China's Lost Generation

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, about 12 million youths were sent down to the countryside.

Now, at middle age, some of them wistfully reminisce about "the solidarity and innocence of their younger days."

One of them was Guo Hairong, who noted that "the nostalgia has nothing to do with the monstrosities of that decade."

Quoted in Linda Jakobson's book A Million Truths, A Decade in China, Guo added: "Many of the so-called lost generation feel as I do. It makes us cringe to see the extent to which materialism is revered today. Sacrificing oneself for the good of a noble cause is an unknown phenomenon among the youth of the 1990s. Simplicity and purity are alien values. It's very sad."

Sad it may be. But contrast that to Guo's own generation who faced the East every morning and recited Mao Zedong's sayings. Who studied Marx or Engels and discussed Mao Zedong thought. Who "did not fantasize about romance" or knew anything about sex. Who believed "in the revolution with all our hearts" and "were overjoyed that we were allowed to be a part of it."

Not to mention the final realization of this lost generation "that our entire lives were based on a huge lie" and that "everything that we had believed in was an illusion."