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This distinctively drawn work chronicles the rise and reign of Chairman Mao Zedong, and his sweeping, often cataclysmic vision for the most populated country on the planet. Li Kunwu spent more than 30 years as a state artist for the Communist Party. He saw firsthand what was happening to his family, his neighbors, and his homeland during this extraordinary time. The site includes thousands of articles on this country structured in categories: news, trends, economy, history, A Chinese Life, guides, literaturepictures gallery, videos and Chinese cinema. View previous campaigns. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Agree You can unsubscribe at any time by A Chinese Life the A Chinese Life in the footer of our emails. Comics Art in China Next. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Ok No Privacy policy. You can revoke your A Chinese Life any time using the Revoke consent button. Revoke cookies. A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other A Chinese Life. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Edward Gauvin Goodreads Author Translator. This distinctively drawn work chronicles the rise and reign of Chairman Mao Zedong, and his sweeping, often cataclysmic vision for the most populated country on the planet. Li Kunwu spent more than 30 years as a state artist for the Communist Party. He saw firsthand what was happening to his family, his neighbors, and his homeland during this extraordinary time. A Chinese Life A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published September 1st by Harry N. Abrams first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Une vie chinoise Other Editions 3. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. A Chinese Life ask other readers questions about A Chinese Lifeplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of A Chinese Life. Sep 02, Anthony rated it really liked it. Especially since it doesn't come from the profits of armed conquest, however legitimate, or from the exploiting of a rich subsoil, or from inherited capital skillfully managed to bear fruit. No - none of these things. You will find nothing but sweat here. From our brows and our children, to whom we bequeath lives that will also will be made of hard work and sacrifice, for we still have A Chinese Life long way to go down the roa "So yes, of course we are proud of what we've made, even if it's not perfect yet. From our brows and our children, to whom we bequeath lives that will also will be made of hard work and sacrifice, for we still have a long way to go down the road that will lead us from poverty, the road to development. Though not perfect as a historical reference - and never intended to stand alone as historical reference - this tale provides an entertaining portrayal of the experiences of common man living through the Chinese struggle to become recognized as a world power in the 2oth and 21st century. Living among the poor village in China's Southwest, Li Kunwu grew up during Mao's revolution of the 's, suffered through the disasters of famine that resulted from the poorly managed Great Leap Forward, served in the People's Liberation Army A Chinese Life the expansion of the country's borders, and befriended the social elite during the economic expansion of the 80s-present day. At times Li's storytelling is humorous, as portrayed by his teenage zealous fervor to promote the party mentality within his village by critiquing restaurant menus for being too bourgeois with high class dinner choices or providing drawings to the illiterate barber to demonstrate the approved and proper haircuts that should be worn by "the people". At times Li's storytelling depicts an unsettling sadness of struggle as his drawings show the emaciated and A Chinese Life peoples of the famines following the Great Leap Forward. There are memorable moments that depict the cycles of public fervor, such as the melting of ancient relics A Chinese Life of as "old ways of thinking" in order to promote the country's steel production, or the destruction of thousand year old pagodas to use the wood for cooking and mulch for fertilizer. Li presents these occurrences as expected and part of the Chinese mentality that places unification and development above all in order to promote the movement toward the common good. No matter what you think of China's history and its current status as a world power this book is successful in depicting the Chinese people for what they are, a people living together through tumultuous and trying times, people afflicted with aspirations and naivete, afflicted with hope and A Chinese Life endurance to continue on and work for something greater for their children. Although this 60 year story largely ignores China's fragile relationship with Taiwan and Tibet and only briefly mentions Tienanmen square, Li acknowledges these weaknesses A Chinese Life openly accepting that this is a story of his life, a single man, and no single man lives through all the history of his entire country he didn't know anyone affected by Tienanmen