Gang of One

Gang of One: Memoirs of a Red Guard by Fan Shen, Bison Books, 2006. 

Cultural Revolution

At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was a Red Guard who destroyed traditional Chinese culture and looted. Later he was sent down to Shaanbei to perform manual labor with the peasants. For awhile he was a “barefoot doctor”, healing injured and sick people with minimal equipment or supplies. For awhile he worked at the Three Red Flag Reservoir, then the East Wind Aircraft Factory. He attended Lanzhou University, then was sent to a small town where everyone had bad teeth due to industrial pollution of the water supply. He managed to escape China by means of bribing officials and faking illness. He was a very clever fellow.