Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution
Thousands of people were sent to re-education camps during China’s cultural revolution
Witness History · BBC World Service
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Show Notes
In 1968, Jingyu Li and her parents were among hundreds of thousands of Chinese people sent to labour camps during Mao Zedong’s so-called cultural revolution.
The aim was to re-educate those not thought to be committed to Chairman’s Mao drive to preserve and purify communism in China.
Jingyu’s parents – both college professors - were put to work among the rice and cattle fields, and made to study the works of Chairman Mao. Fearful for their daughter’s safety, they disguised six-year-old Jingyu as a boy.
Over the next six years, the family were sent to four different camps. Not everyone could cope, as Jingyu tells Jane Wilkinson.
(Photo: Reading Mao's little red book in 1968. Credit: Pictures from History/Getty Images)