What was it like to live in China in the mid-1970s? Andy Kirkpatrick arrived in Beijing only a few days before the death of Chairman Mao, and offers a vivid, eye-opening and entertaining account of a period when China was one of the most isolated places on earth. Spanning the period between the death of Mao and the ‘resurrection’ of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, this unique China memoir describes the fear-filled atmosphere surrounding Mao’s death and the ensuing deadly fight to overthrow his radical successors, later dubbed the Gang of Four. It paints an illuminating and often humorous picture of his time as a postgraduate student of Chinese in Beijing and Shanghai – the intractable Communist Chinese bureaucracy, spending time in factories and on a farm commune ‘learning from the workers and peasants’, accompanying the indomitable Margaret Thatcher on a visit to Fudan University, and playing for a University football team. This is a highly readable, important and informative account of life in China at a climacteric period as the country emerged from the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
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Andy Kirkpatrick was born near Liverpool but grew up in what was then Malaya and Singapore, being sent to boarding school in England from the age of 7. Growing up in Southeast Asia instilled in him an interest in the cultures and languages of the region. After obtaining his degree in Chinese Studies from Leeds University, he was a postgraduate student in Beijing and then Shanghai from 1976-77. He then worked as a journalist and language teacher in Hong Kong before returning to the UK to study for an MA in Linguistics. He has worked in tertiary institutions in the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Myanmar, China and Australia, where he received his Ph D in Chinese rhetoric from the Australian National University. He is currently Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, Australia, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. He currently divides his time between Bern, Switzerland and Reigate, England.
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