China Remembers

by Calum Macleod, Lijia Zhang, Zhang Lijia

On 1 October 1999, the People's Republic of China turns fifty. It has been a rocky ride, at times euphoric, at times tragic. In light of the place China now occupies on the world stage, this birthday will draw attention from around the world. This book commemorates the PRC's journey to date through thirty interviews, presenting one of the most honest and compelling accounts of the country ever compiled.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195917367
• ISBN13: 9780195917369
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An interesting myriad of memoirs about Chinese lives before and after "Liberation."

Among my favorite narratives in this anthology are; a Russian language teacher who married a Chinese man and the story of David and Isabel Crook. Back when China and the USSR were best buds a language teacher came to China to teach Russian she fell in love with a Chinese man. They married and had two daughters. Everything was rosy until the Sino-Russian split. David and Isabel Crook are two American Commies who defected to China for ideological reasons. David Crook was imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution as were other similar Americans like Sidney Rittenberg. I would have liked to know more about what prompted two seemingly ordinary Americans defect to a communist country and stay throughout the Cultural Revolution. There are many good narratives, but these two are the most interesting and unique. I liked this one better than Macao Remembers. I also saw this book for sale in Hong Kong, in the traditional characters. By the way I lent one of my Chinese friends this book and she was somewhat skeptical of some of the stories.

A Great Read!

Have you ever wondered what life has been like since `the people of China stood up' in 1949? If so then ` China Remembers' is the book for you.Cleverly constructed by husband and wife team it provides a highly readable personal account of the defining moments in the lives of a variety of people. By interviewing hundreds of people and eliciting their stories they have painted a rich and vivid picture of 50 years in China. The characters endear themselves to the reader as they tell their stories. People such as a Chinese soldier in the Korean War, a farmer who lost almost all her family in China's terrible famine, a red guard in Shanghai during the cultural revolution to a modern day self-made business tycoon and a village carpenter striving to win democratic election to his village committee.But what adds immeasurably to the charm and interest of this book are the linking introductions to each section and chapter. Written in a different, more academic style, the authors have set the historical, political and economic scene so that the reader can more readily identify and empathise with the achievements and problems related by each storyteller.This book entertains as it educates, makes you laugh as well as cry and as China continues to rejoin the world, it enlightens understanding of a mysterious, enigmatic yet wholly human people. A great read!

China's rollercoaster Republic

`China Remembers' by Zhang Lijia and Calum MacLeod groups 33 contributions from Chinese and foreign residents in China, arranged to give insight into the history of the People's Republic and leavened with introductions to guide the reader through the complexities of its political campaigns. It is hard to imagine an editorial team better equipped for the task. Zhang Lijia's metamorphosis from Nanjing factory worker to freelance writer itself reflects China's heady leap from planned economy to sink-or-swim capitalism. Calum MacLeod, who I have counted a friend since we shared a mouldy hotel room in Xi'an in 1989, earns his living bridging the gap between international investors and newly corporate China. The testimonies this Anglo-Chinese joint venture couple have gathered come as an antidote to the efforts by Mao Zedong and his communist comrades to force the world's most populous nation to march to a single beat. China Remembers bursts with human contradictions and surprises a world away from the tyranny of Marxist class truths.

"China Remembers" - an unforgettable journey

"China Remembers", a collection of individual eyewitness accounts from a wide variety of participants in the last 50 years of Chinese history, vividly and poignantly portrays the realities of those years.Divided into five "periods" - from "Consolidating Power:1949-1956" right up to the present day with "Entering the World:1990-1999", each of the "periods"comes to life through the voices of such witnesses as diverse as an interpreter of Mao Zedong, a young woman's experience of the Cultural Revolution in the remote countryside,a student who participated in the 1989 "Beijing Spring", a legal expert who returned to her native China after 10 years in the US, and a rubbish collector...among the 33 different "voices" of this vivid volume. Each very personal account is preceded by the authors' introduction.The voices from the heart recount the turmoil of recent Chinese history - of the often unspoken horrors and unfathomable personal tragedies. The recollections are told in the first person and dwell with courage upon the past experiences, struggles and success against all odds and the opportunities and hope for the future.Authors Zhang Lijia - born and raised in China - and Calum Macleod have memorably captured the emotion, complexity and contradictions of China's recent history in a work that provides gripping reading.