The Untold Story of Many a Heiwulei Child - Paperback

by Xiaomei Sun (Author)

The Untold Story of Many a Heiwulei Child is intended to offer the first ever glimpse into heiwulei children of China and shed rare light on an education system instrumental in implementing policies against such children. The first-person narrative of a girl who grew up a heiwulei brings back a time in Chinese history when so-called five black categories of class enemies were being rounded up to be executed or prisoned or labor-camped. Just a second grader, the girl struggled with having a father who was a class enemy in prison. Then the Great Cultural Revolution started, labeling as heiwulei any child with a heiwulei parent. Setting old family photos on fire in the middle of a night didn't help. Still her mother was hauled away, leaving the ten-year-old home alone to fend for herself. In the spirit of a fabled snake her maternal grandma had told her, the girl tried to be strong like a boy by working on her wushu moves and even joined a small group to reach Beijing on foot. Surveilled throughout her years in secondary schools, she found herself often having to denounce her then-already-dead father or being denounced for having such a father. Even though she knew she didn't have any future, she kept going simply because she was raised not just by a mother who was a master in the ancient art of calligraphy but also by stories she heard, legendary or real, which always ran like an undercurrent of strength for her.