A Star Reflects on the Sun

Liu Xiaoqing is an actress from Sichuan. Although her fame has been eclipsed in recent years by Gong Li, Liu remains one of China's most popular leading ladies. She is also remarkable for her brash and outspoken personality-something with which few of her rivals can compete, and she was denounced during the 1983 Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign for producing an autobiography entitled I Did It My Way (Wode lu). Among her numerous screen roles, her portrayal of the Empress Dowager Ci Xi is, perhaps, most noteworthy. Liu's memoir, from which this excerpt is taken, was written at the height of the Mao Cult and it reflects sentiments that many of her generation have when contemplating their youth, a time when they were enthralled by the revolutionary zeal of the Cultural Revolution. Regardless of the horrors of those years-and there is no dearth of material concerning what Mao's rule did to China-for many, his was an age of passion, excitement, and social engagement. Maoism was suffused with religiosity and catered to young idealists yearning for sincerity and altruism. These are things unknown and unthinkable in Deng Xiaoping's China. As we see in her memoir, Liu's longing for a lost moment of beauty grows more intense with the passage of time and with the increasing cynicism that envelops the People's Republic now that it is bereft of anything other than a faith in economic might

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Beauty · Biography · China · Cult · Faith · Memoir · Passion · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy