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Essay about Mao's last dancer memoirs
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The novel 'Mao's Last Dancer', is a gripping story about the author, Li Cunxin and his story to success as a professional ballet dancer in communist China. The story shows how hard work, determination and hardships lead to the achievement of goals. Throughout the book, Li suffers from a number of physically and mentally challenging struggles that test him and push him to become stronger and more determined. Both mental and physical struggles are equally as difficult to overcome and both play a big part in different stages of Li's life.
Being pushed to dance for hours everyday and going hungry everyday when he was younger left Li exhausted and in pain, but also made him physically stronger and more able to progress through his dancing career. Living with a big family during his younger years, meant Li's family had to share the little they had with a lot of people, this made them all weak and too tired to carry on. Luckily for Li's family, they
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were fortunate enough to have dried yams to eat. "Dried yams saved our lives" says Li even though he tells the reader that he hated them. Another physical struggle was his dancing as said before, though not eating made Li weak, dancing made him stronger. The more and more Li practised, the better he became at dancing even with the pain he went through. "Be strong! You can bear the pain!" is a quote said by Li in the time before going to Beijing. He is telling the reader about his determination to achieve his goals, no matter how much it hurt. No matter how much he was pushed, Li faced all of his struggles and overcame them by believing in himself and being determined to make his family and country proud. Schoolwork, dancing and relationships were hard to balance for Li throughout his years in Beijing and America. Unlike physical struggles, mental struggles helped him gain confidence rather than physical strength which he used to stand up for what he believed in at times. Leaving his family was very hard for Li, he had spent his whole life so far with them and not being able to see them for another year, made him feel very lost and alone."You should be happy" says Li the day before he leaves his hometown, he was telling himself that he had an amazing opportunity and he should be happy he was taking it. Schoolwork was very hard for Li while trying to practice his dancing, in Li's first year of dance school, he got bad grades because of not working hard enough. Li soon learnt a lesson from this and started practising dancing during the night and whenever he could."My attitude towards dancing finally changed" says Li in his third year of dance school, this is when he was finally motivated by teacher Xiao and himself to keep up his dancing. Just like his physical struggles, Li faced the mental struggles and defeated them to continue achieving success. The physical and mental struggles Li faced were inseparable, neither of them were greater than the other.
Everywhere there was a struggle for Li, there would be a physical and a mental side to it which he would have to conquer."I was determined to be chosen" was what Li said during the stretching test. Though physically in pain due to the stretching, Li was also mentally overcome by the fact that he could let his family down and make them upset at a wasted opportunity if he didn't succeed. Getting bad grades because Li found it hard to prepare himself for exams meant that he had to practice all day and all night and cope with the stress of achieving to do well. "I was angry with myself" Li says this as a response to trying to do split jumps when he couldn't. Doing the split jumps were his physical struggle and keeping his word to teacher Gao that he would learn a split jump come exam time was his mental struggle. As a dancer, Li was mainly overcome by pain and stress, the fact that he could deal with them is truly
amazing. In this story, the physical and mental struggles Li faced were inseparable and were both challenging and hard to overcome for him. All of Li's struggles pushed him to his limits with pain, anxiety, hunger and stress making him feel like he couldn't achieve his goals. Thanks to his struggles, Li grew stronger, more determined and more confident through the years, this helped him achieve the success of becoming the professional ballet dancer he dreamed of becoming.
Xinran looked at Tibet through a lens of sanctity and love. Ma Jian took his experiences and his imagination to form five short stories dealing with different topics. Both authors use the title of their book to give readers a hint of what the book is about and see how the title intertwines with the text. Each book gives you a different perspective and helps you form your own lens on Tibetan culture.
The phrase “history repeats itself is quite evident in this film. Currently, China’s economy is in a massive industrial revolution, similar to the American industrial revolution of the early 19th century. After three years of following the Zhang family, first time director Lixin Fan released The Last Train Home, attempting to raise awareness to the down side of China’s powerful economy. While the film The Last Train Home seems to just depict the lives of factory workers, it is also making a political statement about how western capitalism exploits factory workers to produce cheap goods. The film makes this exploitation evident by depicting the fracturing of the Zhang family and the harsh working conditions they must endure.
The Cultural Revolution in China was led by Mao Zedong, due to this Liang and many others faced overwhelming obstacles in many aspects of their life such as work, family and everyday encounters, if affected everyone’s families life and education, Liang lets us experience his everyday struggles during this era, where the government determined almost every aspect of life. The beginning of the book starts out with Liang’s typical life, which seems normal, he has a family which consists of three children, two older sisters and him the youngest, his two sister’s reside in Changsha 1. his father has an everyday occupation working as a journalist at a local newspaper. Things start to take a turn early in life for Liang Heng, his family politics were always questioned, the mistake made by one of his family members would impact his entire family and it would be something they would have to suffer through, it was impossible for them to live down such a sin.... ...
The idea that resulted in the Little Seamstress leaving the mountain maybe viewed as ironic by the reader. The ideas of being different and individual, that Lou held and put to practice were what communist Leader Chair man Mao Zedong originally feared. This was why the texts were originally banned in the first place, and viewed as revolutionary trash. As it was thought that they may result in an u...
