I have read a few memoirs and novels of the Cultural Revolution but this one was very unique. She started as very much believing in the cause and then you see her faith chipped away as the cruelty of those involved takes away so much she finds dear. The writing is very powerful, even though it is quite simple at times. I think I was most struck by how absolutely horribly people can behave when in a situation either where they have a great deal of power or must not step outside the defined norms. It made me think alot about how quickly a society can fall apart.

En los últimos años de la China de Mao nada escapaba al control de un Estado paranoico: la belleza inspiraba desconfianza y el amor podía ser castigado con la muerte. En Azalea roja, Anchee Min narra sus turbulentos años de formación en este mundo opresivo: desde su condena a trabajar como campesina en un campo de reeducación por sus ansias de libertad y sus amores lésbicos, hasta su milagrosa redención gracias a la participación en la versión cinematográfica de una de las óperas políticas de Madame Mao.

Heartbreaking story set during the cultural revolution in China. Fast read and immersive. ( )

Intense and interesting, im glad the author was able to write this and tell her story. However there were some very disturbing scenes and I found the animal abuse particularly upsetting so use caution. I was also uncomfortable with many of the scenes involving sex. Theres a reason I mostly read kids books I guess. ( )

A Different Perspective of the Cultural Revolution

Anchee Min's "Red Azalea" offers a different perspective on the Cultural Revolution than other memoirs. What it adds to the literature is a discussion, though subtle and obscured with ambiguity, is a discussion of sexuality and a look at someone who achieves two positions of power, one leading to a comparatively privileged life. The book is well-written and moves very quickly.

The first part of the book begins like many other memoirs of the Cultural Revolution. She is a city youth who is heavily involved in the Communist Youth League and Red Guard at her school. She is a model student who faces typical problems faced in other memoirs: studying, making it in party politics, carrying the burden of two working parents, taking care of her siblings, and so forth. Like nearly all memoirs of the era, she becomes a "sent down youth" when she travels to the country in order to live as a peasant on a farm organized as a military unit.

This is the second part of the book. Min faces hardships familiar to all "sent down youth." She needs to steal food to get full, she is bullied, and she needs to deal with the deprivations of nature, such as mosquitoes and leeches. Other memoirs of the era are much more harsh. In comparison, Min's life is not as bad, though it is certainly difficult and unfair. Because she does such a good job, she is eventually promoted to being a company head, which affords her more "luxuries," such as a better barrack, and control over a group of other "sent down youth." During this time, Min develops a relationship with the leader of her unit, a young revolutionary named Yan who begins questioning her choices. They meet secretly, developing a lesbian romance, the physical depth of which is not discussed, but the emotional depth is profound.

When Min wins the chance to compete for a role in Red Azalea, an opera-turned-movie about Madame Mao, she leaves the farm and the third part of the book starts. Min begins living in her family's city again with four other young women competing for the title role. Here she is well-taken care of. She has plenty to eat, her family nearby, and good living conditions. After being politically outmaneuvered, she is assigned a job as a set assistant during the filming of Red Azalea. However, she develops a romance with the producer of the film, a man she knows only as the Supervisor. They meet first while smoking cigarettes, but later, in a bizarre scene, go to a public park where couples meet. She later learns that the Supervisor is intersex. The climax of the book occurs in the third section when Madame Mao falls from power.

The discussion of sexuality in the book is missing from other memoirs of the Cultural Revolution. Where other authors certainly discuss their unrequited loves, Min is much more frank, although she does use clouded language when describing her own relationships with Yan and the Supervisor. She does, however, describe the public masturbaters at the park and at a bathhouse where a woman enters as a man and performs sex acts on men. I was not expecting these matters to be brought up in such a memoir. ( )