The Red Lie
eBook - PDF

The Red Lie

A Story of Family, Betrayal, and My Escape from China

  1. 295 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Red Lie

A Story of Family, Betrayal, and My Escape from China

About this book

Born into the Mao era, the author's education in school and at home by her father, a devoted Communist propaganda officer, was a brainwashing process. She was just seven when her father described how the enemy Nationalists beheaded his parents with a straw cutter during the civil war. Before she was old enough to understand the concept of love, she learned who to love and who to hate, believing all enemies deserve to die.
When student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 demanded freedom and democracy, Foley risked prison passing them secret information about army troop deployment. This act ended her career as a university assistant professor and put her on a wanted list. She embarked on a smuggler-aided border crossing to Macau, and eventually arriving in Hong Kong, and from there, departed for a new life in the United States.
Returning to China after an eight-year exile, she discovered her father's betrayal and lies. She eventually came to understand that his fear-driven loyalty to the Party arose from survival instincts. He chose to dance with the devil. Over time, he learned to dance with ease and grace, and in the end, such dancing became his life.
The Red Lie is an account of the struggle to free oneself from the binding tentacles of brainwashing. It is a tale of loyalty tested, humanity challenged, and lives ruined by lies. At its core, it is a woman's struggle in a world so hardened by ignorance, hatred and fear that compassion and kindness are largely nonexistent. It shows one person's quest for self-invention against the backdrop of late twentieth century politics—a tale still current given the East-West tensions of today.

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Yes, you can access The Red Lie by Hua Foley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Political Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. Prologue
  5. Brainwashing
  6. Would Rather Die
  7. Sparrows Are Public Enemies
  8. Human Rewards
  9. A Capitalistic Fox
  10. Grandma
  11. A Devoted Man
  12. Wildfire of Hate
  13. A Dignified Woman
  14. The Forever Red Sun
  15. The Neighborhood Committee
  16. Our Force Is Invincible
  17. Awakening
  18. No Longer a Burden
  19. The Loving Woman
  20. Music from Heaven
  21. Red River Valley
  22. An Unbridgeable Chasm
  23. The Sky Is Falling
  24. Man Bites Dog Is News
  25. Open the Door and in Come the Flies
  26. Unyielding to Western Democracy
  27. Stay in Marriage
  28. What Do the People Think
  29. Tiananmen
  30. The Bitter Smell of Lilacs
  31. The Tiananmen Massacre
  32. Screaming Tanks, Silent Bodies
  33. Stay in Power, at All Costs
  34. Solemn Lies
  35. The Fall of the Berlin Wall
  36. Crossing the Border
  37. It Could Have Been Us
  38. Truth
  39. Returning to Beijing
  40. A Comrade Again
  41. A Coldhearted Daughter
  42. The Red Lie
  43. The Persimmon Tree
  44. The Spread of Censorship
  45. A Crack in Everything
  46. About the Author