mao zedong set in motion the cultural revolution in china 50 years ago here a writer reflects on how the movement affected her family sinosphereapril 4 2016half a century has passed since mao zedong set in motion the cultural revolution his chaotic attempt to purge the communist party and chinese society of compromise and capitalist tendencies the movement unleashed widespread violence some of it led by red guards young students who organized themselves into militant units to enforce maos revolutionary vision some of the most intense fighting was in chongqing where in recent days some residents mourned at chinas only surviving sizable red guard cemeteryxujun eberlein a writer who grew up in chongqing and is now based in boston is the author of apologies forthcoming a collection of stories about the cultural revolution in an interview ms eberlein who is working on a memoir reflected on how that time affected her and her familyq what is your family background and how did the coming of the cultural revolution affect your family a my mother came from a poor peasant family in zhongxian a riverside county on the yangtze and my father was an orphan from chongqing they both became underground communists in the 1940s while chongqing was under nationalist rulewhen the cultural revolution began in 1966 my mother was an elementary school principal my father was a midranked party cadre and i was finishing the fourth grade i witnessed my mother being perpwalked in a dunce cap by her students and my father being struggled against by his colleagues from the beginning they like most all their close friends were very confused by what the cultural revolution was really for and they had no choice but to muddle through the chaotic timemy big sister was a middleschool student and she became a red guard in the august 15 faction in july 1968 she drowned while commemorating maos 1966 swim in the yangtze my family never really recovered from that tragedy by the end of the cultural revolution my mothers belief in mao and communism was fundamentally shaken while the change dawned much more slowly for my father likely because he had everything to thank the party underground for in his impoverished youth and he had become much more invested in the communist causebut he too was disillusioned in his later years for my generation generally speaking at the end of the cultural revolution the spiritual landscape had become a desert in chinaq how did your parents deal with the grief then and how does your family commemorate your sister now a i dont think im capable of describing those agonizing years in a few calm sentences im working on a memoir and the cultural revolution is part of it one thing i want to say is that my memoir will not be victim literature we were all participants at the time whether one admits or denies itq have you visited the red guard cemetery in shapingba in chongqing a many