Being Vulnerable
Revolutions are not about corrupt governments or wicked kings; revolutions are about ideas. In 1966, Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution to ingrain Communist ideals in Chinese life and culture. Ji-Li Jiang, in Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution , recounts her experience of that social upheaval in order to bear witness to the suffering she endured under Mao’s regime. If Jiang had scrapped a memoir in favor of a persuasive essay, the book’s power would have been lost, and Jiang’s witness weakened as a result.