The Crappy Life In Re-Education

Samantha Long

Katherine Dominguez

Jordan Rosenberg

The Crappy Life In Re-Education

Quote 1: “With each step we could hear the liquid sewage sloshing in the bucket just behind our ears. The slurry would seep through the lid and trickle down our bodies until we were soaked. Dear reader, I will spare you the details of each faltering step; suffice it to say that the slightest false move was potentially fatal.” (15)

Quote 2: “The real reason behind Mao Zedong’s decision was unclear.  Was it a ploy to get rid of the Red Guards, who were slipping out of his grasp? Or was it the fantasy of a great revolutionary dreamer, wishing to create a new generation? We decided that it all came down to Mao’s hatred of intellectuals.”(7)

Thesis: Sijie uses the symbolism of the re-education labor to represent a greater picture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The narrator describes the liquid sewage as “sloshing in the bucket just behind our ears.” This is a metaphor for how they are always being watched and monitored. Mao’s rules are being enforced more and more “until [they] were soaked” completely in the revolution. Any move made that went against the ideas of Mao would make them an “enemy of the people.” In other words, “the slightest false move was potentially fatal,” as our narrator puts it.

How it connects to coming-of-age: The re-education program was designed to shape the minds of the young Chinese so that they grow up following Mao’s ideals. They are sent away from their families to do work and become educated by the peasants. Essentially, this is their first experience living on their own despite their near-adult ages. This alone is a coming-of-age experience, but the miserable labor they have to endure adds on to their suddenly changing environment and circumstances as well as seriously affects the way that they grow up and what they learn about life without parents.

We chose this image because it shows the cultural of the kids in the reeducation program and how they were under one rule.