53 pages • 1 hour read
Red Azalea
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Part 3, Page 198-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Pages 198-226 Summary
Seeing a net of turtles near her parents’ house in Shanghai on an errand for the studio, Anchee discovers that Yan has come to visit her. Yan and Anchee tour her home, and Anchee asks about Coral, who now lives at Red Fire Farm. When Yan compares her less favorably to Anchee, Anchee says that Coral didn’t get enough food growing up, her food tickets having been stolen by the nanny.
When Anchee asks about Leopard, Yan confesses that they finally met at the brick factory, and that his secretary, Old Wong, had been waiting for Leopard to trip up. Like Lu did to Yan, Wong made Leopard’s intimate relationships extremely difficult. Yan tells Anchee that she has since confessed to Leopard that Anchee wrote all her letters; when Anchee asks how she can help now, Yan asks her to host both her and Leopard in her parents’ house, as the farm offers no safety or privacy.
Before Leopard arrives, Anchee and Yan explore Shanghai, first going to a department store and looking at fabric and underwear. Yan buys a pair of red underwear, and they go to a restaurant, and then to the bathhouse. They share a shower, then return to Anchee’s house, and Anchee considers how sad their situation has become. Anchee’s father returns home early, and Anchee asks Yan to buy him a double feature to see Lenin in October and Lenin in 1918, two movies which he has previously seen. Yan returns with the tickets, and Anchee persuades him to go. Leopard then arrives, and Anchee positions them on the porch, where they can be together in privacy.
Yan and Leopold have sex and unsuccessfully try to time their departure before Anchee’s mother returns and upbraids her daughter for not feeding their guests. Yan and Leopard leave. As the auditions approach for Red Azalea, Cheering Spear tells Anchee to withdraw, and Anchee responds angrily. The next day, the girls find out that the Supervisor will visit and choose the actor who will play the part of Red Azalea. Cheering Spear tricks Anchee into telling her which part of the script she plans to use for her audition for the part of Red Azalea.
Part 3, Pages 226-265 Summary
Cheering Spear, having tricked Anchee, performs the scene for which Anchee had previously prepared. With no other choice, Anchee follows her and performs the same scene. Cheering Spear gets the part, and Anchee becomes the set clerk; she is tasked with mopping floors, recording the set, and doing all sorts of odd tasks for the producer. She takes up smoking and begins taking smoke breaks in a back room without any lights. In the darkened room, she meets another smoker. The voice claims to be another set clerk, as Anchee, lost in thought, considers her parents. Sound of Rain and Soviet Wong recently visited her parents to denounce Anchee, and her mother reacted badly, screaming at them and chasing them out of her house before falling on the cement. The other voice asks Anchee what her interests are, and then asks for comments on a costume, before turning on the lights. Dressed in a red, embroidered robe, the Supervisor stands before her, but she does not yet recognize him. As they talk, she disparages Soviet Wong. As he changes, she recognizes him as the Supervisor. The next day, she sits with him as he finishes a cigarette; they discuss operas, and she asks his name, but he refuses to tell her. Soviet Wong visits the set often to watch Cheering Spear as Anchee works around the set, hiding her feelings from them. Jiang Ching comes to tour the set and have dinner with the crew, but Anchee doesn’t go. The Supervisor visits after the meal and gives her two eggrolls to eat.
A document comes from the Central Party Committee, explaining that Red Azalea had produced some political complications, which Jiang Ching is considering. The film requires the crew to go to the West Lake district of the Southern River province, which is six hours away. On the bus ride there, Anchee and the Supervisor sit together behind Cheering Spear and Soviet Wong. When the bus breaks down, the others get off, and the Supervisor and Anchee talk. He tells her about the high points of his career as well as his hatred for the rich, who treated him and his mother poorly when he was growing up. As the Supervisor gives Anchee attention, her life improves. Shooting finishes up, and Cheering Spear and the Supervisor go to dinner. The costume designer and Anchee decide to visit a Buddhist temple nearby, where Anchee notices the Supervisor as she prays to Buddha to give her strength. As the temple fills with people, she and the Supervisor hold hands. After shooting concludes, they return to Shanghai, and Anchee begins to bike home with a flat tire. The Supervisor tells her to meet him at Peace Park. There they talk and embrace in the dark, before a group of citizens comes through, patrolling with flashlights. Anchee notices the number of people hiding in the bushes. They discuss the people watching them, the “masturbators” (263) who come to the Peace to pleasure themselves. Anchee leaves the park and visits the train station early in the morning as the Supervisor departs.
Part 3, Pages 265-303 Summary
Jiang Ching has problems with Red Azalea, implicitly criticizing the cast and Cheering Spear, who grows ill after hearing the news. News arrives that Anchee will screen test for Red Azalea, and this news makes Soviet Wong furious. Although she demands that Sound of Rain investigate, he answers that he will only follow Party orders. Anchee goes to Beijing, taken to a mansion where she has tea and encounters the Supervisor again. He tells her that she will play Red Azalea, and then briefly touches on the story of Red Azalea. In the mansion, he shows her the film The Battle for Ancient Rome. The Supervisor then takes Anchee back to Shanghai, where he says the political climate remains favorable. Tasked with becoming Red Azalea, Anchee studies the scripts and goes to see movies and plays. The Supervisor tells her to become Red Azalea and to consider herself to be the character. As they reshoot the play, Anchee trips over and can’t say the line “Chairman Mao” to the Supervisor’s satisfaction. The Supervisor visits Anchee later in her guesthouse, and they discuss the line. Unable to say it, she tells him that the line sounds clumsy in the film, but he claims that without the line, the film won’t be made. As he explains his investment in Jiang Ching’s productions and in Red Azalea, he asserts that he has a female nature too, and he believes in Jiang Chin’s work of creating heroines. Then, he explains what he calls the true story of Red Azalea and recounts the story of Madam Mao, who rises from the ranks and helps Chairman Mao to recover the aims of the revolution.
