Reeducation

The Chinese reeducation by the communist party after World War II was a significant part of recent history in the East. With the new age of communism China adopted this new government which dramatically began to change the lives of the Chinese people. With this revolution thousands of city people were relocated to the country to learn the ways of their ancestors in farming. Da Sijie writes the story Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress providing an eye witness report of the process of reeducation and the hardships these people encountered. The author provides a more intimate version of history by using some fictional characters and allowing the audience to fall in love with them. This makes everything that happens to them and what they experience all the more real. Also these characters being only in their teens connect to me a lot more than a history book would as even though they live in another time on the other side of the world, I can still relate to them. I can connect to the story. A real event I never experienced so insane it might as well have been fiction. However reading this book, I feel as if I am sitting on the great mountain in the China in reeducation.