"Mrs Shau slapped my father hard. The crowd barked at him indignantly, although a few tried to hide their giggles. Then they pulled out his books and threw them into huge jute sacks they had brought with them.

"When all the bags were full, they carried them downstairs, telling my father they were going to burn them... the next day after a denunciation meetings against him. They ordered him to watch the bonfire 'to be taught a lesson.' In the meantime, they said, he must burn the rest of his collection.

"When I came home that afternoon, I found my father in the kitchen. He had lit a fire in the big cement sink, and was hurling his books into the flames.

"This was the first time in my life I had seen him weeping. It was agonized, broken, and wild, the weeping of a man who was not used to shedding tears. Every now and then, in fits of violent sobs, he stamped his feet on the floor and banged his head against the wall.

"My father had spent every spare penny on his books. They were his life. After the bonfire, I could tell that something had happened to his mind."

(Wild Swans, Jung Chang, p.439)

Me, I might've lost mine completely.

After being near-perfectly obedient to a Party whose values you put above your family, to be accused of anti-Party-ism, judged for the very tasks you were instructed to unquestioningly and unconditionally, publicly humiliated and beaten (even made to kneel on glass) and forced to burn the very items you've spent a lifetime collecting and loving...why, I would've been long-gone crazy.

But then these Chinese Communists are dedicated to their work and politics (independently of the cash factor, which wasn't much in Mao's China in the 1950s' to 60s') in a manner quite unheard of today.

I mean, how many of us believe our local politicians are in it primarily because of their "commitment to the unity, harmony and welfare of the country" (to ask is to scoff). Not for Jung Chang's dad, one of the many victims of the Cultural Revolution.

Jung Chang is kinda like Josephus, who escaped a burning Jerusalem (whilst she a 'burning' China) to become a historico-political writer. The latter's authorial intentions were of course far more motivated by their allegiance to his benefactor, Vesapian. His was a history of the Jews, but also a thinly veiled exaltation of Rome. Jung Chang's agenda, on the other hand, is an outright expose of the delusions, the cruelty, the very insanity of life and government in China from the start of the 20th century.

From foot-binding to scheming mistresses to escaping third-wives(!); from miscarriages due to long treks (because wives are discouraged to ride in their husbands' vehicles lest 'bourgeosie privilege' is suspected) to the terror of city sieges; from communal self-delusion about a glut (which was really a famine!) to hungry peasants kidnapping babies for food; from profiting from the black-market in banned books (supposedly to be burnt but conveniently set aside for secret trade, especially the erotic ones like Stendhal's Le Rouge et Le Noir) to the Little Red Book 'loyalty dance' (how? Gyrate, wave the book, sing Mao's quotes) - Chang spills everything one would want (and maybe not want) to know about life before and under Mao, structured and timelined by the lives of her grandmother, mother and her own.

The language is simple and clear and not at all 'profound', twisty or avant-garde-ish. Not unlike something you might read in an exercise book from a good Asian secondary school.

Therefore, you know it's the content alone that won Wild Swans the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award. The book is proof you don't need kewl-sounding language to make a serious impact on the literary stage.

Read 'em and (you will) weep.