Da Chen's life story is unremarkable. Many thousands of Chinese families suffered the anguish of political, social and economic humiliation during the Cultural Revolution. The horror of much of the mayhem wreaked by Red Guards and their followers was its cruel randomness; it was terrorism without boundaries.

What makes this biography, newly released in paperback, of a sensitive student who makes good relevant is its ability to convey the subtle nuances of what was an incredibly complex time. History has a way of polarising and categorising. Da Chen's tale reveals layers of motives and emotions that not only help to reappraise a traumatic period of the past, but also help to define the determination of human nature to prevail in even the most difficult circumstances.

Born in 1962, the author grew up in Fujian Province in a town called Yellow Stone. His family had been successful landlords and his father paid the price incarcerated in a variety of re-education and labour camps. His mother and the rest of the family suffered the pain of dashed hopes and reduced status. Stripped of property and dignity, poverty replaced wealth and enforced hard labour left little time for education.

Da Chen's time for schooling came during a window of opportunity. The family was surviving and although his fellow pupils and many teachers sought to ostracise him and block his progress, the hurdles they presented in an isolated rural community proved irritating rather than insuperable. It helped that he was a star pupil. Also, the teachers who tried to be his nemesis were the uneducated rabble promoted using political rather than intellectual criteria.

If representing the family's hopes and dreams of a better future increased the pressure on a young boy, he was helped by a series of fortunate events to aid his own steely determination to succeed. Luck enabled him to escape temporarily after a particularly jaundiced teacher tried to get him condemned and expelled. A few key educators who saw his potential and nurtured his talent befriended him. His grandfather, for example, taught him calligraphy and Baptist twins the intricacies of English. Some teachers even helped his cause at school. Allied to his single-minded focus on reading and survival he skirted with disaster but battled through with his intellect and body still intact despite the ever-present dangers.

But his biggest slice of luck was the death of Chairman Mao in 1976. The college system was re-introduced and despite the lingering prejudices both against him and his provincial background, Da Chen competed with more advantaged compatriots and against all the odds won a place as an English major as one of the country's top students. He even helped his brother to academic achievement thus elevating the family almost alone to greater respectability.

The only trick Da Chen misses is a greater analysis of how his social rehabilitation at the hands of a group of local vagabonds (with their cheating and gambling) relates to his own development as well reflecting on the place of antisocial behaviour and criminality in wider community in which he lived.

Despite his subsequent move to the United States where he lives with his own family, Da Chen writes with a bitter-sweet fondness for his ancestral home. He avoids the obvious pitfalls of romanticism or angry frustration at this past and contributes a thoughtful, meaningful voice to the chattering clamour of data competing for attention concerning the Cultural Revolution. He is serious without being maudlin; sad without rancour and optimistic without naivety. This book, adapted from Colors of the Mountain is one to grace the shelves of the curious and the savant alike.

Paul McGuire
May 18, 2003

Paul McGuire is a freelance author, writer and reviewer. He is also Deputy Principal of Sha Tin Junior School.