Will the Sun Rise Tomorrow?

"Will the Sun Rise Tomorrow?" is a memoir of Heidi Fang's childhood in China - a childhood that felt every bit normal to her as a child. She was born in Beijing in 1965, the year before the Cultural Revolution. She spent her early childhood with her doting grandmother in the countryside in Jiangsu province. In spite of material deprivation, her early childhood was filled with freedom, joy and a care-free spirit. By the time she reached school age, Heidi Fang returned to Beijing to live with her parents. Her education in the elementary school was mostly on the teachings of Mao Zedong, leader of China at the time. Little attention was given to academic studies since she was expected to be "sent down" to remote countryside for manual labor after high school, as all city youths were during the Cultural Revolution. Heidi Fang's life drastically changed following the end of the Cultural Revolution. All of a sudden what she needed to prepare for was college instead of manual labor. Her middle and high school years were under an intense pressure to study and to excel in the all-important College Entrance Exam. Even with an unthinkable mistake in the omnipotent exam, Heidi Fang was admitted to one of the top colleges in China. The book contains the author's personal experiences, and stories of her family which were told to her while she was growing up. The events in the book are portrayed entirely from the view of Heidi Fang as a child and teenager, without judgment or hindsight. The title of the book came from her belief as a child that the sun would not rise without Chairman Mao, who was always compared to the sun in all forms of propaganda.