embargo on supplying weapons to the syrian opposition. we see the possibility of increased imperialists war in the wider area. we need to stop the freeze of violence and repression of the demonstrators. we need to release anyone who has been arrested and people who are responsible for the violence need to be brought to justice. ..

>> i do think what we're doing does protect american civil liberties and privacy. the issue is to date we have not been able to explain it because it's classified. so that issue something that we are wrestling with, how do we explain this and still keep this nation secure? that's the issue we have in front of us. and so you know that this was something that was debated vigorously in congress, both the house and the senate, within the administration, and now with the court. so when you look at this, this is not us doing something under the covers. this is what we are doing on behalf of all of us for the good of this country. now what we need to do i think is to bring as many facts as we can out to the american people. so i agree with you but i just want to make that clear because from the perspective is that we are trying to hide something because we did something wrong.

we are not. >> this weekend on c-span, the senate appropriations committee looks at u.s. intelligence agencies secret data collection programs. today at 10 a.m. eastern. also on c-span2's booktv, coverage from the publishing industry's annual trade show. book expo america today at 1:30 p.m. and on american history tv, lectures in history from the end of slavery to separate but equal sunday at one. >> and now on booktv, anchee min talks about the follow-up to her best-selling memoir, "red azalea." in her new book, "the cooked seed," she discusses what her life has been like since moving to the united states from china in 1984. this 45 minute program is from the recent "chicago tribune" printer's row lit fest. >> thank you for this great turnout. i'm real excited to be here

today with anchee min. i read her first book "red azalea" back in 1995 i think, shortly after came out and i assume that some of you have read it. it was the first of some of her memoir about growing up during the cultural revolution in china. and it took her up until approximately the time that she landed, can you not jimmy? and somebody regulate this microphone for us, please ask how about this, can you hear me now? actual. at her second book, the book will focus on today, "the cooked seed" which is just comes out and it starts when she lands at o'hare in 1984, is that right? before us are asking questions, just in case you think that success has changed anchee min, i would like to point out she is traveling with a backpack.

[laughter] she's just lugging everything that she has around and after when we met down in the green room earlier today, is that everything you have, and she said yes. she said we learned growing up in china to pack quickly and to pack everything that we have. >> because we were told that americans were indeed non, they're going to take over china, and they china, we must learn to defend ourselves. anytime -- >> so some things never change, however americanized you may be. anchee, i would like to have you start by just telling us anyway that your book starts about your arrival in chicago. who were you? what was that like to land in this cold, strange place? >> my life ended in china. it's a long story. to make it short, i was in the labor camp.

it's nothing unusual. if you know anything about chinese history, modern history, cultural revolution and mao used the red guard to help them get rid of his political rivals. once it's done the use was getting unsettled in city and mao need to get rid of them. so he said the university, the best one is in the countryside. so half of china was sent there, order there, and i was one thing. and after a few years in a labor camp and getting disillusioned, and my labor camp in east china sea, and 10 labor camps there, about 100,000 youth, age from 17-25. and that makes the book "red azalea" how we were basic one

slogan, called -- that's how we are kept in a locked. and to speed up the "red azalea" now comes to this point, late 1975, early 1976, we did not know mao was dying and madame mao was going to be the next ruler of china. and she needs to make sort of like a campy movie to pave the way. and she needs face, her idea woman to be on the screen, and she looked everywhere. and i was picked from the cotton fields, and shipped with tractor and trucks back to film studio to be screen tested. i personally have no say in it. it all because i was like everybody else in china, -- is

just because i had the correct, the right face that madame mao needed. disappointed, isn't it? [laughter] >> and you don't like hearing the term that you were recruited to do these films. >> correct speed what is your objection to the word recruited? in your book, right? >> i had no talent and i found, after landing, i saw all these beautiful women of my own age, and some of them know how to act and they were eliminated because they, somebody who knows acting have some cultural background in the family. so that's considered politically not reliable. and madame mao was looking for a piece of white paper. so i was taught how to perform. >> can you give us a little rendition? >> well for example, teach me

