In his political allegory Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote that "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." This observation sums up the Cultural Revolution in China that took place in the 1960s; Communist dictator Mao Tse Tung, known to the world as Chairman Mao, upended life in China under the guise of making society more equal. In reality, of course, it did anything but. Mao's regime took away every freedom that the people had previously enjoyed, reducing everyone to poverty whilst rewarding himself and his cohorts with riches and power. It is against this backdrop that the twelve-year-old Ji-li Jaing introduces herself.
Red Scarf Girl is the story of Ji-li's childhood after the Cultural Revolution. Overnight her world turns upside down and every decision that she and her parents made became not theirs to make; Mao governed every aspect of their lives, from how to dress, to what to read, to what to think. This, he claimed, was to make everyone equal, but all it did was to make everyone equally oppressed.
Coming from a well-to-do background means that Ji-li and her family suffer enormously. They experience a fall from grace socially, their dreams and prospects are ripped away from them and they are devastated when Ji-li's father is arrested because he is not a member of the Communist party, which is considered to be a counter-revolutionary act. Ji-li's own life changes too; she has enjoyed success at school, and is at the top of her class academically, whilst also popular enough to have been voted Student Council President. Because of her family's social status, she is shunned. Classmates spread lies about her so that they can be seen to be cooperating with the Red Guard, and there is nothing but a palpable fear in the air.
Ji-Li decided to write her autobiographical account of the Cultural Revolution after reading The Diary of Anne Frank; finding herself identifying with the German girl of similar age, she felt the need to tell Americans that ordinary people in China were not so very different from ordinary people all over the world. The book was very well-received, primarily because of the obvious torment that re-living the experience of her youth caused the writer all these years later. She followed up this book with a second, The Magical Monkey King, and also began a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating cultural exchange between the East and the West.
