62 pages • 2 hours read
Red Scarf Girl
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During Reading
Reading Questions & Paired Texts
Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.
PROLOGUE-CHAPTER 6
Reading Check
1. What is the red scarf the emblem of?
2. Who is Song Po-po?
3. What does the red color of their scarves represent?
4. What “Old” do people hope to destroy with searches?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Ji-li told that she cannot audition for the Central Liberation Army Arts Academy?
2. How does Ji-li’s house differ from her classmates’ houses?
3. How do the Four Olds undermine Ji-li’s family and upbringing?
4. How does class status determine the course of Ji-li’s coming of age?
Paired Resource
“Serve the People” and “Criticism and Self-Criticism”
- The speech and excerpt of The Little Red Book: Quotations from Chairman Mao offer insight into the political ideology guiding the Cultural Revolution. (Due to the complex nature of this content, these resources may be more teacher-appropriate than student-facing.)
- This connects to the theme of Individualism.
- To what extent are the political goals of the Cultural Revolution predicted in the speech and quotes? What disconnect, if any, does Ji-li examine between the ideological goals of the party expressed in writing and the actions of civilians who believe they are working toward those goals?
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
1. Who dies by suicide in response to political events?
2. How is death by suicide treated socially and politically?
3. What is the opposite of a “black” class family as referenced in Chapter 8?
4. What does Ani-yi connect to the sudden reversal in social standing of “black” class families?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How does Jia Hong-yu, the famous Red Guard, use storytelling to undermine family ties?
2. What is the symbolic significance of burning family pictures?
3. What does the story of Du Hai’s mother, Xu A-san, reveal about the Cultural Revolution?
4. What might the fortune-telling ritual An-yi and Ji-li perform reveal about them?
Paired Resource
“Exhibiting the Cultural Revolution Part 2: The Visual Spectacle of ‘Dazibao’”
- This portion of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies’ four-part multimedia blog offers a comprehensive exploration of the imagery and psychological impact of the dazibao as a tool of the Cultural Revolution.
- The article relates to Ji-li’s struggle with Fate and Agency.
- In what ways was the visual spectacle of the dazibao a psychological tool? How does understanding its role in the Cultural Revolution relate to Ji-li’s discomfort and horror both at being asked to create them and being targeted by them?
- This article explores former Red Guard Chen Xiaolu’s remorse for his actions as a student during the Cultural Revolution and raises the question of whether the state or individual perpetrators should bear the responsibility for atrocities committed for it.
- This relates to the theme of Coming of Age.
- To what degree are perpetrators also victims of the Cultural Revolution, and how does this complicate the interactions between Ji-li and her aggressors? Should Red Guards and other perpetrators be held responsible for deaths by suicide?
CHAPTERS 10-15
Reading Check
1. To what does Ji-li compare her growing family problems?
2. How does Ji-li feel when she becomes a top student in junior high again?
3. What does Teacher Zhang claim Ji-li is when he selects her for the Class Education Exhibition, despite her class standing?
4. What does Ji-li hope to get back through flawless participation in the exhibition?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is Ji-li learning from classmates like Bai Shan and Sun Lin-lin?
2. What is the problem with confessing for targeted political “enemies” like Ji-li’s father?
3. What does Chang-Hong reveal she is putting her duty to the revolution above?
4. What are the ironies in the story of the Lui Wen-cai and the blind grandfather that Ji-li tells at the Exhibition?
Paired Resource
“The Demonization of Interpersonal Relationships Left a Deep Impression on Me”
- This interview from the University of Pittsburgh’s CR/10 Project provides opportunities to corroborate experiences of the Cultural Revolution.
- This relates to the theme of Individualism.
- In what ways did interpersonal relationships change during this time, and why? How do the interviewee’s experiences relate to Ji-li’s struggle?
CHAPTER 16-EPLIOGUE
Reading Check
1. Where does Ji-li hide the incriminating letter?
2. What defines Ji-li’s life before the Cultural Revolution and after her father’s detention?
3. What reason does Ji-li give for not hating or blaming Mao?
4. To what does Ji-li compare people’s belief in Mao?
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What choice does Ji-li make that illustrates loyalty to family?
2. What social and political worries is the family left with after the discovery of the letter?
3. How did the country change after Mao’s death?
4. What is the ideological irony of the Cultural Revolution?
Paired Resource
“How the Cultural Revolution Played Society Against Itself” and “My Uncle Was a Red Guard in China’s Cultural Revolution. He Isn’t Sorry.”
- Tania’s Brannigan’s research and Karoline Kan’s article provide additional lenses and opportunities for corroboration to deepen understanding of the impact of the Cultural Revolution on survivors like Ji-li Jiang.
- This relates to themes of Individualism and Coming of Age.
- What arguments do Jiang’s memoir, Tania Brannigan’s research, and Karoline Kan’s article make about the legacy of the Cultural Revolution as well as the possibility of trust and resolution for survivors?
Recommended Next Reads
- Son of the Revolution by Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro
- This autobiography reveals how individual scrutiny, hard choices, and political circumstances fracture Heng’s family and leave him to reconcile loyalties to family and party as he comes of age during the political and social reorganization of the Cultural Revolution.
- Shared themes include Individualism and Coming of Age (as an “Educable Child”).
- Shared topics include memoirs, life during the cultural revolution, family allegiance, political persecution, and living as an outsider.
- Son of the Revolution on SuperSummary
Forty Autumns by Nina Willner
- This memoir traces the impact of the Berlin Wall and the political upheaval following the partition of Germany on the lives of five related women, one of whom enters East Berlin as the first female army intelligence officer to lead intelligence operations in Soviet-occupied Berlin.
