Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin

Book Overview

In a small, desperately poor village in northeast China, a peasant boy sits at his rickety old school desk, interested more in the birds outside than in Chairman Mao's Red Book and the grand words it contains. But that day, some strangers come to his school -- Madame Mao's cultural delegates. They are looking for young peasants to mold into faithful guards of Chairman Mao's great vision for China. The boy watches as one of his classmates is chosen...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039915096X
• ISBN13: 9780399150968
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 451 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Review for Mao's Last Dancer

Mao's Last Dancer is a heartwarming autobiography which reflects on the past of Li Cunxin, the author, who went from living a life of extreme poverty to becoming an international dance star. In particular, this novel stresses the importance of rising against the odds of your place in society to achieve even the most far-reached and impossible dreams. Li Cunxin was born to a poor Chinese family living under the harsh communist rule of Mao. Oftentimes, his family didn't have enough food to go around the table, and there was absolutely no money to spare for extras, like toys or pencils. In addition, the future of most children was similar to that of their parents: bleak and colorless. As niang (his mom) is quoted saying on page 15, "We are born with a hopeless fate." Despite the low chances of success, Li Cunxin was presented a rare opportunity when, at 11 years old, he was offered a slot in the Beijing Dance Academy. Whilst leaving his family at such a tender age was tough, niang said, "My dear son, this is your lucky chance to escape from this cruel world. Go, go and do something special with your life!" Hence, he began his journey through the dance world. At the Beijing Dance Academy, Li Cunxin attained a high standard, and even had the chance to dance with numerous ballet companies worldwide. After many years, he grasped a chance to stay in the Western World. In the 1970's, he defected to the United States and joined the Houston Ballet Company--the ultimate proof that the tables can be turned if you give something your all. The themes and central ideas of this book remind me especially about the movie Seabiscuit. Set in the midst of the Great Depression, the plot details about a young man named Red Pollard who jockeys a prized racing horse named Seabiscuit. They are said to be the winning pair, destined for success. During a race, though, Red falls off his horse and fractures his leg, while at the same time, Seabiscuit is injured. The doctors were adamant that neither the jockey or horse will ever be able to race again. However, together, using their similar personalities as a passageway to bonding, Seabiscuit and Red heal with each other, in the end collecting the most-wanted horse racing prize of the year. Even though one story is mainly about a poor dancer and the other about an injured horse and jockey, the two share a commonality. In both plots, the protagonist must overcome some big obstacle--in the case of Mao's Last Dancer, adversity and a trapped future, and in Seabiscuit, severe injury. One final closing quote very fitting to both plots follows, "A pessimist sees only the dark side of the clouds, and mopes; a philosopher sees both sides, and shrugs; an optimist doesn't see the clouds at all - he's walking on them." --Leonard Louis Levinson

worth reading, especially young people

this book is about a young man who is selected from an impovrished farm family to become a ballet dancer by a dictatorial regime in china and how he strives for success in this competitive field. i thought so much of this book, i gave it to my granddaughter (10 years old)and who loves to dance.

