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    My Name Is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution
    Unavailable
    My Name Is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution
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    My Name Is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution
    Ebook233 pages3 hours

    My Name Is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution

    By Ting-Xing Ye

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Number Four will have a difficult life. These are the words that were uttered upon Ting-xing Ye's birth. Soon this prophecy would prove only too true. . . .

    Here is the real-life story about the fourth child in a family torn apart by China's Cultural Revolution. After the death of both of her parents, Ting-xing and her siblings endured brutal Red Guard attacks on their schools and even in their home. At the age of sixteen, Ting-xing is exiled to a prison farm far from the world she knows.

    How she struggled through years of constant terror while keeping her spirit intact is at the heart of My Name Is Number 4. Haunting and inspiring, Ting-xing Ye's personal account of this horri?c period in history is one that no reader will soon forget.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 2, 2008
    ISBN9781429989725
    Unavailable
    My Name Is Number 4: A True Story from the Cultural Revolution
    Author

    Ting-Xing Ye

    Ting-xing Ye is the author of the international bestseller A Leaf in the Bitter Wind. Once an English interpreter for the Chinese government, she now lives in Canada.

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    Reviews for My Name Is Number 4

    4/5

    43 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Honestly, I don't know much about Chinese history from this time period. I had only heard of the cultural revolution and I knew very little about details of people being shipped off to work camps.This book was very eye-opening. I really connected with Ting-xing Ye, and reading this account of her life was heartbreaking. I can't imagine how it must have been for her to be ripped from the only family she had, so soon after the death of her mother, and plunged into a world she knew very little of; all the while being tormented and persecuted for a class title that was a stain on her life.The book itself was written well. It was a fairly quick read and I enjoyed it very much. The only thing I felt was missing was more information at the end about what happened to her family, and where they all ended up after everything.
    • 3/5
      Ye Ting-xing's memoir provides a window into the life of a young girl growing up during China's Cultural Revolution. Ting-xing is the fourth of five siblings, with two older brothers, an older sister and a younger sister, whom she nicknames Number 1 to 5. Ting-xing and her siblings lived off of welfare with an old aunt (not blood related) after the deaths of both their parents. Because their father had at one time owned a factory and their grandfather had at one time owned land (though both had lost everything to the Revolution with no compensation) the children were all labeled part of the "black" (capitalist) social class and seen as evil enemies of the true "red" (farmers and working class) people. The hypocrisy of Mao's Communists is displayed again and again, as the Red Guards ransack Ting-xing's home searching for gold or bourgeois luxuries and, upon finding nothing, make fun of the children for being so poor they have mended socks! The Cultural Revolution - which demanded the destruction of anything pertaining to the "Four Olds" basically all art, antiques, cultural heirlooms, etc. - is brought home when we see the Red Guard tormenting a poor old woman who had dared to prepare a funeral garment for herself (a traditional Chinese custom) and Ting-xing and her siblings forced to destroy a set of beautiful paintings that had belonged to their parents. The relentless brainwashing and bullying and forcing the children to admit their "thought crimes" against their leaders makes for very powerful reading.We also see the stupidity of the leaders in inciting the farmers and peasants to revolt and giving them free access to trips to the cities, because this leads to failed crops and the decimation of the countryside. It becomes so bad that when Ting-xing is sixteen the government institutes a policy that one child of every family must give up their city citizenship and be banished to a farm to endure the harsh life of the peasant farmer for the rest of their lives. At the labour farm these teenagers, who had committed no crime other than being born of the wrong social class, were treated like prisoners and criminals. In fact, the farm where Ting-xing was sent was originally a prison camp and still contained criminals in a separate area.This is a powerful and enlightening memoir, I only wish that Ye had gone into more detail. As it is, the book is so short that I read it in one sitting. Well worth the read, though. I would especially recommend it for teenage and juvenile readers as Ye's writing is simple and straightforward enough to provide an excellent introduction to the topic.
    • 4/5
