'The Book War': Moth storyteller Wang Ping shares China cultural revolution experiences

When Wang Ping was a child in China, Mao Zedong launched the cultural revolution, shuttering all the schools and punishing intellectual pursuits.

“Books were banned and I really, really wanted to read. All the way from third grade to high school, I taught myself because school was closed,” Wang said in an interview from Minnesota, where she is professor of English emerita at Macalester College.

After hearing Wang’s “The Book War” on “The Moth Storytelling Hour,” Cape Symphony asked her to share the story as part of its finale show, “Storytellers – the Voices of Women.”

Wang will be accompanied by the Cape Symphony, performing an original score by Chinese-American composer Laura Fan.

The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 14, at the Barnstable Performing Arts Center, 744 West Main St., Hyannis. To purchase tickets at $30 to $71 (half-price for students), visit capesymphony.org, call the box office at 508-362-1111, email tickets@capesymphony.org, or visit the box office at 2235 Iyannough Road in West Barnstable from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

“We did a lot of farming, working in the factory, military training," Wang said, recalling her past. "There was not much. But I gave myself a pretty good education.”

The books she remembers include fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson, American literature including “Huckleberry Finn,” “Tom Sawyer” and “the Jack London one." (“Call of the Wild”) There was also hand-copied poetry from Shakespeare and traditional books including a primer on Chinese herbs.

“We didn't have a choice. We read what we could get.”

Beatings occurred when Wang was caught with books, she says.

Wang said she remembered being beaten "all the time" when caught with books. The beatings came not from cultural revolutionists, but from her family who feared the reprisals that could destroy the entire family if Wang were caught.

After Mao died in 1976 and his revolution with him, Wang immigrated to the United States, earned her doctorate and began teaching. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship who is recognized primarily as a poet, Wang, before she retired, was also known for incorporating the rarely taught literature of dissidents and outcasts, including Chinese and Native American women.

“I taught Walt Whitman and Alan Ginsberg and Gary Schneider – authors I thought were kind of rebels, who were changing cultures,” she said. “I like to teach people how to think outside the box. I think it’s part of being a wild child reading banned books and being beaten for reading these books … I designed a class called ‘Politics for Rebels, Misfits and Paradigm Shifters.’”

Wang said she is excited to work with Cape Symphony and visit Cape Cod with its ever-present ocean.

“I grew up on an island in the East China Sea, off the shore of Shanghai,” she said. “I am an ocean girl.”

Another twist: Reading in secrecy as a child, “Tales of the Arabian Nights” with Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor, was Wang’s favorite.

Cape Symphony will perform Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” with Jung-Ho Pak conducting. The Cape Symphony commissioned Iranian composer Niloufar Shiri to create a new and updated “Scheherazade” story from a woman's point of view. Her piece, entitled "Within My Soul: Scheherazade Reimagined," connects Scheherazade with the stories of contemporary women. With the orchestra, Niloufar will perform the music’s world premiere on the kamāncheh, a traditional Iranian string instrument.

“I was inspired by the legendary character of Scheherazade, whose story has become a symbol of the power of storytelling and the ability to change even the cruelest of hearts,” wrote Pak, Cape Symphony's artistic director and conductor. “I wanted to give a voice to contemporary female storytellers, so we’ve collaborated with some amazing women to create this imaginative show.”

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Moth storyteller, Cape Symphony take on tales of women in Hyannis show