What has marked Chinese society is its level of cruelty, not just revolutions and wars. We ought to reject it totally, otherwise in another upheaval there will be further cruelty.
From Jung Chang
While I was writing Wild Swans I thought the famine was the result of economic mismanagement but during the research I realised that it was something more sinister.
At the age of fifteen my grandmother became the concubine of a warlord general.
Although my book is banned I am still allowed to go to China and travel. There is no longer the kind of control that Mao used to have-there have been deep fundamental changes in society.
China is more prosperous than before. The people have better lives but they are not happy and confident because the scars are still there.
For anyone to open their heart, they need the right atmosphere, and something to prompt them. For my mother it was her trip abroad: she was in a very relaxed, understanding environment. I was very sympathetic towards her.
I feel perhaps my heart is still in China.
I think because of their terrible past, particularly this century, the Chinese have come to accept cruelty more than many other people, which is something I feel very unhappy about.
We were not treated by our own government as proper human beings and consequently, some outsiders did not regard us as the same kind of humans as themselves.
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