The Bridge of Perfect Wisdom

Book excerpt: China’s Cultural Revolution brought a halt to the everyday life of ordinary citizens, and the monotonous routine of daily life was disturbed by political accusations made by ‘Red Guards’. The writer gives vivid descriptions of incidents: the burning of antiques, destroying artists’ work, desecrating religious places of worship and attacking the religious beliefs of the people. Forty seven years have now elapsed, and the present generation of Chinese may be able to understand some of the political developments that opened up the country, liberalising the economy, and the beginning of some form of individual freedom. Although living in the diplomatic enclave, the writer seized the opportunity to gather information from a cross section of Chinese, and from translations of the local newspaper Shinhwa. She is sympathetic to Chairman Mao’s idealism but with the advent of indisciplined and immature groups of Red Guards negating the democratic communist dream, the heroine in the novel naively believes different things could be achieved. The story is fact and fiction, as firsthand incidents that took place bring out the authenticity of this historical period in China. The characters are fictitious and if there is any resemblance to actual people it is entirely coincidental. This is the work of an author moving in an environment of diplomats and politicians during a very volatile period.