      Most disasters bring people and communities together; the Cultural Revolution tore them apart. But this book shows that the struggle to survive and to keep relationships alive is always worth making.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't able to put this book down. The events are well-depicted and at times, simply horrifying. While this was definitely written to a young adult audience, it is a book that anyone with an interest in history and the struggle to live in a hostile environment would enjoy. At times I thought the narration was choppy and the way in which time goes by somewhat vague, but it wasn't enough to lose my attention.
    • 4/5
      I fell in love with this memoir. Number 4 is an unlucky number in Asia. In a lot of elevators the letter "F" will indicate the 4th floor instead of the number 4. Ting-xing Ye, as the fourth child was told she would have have a hard life and during China's Cultural Revolution her whole world turned upside down. The author's voice is gritty and real. I felt like I was fighting for survival along with her. I am looking forward to reading the whole adult memoir.
    • 4/5
      Overall I would say this is a fairly well written book, though it was not good enough that I would recomend it to all my family members. It was certainly written to targets young adults so she tried to be careful. It is certainly much cleaner/safer than most of what is out there for that age group. She was certainly successful in portraying some of the horror and agony of the Cultural Revolution in China. Personally I would have prefered more historical information but it did have quite a bit and that was probably more than what she had at the time. I think it would be helpful to read an overview of the revolution before reading this book to make it easier to follow the political side of things.
    • 4/5
      This Young Adult memoir is an abridged edition of the author's 1997 adult book of memoirs A Leaf in the Bitter Wind. I find the Cultural Revolution amazing to read about. It is almost impossible to believe it happened as it sounds so much like dystopian literature. But the reality is that it did indeed happen and millions of Chinese people were brutally treated in their own country. Ting-Xing relates her childhood at the beginning of the Revolution and the hardship of her 5 orphaned siblings living with an adored Great Aunt who wasn't really a relative at all. The story of how her life quickly changed from school girl to political exile on a prison farm out in the countryside.An astonishing and tumultuous tale from beginning to end. I was hooked from the outset and felt deeply for this girl who spent her late adolescence on a work farm. The story ends with her finally leaving the farm after six years and being allowed to go to university as an English major.Not included in the book is how she became an English-Chinese interpreter and eventually defected to Canada in 1989 and now lives with fellow Canadian author, William Bell. Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      I got this as an Early Review book. I was happily surprised by this book, it was a quick easier read and was genuinely interesting. Having read books on the subject before, I was prepared for a rather dry and dull piece of the subject of China's cultural revolution. The book was not dry, it is geared for a younger audience and you can tell that from the way that it reads, as well as the tone of the piece. It takes you step by step through her life in China, from explaining what the revolution was to basic information on Chinese life. The narrative can be somewhat broken, it doesn't go into in depth details and tends to skip from subject to subject without fully focusing on one thing. There is sometimes an emotionless quality about the narrative, the emotions portrayed in the story do not always carry over to the reader. The perseverance and strength Ye shows is astounding and really a great role model for anyone. I found myself in awe of the way she (and her family) handled things during those times.
    • 4/5
      I was eager to read this book because of a new interest in China in the mid twentieth century, especially in what life was like for ordinary people. My Name is Number 4 definitely did not disappoint on that front! It is a fascinating story about Ting-Xing Ye's adolescence during the Cultural Revolution, and is just one example of how someone with a "capitalist" family background fared during that time. It is a nice counterpoint to Adeline Yen Mah's story Falling Leaves and its abridged YA version Chinese Cinderella, where Yen Mah is in Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution and thus escapes the worst of it.As interested as I was in the details of Ye's story, I found the narrative itself to be somewhat lacking. It felt rushed and confused at times, as though it were trying to encompass too much in too little space, thus leaving many of the anecdotes without any real depth. But perhaps this is by design: there is no doubt that as I read the book, I was able to imagine the fear and confusion that Ye must have felt during the Cultural Revolution herself. In all, I found My Name is Number 4 to be interesting and enlightening, but not completely satisfying. I suspect that the version of Ye's story meant for adult readers will fill in many of the gaps left by this abridged version.
    • 4/5
