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La Rivière Et Son Secret (2007)

by Zhu Xiao-Mei(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Robert Laffont

review 1: This is an autobiography of a woman who was sent to a labor camp when her music school was shut down. She spent 5 years in these camps, but never gave up on her passion for playing the piano. She is now a world renowned pianist and lives in France.The description of life in China during the "Great Cultural Revolution" of the 60s is striking. Many people were killed, others had their lives destroyed
review 2: I really don't like that Goodreads makes the 5-star rating mean "It was amazing." Without that description I would have rated this book 5 stars. Just not amazing. What it was was a very thorough story of the life of Zhu Xiao-Mei, including life with family during the first years of Mao's takeover in China, her beginning piano studies with her mother and ... morethen on to conservatory, 15 years in re-education camps, and then life outside of China in the US and France. Her story was very inspiring to me as someone interested in history and political philosophy, as well as a learner and teacher of piano. Near the end she talks of one of the difference between Christianity and Chinese philosophies being the need to convert. Chinese culture doesn't include the need to congregate and spread your teaching, she says. (Read the book to find out exactly how she explained this.) It made me wonder, then, how a culture that doesn't believe that all should believe the same --- that there is one truth and one way that I must persuade others of --- could be persuaded to follow and conform to Mao. Yes, they were physically and mentally threatened, but in her story you will see that many were true believers. Through all this terrible story of upheaval of families and a nation, she tells stories of her various teachers and the wonderful things they taught her about the music. There were many details that I highlighted to apply to my own playing and teaching. I know that she laments the lost years, but what she has done through her studying and playing and recording, and now writing her memoir, is much more than many, many people do when given their entire lifetime to make a difference.I would recommend this book to any musician, as well as anyone who cares to find out what can happen when a government decides it is the papa and mama of us all and that we should none of us be unique people with our own ideas and desires. less

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