Power of Dictionary: Broke Red Guard's Forbidden Seal at age of 7

It was during the summer time as I just finished up the second grade in Shanghai. China was in the middle of culture revolution. With nothing much to do, I spent most of the times watching many people in the neighborhood being pulled to the street and got public humiliation. They were called anti-revolutionary or capitalists. The red guards asked their children and/or grandchildren to break up relationship with them.

Since my grandfather was the owner five business enterprises in Shanghai, my grandparents were considered as one of the 5 black kinds - capitalist. I was thinking my grandmother was the nicest person in the world. I would never break relationship with her. Every day, I said to myself if anyone came to my house and pulled my grandmother to the street; I would do anything to protect my grandmother. Yes, I was prepared to fight with those red guards if they ever come would to my house. Luckily, the red guards never came to my house to pull my grandparents to the street. Although they had been in my house to search for anti-revolutionary evidence and took away valuable things once.

Then I began to wonder why they were doing this to my neighbors. During the school year, we were mainly taught Chairman Mao's little red book and big red book. They were really meaningless to me. I, like most other students, usually forgot about Mao's book completely once the test was over.

My father's bookshelf had over 100 books. The red guards made the forbidden note to seal the doors meaning we were not allowed to open the doors and read those forbidden books inside.

One day, I was looking at my father's bookshelf. With nobody around, I opened the seal and took out one book. I closed the door and put back the seal. Secretly, I started to read the first book. Then the second, and so on. I became more and more interested in reading those books. Every time when I could not understand any words or terms I checked the dictionary. From then on, I secretly read those forbidden books everyday until high school. Sometimes, I had to write down sentences and spent few days to figure out the meaning as many of those books were high-school or college level reading.

How powerful it was to be able to use the dictionary. It was from then, I got trained to become an independent self-learner. The dictionary helped me to find the joy and hope in my life during those difficult times. I was probably around the age of 7. At age 7, I broke Red Guard's forbidden seal to discover the meaning of life.

Note: It was actually very dangerous to break the forbidden seal at the time. If the red guard found out what I did, my grandparents' life would have been in danger.