''Life and Death in Shanghai'' is an autobiography published in November 1987Published 1986-07-24, , by Yao Nien-Yuan under the pen name Nien Cheng. Written in exile in the United States, it tells the story of Cheng's arrest during the first days of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

, her more than six years' confinement, release, persecution, efforts to leave China, and early life in exile. Cheng was arrested in late 1966 after the

Red Guards Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...

looted her home. During her confinement, she was pressured to make a

false confession A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...

that she was a spy for "the imperialists" because for many years after the death of her husband she had continued to work as a senior partner for

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

. Cheng refused to provide a false confession, and was tortured as a result. She was eventually paroled under the pretense that her attitude had shown improvement. However, Cheng resisted leaving the detention house without receiving acknowledgment from her captors that she had been unjustly treated. When released from jail in 1973, Cheng found that her daughter Meiping, who had been studying to become a film actress, had been murdered by the Red Guards, although the official position was that she had committed suicide. Cheng conducted a discreet investigation and found that this scenario was impossible. The alleged killer of Meiping, a rebel worker named Hu Yongnian, was arrested and given a suspended death sentence by Shanghai authorities in 1980, but he was eventually paroled in 1995. After being relocated from her spacious home to a mere two bedrooms on the second floor of a two-story building, Cheng continued her life under constant surveillance, including spying by the family on the first floor. She lived in China until 1980, when the political climate warmed enough for her to apply for a visa to the United States to visit family. She never returned, first emigrating to Canada, and later to

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, where she wrote the autobiography. The autobiography goes into great detail about her persecution, confinement and torture, so much so that the author had to put the manuscript away many times as she wrote it because the memories were so troubling.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Life And Death In Shanghai 1987 non-fiction books Books about Shanghai Books about the Cultural Revolution Autobiographies

Further reading

References