Some of Us

"This collection makes a fascinating read. Each of the nine memoirs is crafted with skill and honesty." --Dorothy Ko, professor of history, Barnard College What does it mean to have grown up female in the Mao era? How can the remembered details of everyday life help shed light upon those turbulent times? Some of Us is a collection of memoirs by nine Chinese women who grew up during the Mao era and now live in the United States. Each of the chapters is crafted by a writer who reflects back to that time in a more nuanced manner than has been possible for Western observers. The authors attend to gender in a way that male writers have barely noticed; they also reflect on their lives in the United States. The issues explored here are as varied as these women's lives. The burgeoning rebellion of a young girl in northeast China. A girl's struggles to obtain for herself the education her parents inspired her to attain. An exploration of gender and identity as experienced by two sisters. Some of Us offers insights into a place and time when life was much more complex than Westerners have allowed. These eloquent writings shatter our stereotypes of persecution, repression, victims, and victimizers in Maoist China. Xueping Zhong is an associate professor of literature at Tufts University. She in the author of Masculinity Besieged?: Issues of Modernity and Male Subjectivity in Late Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature. Wang Zheng is an associate professor of women's studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Women in the Chinese Englightenment: Oral and Textual Histories. Bao Di is assistant professor of Chinese at Drew University.