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Author: Nien Cheng
Quotes of Author: Nien Cheng
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  1. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    It's always best to look ahead and not backwards. Possessions are not important. Think of those beautiful porcelain pieces I had. Before they came to me, they had all passed through the hands of many people, surviving wars and natural disasters. I got them only because someone else lost them. While I had them, I enjoyed them; now some other people will enjoy them. Life itself is transitory. Possessions are not important.
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  2. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    I saw another young man coming down the stairs from the third floor with my blanc de chine Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin, in his hand. {. . .} He swung the arm holding the Guanyin carelessly in the air and declared, 'This is a figure of Buddhist superstition. I'm going to throw it in the trash.' The Guanyin was a perfect specimen and a genuine product of the Dehua kiln in Fujian province. It was the work of the famous 17th century Ming sculptor Chen Wei and bore his seal on the back. The beauty of the creamy-white figure was beyond description. The serene expression of the face was so skillfully captured that it seemed to be alive. The folds of the robe flowed so naturally that one forgot it was cared out of hard biscuit. The glaze was so rich and creamy that the whole figure looked as if it were soft to the touch. {. . .} By this time, I no longer thought of them as my own possessions. I did not care to whom they belonged after tonight as long as they were saved from destruction.
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  3. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    It was strange to realize that after this night I would never see it again as it was. The room had never looked so beautiful as it did at that moment.
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  4. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    I must not only keep alive, but I must be as strong as granite, so that no matter how much I was knocked about, I could remain unbroken.
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  5. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    I love China! I love my country even though it is not always good ro right,' my daughter proclaimed in a firm voice. Her words brought tears to my eyes. I also had a deep and abiding love for the land of my ancestors even though, because of my class status, I had become an outcast.
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  6. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    The poet Tao Yuan-ming {A.D. 376 - 427} used the lotus to represent a man of honor in a famous poem, saying that the lotus rose out of mud but remained unstained. {. . .} Perhaps the poet was too idealistic, I thought as I listened to the laughter of the Red Guards overhead. They seemed to be blissfully happy in their work of destruction because they were sure they were doing something to satisfy their God, Mao Zedong.
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  7. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    {Mr. Hu said:} There always comes a time when a man almost reaches the end of his endurance and is tempted to write down something, however untrue, to satisfy his inquisitors and to free himself from intolerable pressure. But one mustn't do it. {. . .} Once one starts confessing, they will demand more and more admissions of guilt, however false, and exert increasing pressure to get what they want. In the end, one will get into a tangle of untruths from which one can no longer extract oneself.
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  8. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    ultimate in respectability: not only received back into the ranks of the people but also
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  9. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    Since the very beginning of the Communist regime, I had carefully studied books on Marxism and pronouncements by Chinese Communist Party leaders. It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment nad had no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. This, I thought, was why the government's policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to extremes and problems emerged. Beijing would take corrective measures. Then these very corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected. The real difficulty was, of course, that a state-controlled economy only stifled productivitiy, and economic planning from Beiging ignored local conditions and killed incentive. When a policy changed from above, the standards of values changed with it. What was right yesterday became wrong today, and visa versa. Thsus the words and actions of a Communist Party official at the lower level were valid for a limited time only... The Cultural Revolution seemed to me to be a swing to the left. Sooner or later, when it had gone too far, corrective measures would be taken. The people would have a few months or a few years of respite until the next political campaign. Mao Zedong believed that political campaigns were the motivating force for progress. So I thought the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was just one of an endless series of upheavals the Chinese people must learn to put up with.~13
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  10. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    One of the most ugly aspects of life in Communist China during the Mao Zedong era was the Party's demand that people inform on each other routinely and denounce each other during political campaigns. This practice had a profoundly destructive effect on human relationships. Husbands and wives became guarded with each other, and parents were alienated from their children. The practice inhibited all forms of human contact, so that people no longer wanted to have friends. It also encouraged secretiveness and hypocrisy. To protect himself, a man had to keep his thoughts to himself. When he was compelled to speak, often lying was the only way to protect himself and his family.
    book-quotecommunismmaocultural-revolution

  11. Nien Cheng _ Life and Death in Shanghai

    Large portraits of Mao on wooden boards several feet high stood at main street corners. Painted to make the old man look extremely youthful, healthy, and fat {a sign of well-being in China}, these pictures provided a mocking contrast to the thin, pale-faced pedestrians walking listlessly below them. Pg. 193
    book-quotepropagandamao-zedongcultural-revolution
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