how to drink water correctly. common way to drink water. i was given a top and so you start drinking water. ready, set, action. i would start to drink. attracted to stop. your little pinky -- the correct way to drink water is grab, gobble down with one breath and wipe my mouth with my sleaze. but anyway, i was picked and i just remember i couldn't perform. oh, all i could think was i didn't want to go back to live again because i had a back injury. i must succeed, and that kind of shows -- and then later on the footing was sent to madame mao and her office said that it was awful. we were called to beijing to watch madame mao's favorite

movie and to learn techniques and to not be poisoned by content. we have to have a study section and went through all that. and at the moment we saw all the two movies in her private film room, and we all got poisoned mentally. one was jane eyre. a tagging, because madame mao saw herself as jane eyre because mao was 20 years older and mr. rodgers just got a mad woman in the back, and mao, second wife was a mad woman. the second movie was founded music. [laughter] because madame mao has to take care of mao's kids. >> that's what's so amazing. >> later on my book, "becoming madame mao." she was evil, was responsible for murdering so many chinese

people, but in the meantime her fantasy. anyway, september 9, 1976, mao died. october 8 madame mao was overthrown and two months later i was announced. the next eight years i was punished, for guilty by association. and by the time i had no way out, i was, put it that way. if i remained in china i would be dead today. >> so at what point did you determine you wanted to come to the united states? and nation that you're grown up learning to hate and fear. >> i was coughing blood and i've got shadows on my lungs, shadows on my liver, and passed out and i was ordered to work in tibet. and i saw, like i was going, my life was ending. it was then my old friend, an

actress, she was in china, she was told not to be my friend. and then she went to america. we were best friends and she was going up a superstore in china, i was going down the switch. after she went to america the last emperor, movie, she felt safe to contact me. so she wrote a letter and alert her life in america and i was kind of surprised she was not the princess. she's in china but she said i work like every chinese student, and in america you have to work for your tuition. so a lightbulb went off and i said, could i be one of those students? and i don't speak english, but i would be willing to work hard. she applied everywhere in the

united states, help me, but nobody would accept me. and then she says, she says, -- thank you. can you, do you have any talent? and i said i grow up painting murals. so at the time, lucky enough that shanghai had exhibition called french impressionism and i went there and i thought if i couldn't copy michelangelo i can copy things and then go. [laughter] so i painted, come back and in it and my mother said that she saw best. with these paintings i applied to art school in chicago and they thought i had potential. and then -- >> and he basically lied about your english, write? or misrepresented. >> well, i couldn't fill out the application form. and first, my name, and i didn't have english name.

neighborhood, a wise man he said you should name yourself, give yourself american, angel. so i printed out angel, and many years later when my daughter was 11, i gave her the application form as a gift. don't ever forget what your mom come from, and i got a look at the name, anchee, mom, that's not angel, it's angled. [laughter] and the next line was sex. 1970 version there is no explaining on sex like to know how to fill out male or female. i did not which one to circle. and the rest is impossible to go inside to get into a friend who helped me fill out the form, and and by the line of english language skills there was an

option for, average, excellent. of course, excellent. [laughter] so with that i came to america and i got stopped right at the customs. >> at o'hare. >> no, at the transition in seattle for coming to o'hare. >> let's fast forward a little bit. so you get to chicago, you get to the school of the art institute. your english isn't good enough. you have to go take english classes but eventually you begin to establish yourself. tell us about your early life in chicago, where you live, what you have to struggle with. >> i lived everywhere. i lived in somewhere downtown -- first, when i was for deportation, and i broke down and told the translator that my feet are in america, and please, i beg you for chance. i will be dead in china. i didn't have the fortune to die

in china. so he went, the translator went back with the immigration officer and they discover my papers. there's a clause that says it upon the rival a student of english is not sufficient, i will be sent to university in illinois. for english intensive language for six months. and within six months i have to master english, and make it back to the art institute. if not, the school is responsible for my situation for immigration and then deportation. you learn chinese, master chinese in six months if you're in my shoes. [laughter] so anyway, i learned english by watching "sesame street" and by radio, public radio and newspaper, and it's just everything. i have to pretend all these