- Shared themes include Coming of Age and Fate and Agency.
- Shared topics include memoirs, political repression, and family ties.
- Forty Autumns on SuperSummary
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
- This graphic memoir depicts George Takei’s experiences as a child imprisoned in the Japanese concentration camps in America during World War II.
- Shared themes include Coming of Age, Individualism, and Fate and Agency.
- Shared topics include memoirs, political repression, and family ties.
- They Called Us Enemy on SuperSummary
Reading Questions Answer Key
PROLOGUE-CHAPTER 6
Reading Check
1. The Young Pioneers (Prologue)
2. The housekeeper/nanny (Chapter 1)
3. Blood of Martyrs (Chapter 2)
4. Personal possessions (Chapter 6)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Ji-li is not allowed to audition for the Central Liberation Army Arts Academy because the process requires political screening, which her family would not pass due to class roots and past party action taken against her father. (Chapter 1)
2. Ji-li and her family enjoy more space. Even though they share one room, they have a private bathroom with flushing toilets, a private kitchen, and a housekeeper. (Chapter 2)
3. The Four Olds represent a reversal in thought and action that forces Ji-li to reconsider her Confucian-inspired respect for elders, teachers, and family. In some cases, it also requires her to act against family members, such as when she must go with other students to harass Aunt Jiang Xi-wen and hang da-zi-bao (propaganda posters) on her door. (Chapter 3)
4. Because of ancestral ties to landlords, Ji-li, who has always been a top student, finds herself targeted for harassment by the school’s Red Successors, barred from participation in extracurriculars, forced to disassociate herself with friends and teachers, and obligated to make choices that jeopardize either her family or her own political standing. (Chapters 4-5)
CHAPTERS 7-9
Reading Check
1. An-yi’s grandmother (Chapter 7)
2. As a crime (Chapter 7)
3. A red family (Chapter 8)
4. The wheel of fate (Chapter 9)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Jia Hong-yu uses a personal story to undermine family ties. She implies that choosing to serve family is individualistic and wrong when she reveals her choice to leave her sick mother and join the revolution as an example of right action. This idea confounds young people like Ji-li because it conflicts with their upbringing and sense of morality throughout the already difficult coming-of-age period. (Chapter 7)
2. Burning family pictures illustrates a desire to erase or revise the past and sets a dangerous precedent because the party requires people to renounce not only their past family but also their current family (if they are accused of being political enemies). Burning the photos can be understood as a step toward a complete disavowal of family, just like burning clothing is a step toward complete rejection of history and culture. (Chapter 8)
3. Xu A-san enjoyed a heightened status because of her marriage to the neighborhood party head, but she falls from grace when evidence of an affair surfaces and she is subjected to a public “struggle” or “study session,” revealing the uncertainty of status and social standing for everyone during the Cultural Revolution. This reinforces the idea of fate as a moving wheel that brings good and bad fortune in cycles. (Chapter 9)
4. The mentality of guilt by association with a “black” family strips the girls of their sense of agency in determining their fates, leaving them with a desire for control and certainty, which the fortune-telling ritual temporarily provides. (Chapter 9)
CHAPTERS 10-15
Reading Check
1. A tumor (Chapter 10)
2. Dangerous (Chapter 10)
3. An educable child (Chapter 12)
4. Her honor and good standing (Chapter 15)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Their acts of courage, compassion, and subtle resistance model agency and offer a contrast from the humiliation and harassment by past classmates. This can be seen when they request to study at home or hand Ji-li the cover of a Red Book to keep her from getting in trouble. Their actions remind Ji-li that she still has a choice in how to conduct herself. (Chapter 10)
2. Due to the subjective nature of the Four Olds and constantly changing political directives, detainees and political “criminals” often do not know what their interrogators want them to confess, and if they confess to the wrong “crime,” then they appear to be resisting. This makes the slogan “leniency for those who confess, severity for those who resist” a hollow promise. (Chapter 11)
3. Though she has a sick brother with epilepsy she has always cared for, she considers her duty to the revolution more important. (Chapter 12)
4. The story is about a blind grandfather who gives his granddaughter to the landlord to repay his debts. It is meant to expose the evils of the old system by illustrating the way in which it forced family members to betray one another. However, Ji-li is being coerced to betray her own family in favor of supporting the new system and increasing her social standing, revealing a lack of reflection and critical thinking on the part of those in charge of both the exhibition and carrying out the Cultural Revolution. (Chapter 14)
CHAPTER 16-EPLIOGUE
Reading Check
1. The litterbox (Chapter 16)
2. Goals before, then responsibility after (Chapter 17)
3. Brainwashing (Epilogue)
4. God (Epilogue)
Short Answer
Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Ji-li chooses not to reveal the location of the letter she has hidden. (Chapter 16)
2. The family worries that officials will detain her mother, send her grandmother to do hard labor in the countryside as penance for being a landlord’s wife, and dissolve the family. (Chapter 17)
3. After Mao’s death, everyday people who had spearheaded and enforced the Cultural Revolution as Red Guards and neighborhood organizers realized they had been political pawns. They now understand this effort was a move made by Mao’s faction within the Communist Party to overcome opposing factions, and they did this by creating campaigns such as “Destroy Four Olds” that could be used to incriminate and dispose of them. (Epilogue)
4. The stated goal was to encourage unity, community, and collectivism by purging the old ways, but by stoking individuals’ fears of losing standing and encouraging people to criticize, surveil, and even punish their neighbors, the Cultural Revolution undermined the trust and mutual support needed to create those ideals. (Various chapters)
