Green,
my country Zhong Guo, the Middle Kingdom.
When I was ten years old,
our leader died and the revolution ended.
And this is how I remember it.
Beginning
The year was 1966,I was told,
five o'clock on a late spring afteroon.
Mama had been in labor for eight hours.
Baba was pacing up and down in the hall,
having just come from
a mass political meeting in the city square.
The doctor held me up in the air;
I was a ten-pound girl,
screaming loud with a little red face.
Outside the world was changing,
a revolution was in the making for my country.
Darkening clouds gathering in the sky above,
smothering thunders rolling on the horizon afar.
Mama sat on Baba's bike, holding me tight in her arms;
Baba peddled toward home against the cold night wind.
Mama's face was as pale as paper;
she caught cold on the way home,
during the weakest time after her labor.
Little Green
Little Green – Xiao Qing –was the name they gave me.
Qing, the green
of tree leaves in early spring,
of clear water in a deep pond,
my baba said;
of beautiful youth,
the evergreen of life,
my mama said;
and of precious jade worn close to the heart,
my nainai said.