years that i was doing well, making america, i have to rescue my family in china. yesterday, i was passing chicago downtown post office but i remember my first photo i was taking and asked a strange, i said can you take a picture of me under the flag? he said why the fly? with a lot, beautiful buildings in chicago. why? i said under the american flag here spend your life in chicago and first got it was very difficult. you had a lot of difficult jobs that didn't pay very much spent i have a different mindset. i thought i was giving right to life. it's up to me. for the first time, and so i lived, and to answer your question, winter park and then logan square, urban park, and abdomen with a train because i did job as a delivery person in downtown, walk everywhere.

i walked down every chicago restaurant where my legs can carry me. outside of chinatown, 26. bridgeport. so my happiest place was 40 3/11 south. i had this little storage room, first time in my life i had my personal space. although the best thing was the ceiling, the wall was not close and the neighbor was a retarded man. if he had diarrhea in the middle of the night, i had no window. but i was happy. >> when you complained to the owner, he said that's why it's cheap. >> right. spent it's a storage space spent and, of course, i broke down. my health broke down. i passed out and which is

st. joseph hospital and doctor told me be have anybody to take you there? i said no. i can walk there, take the train. said no, you will collapse anytime. so he reported the hospital, rethink i had some sort of disease or something. so the moment he dropped me at the hospital, two tall men came and escort me in an isolation room. and they put me in the white -- [inaudible]. because i was coughing blood and everything. they found nothing was wrong. it was just depression. so they sent me to depression, to see a psychiatrist at the school of the art institute. and i thought i wouldn't go unless i see it as a good opportunity learn english. [laughter] and so it's a bit disappointed because she would not talk to me, she would not fix my english. [laughter] >> the chinese people at the point see psychiatrists?

was the idea of psychiatry new to you? >> right. i never heard of the. and i thought how can person be depressed when she's not feeling depressed? >> a lot of which were talking about our events but you're right about in this book to i would say two-thirds of the book are your life in chicago, before you gain all the success, before you move to california. when we were talking on the phone the other day, you talked about a difficult it was to write this second portion of your memoir, that you embark on it right after ready to when you were a hot commodity and it didn't work. talk about the difficulty of telling this part of your life story. >> well, after 20 years making it, living as an author and being on the best-selling list, and getting to sit right next to the j. k. rowling in british book awards, i as all the, i

think i start to realize the asset of my life, i can make it as a book, it's just how i approach it. by now i know the right way to write this book. the book ought to be written, but the point is do i have the courage. so my daughter said, mom, if you want to be anything, i want you to leave me your story but not the sugarcoated or airbrushed version. and that was the key. and i found, i read a lot of immigrant stories, told by second generation, about their mothers and i've found a lot of things mothers left out. i know exactly why. so these are the things that i wrote spent things mothers left out because they didn't want their children to know these things? >> the dark side. >> you toggle a bit about the

dark side that you had to plunge into in order to tell a true story? >> for example, the lack of money and the loneliness. lack of money that drove me to live in the cheapest place in chicago and put myself, subject myself to vulnerable situation where i was raped. and the other day i, i'm on a book to her and us in san diego and there's a chinese woman stood up and crying. she said, same thing happened to me, exactly. mirror image. i was raped and i did not report. and i felt the same thing, that people would not do in normal situations when they are in despair a question on his, this helpless, helplessness and hopelessness just drove people to madness.

