Flying High Out of a Tibetan Valley is Liming Jing's autobiography about her struggle to discover her independence and to fulfill her dreams in the hostile and unforgiving regime of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). Liming Jing grew up in an isolated Tibetan town in Sichuan Province during the hunger and madness of Mao's Great Leap Forward and his Cultural Revolution. At the age of 12, Liming Jing witnessed a struggle meeting in which her parents were falsely and vindictively denounced as enemies of the state and repeatedly ostracized and beaten in a Maoist indoctrinated frenzy. Soon both her parents were jailed and she lived alone. She was prevented from doing what she liked best - playing Ping-Pong and performing in a dance group. In high school and in the countryside as an Educated Youth, Liming Jing was chastised and ostracized for her ambition to become a translator and to fly high out of a Tibetan valley as a world citizen.
This was only the beginning of Liming Jing's odyssey. Her level of exasperation accelerated as she was stymied at every subsequent personal milestone: education, relationships, travel, and professional. Her hopes unwittingly built with the encouraging words by manipulators only to be dashed upon the rocks of guilt by family history. What must she do to attain her dreams? Would China allow her the dignity and honor to blossom as an individual or must she acquiesce to its spiritless political orthodoxy?
The book is, nevertheless, profoundly optimistic. Like her father, Liming never loses her love of her homeland, even when they are victims of its most malignant twentieth century cruelties (Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and his Cultural Revolution). Liming's story personifies the adage: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Triumphantly, Liming Jing has battled political and social adversity.
This was only the beginning of Liming Jing's odyssey. Her level of exasperation accelerated as she was stymied at every subsequent personal milestone: education, relationships, travel, and professional. Her hopes unwittingly built with the encouraging words by manipulators only to be dashed upon the rocks of guilt by family history. What must she do to attain her dreams? Would China allow her the dignity and honor to blossom as an individual or must she acquiesce to its spiritless political orthodoxy?
The book is, nevertheless, profoundly optimistic. Like her father, Liming never loses her love of her homeland, even when they are victims of its most malignant twentieth century cruelties (Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward and his Cultural Revolution). Liming's story personifies the adage: "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Triumphantly, Liming Jing has battled political and social adversity.
