Li glanced at her across the Jeep and thought for a moment. “You know how it is, as a young person, to feel you have no control over your life, that everything is run by old people? And that by the time you are old enough to change things, you are too old to enjoy them? Well, the Cultural Revolution reversed all that. It gave power to the young, to change things while they were young.” He shivered in the heat as memories of his childhood came flooding back.

“Young people came from all over China to Beijing to become Red Guards and parade in front of Mao in Tiananmen Square. For them, Mao was the ‘red, red sun in their hearts.’ But really, they were just children with all discipline removed. They went crazy. They attacked people just because they were ‘intellectuals.’ They could come into your house and take over your home. And you would be ‘criticised,’ and maybe you would have to write essays criticising yourself, or they would force you through ‘struggle sessions’ or maybe just beat you up for fun. Many people were put in prisons or sent to labour camps. Others were killed—just murdered. And nothing would happen to those who killed them because the legal system had fallen apart, and most policemen were in prison themselves or had been sent to labour in the countryside.”

Margaret tried to imagine how it must have been, to have all the constraints of a civilised society removed, for power to be in the hands of children run riot. But it was unimaginable.

“All the worst and most basic instincts of human nature were given free rein,” Li said. “And you know how cruel children can be. In my classroom at primary school, my teacher was made by some of the older kids to sit in front of class wearing a dunce’s cap and recite over and over, ‘I am a cow demon.’ For a short time you think it is funny. But then when your teacher is found kicked to death in the school dining room, you get pretty scared.

“It all got out of control. Even the extremist cadres in the Party, who had set it all in motion, and thought they could control it for their own ends, lost control. Many of the country’s leaders had been purged, Deng Xiaoping among them. And eventually the army had to be sent in to restore some kind of order. But we had twelve years of it. Twelve years of madness. I was born the year before it began. I was thirteen when it ended, and my family was destroyed.”

Margaret was shocked. “What do you mean, destroyed?”