I Feel Perhaps My Heart Is Still

While I Was Writing Wild Swans I Thought The Famine Was The Result Of Economic Mismanagement But During The Research I Realised That It Was Something More Sinister.

In Spring 1989...i Saw The Buildup Of Demonstrations From Chengdu To Tiananmen Square. It Struck Me That Fear Had Been Forgotten To Such An Extent That Few Of The Millions Of Demonstrators Perceived Danger. Most Seemed To Be Taken By Surprise When The Army Opened Fire.

As A Child, My Idea Of The West Was That It Was A Miasma Of Poverty And Misery, Like That Of The Homeless 'little Match Girl'in The Hans Christian Andersen Story. When I Was In The Boarding Nursery And Did Not Want To Finish My Food, The Teacher Would Say:'think Of All The Starving Children In The Capitalist World!

At The Age Of Fifteen My Grandmother Became The Concubine Of A Warlord General.

I No Longer Have The Terrible Nightmares That I Used To Have. Mao Had Just Died In 1976, And China Began To Open Up. For The First Time Scholarships To Go To The West To Study Were Awarded On Academic Merit.