1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir by Ai Weiwei | Full Audiobook

China's Political Climate and Suppression

• 💡 The narrative begins by describing a period in China focused on independence and liberation from colonialism and imperialism, portraying itself as the "light and the future."
• 📌 During this "information deprived era," personal choice was rootless and insubstantial, with genuine emotions and personal memory reduced to "tiny scraps" by the discourse of struggle and continuous revolution.

Ai Qing's Persecution and Exile

• 👨‍🎨 Ai Weiwei's father, Ai Qing, a writer, recorded feelings in his poetry despite political suppression, preserving honesty and candor.
• ⚠️ Ai Weiwei's birth coincided with Mao Zedong's anti-rightist campaign, which targeted intellectuals and led to his father being branded a "leading rightist."
• 🚀 Ai Qing was subsequently exiled for "reform through labor," ending his comfortable life and forcing the family to relocate to the icy wilderness of the far northeast, then to Shu Hutsu.

The Cultural Revolution's Impact

• 🚩 In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, Ai Qing was again blacklisted as a "purveyor of bourgeois literature and art," along with other "anti-party elements."
• 🚚 The family was forced to move to a remote paramilitary production unit, a desolate place known as "Little Siberia" on the edge of the Gerban Tungut Desert.
• 💔 Ai Weiwei recounts the difficult family separation, with his mother and younger brother returning to Beijing, highlighting the profound impact of these events on his childhood.