Jennie Wang

The Education of Jennie Wang

An American college professor wrote this memoir, based on over fifty notebooks and diaries she wrote during the Cultural Revolution in China. J's first memory of student activism ended with the death of a teacher in 1966. Thrown out of school after the first year of junior high, J made a birthday wish to complete her own education "to the highest level attainable." In this success story, "the Tiger Mother," "abusive father," peer competition and peer pressure are hard to find. Instead, the reader is introduced to long lists of books circulated underground, school system and education reform, class status and class identity, women's liberation and women's theater, life in the countryside and deaths in the city. All is revisited through a distanced, ironic and objective "Third Eye (I)." Many interesting photos surprise the reader one after another. Teachers, grandmas and divorced parents would love to have the young read this book, or anyone who has a genuine interest in China would enjoy the book. College instructors will find its Reading Guide useful, and the book serious, original, refreshing and thought-provoking to teach across disciplines.