The DRAGON'S PEARL - Hardcover

In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, Thailand was trying to survive the power struggle between China and the United States in Asia. The new government desperately needed American money for its unstable economy, yet it could not ignore the threat posed by China, which had just demonstrated its strength in the Korean Peninsula. While the Thai government openly welcomed Americans and denounced China, it secretly sent the children of a political leader to China as a sign of goodwill, thus replaying the act of making human pledge practiced in China throughout history. At the age of eight, Sirin was sent with her 12-year-old brother to China, where they were "hostages" for 14 years. Her detailed account of the political scheme, her bittersweet memories of living in China and being raised under Premier Zhou En-lai's auspices, and her vivid description of Chinese policy makers make this book a unique diplomatic history of Thailand and China. Recommended for all libraries.
--Mark Meng, St. John's Univ. Lib., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In 1956, when Bangkok-Beijing relations were tense, the prime minister of Thailand sent the two children of his principal adviser to China as a goodwill offering. They became the wards of Premier Zhou Enlai. The author of this memoir was one of those children. She was eight; her brother, then 12, plays an almost negligible role in these pages. The memoir only comes to life when Sirin, writing with freelancer Peck, relates how she was caught up in the Cultural Revoution in the mid-1960s. Accused of the crime of having been reared in a bourgeois Thai family and by the capitalist sympathizer Zhou, she was forced to denounce her family in public. Then, in an almost miraculous turn of events, Sirin became a Communist Party heroine by saving two children in a fire--but she was required to announce that her deed was inspired by the teachings of Chairman Mao. Though she tends to exaggerate her importance as an instrument of diplomacy, Sirin's memoir provides a valuable eyewitness account of the Cultural Revolution. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.