“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.
There is no better way to learn about China's communist revolution than to live it through the eyes of an innocent child whose experiences were based on the author's first-hand experience. Readers learn how every aspect of an individual's life was changed, mostly for the worst during this time. You will also learn why and how Chairman Mao launched the revolution initially, to maintain the communist system he worked hard to create in the 1950's. As the story of Ling unfolded, I realized how it boiled down to people's struggle for existence and survival during Mao's reign, and how lucky we are to have freedom and justice in the United States; values no one should ever take for
Most films captivate the audience’s interest in the main character. This film did just that. Through the main character Li Cunxin, I was able to notice the amount of hard work and dedication which led Li to become a famous ballet dancer known worldwide. The film, based on the autobiography by Li Cunxin, “Mao’s Last Dancer” directed by Bruce Beresford, is about a Chinese boy named Li Cunxin who was born into a large family of 6 boys. At the age of eleven, Li was selected from a poor Chinese village by Madam Mao’s cultural representatives to leave his family and study ballet in Beijing.
The two short stories, “The Princess of Nebraska” and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” by Yiyun Li, depict the lives of two people under Chinese communist control, trapped by the social restraints of their society in search of individual salvation. In “Princess of Nebraska”, a young girl (Sasha) struggles to find internal purpose and satisfaction within her life, feeling that the restraints of communist control keep her from achieving the sense of self she desires. She believes the United States is the solution to gaining her individual freedom and fantasizes the recreation of her identity and life. Similarly, “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” revolves around the same theme of social freedom vs the discovery of the individual self. Mr.Shi,
Mao Zedong was born December 26, 1893 and lived until September 9 in 1976 when he died in Beijing China. Mao Zedong died from the Motor neuron disease. Mao Zedong was born into a peasant family in the place Shoshanna near Hunan. During the years of 1928 throughout 1931. Mao Zedong and others that worked with Mao Zedong established armies in the hinterlands and created the Red Army which was known as the most feared “army” in china during the time of the revolution.
The novel is about two teenagers. "Luo, who is good a story telling and an unnamed narrator, "a fine violin player" who are sent to be re-educated after the Chinese cultural revolution. They are sent to a mountain called "Phoenix of the Sky because their parents were publicly denounced and recognized as enemies of people. The general idea behind the Cultural Revolution was element of control. And Mao thought that all intellectuals were a thread to his power. The reason for that was that most of the intellectuals had the ability to think for themselves. Mao foun...
Jonathan Spence tells his readers of how Mao Zedong was a remarkable man to say the very least. He grew up a poor farm boy from a small rural town in Shaoshan, China. Mao was originally fated to be a farmer just as his father was. It was by chance that his young wife passed away and he was permitted to continue his education which he valued so greatly. Mao matured in a China that was undergoing a threat from foreign businesses and an unruly class of young people who wanted modernization. Throughout his school years and beyond Mao watched as the nation he lived in continued to change with the immense number of youth who began to westernize. Yet in classes he learned classical Chinese literature, poems, and history. Mao also attained a thorough knowledge of the modern and Western world. This great struggle between modern and classical Chinese is what can be attributed to most of the unrest in China during this time period. His education, determination and infectious personalit...
In the outstanding book Mao’s Last Dancer, it tells a life story about a peasant boy named Li Cunxin who’s fate is laid out for him being a labourer in the fields just like his whole family but his determination helps him to escape his destiny. Li was chosen to go to the Beijing Dance Academy to study ballet. He moved away from his home and family to pursue ballet and make his family proud. Li got the chance to go over to America to discover the Western World of ballet. Through hard work, perseverance and dedication, Li was able to escape from his so-called destiny.
China’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution (GPCR) is a well-documented period in world history, but the most profound records are found vivified in the literature and films later into the 20th century, respectively. One of the most profound novels is “To Live”, authored by Yu Hua, which as a fictional narrative offers both a unique and realistic sense of the time period at the individual level. However, the provocative film adaptation directed by Zhang Yimou in 1994 was formidable enough that it was banned in Mainland China. Zhang paints a more realistic picture of how the GPCR influenced Chinese society but adds zest to Hua’s ambiguity but acceptable imperfection. Naturally, the film has many different characteristics yet still manages to overcome the challenges that implicate film adaptations.
A recurring theme in The Legend of Zelda is that Link is always able to find a way to overcome the challenges he faces physically, whether it be the absurd amount of boss battles, or the puzzles he must solve. Link also has to combat his internal turmoils. Despite being constantly doubted by his fellow villagers and reminded that he is destined to fail, that his aspirations are just too big for such a young boy, Link musters
The Chinese people experienced rapid changes, in government and their own culture in the 20th century. In the book, Wild Swans, by Jung Chang, she depicts the experiences of not only oppression and suffering, but the development of the communist revolution, under Mao. Also, to show how the Chinese people, women in particular, fought against impossible odds by interweaving historical and personal stories from the twentieth century China.