Blog #8

Personally while reading Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress this year, I believe that I have learned a lot about the people and nation of China during Mao's Cultral Revolution. Dai Sijie has done an amazing job in depicting the topic of re-education in China, which is not an easy one to explain and analyze. Before reading the book, I had no idea that educated people were even sent to re-education camps outside of their cities and "civilization". Sijie has given me a more vivid understanding of re-education most affectively through the description of the working and living conditions at these re-education camps. The work is extremely tedious, not easy to complete, and physically demanding and Sijie clearly conveys this message to his reader. Learning about another time in history is more intimate through historical fiction rather than through a factual historical account because numerous ideas and stories that are extremely similar to those of being factual can be expressed in the writing and more flare can be added to the story which may not be try to the actual event of the story, but it is authentic to the historical time period. A true historical account may not entail of all of the culture, point of view, and people of China during the Cultural Revolution. After reading a majority of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, I feel much more aware and sensitive to the history of China and I can't wait to continue to learn more about this time period.