Wild Ginger-by Nick Parnell

Well, I'm over half down with the book and have really enjoyed the storyline despite its literal simplicity. One thing that I think is strange is the hypocrisy in the characters Maple and Wild Ginger, who at first despised the Maoist, Red Guard, Communist culture yet changed over to its practices after taking much punishment. Wild Ginger really strived to become one of the uniform culture despite her hate of them due to her foreign origin. She won the Maoist quote contest even though she was not credited with the win. Evergreen is disheartened by the robbery of Wild Ginger's victory even though he was given the title and decides to take action by defending Maple and Wild Ginger from Hot Peppers brothers, Little, Middle, and Big Dragon. This is really the turning point in the novel, where the main characters seem to have an advantage and a chance at victory. I think this really relates to the Great Leap era in China, where the povert people saw a future where jobs were promised and their lives would be restored. When Wild Ginger and Maple stop the market manager from robbing the market worker woman Jung and other, only Wild Ginger gets all the credit because she related her actions to Mao's teachings while Maple did not make any connection. Thus Wild Ginger finally received her wish at becoming a Maoist like everyone else. Maple is left behind, which is against the Mao teaching saying, "remember and respect your comrade." The real connection to the Maoist era is that although the ideals sound great on paper, a minority is discriminated due to the Communist society, however those such people can rise to the top or even be able to visit Mao himself, such as Wild Ginger did.