Red Scarf Girl Quotes
"If conditions were good, he said, he would be standing. If they were bad, he would be sitting. In the photo he sent us, my grandmother whispered, he was lying down."
"Before Mao’s liberation, my father remembers as a boy in the city of Shanghai seeing corpses of beggars lying in the streets while the wealthy drove by in chauffeured limousines."
"Ironically, had Mao died before launching the Cultural Revolution, he would surely be remembered today as a much more positive historical figure."
"Her actions remind me that, even under unbearable circumstances, one can still believe in justice."
"He spat into his palms and rubbed them together. Then, with the help of the other, he lifted the board to shoulder height. 'One, two, three!' They threw the board to the ground."
"Chairman Mao told us we would never succeed at building a strong socialist country until we destroyed the 'Four Olds' and established the 'Four News.'"
"'Every reactionary is the same; if you do not hit him, he will not fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish by itself.'"
"It was strange. When I had read the newspaper, I had been enraged by the revisionist educational system that had been poisoning our youth for so many years."
"She demonstrates the exercises of the great acting teacher Stanislavsky, she imitated Charlie Chaplin’s funny walk, and when she was reading about calculus, she explained Zeno’s paradox and the infinite series."
"Though the capitalist Rong De-feng has died, his widow still lives on his ill-gotten gains. The factories in which her husband exploited the masses have been returned to their rightful owners, the workers and the People’s government."
"Everyone felt vulnerable, and no one wanted to say anything that would cause trouble."
"We children were warned to stay close to home and come back at once if a search occurred."
"In other years summer vacation had been a happy time."
"There seemed to be no laughter in the alley—just a growing, choking tension."
"Song Po-po was part of the family, and it was good that she was not working for us."
"My Fourth Aunt once told me that people with naturally curly hair were fated to suffer."
"I thought of Grandma getting married so long ago, bringing the four beautiful trunks full of gifts."
"Evenings we sat in the alley with the neighbors and listened to stories."
"I could not look at the painting without feeling inspired."
"An Yi had been sent away to spend the summer with her grandparents in Shandong, away from Shanghai’s turbulence."
"I was a grown-up now, doing a grown-up’s job."
"I was clearly not one of the pampered bourgeoisie."
"You go ahead and play," she said. "I’ll be right here."
"I could see Ji-yong and Xiao-cheng standing at the entrance to the alley."
"Time always passed too quickly in math class."
"It’s not your fault that you were born into such a family, but the class influence of your family does have an effect."
"I had promised during the days that Grandma and I had hidden in the park; I had promised when I had not testified against Dad; I had promised when I had hidden the letter."
"This is the most frightening lesson of the Cultural Revolution: Without a sound legal system, a small group or even a single person can take control of an entire country."
"Every muscle in my body ached. I wondered if the arthritis I had suffered as a child was returning."
"I would never do anything to hurt my family, and I would do everything I could to take care of them."
"My family was too precious to forget, and too rare to replace."
"I could not fight anymore. As I trembled down the stairs with Grandma, a thought came to me for the first time in my life."
"We were all brainwashed. To us Chairman Mao was God."
"I grew up and moved to the United States, but still, whatever I did, wherever I went, vivid memories of my childhood kept coming back to me."
"I felt an older brother’s sincerity and trust in his look. 'Brave enough to face and eventually overcome the difficulties of life,' I repeated to myself."
"And what happened since then? A few months after our ransack the revolutionary situation in the theater changed again."
"In 1980 my father was finally cleared. Not only was the charge that he was an 'escaped landlord' dropped, but an old decision made during the Antirightist Movement was reversed as well."
"The years of disappointments finally made me move to the United States."
"Sometimes when I think of all we went through, I can’t help feeling that it was only by the grace of God that we were saved."
"After ten years of sacrifice in the primitive countryside most of these young people returned to the city with little education, few skills, and no beliefs."
"I once fervently believed in Mao and the Chinese Communist Party."
"During my first few years in the United States I was continually astonished at the freedom Americans enjoy."
"I realized that although I have adopted a new country, I cannot forget China."
"If I can help Americans to understand China, and the Chinese to learn about the United States, even a little, I will feel very rewarded."