Re-education is not for me

I really had no idea that under the rule of Chairman Mao the youth were sent into the countryside to be taught how to work like a farmer. Now I know what happened and just how awful those conditions were sometimes. Frankly, I am surprised that Dai Sijie survived re-education because I doubt that I could have made it through a month of living there. I can definitely see why this is historical fiction and not a historical account. This novel is a lot more romantic and cliché than history would be, but that is what makes this such a good book. You can actually connect to Luo and the narrator while reading. When the narrator gets jealous about Luo spending so much time with the little seamstress you can relate that to a time in your life where you may have envied the girlfriend that one of your buddies has. Although, I really doubt that some of what happens would have occurred in an actual re-education town, which is why this is historical fiction and not an actual historical account.