and the rape and pregnancy and strangling, and it's the things happens. on the other hand, i have problem with my siblings and my family. why do you have to reveal that to the world? >> today safety after the book came out and they knew you had revealed it speak with a new, i am not going to sugarcoat. so i might say something that would have negative effect on my family. but i feel that i don't owe my life as american. i see that, i see. and i owe that to america and owes that to my daughter. if i -- >> to tell an honest story. >> right. i love america and chicago so much, and i think it's, that this is, it's the right thing to do. and also another thing was about, talk about my christmas

and thanksgiving. for three years i never, i didn't have the money. mostly was afraid that i might not get back if i ever visit my home. 's i was here alone by myself. i couldn't go to my friends and be with chinese community and i thought, but i will never learn english the way i do now. i must deny myself that part. so for my christmas, thanksgiving, i was alone. and on valentines night, my gift to myself was this pornography tape. [laughter] so i have this relationship with the tape for so many years. so that's part of -- it was bad i found interested. >> the same thing over and over, right? >> it's called sex education. [laughter] and eventually the store owner

says, he says, why do you buy it? because i want to sell it to for $25. you can have it. you're the only one renting it anyway. [laughter] so i got him down to $20, and i thought this will be my companion for the rest of my life. >> does english come to you naturally now, or is it still difficult? >> still difficult. my daughter come up to my cabin, and she says, you know teenagers, she would look at, and three weeks she come back and she says, on the same sentence lacks same page? i would rather go to medical school. >> so you're talking about, when you write, you write in chinese -- >> i compose in chinese on plots

and details everywhere, on my walls, notes, on the mirrors. my husband, everywhere. i just up in an ocean of notes. it's all in chinese. and when i write, execute, in english. >> one of the things you mentioned towards the end of the book is to be an immigrant is to leave the people you love behind. you left your family. your mother died. this happens late in your book but it's actually very emotional thing, that your mother dies and she's so far away. and what did that change for you, mentally? >> i think she became part of the driving force that i wrote this book. because i never realized that, that my relationship with my

daughter until my mother passed away, i feel all these 10 years, 20 years as immigrant, i couldn't, china is a far away. i was not able to attend her illness. and about later on when i became wealthy, enough to visit her and she was already in her alzheimer's, and they couldn't even get there when she was dying. so my father just called, i think every immigrant fear that midnight, early morning, 4:00 call. you know something is not right. and my father call me and say, your mother is in permanent sleep. and i said, god dammit, why can't you just say she is dead? and so everything in permanent sleep. i think it's just something click and came to me. so my relationship with my daughter, it's a difficult one because she, she, at the

beginning she would not understanding. she was born in chicago, and a child of immigrant, new immigrants. she had to help. and i wanted to take her to disneyland, her birthday, but i took her -- her gift was a lesson on how to use a power saw and a book called plumbing 123. [laughter] and that was her life and till she became a teenager, she broke down, rebuilt the she's a mom, i do want to talk about. i said okay, i will talk to you about, because i know make american dream was, by hard-working is better because my daughter often see the opposite. so she came to conclusion, mom, it's not the end of the world being poor, okay? and i just want, i see that

jamaican kids are having, they're having the american dream. and her kids are happy and they have their own rooms, the tv, the game, they're skating board, their stuffed animals. and i wanted what they have. i don't want to live this life that working with you, no weekends, no summer, just carrying concrete bags in and out, helping to hold the drywall and mixing cement while you do the tile and working sewage. when i come home, even a bottle of shampoo cannot get rid of the stink in my hair. and i, i don't think i'm asking too much. so she broke down crying, and that was my tough time, tough moment. moment. >> home depot figures fairly

regularly in your book. [laughter] >> we almost lived there spent and just learning to repair things, take care of things. just basic work is a real theme of this book, and the conflict that you're describing here between the rights that you lead, the skills that you were forced to learn, and the life of your daughter, allies of the far more privileged children of most americans now. that continues to be a conflict. some reviewer described as the original tiger mother. >> as my daughter, she will told you, my husband, he is a tiger dad. because i -- >> vietnam veteran? >> the outfit, u.s. marine. english teacher 30 years, and details my daughter, you tell your mother that she is immigrant conscious no idea what american school wants, and you can get away with it.

