Bright Swallow

Bright Swallow, a young girl labelled as of 'bad origins' in Mao's Cultural Revolution, becomes motherless at fifteen in 1972. Determined to live a full life like her mother had known, she seizes every chance, creates choices where there appear to be none and finally has the world open up to her. The memoir distinguishes itself from other accounts of this period in being a story of hope. It celebrates resilience, the power of literature, music and the imagination; and pays tribute to the people who retained the fundamental decency that can easily disappear in adverse circumstances. Mao's China is now history, but similar dark regimes and mad ideologies still exist. There is much suffering from discrimination, humiliation and injustice at this moment. This is why this memoir has been written. My name - Xiyan, meaning bright swallow - was chosen by my mother with great expectations. My mother had been one of China's "new women", a young woman who travelled widely, dressed elegantly, and dined in fine restaurants. In the bleakness of Mao's China, she saw little opportunity for her only daughter to live such a life. "At least I lived a life" were her last words to me. She could not have known how much defiance these words and her death would stir in me. Left alone, I fought against cold, hunger and discrimination, but then, taking advantage of my status as an orphan, I listened clandestinely to vinyl records of 'bourgeois' music, read banned books and became a secret storyteller. I also travelled to remote corners of the country, something unheard of during the Cultural Revolution. Sent to the countryside for re-education, I fetched water from wells, collected and spread manure, sowed and harvested grain, drove a horse-drawn cart and bonded with animals. However, I never stopped looking for chances to escape the life that I had been placed in. When the universities reopened in 1977, I began to reach for the fuller life my mother had feared I could never have. I migrated to Australia in 1990 and became a published writer. I have received three literature grants and one residency award from the Australia Council for the Arts.