tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post6947199658739632819..comments2024-02-24T00:41:37.836-08:00Comments on The Buddha Diaries: HALF THE SKYPeter Clothierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11525159413387378704noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3965076219235086304.post-39532322412568009132012-05-09T11:40:01.809-07:002012-05-09T11:40:01.809-07:00While living in Macau I read: WILD SWANS by Jung C...While living in Macau I read: WILD SWANS by Jung Chang.<br /><br />The author reveals the history of her grandmother, her mother and herself. Jung Chang's grandmother's feet were bound as a child, and she was given to a warlord general as a concubine. As the general lay dying, she fled with her infant daughter. That daughter grew up to become active in the Communist movement's civil war against the Kuomintang. Following the Communist victory in 1949 she and her husband became senior officials. Jung Chang, their daughter, was raised in privileged circles of China's Communist elite, but was to take the unimaginable step of questioning Mao himself. Her parents were denounced and tortured, and she herself was exiled to the edge of the Himalayas.<br /><br /> WILD SWANS is the story of the brain-death of a nation.<br /><br />Jung Chang worked as a 'barefoot doctor', a steelworker and an electrician before becoming an English-language student and , later, an assistant lecturer at Sichaun University. She was the first person from the People' Republic of China to receive a doctorate from York University in England where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982.<br />She and her husband Jon Halliday's biography of Mao Zedong, Mao: The Unknown Story was published in June 2005. She has been a British citizen since 1986.CHI SPHEREhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278628028066177635noreply@blogger.com