Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China

Product Description

Mulberry Child is the true story of a childhood during the Cultural Revolution in China. Jian Ping’s father, Hou Kai, a government official, was falsely accused of treason during the Cultural Revolution, and her mother, Gu Wenxiu, a top school administrator, was paraded in public and detained by the Red Guards–a driving force of the Revolution. Facing abuse and deprivation, Jian Ping’s family stands steadfastly together, from her aging grandmother, a frail woman with bound feet, to her parents and siblings. The traumatic impacts of their experiences shape the course of their lives forever. 

Based on her own memories, as well as interviews and exhaustive research, Mulberry Child is a family tale of resilience, a coming of age story told through the eyes of an innocent child. 

Review

Jian Ping’s book Mulberry Child is a moving account of her family’s struggle to survive China’s Cultural Revolution. She has in her poignant memoir helped Westerners to understand this little-known period in China’s history, and put tragic and heroic faces to the individuals who suffered through that time. Mulberry Child is important reading for anyone who wants to understand where modern China has come from.

                      –Rob Gifford, former Beijing Correspondent of NPR, and author of China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power 

Jian Ping’s poignant and compelling tale of growing up in China during the difficult times of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution is an important addition to “scar literature” published in the West about events and people and victims forgotten, buried or silenced by the mainland Chinese and their government over the past four decades. The author shows convincingly how the fortunes and misfortunes of the past shape, inform, educate and haunt each of us.  Jian Ping pays tribute to her parents who struggled against tremendous odds in order to realize their own small dreams; that she herself survived to write this memoir, and to tell it with such maturity and wisdom and forgiveness, is a tribute to her family, her generation and her nation.  
In an unforgettable parting from her parents she recalls she could not find the right words to express her deep feelings of sorrow.  Now, at long last, is this memoir, she has found them and blessed not only her parents but each of her readers, too.
–Larry Engelmann, author of
Feather in a Storm and
Daughter of China

From the Author

Hello, I’m Jian Ping. I wrote Mulberry Child: A Memoir of China initially for my daughter, Lisa, who grew up in the U.S. During her teenage years, I had a tough time connecting with her, an all American girl. In an effort to have her understand where I came from, I wrote the book, on and off for eight years. 

I’m thrilled and humbled that the talented film director, Susan Morgan Cooper, has developed the book into an award-winning documentary film–it expands from the book to present my conflicting relationship with Lisa, revealing our cultural and generational gap. The film was on national PBS during the month of May from 2014-16. Now, Mulberry Child is finally available on Amazon Prime. Hope you will enjoy watching it and leave a review. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.  

From the Inside Flap

Mulberry Child is the true story of a childhood in Communist China. Jian Ping is the daughter of a high-ranking government official, who was accused of treason during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Facing abuse and deprivation, Jian Ping’s family stands steadfastly together. The traumatic experiences have a lifelong impact on them. 

Based on her own memories, as well as interviews and exhaustive research,
Mulberry Child is a family sage and a tale of resilience.
Mulberry Child opens up a closed-off world, and is written with compassion in an honest and intimate language. 

From the Back Cover

JIAN PING grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China. She holds