nerd teacher [books] reviewed Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
Intriguing.
3 stars
This is a rather well-written memoir by one of the last students to go through Madame Mao's dance academy and his journey to 'leave the well'. Quite enjoyable and well-written.
For me, one of the things I find interesting to read about is how people grapple with the propaganda they grew up with and the reality of the world they experience. It's really overt in China (especially because of how often we hear about it), so these narratives often come from a lot of people who grew up under and left/escaped totalitarian governments (we could just as easily write something about being an American who escaped the propaganda machine, but that probably wouldn't sell well in America). I like that, in some ways, he explains that the stuff they did in school was definitely propaganda but that it was comforting in some ways and terrifying in others; it shows that …
This is a rather well-written memoir by one of the last students to go through Madame Mao's dance academy and his journey to 'leave the well'. Quite enjoyable and well-written.
For me, one of the things I find interesting to read about is how people grapple with the propaganda they grew up with and the reality of the world they experience. It's really overt in China (especially because of how often we hear about it), so these narratives often come from a lot of people who grew up under and left/escaped totalitarian governments (we could just as easily write something about being an American who escaped the propaganda machine, but that probably wouldn't sell well in America). I like that, in some ways, he explains that the stuff they did in school was definitely propaganda but that it was comforting in some ways and terrifying in others; it shows that the way things were done were never black-and-white, and I think that's an important take-away, even if it isn't the primary goal of the book.
There was also one passage that I found incredibly powerful within the context but is something that can be seen in so many contexts outside of a peasant child in a Chinese commune:
I felt apprehensive. School meant the end of my carefree days. It meant that I had to wear shoes and conform to rules. School would teach me to read and write, but deep down, like my dia and my brothers, I wondered what use an education would be to a peasant boy destined to work in the fields. How would school help my family's food shortages? I didn't need education to be a good peasant.
Hearing this, especially with regards to children in poor and struggling communities, is something we need to hear more frequently (and, really, we do hear it a lot -- we need to listen). If we can't deal with those basic issues (food shortages, in this case; clean water, in others), why are we pushing them through a system that can do nothing to fix it?
