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Chapter 19: Good-bye, China
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mao’s Last Dancer, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Opportunity, Hard Work, and Success
Love and Family
The Power of Stories
Freedom vs. Repression
Summary
Analysis
When Cunxin’s plane finally takes off, the exhaustion of the past few months—and the past few days, during which he felt constantly afraid that the authorities would change their minds again—catch up to him. He’s terrified of never being able to return to China, but he’s just as terrified of never tasting the artistic and personal freedoms of America again. He knows that his second trip will be different, now that he understands the full ramifications of his communist upbringing and sees how deeply the Party’s propaganda manipulated him throughout his life.
Cunxin was naïve when he embarked on his first trip to America. Now he thinks he understands the ramifications of his decision to skirt Minister Wang’s approval (though whether he truly does understand remains to be seen). In any case, while his first trip to the U.S. felt like a nice reward for his hard work, this trip is a flight for his life. Now that he sees the limitations communist China places on him and his dancing, his artistic survival depends on escaping his Chinese cage.
Themes
Cunxin dances two small solos in the Houston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. He makes new friends in the company including Lori Langlinais. And he prepares for his first Christmas. Someone gives him a book explaining Santa Claus, which he classifies as American propaganda. Ben takes him shopping. Cunxin feels queasy when he realizes that Ben spends almost as much on gifts for one year’s Christmas as Dia will earn in his whole lifetime. Likewise, Cunxin enjoys the lavish Christmas feast Ben prepares, but he can’t stop thinking of his family back home, eating dried yams. Two weeks later, Ben takes Cunxin and some of the other dancers to a beach home on the Gulf of Mexico to celebrate the New Year. Again, it’s a wonderful party and Cunxin enjoys himself, but only to a point. He can’t stop worrying about his family back home in China.
Cunxin fled to America because of the freedoms Americans enjoy—politically, personally, and artistically. And while he vastly prefers the American way of life to the Chinese way of life at this point, he recognizes that America and capitalism aren’t without their flaws. It’s likely that Ben spends money on gifts out of generosity and love. But Cunxin’s childhood showed him (and, by extension, readers) that it’s possible to communicate love and caring without spending a lot of money. And when Cunxin calculates how many years the money Ben spend on his presents would sustain poor Chinese family, he conveys his discomfort with readers—perhaps even making them share that discomfort.
Themes
During Cunxin’s second summer at the Houston Ballet Academy, he gets the chance to reunite with Zhang Weiqiang and two other students from the Beijing Dance Academy, who are there on scholarship for the summer. He also meets Elizabeth Mackey, a ballerina around his age from Florida on whom he quickly develops a crush. When one of the Houston Ballet’s principal dancers injures his back, Cunxin gets a momentous career break, with Ben inviting him to fill in for the injured dancer and dance in an exhibition at the Houston Opera House. Cunxin swallows his nerves and makes a great success of the debut. The next day, Ben reads him the reviews in the papers, which declare him the American ballet world’s new star.
Although the arrival of the Chinese students over the summer reminds Cunxin of his ties at home, it becomes ever clearer that if he is to become a truly successful dancer, his future lies in the United States. And as always, thanks to his hard work and determination to perfect his technique, Cunxin can take advantage of yet another golden opportunity when it falls into his lap. His life has repeatedly demonstrated that a person needs hard work and opportunity to be successful.
Themes
Soon afterward, Cunxin discovers Elizabeth alone in one of the academy’s small studios one day. They talk for a few minutes, understanding each other despite Cunxin’s broken English. Emboldened, Cunxin asks Elizabeth to go to Chinatown with him to watch the new Bruce Lee movie. To his surprise, she agrees. The date is successful enough that she agrees to go to dinner with him afterward, and soon they’re in a romantic relationship. They must keep it secret, though, for Cunxin fears that he will be sent home if anyone at the Chinese consulate learns he’s in a relationship with an American. But he does confess his secret to Lori, who has quickly become like an older sister to him. She and her husband Delworth immediately spring into action and introduce Cunxin to Charles Foster, an American immigration lawyer, who offers to help Cunxin find a way to stay in America.
Cunxin has his dancing and (for the moment) his freedom, but he still lacks one important thing: love. As he did in Beijing, he begins to assemble an adoptive family in America. Their support helps him to thrive. Love was all he had to count on when he was a child, and his parents’ relationship set a powerful example of the ways that having someone to rely on can help see a person through hard times. It’s unsurprising then, especially now that he’s free to pursue the desires of his own heart, that he falls in love with Elizabeth.
Themes
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