and therefore A Chinese Life little to say. Li is upfront about his artistic background as a party propaganda man, and in my reading I was cautious about a slanted tone, A Chinese Life this book is not propaganda, it is utterly honest and human, willing to demonstrate weaknesses and failures alongside triumphs and accomplishments. Oct 28, Damon rated it really liked it Shelves: historymanga. A sometimes funny, charming biography in graphic form. Nothing major happens, within the context of major events. Jun 08, David Schaafsma rated it really liked it Shelves: graphic-historygn-memoir. Really long and detailed memoir by a leading artist, Li Kunwu, long time proud member of the Chinese Communist Party. So, given those limitations, we can benefit from a memoir that A Chinese Life at many decades of struggle for one family, and the struggle with and effects of capitalism and socialism over this time. Pretty impressive. Otie should not actually be listed as the first author as it is not his story, and he did not do the drawing, which is the main engine of the story, though he did help to make the story and dialogue work, and it was he A Chinese Life wanted to help western readers see Chinese history from one Chinese artist's perspective. And there is some critique, as Li does not agree with everything that his Party enforces, and he does not love EVERY leader equally, but still, patriotic pages about Mao proliferate, and it sometimes feels naive to my Western eyes and ears I can see why for some readers its limitations might overwhelm anything else, but for me it was still pretty impressive and I learned a lot. Nov 08, Bruce rated it it was amazing A Chinese Life historybiographygraphic-novel. History consists of the lives of many people, and each of us live but one. With one notable exception, Kunwu and Otie lay out the evolution of modern China from a stagnant, near-feudal state to one rising up under a A Chinese Life economy read, authoritarian-directed market History consists of the lives of many people, and each of us live but one. With A Chinese Life notable exception, Kunwu and Otie lay out the evolution of modern China from a stagnant, near-feudal state to one rising up under a managed economy A Chinese Life, authoritarian-directed market capitalism. The terrible images associated with it[1] have left a deep mark on public opinion. I also know that here, in China, those events caused great suffering. Lives were shattered, some even lost. But the truth A Chinese Life, like almost all my countrymen, my mind is occupied with so many other things I find even more important. The rest is secondary, in my view. A feeling that has only grown stronger A Chinese Life, over the years, I lived history myself: the Cultural Revolution, which I remember so clearly… all my fellow countrymen who, A Chinese Life after year, fled their homeland. Some might, for instance, object that human rights come before the need to develop. A Chinese Life sentences reflect the classic use respectively of passive tense and generalization as distancing A Chinese Life that preclude acceptance of responsibility, remediation, and reconciliation. Order and stability need not be in opposition to freedom of speech, etc. Social stability can also be encouraged through transparency and the promotion of meaningful civic engagement in law and governance. Is it the official line? If so, perhaps the adoption is not a conscious one? A Chinese Life [8] below. Even if true, it is irrelevant to the question of right and wrong. Since circumstances are subject to change, one cannot use the entirety of the present context to judge the propriety of the past. Resort to an inappropriate authority. What would motivate those who have not suffered state violence to change the system? What information would they draw upon to craft an appropriate safeguard or remedy? His inverse straw-person argument is also intended to imply that development should precede human rights rather than the other way around, but as I indicate at [5], it is not a given that the two cannot be undertaken together. At the height A Chinese Life his rationalization, the artist repeats a panel from earlier in the book, an image showing the silhouetted artist in contemplation against the distant backdrop of modern Kunming and mountains. Old Li sits atop a heavily-rooted, almost Banyan-like tree stump, clutching a shard of ancient pottery. Apart from its conscious avoidance of Tiananmen Square, A Chinese Life lays bare the strengths and weaknesses of autocratic government like no other work I can bring to mind. With the unitary executive that is the Party, the Chinese can muster collective action on a massive scale. Fed up with the foreign exploitation and civil wars that that plagued feudal China, the new government Mao Zedong A Chinese Life in the wake of WWII makes modernization priority number one. No longer the stagnant, weak also-ran of the Eastern hemisphere, China would make a Great Leap Forward and rival the industrial output of the US and Britain. All that was needed was enough steel. So with military-style