Cultural, Revolution

 

Shedding Light on the Cultural Revolution In Beautiful Country, Qian Julie Wang writes about her father's childhood memories of China's Cultural Revolution in 1966 to illuminate a decade filled with political turmoil. Initiated by Mao Zedong to consolidate power and impose communist ideology, the decade long Cultural Revolution dismantled traditional structures, targeted the intelligentsia, and left millions of families, like Wang’s, devastated. Wang's father's stories about that period provide the background for a memoir with a theme of generational trauma and how people cope with an uncertain life.

During the Cultural Revolution, Mao aimed to eliminate the "Four Olds": old culture, old customs, old habits, and old ideas. The campaign started violent attacks on the so-called "enemies of the state," namely academics (like Wang’s parents), landowners, and anyone who was perceived as not loyal enough to the Communist Party. Young Red Guards, indoctrinated youth, led this persecution against teachers, relatives, and even friends. Public humiliation, torture, and forced labor became standard practice; many innocent lives were “Wrongly accused”, with countless others being unfairly executed.

Wang's father remembers how, as a teenager, his brother was put into prison for speaking against Mao. This sets up the ideas of loss of freedom and brutal oppression toward disobedience. This trauma echoes through generations, and Wang's family's undocumented life in the United States reflects a continuation of survival under oppressive systems. Her parents emigrated to America in search of a better future but found themselves at the mercy of new forms of marginalization as immigrants.

The Cultural Revolution destroyed trust and fractured communities, a theme mirrored in Wang's portrayal of isolation and alienation within immigrant life. His father's silent endurance of abuse, his parents' public beatings, and his sisters' screams as their home was ransacked are clear examples of a world that punishes difference and dissent. Connecting these familial scars to her own experiences, Wang shows how historical trauma shapes identity and resilience. Her memoir is a reminder that survival often involves unspoken costs.