Cause and Effect

Haobin Ruan 

ESLITNG 100 

October 4, 2024 

Final Draft 

                                                                      Red Sun 

        My family has been working in China for many years, and they have experienced some crucial historical events. In 1966, Chairman Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution. It was a national movement followed communism. Mao believed individual property should not exist, so some rich people had to share their wealth and land with the common people.  The goal was for everyone to be equal. To reach that goal, the government used Red Guards who were basic common people, who believed very strongly in communist ideal of equality for all. The Red Guard did all the dirty work. They closed businesses, took always land from landowners, closed universities, burned books, sent intellectuals to work on farms and killed everyone who tried to stop them. One branch of my family was protected from this by the British government because they lived in Hong Kong, which had been a British colony since 1842. Another branch of my family was harmed by the Chinese government because they were teachers, and lived in Guangdong, which is on the mainland. Mao was against universities elite and Western thought, and ideas, and the government thought many teachers were too intellectual. The Cultural Revolution put my family through a lot of difficulties which were hard to survive. 

          The problem began when my family lost their business in their lives. Before the Cultural Revolution, my great- grandparents had a high social position as business owners that was based on their wealth. They ran a business, which sometimes required them to borrow money from the bank. They were able to pay off all these loans easily until 1966, when the Red Guards took control of society and claimed everyone should be equal. My maternal great-grandparents and great-grandmother lost business as a result and the bank required them to pay their loans. However, because they lost their social status, money, house, and lands, they didn’t have any income and were unable to repay their loans.   Then, the government put the names of mainland branch of family on a list of people who were not allowed to do many things that they need to survive such as they need to have a job. Their name stayed on this list, called the blacklist for years. Their children, my grandparents, lost their chance for education. The Red Guards forced them drop out of school. They had to work on a farm as laborers to earn food stamps, which they could exchange for food.  

         Nevertheless, my grandparents did their best to survive. My grandparents had to pay off their parents’ debts after the Cultural Revolution. The government was punishing my great-grandparents because they were considered intelligentsia. Therefore, they pushed a lot of problems on my great-grandparents, which involved punishing their children, my grandparents. In addition, my grandmother had to work a second job making baskets at home while she was pregnant to help pay off her parents’ debts. My grandfather attempted to go to Hong Kong, where some of his relatives lived. He did this in secret, so he would not get in trouble with the government. First, he hid in the bottom of a truck. Second, he swam across Shenzhen Bay, which separates the mainland from Hong Kong. 

      Moreover, the Hong Kong branch of my family helped the mainland branch of my family rebuild their lives. Many years later, the new Chairman, Deng Xiaoping, corrected the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution, and then he launched the Economic Opening Reforms to improve living standards of the Chinese people. In 1980, Shenzhen became one of the special economic zones. After that, people in Shenzhen and Hong Kong were free to enter and exit mainland again. My great-grandfather was one of the relatives who was forced to stay in Hong Kong, yet he returned to his hometown and reunited with his family. My great-grandfather used his savings from his doctor's salary to pay off the rest of his family’s debts. For that reason, my family was no longer on the government's blacklist.  My father and uncles could have the opportunities to learn skills from proficient construction workers in Hong Kong, which was a British colony with capitalist economics that provided many opportunities. When the Chinese government relaxed travel restrictions between Hong Kong and the mainland, my father and uncles went to Hong Kong to make money with the Hong Kong branch of the family. Many years later, my father and uncles earned some money through building houses, so they decided to return to their hometown on the mainland and use their savings to buy back their house and land. 

       Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution, which changed life in China for my family, making it difficult for them to survive and develop.  The government controlled every aspect of Chinese society, and the Red Guards had destroyed my family’s lives. After twelve years under Mao, Deng Xiaoping was appointed to lead the country and open up the economy. Achieving equality for everyone is like a mother telling a bedtime story to her children, it is warm and sweet, but eventually, which waking up from the dream is a necessary consequence. Many years later, even today, there are many people in China who still praise Mao’s advantages yet overlook his mistakes. Despite all the destructors were liquidated by Deng, the negative impacts continue to affect the families of the victims. The old generations, of my family had to focus on struggling and survival, but development and growth will be my family’s younger generation’s main themes in the future.