you try me. [laughter] don't worry about me going crazy because i'm already there. [laughter] >> that's, i think of that, he is tiger father. for me, i think, i'm thinking okay, home depot is, she just deprived. but in the meantime subconsciously i feel this is what she needs. this is the american, her friends, my daughters friends moms are calling dysfunctional. and i think of clinton dysfunctional. in a way i don't see anything wrong to prepare my oriented. see, i see her, if i'm ever tiger mother, i'm tiger mother on one point. i will not let you get away with feeling sorry for yourself. because you've got to help your money payback america. i would've been dead in china

and never get the opportunity. america give me the opportunity, i also give you. you will never be -- she's at stanford right now. she will never get that chance, being somebody, nobody's daughter. and you've got to payback and i think all these, i consider in helpful, like with her skills, building house and plumbing. she can go serve, serve where people need your. so that was i think, if this all of the imposing i said that -- i accept that, i admit it, yes. >> you mention on the phone the other day you go back to china regularly. and that you are worried that this generation of chinese kids is going in the direction of the privileged spoiled american. >> i went to china, and my

friends, their children's birthday and whatever celebration, the highest place is mcdonald's and kentucky fried chicken. that's where the celibate. they don't want to go to chinese restaurant. so the cheaper place, everything america. and now kids ask them for money to go to america. so right now china spends a fortune, family fortune to send their kids to america for school. it's number one choice for family is to invest in their children's education. >> there was report that came out just this week about the increasing distrust between americans and chinese. just in the past couple of years that on both sides of that divide, people are more mistrustful. do you perceive it, that americans are becoming more distrustful of chinese? the chinese are becoming more

distrustful of american? >> i'm not surprised. i look at my daughters textbooks. china was not taught, the china i know, in american textbooks. it's how crazy we are, chiming is our partner and our rival, and we made no point to teach our children about china. that doesn't make any sense to me. >> what do you think americans don't understand about china and the chinese, that it's really important that we do understand? >> if you see, i think americans see china to me, black and white. when china, 80% of china is gray. so that's where my book, that's why ago because i think a lot of, china wants to make america understand china. but in the meantime china as unwilling to reveal the dark

side. and chinese people, my family telling me to hide it. and the chinese people will not write the way i do, and i would not write what i do if i'm not americanized. and i do see that leaves mistrust. china presents itself with perfect image, the image looks so fake. as an american i know that really honesty, your flaws, it's not necessary. it's to your disadvantage. because americans understand that humans are flawed and that's the grace. you look at your scholar, gone with the wind, the hero, heroine. and i think that's part of the thing to chinese don't understand about america. and i think american also don't understand the chinese. it's by not being able to have access to chinese literature. chinese best-selling literature

never could make it to america mainstream. not a one. >> why not? >> because china is, the authors, i think the censorship, even in my memoir i think, how many times you see in memoir saw author project themselves as flawed as billion and greed? so part of my chicago story is to show that. >> so are you saying in chinese literature the protagonists would never be a flaw? >> is automatic. not, flaw is harmless way. because you don't examine yourself, dissect yourself, do autopsy on my state as honestly as america would be. for example, a lot of things i got scammed in chicago when i

was an immigrant. i was part of the fault. i was, because money, i need the money. so it's like fly would never park on a jet is not cracked instinct. >> there is for your whole life through all of your work a striving, a constant striving to somehow be more -- not exactly have more but to just be secure, striving towards a certain security. so now you live in beautiful northern california. you have a solid second marriage. your daughter is at stanford. and what do you strive for no? >> tried to give secure because i'm deeply insecure with my writings. because i feel kind of retarded.

lack of talent, and i think everything i do, you see that my talents is in the knowledge that i lack of talent. so i achieve because i know the bar is there, and how high a want to jump. i want to get over the bar. i know if i make effort i will be able to, but i'm not equipped. i'm not born with that talent. so i'm going back to chinese every day. i read chinese, a book a day, reading and chinese. in my best days writing english i actually feel like i was fighting chinese. because you see, in the commercial book market i want to entertain but also wanted to walk away with solid knowledge about china because i feel like china has been misrepresented, misread, and i think it's just ridiculous for americans to get the wrong message about and

