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Happy New Year 2010!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010, 8:59 PM
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Hello Ladies,

Here's a blog for you to revisit some of the websites or video clips that I've used in class. For this week, the book Mao's Last Dancer was introduced. Here's what it looks like


Here's a quick synopsis (blurb [sic]) to the book:
It is the true story of Li, who was born in rural China in the 1950s. His boyhood is spent in an environment totally foreign to most of us in Australia, with ongoing hunger and poverty for the family of seven boys, and unremitting drudgery for their parents. Despite this, the boys are provided with a loving and nurturing family environment, and a strong sense of community.
Li is selected almost at random from his school at age 11 to attend Madam Mao’s dance school in the large city, where he is to be trained in classical ballet. He has never seen a dancer before, or indeed a city. The rigours of the Chinese method and the teachers are severe, and Li hates his new school for two years, as he struggles with his home-sickness. He comes to realise at quite a young age, though, that dance is his ticket out of the poverty cycle, and a way of making his parents and country proud of him.
The story of his teens continues with hard work to the exclusion of all else in his desire to become the best dancer his country has produced. Winning competitions, and being invited to the USA prove to be a starting point for an international career. He is forced to seek political asylum in America in order to remain in a country which allows him to dance in the way he wishes, and it is many years before he sees his beloved parents again.
A happy marriage to an Australian dancer, the birth of two children, and adjustment to a life outside of dancing in his mid 30s complete his fortunate life.

Taken from: http://www.glenrowangazette.org.au/dbookreviews.html#mao
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