The Irony of the Re-Education System of Communist China Kayla Gratzer 10th Grade

Re-education, a practice in Communist China where city youths are sent to rural villages in order for them to get in touch with the way of their ancestors and create a larger working class, may seem like a harmless system. However, re-education, to a degree, is pointless. In its irony, city youths going to rural villages in order to become one with the land ended up instilling their knowledge onto the villagers, the complete opposite of the goal of re-education. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie explains the irony of the re-education system in Communist China, as the two main characters, Luo and an unnamed narrator, end up changing the values of the villagers more than themselves. In the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, Luo and the narrator during the process of re-education change the villagers to become more civilized by manipulating them and introducing them to technology and western culture, expressing the irony of the re-education system.

During their re-education, the two boys manipulate the villagers to satisfy themselves, changing the villagers more than themselves and ironically destroying the core principle of re-education. When Luo and the narrator first come to their...