In the Throes of Cultural Revolution

1. The circumstances of my birth in the midst of political upheavals

Winter 1972 — 10 years into the Cultural Revolution in China. You were about to be born. Your tiny life almost never came to be. Your mother, Caidie, nearly gave you up at the hospital when you was a tiny pea in her belly. If it wasn’t for a nurse who talked her out of it, I wouldn’t be writing about you now.

Besides, you managed to come out before the …