Book 6: A Heart For Freedom by Chai Ling

As I started reading this book and was immediately transported back to my happy days in Beijing. Chai Ling was a student at Beida, the university just west of Tsinghua University, where I taught in the summers of 2002, 2003, and 2004, so the place came alive in my memory.

This is actually when we were liliving and teaching on the other side of the city at the National Judges' College.

Then things got serious and I remembered that this was not a book about silly me. The account of the student protests in 1989 was convoluted, but spontaneous protests involving that many people would have been disorganized and confusing sometimes. There were other aspects of Chai Ling's experience that were upsetting, like her relationship with her first husband and several forced abortions.

Chai Ling converted to Christianity and hopes that China will be saved by turning to Jesus Christ. It's hard for me to imagine a Christian China, but when I was there, we did find people were curious about our religious beliefs, and we were part of some miraculous experiences involving the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Chai Ling also founded an organization called All Girls Allowed. The organization supports women and girls in China and elsewhere, including providing a stipend to women who give birth to daughters to restore dignity to being a mother of a daughter. I'm learning more about their work and find it really interesting, especially when I think of the gender imbalance among young people in China and the number of baby girls in Chinese orphanages.