mobilization, the countryside fills with smelting ovens — even down to the least kindergarten — to melt and consolidate all the metals that the Chinese could muster. So many fires to light and keep lit, the Chinese quickly run out of coal. No matter. Countryside denuded of forests, erosion plays havoc with topsoil. Yet China still has many mouths to feed. What to do? Fertilize, of course. Down go the pagodas, the ancestral temples, the clock towers, all to feed a blighted land. The unanticipated consequences of mass mobilization continue as the desperate drive to restore A Chinese Life yields swiftly leeches the countryside, first of nutrients, then of insects and rodents, and finally of birds. Now the whole ecosystem collapses. Chinese People, Population, Life and Family Planning Policy

T he artist's first flowering is a big deal in any memoir. Li Kunwu's comes in the mids when he and his friends are on a Mao-inspired crusade. So year-old Li spends the night sketching barnet after barnet, marking stray curls, fancy bows and anything else that might get in the way of serious labour with a bold "X". The signs go up, the hairdresser glowers, and Li can celebrate: "It was my first artistic success, and it wasn't just any success. It was a revolutionary success. If you don't know your Chinese history, parts of it will mystify, and stretches of this page odyssey drag a little. A Chinese Life this very human A Chinese Life through the making of modern China deserves a wide audience. Li, the son of a party official and a peasant woman from the hills, grows up in an age of reform. A Chinese Life to "beat the Brits and catch up with the Americans", the people give up their iron for smelting, chop down forests to fuel furnaces and tear down pagodas for manure. Folklore is suppressed, farms are collectivised and famine batters town and country. Then the A Chinese Life Revolution comes, bringing purges and paranoia, as Li and his classmates follow A Chinese Life Red Guard with doe-eyed enthusiasm, and gleefully denounce their neighbours. Historians dispute the impact of China's postwar reforms — although few deny A Chinese Life millions died in the brutally mismanaged Great Leap Forward. A Chinese Life 's ground-level perspective focuses on anecdote rather than statistics: the uncle gored to death while trying to steal food from a buffalo; Li swatting flies as he squats to defecate; dirty, cowed teachers with accusatory boards hanging from their necks. At times it's grim, at others funny. You'll have to change the whole menu! As Li grows, his skill at drawing is spotted: he gets an art teacher, whose pious canvases of Mao cover paintings of nude women, and is later invited to work for a provincial paper. It's easy to see A Chinese Life he was noticed. A Chinese Life 's black-and-white artwork is dominated by vibrant images of jostling crowds, leaping children and heaving markets, their urgent life interspersed with sculpted propaganda portraits, beautifully still landscapes and fantastical visions. Li is less interested in character — his faces are often rendered A Chinese Life simply as to feel anonymous — than in backdrops: the roofs and windows of rural settlements, the skyscraping urban landscapes, or tree stumps pointing fruitlessly into the gloomy sky. The narrative loses some of A Chinese Life focus as it enters the modern age, where the now-established artist charts the successes and the flaws of entrepreneurial China. Here Li darts between massage parlours, flash restaurants and remote villages in an approach that can feel contrived. It's a shame, meanwhile, that Li's touching relationships with his parents, and his briefly sketched marriage aren't given more time. Yet A Chinese Life remains richly A Chinese Life. Li's loyalty to the party, whether A Chinese Life by Mao's teachings or Deng Xiaoping's reforms, rarely wavers, and that in itself is fascinating. The book never mentions Tibet, and barely touches on Tiananmen Square; he A Chinese Life no one there, explains Li, and anyway, having seen the effects of "invasion, plunder, unequal treaties, internal divisions, battles among warlords", he believes China needs order and stability first: "the rest is secondary". This is no definitive account of modern China. It won't tell you A Chinese Life about policy decisions, power struggles, or almost anything Li didn't himself witness. If it did, its scope would be mind-boggling. Instead, its tight focus gives you a wonderfully immediate sense of how one man was shaped by modern China, and the agonising struggles that took place around him. This ambitious graphic novel pulls you to the chest of the world's latest superpower, shows you something of what it has gained and lost, and lets you go, 60 years later, drained and intrigued and feeling as though you know China's great, tangled present a little bit better. Autobiography and memoir. James Smart acclaims an artist's vision of childhood under Mao. James Smart. Topics Autobiography and memoir Comics and graphic novels Chinese literature Tiananmen Square protests reviews Reuse this content.