BOOK REVIEWS
319
despite provision of a conversion table printed in very small characters.
Despite these shortcomings, however, this is a useful handbook which will be of value in its field.
P. H. HASE
A Cadre School Life: Six Chapters Yang Jiang, trans. G. Barmé Joint Publishing Co. Hong Kong 1982, 91 pp.
Madam Yang Jiang's "Six Chapters on a Cadre School Life", a book well received and translated into English, French, Japanese and other languages, is an epitome of life in the 'May 7 cadre schools' that could be found all over the country during the Cultural Revolution. This book provides food for thought for those free from any bias or prejudice, who will surely be enlightened after reading it. Like Madam Yang, I was an ordinary "fighter" of one of these schools. That experience should have made a greater impact on me as I had spent more time in a cadre school than she did. But for lack of literary talent and eloquence, I cannot vividly record this noteworthy episode of history in any way as well as she did.
In the Foreword he wrote for the book, Mr. Qian Zhongshu said he thought there might well have been a seventh chapter called "Politics Chapter on Shame". I, too, have the feeling that there is still so much more worth narrating. We, of course, cannot expect everyone to feel exactly the same because different people have different experiences and also because cadre schools were not entirely identical although they had much in common. So different people will have different things to narrate and appraisals will not be quite the same from the readers.
So far as I can remember, what struck me most was the damaging effect this period of history had on people of talent. If I were to add a chapter to this book, I would call it "Transformation Chapter on Fei". The word 'fei' is used mainly to denote 'waste' as in the term langfei'. It also has the meaning of 'tuition fee' as in 'xuefei'.