Red Scarf Girl part deux

Okay! I'm back once again with another look inside all the drama of Ji-li Jiang's epic (my goodness you cannot imagine how odd it is to use that adjective to describe a) memoir, Red Scarf Girl. When I last left off, Ji-li's family had been dreading a search of their house and so began to destroy any possessions that could be considered fourolds or bourgeois, including her grandmother's dowry clothes. The beautiful silken dresses were cut apart to make into blankets and silk ties were tied together to make mops. Thinking about it personally, I know this would have been extremely hard to do. Imagine having to destroy some of your most prized possessions and turn them into mops! It's a depressing thought. Now, I really should have talked all about that in the last post, but I didn't, because I am rather foolish. Hopefully I can remember to cover all the bases this time. Otherwise I might cry.

My feet and badly painted toenails at the pool

At any rate, I'm dreadfully sunburned from being in Florida this past week (and up at J Creek the week before) so I thought I'd take the time to actually sit down and work on this blog. The good thing about lounging around all day? I have plenty of time to think deep, methodical, symbolic thoughts. And what I came up with is another story idea, which really figures because I'm on hiatus from writing anything besides this blog. It makes me sad. So I drink chocolate milkshakes and drown my feelings in pool water, which actually tends to work. Which brings me then back around to my summer reading list, which depresses me all over again.

I'm no good at this whole "feelings" bajenga. I much prefer being a hermit.

BUT ANYWAYS, since I've already gone off on so many tangents, I really should start talking about this story SINCE that's the point of all this skulduggery. Where was I?

Oh yes; I recall now.

At the beginning of this chapter, Ji-li attends a proletarian rally to hear a Red Guard speak about her experiences in Beijing. On the surface, this seems innocent enough, right? Just a bunch of radicals gathering together to share their freakish ideas about how awesomely brainwashed they are; no harm in that at all, right? I will say, I had the ominous feeling that something very bad and/or deadly was about to happen going in to this chapter. Like some sort of torture/murder of a bourgeoisie or something else sadistic like that. Which, in hindsight, is very melodramatic, but you never know with these radical communist types. Thankfully, it was nothing that exciting. Just a teenage girl describing her train ride and short stay in Beijing. Granted, it was as part of said radical communists, but still, the idea was innocent enough. Then she got to the highlight of her stay.

I will certainly say this did give me the willies (which is a word that now makes me giggle for reasons I cannot explain.) Apparently whilst in Beijing, the Red Guards from all across China met up and camped out together in this Plaza-type place. Chairman Mao actually came and was at the gate and waved to them. The girl then tearfully described how the Chairman had looked at her, and how touching it was, and how inspired she was to fight for the libertarian cause because of it. To me, this really just shows how people can turn into zealots and not even realize how ridiculous they're acting. It's actually rather frightening, if you think about it. People, even teenagers, have the capacity to be absolutely insane for a cause that's dangerous and cruel, and not care at all who it hurts. Unfortunately, that's not the creepiest thing that happened in this little chunko of book. It got much, much worse. People died in this section. And really, things just began to go to hell in a handbasket. The scary part? This is all real. It all really happened. It makes me grateful to live in this country, where democracy has prevailed. I have the feeling, however, that it is about to get much, much worse.


Unfortunately for you, dear peoples, we're nearing the end of this book. I cannot profess myself to be an egghead and spoil the ending of a book for you, on moral grounds, It personally goes against everything I believe in. Therefore, this will be the last post I actually make on the plot of this story. I plan to make one last post on the subject soon, examining the theme and possible moral of this story, but I will go no further into the course of events in the story. You'll have to find that out on your own. Until then, I must confess I've been a bit of a ham. APPARENTLY, if you read the assignment paper, each post only has to be three paragraphs long.
Three.
I've been wasting my time AGONIZING over length, and it only had to be three paragraphs.
Just...........wow.
This is why we can't have nice things. I skim read and everything turns out so much more complicated than it was intended.
Adieu, for now.