Sedona-based author Margaret Zhao discusses her fight for individualism and freedom while growing up in communist China in her new memoir “Really Enough.”
The youngest of six siblings, Zhao’s birth name is translated as “Really Enough Complete Happiness,” referring to a tactic used by her mother as a plea to stop having more children. Two of her siblings were named “Complete Happiness” and “Enough Complete Happiness,” with Margaret falling in as “Really Enough.”
Chairman Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 onwards and was de facto ruler of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death in 1976.
Zhao’s family was severely affected by the imposition of communist rule. Her mother was well educated and came from a family of scholars. The family had owned a cooking oil factory that supplied the entire county, treating their workers well and often doing acts of charity, but the factory was nationalized by the government.
Zhao and her family were labeled enemies of the state and were forced to leave their ancestral home, being resettled as peasant farmers in the countryside. The family was ridiculed by their neighbors and were unable to successfully grow crops, never having enough to put food on the table.
Zhao’s mother, whose name translates as “Upright Justice,” inspired her passion for learning and her development as an individual. She took her on a treasured trip to the city, where they were able to watch people eat in restaurants while they satisfied themselves with bits of burned rice. This experience drove Zhao to resolve to improve her condition so that one day she too might be able to order food in a restaurant.
Zhao’s mother was also responsible for her love of books. Zhao recalls a haunting memory of her mother burning her treasured books and ancestral papers for fear of being found by the communist party: “Mother stood watching the enormous fire that took her soul. She ran her hand gently over the hand-stitched cover of each book that held her family legacy, dropping tears at the funeral of the ancient texts. The poetry escaped in smoky phrases and took refuge in her mind. The elegant brushstrokes, the carefully hand-written characters, shattered into the ghosts of the learned as they rose in bursts of red crackles and black smoke, releasing one thousand years of wisdom to the darkening sky.”
Her mother taught her daughter the saying, “Make people miss you,” a lesson that Zhao lives out every day in striving to be sincere, to be grateful and to return every drop of kindness.
Zhao’s love of learning was also nurtured by a group of “uncles,” or fellow enemies who worked in the fields and were housed with her family for a brief time. This group of scholars, doctors and other enemies of the party kept Zhao entertained with their self-aware humor and conversation.
Zhao was rarely able to attend school and, when she did, was ridiculed by classmates because of her family’s status. She later worked long hours in a brick factory to save a little money. When college entrance examinations were opened to anyone, Zhao studied by night for several months and passed the examination, allowing her to attend college and become a teacher.
Although Zhao had succeeded in achieving her dream of teaching, she found that her freedoms were still restricted and she was not allowed to choose where she taught. She eventually moved to America in pursuit of love.
Zhao last returned to China in 2015 and was shocked to see the growth that had taken place, as well as the abundance of garbage and pollution. While people are still reluctant to speak directly against the government, more are talking amongst themselves, but they can’t yet “stand up loudly,” according to Zhao.
Zhao escaped the life to which government policy consigned her, a life of poverty and backbreaking work, through her dedication to reading and education that allowed her to defy her previous status as an enemy of the state.
Zhao hopes that her book will inspire young people to achieve their highest goals. Her next book, “The Dangling Earrings,” aims to inspire the audience to believe in love.
When she was a child, Zhao’s mother once described owning dangling gold earrings during an intimate moment with her daughter. Young Zhao could almost see them in her mother’s ears in the moonlight.
Zhao will be speaking at the Marriott in Sedona on Feb. 17.
For more information, visit reallyenough.com.