      "My Name Is Number 4" is a highly readable, fascinating portrait of life during China's horrifying Cultural Revolution. Written in a clear and dynamic style, this book should appeal to a wide range of readers. While Ms. Ye's family did not experience anything particularly unique during this period of China's history, it is the ubiquity of their suffering that makes her story so horrific. Yet she tells it in a matter of fact manner. She herself was an exile in one of China’s many prison farms and her description of the life she and the others endured there is harrowing. She gives an excellent portrayal of the confusion she and her family, and all of China, was forced to endure, with the peculiar dichotomy of living in a state where religion is outlawed, yet everyone is ordered to worship Chairman Mao. Recommended for ages 12 and up.
    • 4/5
      Ting-Xing grew up during a particularly bleak time of China's modern history: the Cultural Revolution. Despite her family's incredibly poor circumstances (with both of her parents dead and five children to feed), in middle school she is labeled "bourgeoisie" is tormented and ridiculed because her father had owned a factory before the communist take over. As the political climate gets more and more fevered, Ting-Xing is soon exiled to a prison camp as a laborer, to help "ease overpopulation in the city" and life in the camp is, if possible, even less pleasant than in the city.One of Ting-Xing's strengths as a writer is her ability to really capture her teenage self. I think teenager readers will relate to her experiences because beyond the horrific and disturbing experiences, she includes details that still concern teens today (relationships with siblings, the horrors of menstruation, guilt and loss). Not only that, it also makes plain that often during the cultural revolution it was teens and very young adults who turned against their friends and classmates (this is consistent with other memoirs I have read of the time). And while she paints herself as a victim, I think again, she is describing her teenage feelings - so it never felt as though she is begging for our sympathy for her experience, more so she can show others that she was just a normal teenage girl going through a horrendous experience that could've happened to anybody.As Ting-Xing survives ordeal after ordeal in the prison camp, she slowly comes into her own and finds, somehow, a seed of hope that her life won't have to end in the rice patties. Her perseverance and strength are evident and a great example for teens and adults alike.
    • 5/5
      This book is excellent! I read it in 3 nights and couldn't put it down. I am planning to read the other book Ye wrote A Leaf in the Bitter Wind to learn even more.The book was a first hand account of a girl who spent (6?) years at a Prison Farm during Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution. It is so interesting, because Ye was an average Chinese girl minding her own business when the Revolution began. She wasn't a "news hound" and she seemed to have a very uneventful before it. However, after the Cultural Revolution began her life was turned upside down and through circumstances she was sent to work at a Prison Farm (which was more like a work farm since she was not a prisoner.)Ye has a great sense of irony and makes great insights into the lives of Mao and his subordinates. It was so interesting to read a first hand account of the Cultural Revolution. I had never studied Chinese History and it makes me want to study it so I can see what made a whole society fall under Mao's control.I don't think I really did the book justice, but I did LOVE it and would highly recommend it to anyone of high school age or older. It found it extremely thought provoking (as a student of politics) and unlike anything I had read before. It was difficult to read about her treatment at times, but knowing that she eventually gained her freedom made it so much easier to bear.
    • 4/5
      Ting-xing Ye grew up in a politically fractured China, where the "wrong" political allegiance could be a death sentence. Her parents died when Ting-xing was 14, but her father had owned a business and land, thus he was branded a capitalist, a grave offense on the new communist China. This was held against the entire family for life. With a black political background, Ting-xing and her four siblings endured attacks on their school and their home. At the age of 16, Ting-xing was ordered to a prison farm far from her home and family where she suffered from poor living conditions, illness, and loneliness while forced to do hard labor. She was teased, tormented, and tortured for having a capitalist father. Fellow workers invented crimes against the state for which Ting-xing was also held accountable.Ting-xing's story is heartbreaking and frustrating to read. I just wanted to knock some sense into the Red Guards. The leaders came up with whatever stories they wanted against a family, and to say the charges were false would earn a beating. The only escape from such charges was to confess and accept whatever punishment the authorities deemed appropriate. People were beaten (sometimes to death), humiliated, exiled, and murdered for having the wrong political affiliations or for being suspected of not embracing the new China. I cannot imagine growing up in such a place. It is unbelievable that this happened just 35 years ago. Ting-xing told her story well, including cultural and historical background that makes the story easily understandable to other cultures. The personal details enhance the story's depth and sadness. It is a wonderful book about struggle, courage, failure, and triumph that I would recommend to all human beings in hopes of avoiding a repeat of such events.