Last week I saw Chun Yu (or Yu Chun if you want to stick to the formal Chinese order of things) speak about her new book, Little Green. She's adorable and quite the public speaker. It was at the library of my school, and I had a class to get to, so unfortunately I was unable to talk with her one-on-one after the event. I took lots of notes, and in an effort to share the love and maybe convince some of you to try to find the book, I figured, why not share some of my notes?
Yu Chun was born at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China, when the US was their enemy, and she never imagined that she would cross the ocean to come here and write in English. Growing up, she wanted to be an artist and writer, and in a time when anyone could say ANYTHING wrong, her parents said no. Her brother was a very talented artist, but they also directed him to take another path. Both Chun and her brother went to school in Peking to become engineers. She said to us, "One cannot fight something so true in one's heart." And so, years later, she has returned to writing.
She read several passages from the book, which is written entirely in free verse and from the first-person perspective. She told the stories from the eyes of a child. She shared with us that the day Mao Tse-Tung died, it was very shocking because she had been raised to believe that Mao would live for ten thousand years!
Her mother gave birth to her and caught a cold on the way home from the hospital, at her weakest time after childbirth. This turned out to be a pivotal illness in her mother's life, because her mother was a teacher and was out sick when the first struggle meeting took place at the school where she taught. Her co-workers were beaten and ridiculed on stage, but she wasn't there and was spared that awful experience.
Her father was sent-down to a village in the country while Chun, her mother, brother, and sister went to another village to live away from the city. Chun was two years old. She and the other kids were often left alone for hours at a time as the adults went to study Marxism-Leninism and Maoist Thought.
Her father was gone for five years. When she was seven, he returned, and he began to read to his children at night. He read to them from books of "traditional" Chinese poetry, which was considered counter-revolutionary at the time and meant he was taking a big risk. One poem she specifically remembers described a time that Chun couldn't conceive of. It described a time, 1800 years ago. She wondered where that beautiful time had gone.
When she was ten, she was chosen to speak at a 10,000 mass meeting on behalf of her school. She was the captain of the young pioneers' group. Her words were simple, and obvious to anyone in the audience, but coming from a ten year-old, they represented a hope for the future of the Communist Party in China, and she received a standing ovation and roaring applause.
This book is the first in a trilogy. Her next book is, I believe, in the editing stages, and will cover the next major portion of her life: the Deng Era and her involvement in the Tiananmen Incident.
In the question and answer portion of the event, someone asked her about if these were being translated into Chinese, and she explained that on top of it being poetry in English, and that a translation into Chinese would be almost like re-writing it in order to preserve the lyrical quality, she was also concerned about how the government would respond to her words in the book. She expressed concerns that it would not be well-received and that she may be labeled an enemy of the state, if not specifically for things she says in the first book, then certainly for the second and third.
I really recommend that anyone here try to find the book at their school, public library, or a major bookstore in their area. If you're interested, you can look at her website www.chunyu.com. There, you can leaf through the first chapter of the book and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
Thanks for sticking with me, if you've gotten this far. I sure hope some of you find this as interesting as I did!
Yu Chun was born at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in China, when the US was their enemy, and she never imagined that she would cross the ocean to come here and write in English. Growing up, she wanted to be an artist and writer, and in a time when anyone could say ANYTHING wrong, her parents said no. Her brother was a very talented artist, but they also directed him to take another path. Both Chun and her brother went to school in Peking to become engineers. She said to us, "One cannot fight something so true in one's heart." And so, years later, she has returned to writing.
She read several passages from the book, which is written entirely in free verse and from the first-person perspective. She told the stories from the eyes of a child. She shared with us that the day Mao Tse-Tung died, it was very shocking because she had been raised to believe that Mao would live for ten thousand years!
Her mother gave birth to her and caught a cold on the way home from the hospital, at her weakest time after childbirth. This turned out to be a pivotal illness in her mother's life, because her mother was a teacher and was out sick when the first struggle meeting took place at the school where she taught. Her co-workers were beaten and ridiculed on stage, but she wasn't there and was spared that awful experience.
Her father was sent-down to a village in the country while Chun, her mother, brother, and sister went to another village to live away from the city. Chun was two years old. She and the other kids were often left alone for hours at a time as the adults went to study Marxism-Leninism and Maoist Thought.
Her father was gone for five years. When she was seven, he returned, and he began to read to his children at night. He read to them from books of "traditional" Chinese poetry, which was considered counter-revolutionary at the time and meant he was taking a big risk. One poem she specifically remembers described a time that Chun couldn't conceive of. It described a time, 1800 years ago. She wondered where that beautiful time had gone.
When she was ten, she was chosen to speak at a 10,000 mass meeting on behalf of her school. She was the captain of the young pioneers' group. Her words were simple, and obvious to anyone in the audience, but coming from a ten year-old, they represented a hope for the future of the Communist Party in China, and she received a standing ovation and roaring applause.
This book is the first in a trilogy. Her next book is, I believe, in the editing stages, and will cover the next major portion of her life: the Deng Era and her involvement in the Tiananmen Incident.
In the question and answer portion of the event, someone asked her about if these were being translated into Chinese, and she explained that on top of it being poetry in English, and that a translation into Chinese would be almost like re-writing it in order to preserve the lyrical quality, she was also concerned about how the government would respond to her words in the book. She expressed concerns that it would not be well-received and that she may be labeled an enemy of the state, if not specifically for things she says in the first book, then certainly for the second and third.
I really recommend that anyone here try to find the book at their school, public library, or a major bookstore in their area. If you're interested, you can look at her website www.chunyu.com. There, you can leaf through the first chapter of the book and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
Thanks for sticking with me, if you've gotten this far. I sure hope some of you find this as interesting as I did!
