Essay Questions

Why is Ji-li's father arrested?

Ji-li's father is arrested because it is discovered that he has not re-joined the Communist Party and that he has chosen to let his membership slide during the time of political freedom, when it was perfectly acceptable for someone to decide for themselves whom to support and what their political views should be. However, choosing not to be a member of the Communist Party is viewed by the New Government as a counter-revolutionary action, and acting in a way that was antagonistic to Mao was the ultimate crime. Her father was arrested because his history showed a tendency to support democracy and to think for himself, both of which were considered criminal activities under Mao's regime.

There was also suspicion of Ji-li's father because of his ancestry; his father was a successful man who was a landlord, which in turn put the family in a comfortable financial position. After the Revolution, being financially comfortable was seen as something counter-revolutionary because a wealthy person was seen as someone who had feathered their own next at the expense of someone else's (which was ironic given that the only people with any money after the Revolution were the government and their supporters.) Another reason for his arrest was that he came from a class that was now reviled, and so needed to be punished for this.

Why did Ji-li and her classmates have to write letters about their teachers?

The Red Guard ordered school children to act as informers and to write them letters explaining the counter-revolutionary activities of their school teachers. This was relatively easy to accomplish since believing in education and teaching history and literature from before the Revolution was in of itself seen as a counter-revolutionary activity. All children had to do was pen a letter to the Red Guard telling them that they believed their teacher was opposed to Mao because of the content of their lessons before he took power.

They were also required to write letters because the regime needed to neutralize the threat of older, educated people by making their age and their education seem like a threat to the stability and success of the country. For a regime fearing education, a teacher was the ultimate subversive counter-revolutionary, and so a plan had to be devised that would take them out of the equation. By harnessing the enthusiasm and loyalty to Mao that they had brainwashed children to have, the Red Guard were able to encourage them to write letters incriminating their teachers without having them question what it was that the teachers had actually done that constituted an actual wrong-doing.