Cultural Revolution

And he was kind of flummoxed by it because he was a diplomat, someone who had been serving largely in the Himalayas, like Nepal.

And he's recalled to China during the Cultural Revolution, like a lot of diplomats were, And initially, he's kind of sequestered in the foreign ministry, sort of protected by Zhou Enlai.

He's sort of a protege of Zhou Enlai.

And in 1971, you know, there's this kind of top-level decision that they're going to sort of open up to more, you know, Western tourists because they've seen there's a lot of interest in coming to China.

And it's sort of written in those sort of like glowing terms.

But then in the 70s, it becomes this sort of idea of something like you're selling a piece of the nation.

So sort of in the sort of cultural revolution context is sort of viewed kind of negatively.

And he talks about that in the 70s context.

And he was kind of flummoxed by it because he was a diplomat, someone who had been serving largely in the Himalayas, like Nepal.

And he's recalled to China during the Cultural Revolution, like a lot of diplomats were, And initially, he's kind of sequestered in the foreign ministry, sort of protected by Zhou Enlai.

He's sort of a protege of Zhou Enlai.

And in 1971, there's this kind of top-level decision that they're going to sort of open up to more Western tourists because they've seen there's a lot of interest in in coming to China.

And it's sort of written in those sort of like glowing terms.

But then in the 70s, it becomes this sort of idea of something like you're selling a piece of the nation.

So sort of in the sort of cultural revolution context is sort of viewed kind of negatively.

And he talks about that in the seventies context.

And he was kind of flummoxed by it because he was a diplomat, someone who had been serving largely in the Himalayas, like Nepal.

And he's recalled to China during the Cultural Revolution, like a lot of diplomats were, And initially, he's kind of sequestered in the foreign ministry, sort of protected by Zhou Enlai.

He's sort of a protege of Zhou Enlai.

And in 1971, there's this kind of top-level decision that they're going to sort of open up to more Western tourists because they've seen there's a lot of interest in coming to China and, and, and, you know, the, like a lot of these people in the government, they're very practical people and they want to figure out how to like earn, earn some foreign exchange from that.

And it's sort of written in those sort of like glowing terms.

But then in the 70s, it becomes this sort of idea of something like you're selling a piece of the nation.

So sort of in the sort of cultural revolution context is sort of viewed kind of negatively.

And he talks about that in the seventies context.

And I was studying Xiangsheng, the crosstalk humor.

And after the end of the Cultural Revolution, the Xiangsheng humor was able to make fun and satirize that era.

But the villain was not Mao, it was the Gang of Four.

So all of the humor and the satire was directed at Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four.

Mao's famine killed about 40 million people, 45 million people.

And then the Cultural Revolution in the '60s, which killed another, uh, I mean, between two and 15.

Nobody has any idea how many.

Uh, but it's an amazing book series because it, it documents a lot of the same types of parallels that we're talking about in this Red Terror book that you can see what's happening, like, with the, the left-wing extremists.

And he had to navigate a lot of crazy politics.

And, you know, especially in China in the 80s, it had just come out of the Cultural Revolution.

So that's one thing is I thought, OK, well, you would never have pulled this off.

The other thing I really came to see was the price that a family pays for this level of commitment by someone.

Yeah.

But then what got me is I was, like, continuing to read one of my mutuals, like, that review, and apparently it talks about Mao and the Cultural Revolution, and it's very, like, horseshoe theory.

And then also apparently how there's strange conversation about how communists supposedly support the Khmer Rouge.

in Cambodia, which was U.S.-backed. Fun fact, nobody fucking does.

What's the...

I think it's a paper about Chinese families that were landed before the Cultural Revolution and in families that had everything taken away from them.

Still, their descendants often persist.

Top leadership.