The irony of success
In Maoist China, success is determined randomly, by the whim of the decision makers. This means that for Anchee, her actions became detached from her reality; she was no longer able to alter her own fate. This is what "success" had done for her in school.
The irony of Maoism
Instead of making a country where the citizens are strong and united, Maoism works the other way, making the public so paranoid and divided that no one wants to be in public anymore for fear of being randomly accused of Capitalist sympathies. Anchee's own club is basically just a club for ratting on each other.
The irony of labor as a reward
When Anchee manages to do her duty in Maoist China of reporting suspicious behavior and helping them to convict the innocent, her repayment is the "right" of hard labor at a labor camp.
The ironic famine
As if things couldn't get worse than a labor camp, there is salt water in the soil and the camp endures a brutal famine.
The rise and fall of a star
Another to summarize what happened to Anchee would be to say that after a life of struggling and confusion, she finally got her breakthrough in China for all her service of Mao, and in fact, she might have become a famous actress in Maoist China, but instead, Mao died and her film never showed. The irony of almost getting what you most want is a hard one to swallow.
