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Chapter 21: Elizabeth
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
Cunxin, Elizabeth, Lori, and Charles Foster enter the Chinese consulate. Consulate employees take them to a meeting room where Ben and the Houston Ballet’s lawyer sit making tense small talk with Consul Zhang. Then, slowly but surely, the officials eliminate Cunxin’s friends from the room, starting with Charles Foster, who goes off to discuss the situation with the Houston Ballet’s lawyer. Soon, Consul Zhang orders the last few people out so he can talk with Cunxin privately. Elizabeth refuses to go, but guards separate her from Cunxin and drag him to a small room on the top floor.
Throughout his life, Cunxin has relied on the bonds of love and affection he shares with his family—both biological and adopted—to give him strength and to help him overcome obstacles. When the consulate officials separate him from his support network, they seem to do so on the assumption that this will render Cunxin pliable to their demands. But they don’t understand the strength of Cunxin’s bonds. Seeing the world only through the Party’s priorities, they underestimate the power of love.
Themes
Downstairs, the atmosphere shifts. The formerly conciliatory and friendly consulate employees become bossy and strident. Upstairs, Cunxin tries to calm down, but he can’t hold on to a single comforting thread. He feels certain that any minute, the guards will force him at gunpoint onto a plane bound for China where Party officials will send him to a lonely prison as punishment for his disloyalty. Eventually, Consul Zhang comes into the room. He reminds Cunxin that he is a Chinese citizen, that the Chinese government doesn’t recognize Cunxin’s marriage, and that the Communist Party, not Cunxin, has the right to determine Cunxin’s fate. He says that Cunxin’s American friends have abandoned him. Cunxin knows his friends would not abandon him; if they’re gone, they were forcibly kicked out. He distrusts Consul Zhang’s promises that he can still return to China as a respected hero.
Consul Zhang deprives Cunxin of his American family—his “big brother” and “big sister” Lori and Delworth, his father-figure and mentor Ben, his friend Charles Foster, and his new wife, Elizabeth. Then, in their tense conversation, he tries to assert that Cunxin belongs to the Party—in effect, that the Party is his only family and source of security in the world. Cunxin knows this isn’t true—although the Party and the dance academy gave him crucial opportunities, he also realizes that he can take care of—and take credit for—himself.
Themes
Over the next several hours, a rotating cast of consul employees visit Cunxin, trying in various ways to convince him to return to China willingly. The only argument that affects him concerns his family; he knows he won’t be able to forgive himself if the Chinese government decides to punish them for his choice. But, for the most part, the longer these interviews go on, the calmer Cunxin becomes. Every attempt to remind him of the Party’s power or its magnanimous treatment just reminds him of how limited and controlled his life in China was. Occasionally, he touches the scar on his arm, which reminds him of his niang’s love and his own resilience. He knows he has nothing to be ashamed of; he married Elizabeth for love, not convenience. Still he feels sorrow about disappointing or causing harm to his family and teachers.
Confined in the consulate, Cunxin cannot know if he will be forced back into the cage of China or not. But his actions and thought suggest that he will not go willingly. Crucially, the only argument that affects him even slightly concerns how his actions may harm the people he loves—his family at home, or Ben here in the United States. Cunxin remains aware of how much he owes to the love of the people in his life. The Party claims to love him, but, having experienced real love from his family, he understands how shallow these claims are.
Themes
Downstairs, the Chinese officials resume a pleasant attitude toward Charles Foster and the rest of Cunxin’s friends, but only for a time. But when it becomes clear that neither Ben nor the others will leave before Cunxin’s release, the atmosphere becomes cold and threatening again. But by this time, rumors of Cunxin’s detention have spread throughout the Houston ballet community, and a small group of people, including newspaper reporters, have gathered outside the consulate. The Chinese officials insist that Charles dismiss the press members, despite his insistence that it doesn’t work that way in America.
The very fact that there is a Chinese consulate in Houston reminds readers about the growing cooperation and diplomatic exchange between China and the United States after Chairman Mao’s death. But the officials’ ongoing misunderstanding of how much power people like Ben and Charles have suggests that there is still a large cultural gap. The Chinese officials come from a place where their Party positions allow them to control the actions of almost anyone. In contrast, while Ben, Charles, and the ballet community rally to Cunxin’s aid, they all do so of their own free will and won’t let any threats dissuade them.
Themes
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At one o’clock in the morning, consulate officials bring an exhausted and hungry Cunxin some food. Then, to his surprise, they cease their interrogation and allow him a little restless sleep. At two o’clock in the morning, Charles begs the newspaper reporters one final time to keep the story off the front page, afraid that this will inflame the situation further. They pointedly refuse. He begins making calls to federal judges the U.S. State Department, which has clear regulations about preventing the forcible repatriation of foreign nationals to communist countries.
The Chinese officials thought that Charles had total control over the press; in fact, he has no control whatsoever. In a society which values individual freedom as one of the highest social virtues, the reporters are allowed to make their own choices, just like Cunxin was able to make his decision to defect. This makes life much more complex than it was in China. But, as Cunxin’s actions show, he would prefer the occasional confusion and pain of freedom to the gilded cage of conformity.
Themes
By the time Charles leaves the consulate in the morning, newspaper headlines announce that the Chinese Consulate is holding eight Americans hostage. Charles calls the office of Vice President George Bush to inform him of the situation. Bush calls his Washington contacts, and by midafternoon, President Ronald Regan is following the story. Meanwhile, Charles serves consulate officials two orders demanding Cunxin’s release and preventing his forcible removal. FBI agents surround the building to enforce compliance. Finally, late in the afternoon, Consul Zhang asks to speak with Charles one last time. Charles warns him that the longer he keeps Cunxin, the worse the situation will become.
Cunxin exercised freedom when he circumvented Minister Wang’s refusal to allow him to return to America, when he married Elizabeth, and when he asserted his choice to stay in America. He’s done as much work as he can do on his own. But as with other moments in his life, his hard work must meet with opportune circumstances to bear fruit. Luckily, he has friends (and friends of friends) in high places. And soon, the entire country (so it seems) is on his side. The concern George and Barbara Bush show with his wellbeing contrasts sharply with Minister Wang’s refusal to speak to him in China.
Themes
A little after 5:00 p.m., Consul Zhang returns to Cunxin’s room. He gives Cunxin one last chance to change his mind, and Cunxin refuses. Consul Zhang tells Cunxin how sad he is that China has lost Cunxin to America. He worries that Cunxin will regret his choice later. Then he warns Cunxin that what happens to his family back home will depend directly on what Cunxin says or does in his new life in America. Cunxin feels a rush of relief as he understands that he’s about to be freed. Then he feels compassion for Consul Zhang, recognizing that this man has little more freedom than he does, and less chance of escaping China himself. With a look of quiet empathy, Consul Zhang leads Cunxin downstairs, where Elizabeth and Charles wait.
Although the Chinese officials eventually concede and release Cunxin to stay in America, they still exercise control over him by leveraging the wellbeing of his family and of his friends in Beijing. It’s not quite the same as the coercion and control he’d face if he returned himself, but it does suggest that, despite the material improvements in living standards under Deng Xiaoping, China still has a long way to go to become a free country that creates the circumstances its citizens need to flourish. Cunxin reflects on this fact when he considers how little freedom even the more privileged and powerful members of Chinese society truly have. They, too, are tools for the Party to use to meet its own objectives.
Themes
