No Wall Too High - 02/03/21

Ni Hao Comrade, 

Book 7: No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison (6/10)

Premise: The autobiography of Xu Hongci from his child hood to later adult life, his life in China and beyond. Medical College, dating, prison breaks, hard labor, and everything in between. 

So this book was written in Chinese and then translated later by another author who found the book and wanted to spread it to the rest of the world. Saying that, parts feel somewhat contorted. A large part of that is undoubtedly my unfamiliarity with Chinese names, cities, and currency, which after a while blurred together and I had to use context clues to figure out who was who. Also this book occasionally has major 1984 vibes, which was mocking communism....

But let's do this. Xu Hongci was born just before (I believe) World War II began. As a young boy he has memories of Japanese soldiers occupying his village and his hate for them. His father worked for faux government really run by the Japanese soldiers. Soon after the story starts the Japanese are pushed out of China and life goes back to somewhat normal. Two political parties fight over the rule of Japan, and Xu quickly latches onto the Communist Party, becoming a member their "kids club". 

Fast forward to College. Xu is accepted into the medical school (yay!) but communism is now in place in China (boo!). Xu is a member of the communist party. As he goes through college he talks a lot about his dating life, studying, and how much he loves communism (foreshadowing).  Somewhere in his college career he is told by a leader of the communist club at his school that he is free and encouraged to write a letter of what he thinks could be improved. This list is at the back of the book (appendix 1), and he has more complaints about his college than communism in general. This starts off a ton of students writing their own letters and posting them around the school. 

Fast forward,  the list was bad. Xu got in trouble, as he will so often by a mix of twisting his words, him saying the wrong thing, and lies. He got sent to a hard labor camp so that he can love communism again. He eventually decides to escape and does relatively easily. But alas he is caught and brought back. Luckily for him he escapes again, this time for real.

Well kind of. He gets caught again near the boarder to Burma as he was trying to escape, but has fake papers and came up with an excuse for his reason in the town. Xu get's thrown into jail, he believes his excuse is paper thin. So he tries to escape by digging a hole in the wall. Some other prisoner lets the guards know and he is caught in the act. He is then sentenced to six more years of hard labor. 

Here it starts to become a blur in my memory. However Xu changes camps multiple times. Some people are nice to him, there is almost always a prisoner looking for other prisoners to make mistakes so he can report it to the guards. Sometimes he is allowed to perform as a doctor or secretary, often he must perform hard labor himself. He eventually ends up out of his sentence of hard labor, but is not let go because they do not believe he is reformed so he continues to do hard labor, but with a few more rights. The camps and rolls continuously change. 

Xu over this time becomes very disillusioned with the whole idea of Communism. He is eventually sentenced again to more time as a prisoner with hard labor. So again he escapes. This time with a much better plan. He makes a daring escape across China, slipping by with fake papers he made and money from his mother, and reaches Mongolia. 

Mongolia say's he entered the country illegally and he is again sentenced to two years of hard labor. However compared to the twenty hears he was sentenced to in China he happily accepts. After the camp he finds jobs, finds a wife, and is eventually pardoned and moves back to China. 

Overall this is an extremely interesting journey for one man to take. There is a lot in this book about what it was like during the rise of Communism in China. The different hard labor camps, and much more. It did at often times feel dry, the names, money, and journey at times felt impossible to understand. 

So go out, be careful how you give corrections. 

and remember dear readers, Stay Vivid.