Later, on set, Anchee waits for the Supervisor, but he doesn’t arrive. On September 9, 1976, Chairman Mao dies. Ordered to return to Red Fire Farm, Anchee begins to pack. The Supervisor visits, telling her that he has changed that order so that she can remain. He offers apologies from Jiang Ching and asks her to remember Red Azalea. Hua Guofeng, a man selected by Mao, denounces Jiang Ching, and she is arrested.
Epilogue Summary
Anchee continues to work as the set clerk for six years, following the end of her role as Red Azalea. One day, she gets a letter from a former friend from her film school, who urges her to come to America. She leaves behind her family and arrives in America on September 1, 1984.
Part 3, Page 198-Epilogue Analysis
The second half of Part 3 ends with Anchee finally achieving the freedom she has been chasing, as she’s punished for her emerging identity. Moving beyond Yan, as they say goodbye, Anchee witnesses the end of Mao’s governance. Bracketed by his death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, Anchee observes the ways in which the tools of Mao’s propaganda defeat those who once wielded them, as Madam Mao herself faces accusations and arrest. In Anchee’s view, the Cultural Revolution destroys itself from within, for its destruction of people’s personal identity leaves its architects unable to defend themselves, once again demonstrating the complex interplay of Identity, Resilience, and Oppression in the Cultural Revolution.
The massive political shifts also trickle down to affect Anchee’s various personal relationships as well. Although Yan visits and Anchee still recognizes glimmers of their past love, she understands that the two of them have no future together. Before Leopard and Yan even meet, Anchee realizes that Yan has moved beyond their relationship, and her understanding of the gulf between them manifests itself in the smallest narrative details. For example, while shopping for clothing, she observes, “Without consulting me, [Yan] bought a set, the bright red underwear” (203). Ultimately, however, Anchee comes to realize that by leaving Yan, she has liberated herself, because Yan “was always the ruler, the manipulator. She was always in control” (222). For Anchee, outgrowing her idols means accepting the difficult path of making her own choices. Although she continues to write to Yan, Yan ignores her, echoing Leopard’s earlier behavior toward Yan herself, and thus, the relationship finally staggers to a close as Anchee eventually goes on to continue The Pursuit of Freedom in other, more constructive ways.
Approaching the end of their competition, Cheering Spear, pretending to be friendly, asks what lines Anchee will read for the Supervisor’s audition, before volunteering her own answer, which turns out to be false. Becoming bolder as she recognizes her own character and identity, Anchee criticizes Cheering Spear for her performance as a friend, fearlessly recognizing that Cheering Spear has always acted and performed. Later, when Cheering Spear sabotages her audition for the part of Red Azalea, Anchee realizes, “I recited the lines thinking how I could convince people that I was not imitating Cheering Spear” (228-29). While she fails to win the part with this botched performance, Anchee also demonstrates her own transformed character, for she can no longer imitate, act, or perform a part that does not represent her authentic self. (By contrast, school-aged Anchee could easily take the Party’s script and perform it to the applause of a revolutionary audience.)
The Supervisor, though he finds her compelling, cannot forget this truth. He tells Anchee, “You can’t trace your ambition and you are tortured by it. You want to be somebody, you want to be history. You deserve to be capped as a bourgeois individualist” (247). Although he sees her failing as an actor and a revolutionary, he can also envision her in the role of Red Azalea, confirming that he, just like Anchee, combats contradictory desires. After Cheering Spear’s performance becomes a casualty of shifting politics and Mao’s weakening grip on power, Anchee gets the part. True to her character and consistent with the Supervisor’s analysis, Anchee fails. Although he tells her “to forget your family name. You are Red Azalea now,” (280) the one line that makes Red Azalea politically palatable is the very line that Anchee cannot recite. As she herself admits, “I was still not able to say ‘Chairman Mao’ right” (284). As she falters in her performance on the stage, so too does Jiang Ching falter on the world stage. Weakened by her aging husband, her political ambitions end upon his death.
As news of Mao’s death spreads, the Supervisor and Jiang Ching both find themselves in danger. Like Mao, Jiang Ching has maintained her power through gossip, performance, and accusations. As Anchee shows, these weapons turn on her mercilessly as the “gossip grew fat, greasy, like a dish of pork neck” (296). Jiang Ching, accused falsely of Mao’s murder and many other unscrupulous acts, faces arrest and condemnation by “Hua Guofeng, a man appointed by Mao” (302-03). The revolution’s appetite becomes insatiable, however, as Anchee reports that Guofeng himself soon loses power, with different slogans and posters replacing his. Thus, The Pervasive Reach of Mao’s Propaganda continues even after his death, with new rulers replacing his face and name as they try their hand at harnessing the cult of personality for their own interests. However, the Cultural Revolution itself comes to an end, and Anchee escapes, cutting all her personal and familial ties and answering a friend’s invitation to come to America.
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