Growing up Peasant in Rural China

There seems to be no end of stories by and about people who came of age during the darkest days of the Cultural Revolution. This book is different from most of them in a couple important respects. First of all, Li Cuxin's family were peasants. Perhaps it would be a bit strong to say that they "missed" the revolution, because Li Cuxin does describe one particularly graphic scene where he witnessed an execution. But they were not personally struggled against. The peasants were the idealized heroes of the Cultural Revolution. Li Cuxin's suffering was poverty, pure and simple. But there are lots of poor people in the world. Secondly, the benefits Li Cuxin was given were unique in that they were not given him by the country he went to (America). They were given to him by the People's Republic of China. And the life he went to was really unreal. Most Americans do not live like the people Li met when he came to America. So this book is not a classic story about a persecuted person who somehow managed to find freedom in the West. As such, I must admit that I often had mixed feelings while reading this book. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but I want to address it, because it is central both to what is right and what is wrong in this book. For me, the centerpoint of this book is Li Cunxin's decision to defect to the West. He married one of his fellow dancers secretly, and told his benefactor from the Houston Ballet that he was not going to return to China. It is this decision that really defines this story, because everything that happens before it can in some way be considered an influencing factor. And everything that happens after it is a result of it. And it is this decision that causes me to have so many mixed feelings about this book, because I believe the decision was a mistake. It was a mistake, but I have mixed feelings, because while part of me is disgusted with him for doing something so stupid and self serving, it is hard to be to angry with him, given the way he was treated by the Ministry of Culture. This was my problem reading this book. In one sense, one is inclined to feel sorry for a kid whose dreams could be so casually dashed to pieces by one bureaucrat who just happened to be a jerk. Yet, as I said, this book is not a classic story of a persecuted dissident who escaped to the West to find freedom. Li Cunxin was privileged. Very few young people in America or Australia have the privileges he was given by his government to go to Beijing and study in the top dance academy in the nation. And Li's decision to skip the program and defect was not an act of heroism. It would have been more heroic in this case, for him to go back to China. He says his country lied to him. True, but he lied to them, too. The report he wrote for his superiors after he returned from his first trip was full of exaggerated condemnations of the West that were written to impress, not to give a true account of his experi

An Easy Read for A Glimpse of Life of a Rural Boy Who Made it Good in Ballet

I bought this book without any inkling that it will such an engaging read. I tried to read other autobiographical books of life during the Cultural Revolution. Many describe how the authors/ characters suffered but few depict how one actually benefitted from it. Li Cunxin was born into a very poor rural family of 7 boys. The family was extremely poor. The parents gave away the fourth son to one of the uncles. This allows the given son a chance at survival. This is also a sign of how important it is for a Chinese couple to have a son to continue its ancestral name. The author and his family slept in a very small house in a village called Li Village in Qingdao, the sunny town off Northeast coast of China which produces the world-famous Tsingtao beer. They rarely had enough food on the table, fed on dried yam most of the time and had small amount of meat once a year. Everyone would try to pass the better food to the next member of the family, a subtle display of family affection. Li's parents are honest and hardworking peasants who instil very strong values of integrity, hardwork and discipline to the boys in the family. They are old-fashioned but surprisingly, there was ample display of affection between Li and his mother whom he highly respects. They hug eac other quite frequently. Rare for a conservative Chinese family. One can read about his deep love for his mother throughout the book. Li was fortunate to be chosen as part of a ballet class of Beijing Dance Academy at the age of 11. As fate would have it, this was the turning point of his life. He had the opportunity to go to Beijing, met Madam Mao, made some lifelong friends, tutored by strict but good ballet teachers and in the end, managed to be invited to the US for a short stint. Interestingly, many books on Cultural Revolution are written by people who suffered during that period and how they detested the times then. Li is not considered as one and he does spice the book with his own thoughts and gratitude towards Chairman Mao for permitting him to have a shot at ballet and in the process, see the US. While he was in the US, he realised the propaganda of the Chinese communist government. He was a smart boy. He did not show his yearning for the capitalist world but he persistently fought for a second chance to return to the US. Return he did but he went a bit further by falling in love with Elizabeth, a fellow dancer and married her. That was when he wanted to defect. The drama that his defection created in the Chinese consulate in the US makes interesting reading. Li managed to win the cause and stayed in the US but that meant that he could not return to China to see his beloved parents for many years. His family in China also suffered by the shame that this episode brought- many felt that Li was ungrateful. In the meantime, he flourished in the world of ballet. He divorced Elizabeth as it seemed that the marriage resulted from infatuation and cultural & value difference d

An amazing story!

I must join in on the praise for this wonderful memoir. Li Cunxin's account of his early life in China was so vivid that I literally shed tears for him. Later,I found myself cheering his brilliant successes in the ballet world. I could not put this book down, as I felt compelled to find out what was happening to Li Cunxin. The pages of pictures contained in the book added much to the telling of this story. You must read it.