In The Cowshed, Ji Xianlin talks in great detail about his experiences with what he calls “Struggle Sessions.” These sessions refer to moments when Xianlin would be taken by Red Army Members to be beaten and publicly humiliated in front of his colleagues and students. Xianlin defines this period of his life as The Great Struggle and he refers to this period of his life as one of the hardest and darkest times. He talks in depth about the moments in which he was forced into hard labor, harassed by his former students, and beaten because of a loosely tied together story of his dissenting opinions about the cultural revolution. During these events Xianlin says that he contemplated suicide many times, but he was ultimate dissuaded because of he feared for his families well being. While he was being subjected to these struggle sessions he was allowed to keep his position as a teacher which Xianlin states contributed to more of his public harassment as he was forced to continue working in order to keep supporting his family. While these struggle sessions were physically and emotionally devastating for Xianlin, he also remarks that over time the monotonous harassment became more and more bearable due to the fact that he had to endure it every single day. “With the practical experience I had accumulated, I could have earned a certificate in surviving struggle sessions” (Xianlin, 70). While these times were hard for Xianlin, in hindsight he is able to take something positive from his struggle. Xianlin’s sentiment towards becoming stronger through struggle mirrors Dreher’s thoughts on perseverance in Live not By Lies. In chapter ten, called “The Gift of Suffering”, Dreher talks about a friend’s experience with suffering through persecution during the communist era. Dreher talks about how in the present, people want to avoid suffering at all costs. Dreher’s friend thinks that this is not the correct mentality that one should talk to suffering, and should instead accept that struggle and suffering is a normal part of life. “She worries her friends don’t grasp that suffering is a normal part of life -even part of a good life, in that suffering teaches us how to be patient, kind, and loving” (Dreher, 97). When reading this passage, I wondered if Xianlin’s sentiments about struggle are similar to Dreher’s sentiment. Xianlin for example remembers the time of The Great Struggle as some of the worst parts of his life, but he does remark on the strengthening factor which hardship is able to foster. It is for this reason that I also think that Xianlin would take issue with Dreher’s stance on suffering because suffering has the ability to both break someone down and build someone up to a certain extent. The suffering that Dreher talks about is also trivial compared to the hardships which Xianlin faced during the cultural revolution in China.
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