Today we had such an interesting class with Professor Liao. The topic was the rural revolution in China and at first we were all really tired from the festivities of ZhingQiuJie the night before, but once he started relating the experiences of the farmers to what he experienced during the cultural revolution in the city we all became much more aware of the severity of this topic. I am so happy that he is willing to discuss this type of controversial topic with us. We are definitely lucky to have him. Our other professor, Professor Lu, is not quite as open. She seems quite, reserved, basically the quintessential Chinese woman (dresses nicely, hair is perfect and has good manners) but at the same time she is scholarly and relatively open to questions. Though neither addresses Mao Zedong explicitly.
Today I asked Professor Liao about the 45 million people that died in the first four years of the rural revolution due to starvation(I think it is called the great leap or something like that I really can’t remember)- and the way that he responded to it was extremely profound. He said that the people in the city suffered a great deal though the farmers are who bared the brunt of the whole initiative. He talked about how he even suffered from starvation, even though he was given a considerably “good amount” of coupons for food during that time. All in all I have to say I am extremely excited to see how the class progresses and I am also really looking forward to having more in-depth conversations about topics that most people are unwilling to discuss.
