Publisher Description

This powerful memoir is the compelling true story of Peter Tang, a Chinese labor camp survivor who was brutally imprisoned for 15 years. From the age of 26 to 41, Tang suffered in a labor camp and experienced denunciation, terror, and physical labor so intense that many of his fellow inmates sought escape through suicide. These were clearly places where life was worse than death.
The scale, number, and duration of the Chinese labor camps place them firmly among the greatest humanitarian atrocities of the twentieth century, along with those of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. And they are the only camps that have continued into the twenty-first century.
A graduate of the Shanghai Jiaotong University, young Peter Tang was nevertheless assigned to work in an army unit. When he tried to transfer to a suitable job or resign, he was refused. He was also denied permission to marry his girlfriend who had relatives overseas. Tang learned too late that he had unwittingly been branded a malcontent in the eyes of his army leaders, and had become an easy target to purge.
After a former classmate tried to flee to Hong Kong, Tang was locked up, interrogated, and accused of being a member of a counterrevolutionary clique despite having no knowledge of or involvement in his classmate's escape attempt. He was assigned to two years of so-called "re-education through labor" as punishment. He never dreamed those two years would turn into fifteen long years of suffering. This is his memoir of that grueling labor camp experience.

Author Biography

Peter Tang was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province of China. After graduating with honors from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1960, he was assigned to work in an army unit training the soldiers. Attempts to transfer to a job better suited to his professional training were not allowed and his refusal to break up with his politically undesirable girlfriend made him a target during the purge. This made it easy to name Tang as an alleged co-conspirator when an old classmate was arrested while attempting to flee to Hong Kong. Tang was then sent to a labor camp for re-education, where he suffered starvation, hard labor, fear, and mental oppression for 15 years. After the death of Mao Zedong, Tang was finally freed and began working as chief engineer for Bohai Petroleum. Even so, due to the rigorous political situation in China, he continued to suffer from the shock and fear from his time in the labor camp. After many setbacks, he finally succeeded in immigrating to the United States as a graduate student and was able to build a new and happy life. This is his memoir, the true account of the twists and turns Peter Tang experienced from enduring the hellish ordeal of captivity to now living the best life the free world has to offer. He has known terror and depression and seen the ugliness of human nature. But he has also found joy, confidence, and the goodness of fellow man. His life has been a microcosm of two vastly different worlds.

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