My father never received any education. In China he belonged to the “poor peasants” class, so during the Cultural Revolution he wasn’t one of those persecuted—he was one of those who joined the mobs to persecute others. He told me he once had a dog as a child, and later, with his own hands, he beat it to death with a stick. He said, “The dog was mine, if I want to kill it, I kill it.” He followed every single order and decree from the Party and the government, yet it brought him no improvemen...