think about china. and i know i'm giving liberty that you see in my stories. especially historical fiction. i'm entitled to do that. but do i want to throw one more, one more rock into the well where it's already at the bottom, to mislead american public further? i choose not to. if my book doesn't sell, if it doesn't be coming to you the satisfaction totally, and i think it's my choice. my book, i discover, for example, with madame mao. nobody wanted because the publisher for red azalea they did not think that the american reading public was embraced story. that madame mao was on trial, sentence to death after 38 years of marriage, and she was considered demon and mao was

considered george washington of china. and that the trial they convinced the video of the tv into like a few seconds where she was given basically a portrait of herself and she shouted in chinese, she said, -- [speaking chinese] i thought that's a perfect self-portrait. translation, i'm mao's dog. mao asked me to buy. that was exactly roll. because after mao become emperor, new emperor of china and she became the backyard concubine. she did everything to please the men. so that was her life. and i thought it was a beautiful story but, of course, in the end in the 1991, she hanged herself in the jail. using socks, she tied all the socks together. there's nothing to hide, and she

tied it by bedframe and kind of role herself over. what kind of determination to die, to honor? i wonder last minute, her thoughts, wasn't with mao or her own life, what was it? the book was written and nobody wanted. and then my current editor, and he has the guts to take it because at the time he hold influence making money he thought they could invest in the literal work. took a chance on me and then immediately it's a seller because, because the paper, this is chinese history. and also my other books, i'm with bloomsbury the publisher a part. i think if they took a chance on me because they had money with harry potter.

so my books are all -- [inaudible]. i really appreciate the american critics, the quality of the people they sent to me. my first experience, for example, "becoming madame mao" this journalism was sent to me and asked in the first question, open his mouth and he said, i would like to discuss with you on the topic for a writers panel, the three villages to instigate the cultural revolution. and i go, where did you go to school? he said columbia. i said what was your major? he said cultural revolution. i was in the right hand. >> we've got like four minutes here to take a couple of questions from the audience. we've got the microphones right there in the middle of the aisle.

>> the pleasure and honor to meet you. i'm a native of chicago. your story is very moving. my first view into china was a famous fictional account, the good earth about an american in china. she presents two views of china that she was amazed how exotic it is, but she characterized it, the protagonists, labor and harsh it was. did you ever read that and what was your reaction to it? >> i was brought to denounce pro-bought in 1972. it was right before nixon's visit because we were children. i remember i was welcoming nixon. i was given to red flowers and welcome president. and when nixon's car passes i was at the corner and i saw, for

sal came to my mind do i shoot in? [laughter] i said this man is -- because pearl buck, i didn't know she was scheduled to come with nixon but last minute she was refused a visa by madame mao to come to china. and before that, organized to denounce a. i said i never know this name, pearl buck. what did she wrote and stuff? she insulted the chinese peasants. so i was not able to get any book. just copies to i remember my denunciation of the author for insulting chinese peasants. it wasn't until the "red azalea" book tour action in chicago, on the airplane i first read pearl buck's the good earth. i broke down and sobbed on the airplane because i have never

seen any author, including my favorite chinese authors, portray the chinese peasants with such affection, and the accuracy but it's a life that i think she's the only one. i know she had a debate with a chinese professor in "new york times" after she got the nobel prize. and the debate was, he was saying why can't pearl buck portray chinese, the 5%, the best of chinese, why would she choose the ugly side? and pearl buck said i'm so glad you pointed out, i happened to be interested in the 95% of the chinese population. so i'm having the same thing. chinese people tell me that who are you? are you mao's daughter? you are not mao started to write anymore. you are so plain. you are so average. so i give them pearl buck's answer. i happened to be as average as

95% of the population. thank you. [applause] >> anand we are out of time. i really enjoyed this book but we are really out of time. >> i have a question. i mean, i'm chinese, and become your about 15 years, and just i was working for a newspaper before and then just two years ago i changed another job working for american companies. and just two days ago my an american coworker bought this book for me because he wants to try to encouraging me learn english. and i'm a really honored to be here. so my question is, my english is