You are not my idea of perfection, and I am not yours: something we are, or something we do, makes us not quite right. Some people fear knowledge, others ignorance; and some fear change, others tradition. Our history or our present incarnation may unfit us for other people’s fantasies. Our complexities make it impossible to be the simple answer to anyone’s ideology or prayer. Yet, the dream that something can transform us so that we can become ideal still breathes in us and in others—it is a dream that is willing to accept other deaths, even flesh and blood deaths, before it accepts its own. I am reminded of this when I read about educated people being targeted for execution by religious leaders and military forces in Iraq, when I read about young homosexual men being accused of erroneous charges, quickly tried, and killed in Iran, and when I think of the Chinese Cultural Revolution that the film Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress presents.（）

　　 The history that precedes Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is the rise of Communism in Russia and China; following a civil war in China, the People’s Republic of China was formed on October 1, 1949. The reign of Mao Zedong was marked by disasters natural and unnatural, and by genuine achievement, such as ridding the country of foreign dominance. Fearing the return of traditional Chinese elites, Mao (1893-1976) wanted the young to experience peasant life and sent many people to be re-educated in

　　 He recognized that mind and spirit, not simply the management of material (financial, manufacturing) life, must be changed: but can people be forced into positive spiritual change? The Cultural Revolution lasted from 1966 to 1976. The young were organized into Red Guards; and these guards were later responsible for the harassment and even murder of older people and of intellectuals and professionals. Social life and the economics of the cities were affected.

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