Outside Reading - Week 2 Post B

Throughout the beginning of the novel, Evelina makes many references to her Aunt Lucy and the Cultural Revolution that took place in China. Aunt Lucy explains that the Chinese government had to pay her back for those years she missed. She says: "After the Cultural Revolution, the government tried to make up for what they did to me by returning all I would have earned during those years. So I am rich, you see!"(34) I didn't really understand what she was talking about because I didn't know much about the events that took place in China, so I decided to research it. This is what I found:

The Cultural Revolution started in 1966, and ended in 1976. China had been helped by Soviet Russia and had planed to construct its country following the same way of Soviet Russia's. However, after the death of Stalin, the relations between the countries deteriorated. Mao Zedong (a Chinese military and political leader and the leader of the Communist Party of China) proceeded excessive policy for socialism, reacting against Soviet and lead China to the Cultural Revolution. After the revolution ended, the Chinese government attempted to pay back it's working citizens with an estimate of what the could have made during those ten years.

source: http://library.thinkquest.org/26469/cultural-revolution/