The pressure to conform was profound. A doctor who was terrorized during the Cultural Revolution – exiled to the western desert, where his wife committed suicide – later said, “To survive in China you must reveal nothing to others. Or it could be used against you… That’s why I’ve come to think the deepest part of the self is best left unclear. Like mist and clouds in a Chinese landscape painting, hide the private part behind your social persona. Let your public self be like rice in a dinner: bland and inconspicuous, taking on the flavors of its surroundings while giving off no flavor of its own.”
Source:
Osnos, Evan. “Baptized in Civilization” Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China. London: Vintage, 2014. 38. Print.
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