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Chapter 23: My New Life
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 continues to apply himself wholeheartedly to his dance career, in part because of the discipline the Beijing Dance Academy instilled in him, but also to avoid feelings of loneliness, sadness, and doubt. Although the ghosts of his past—his parents and brothers, his childhood and dance academy friends, his teachers—haunt him, he tries to embrace American culture. He starts dating again. One woman takes him to a wedding where people offer him cocaine and marijuana. He refuses the cocaine but accepts the marijuana. Hung over, he barely makes it through rehearsals and performances the next day. Afterward, he avoids drugs. But, like a bird freed from its cage, he tastes everything else his new life has to offer, including John Wayne films, evenings with Ben’s famous friends, and disco dancing. And he comes to see the Houston Ballet as his lifeline—his replacement home, and his new family.
The love and support of Cunxin’s family made up, to a certain degree, for the poverty and want of his childhood. In contrast, the experiences and material goods that Cunxin can afford in America—both because of his improved standard of living and because of the freedom he has to experiment and discover what he likes (or doesn’t)—cannot fill the hole left by his family. He builds an adoptive family yet again, just as he did after he arrived in Beijing, and this helps somewhat. But, just as in Beijing, it doesn’t replace his nuclear family entirely. Cunxin remains torn between his knowledge that China is a trap for a free spirit like him and his burning loneliness and desire to reconnect with his family.
Themes
When Cunxin learns that China is competing in the American International Ballet Competition, he asks for permission to represent his homeland. Ben, thinking this will be good exposure for the Houston Ballet, agrees. But the Chinese delegation rejects Cunxin as a defector. They will not allow him to represent China, nor will they allow his former teachers or classmates to communicate with him. The competition’s organizing committee puts him on the American team instead. Stressed and saddened, he struggles to concentrate and performs poorly in the early rounds. Eventually, however, rediscovers his resolve and starts to do better. Even after he falls under suspicion for helping one of the Chinese dancers to defect, Cunxin finishes the competition in second place. Zhang Weiqiang takes third, and Cunxin feels proud that he and his former countryman did so well. He dedicates his silver medal to Teacher Xiao.
Although Cunxin knew that his defection would have consequences, he still seems surprised at the Chinese contingent’s rejection of him. Yet, a multitude of experiences have already shown him that the Party’s support for him and his needs remains contingent on how well he serves their aims. Even as the country embraces communication and exchange with the outside, the Party’s fundamental nature remains unchanged. It still demands absolute loyalty to and obedience—the very repression Cunxin wished to escape. In contrast, Cunxin does have loyalty, just to people and not to the Party. He acknowledges what he owes to Teacher Xiao and the dance academy. And he feels proud of Zhang’s success, too.
Themes
Back in Houston, Cunxin uses the money he won in the competition to put a down payment on his first house. It needs many repairs, but he doesn’t care; he’s achieved the capitalist dream of becoming a landowner, and it was far easier than he expected. He gets his driver’s license and buys a used car. Ben starts joking that former communists make the best capitalists.
The Party worried about the ways that capitalist influences would “ruin” Cunxin, but in reality, his character doesn’t change on his journey from peasant to landowner. He still works hard, and he doesn’t abuse the labor or the rights of others. Yet again, the Party’s fears seem to have been more about exerting control than actual concern for the needs of the underclasses.
Themes
In the middle of 1983, during another European tour with the Houston Ballet, Cunxin watches an Australian-born ballerina named Mary McKendry dance with the London Festival Ballet. He wants Ben to invite her to join the Houston Ballet, but Ben doubts she’d leave London for Texas. Mary comes to watch the Houston Ballet’s rehearsals one day, but she ignores Cunxin’s attempts to introduce himself. Later that year, Cunxin meets a retired dancer named Margot Fonteyn who spent several years of her childhood living in Shanghai. Over dinner, she and Cunxin exchange tales of China. Their conversation reminds him yet again of how much he misses his family. Despite his successful career, being without his family makes him feel like he’s drowning in an ocean of sadness.
1983 contains two turning points in Cunxin’s life. First, he encounters Mary McKendry for a second time. He feels an inexplicable attraction to her dancing, and the fact that their paths keep crossing suggest that she will play an important role in his life, although readers—like Cunxin—will have to wait to discover what that is. Second, the conversation with Margot Fonteyn crystalizes and confirms what Cunxin has gradually been realizing over the months since his defection: his family could make up for poverty, but his American wealth cannot replace his family. And because he has previously shown a knack for overcoming the obstacles in his way, naming his unhappiness is the first step toward remedying it.
Themes
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The next year, when the Houston Ballet performs in Washington, D.C., Cunxin and Ben visit Barbara Bush at the White House, where Cunxin explains that he has been ostracized by China since his defection. Two days later, Barbara, her husband Vice President George Bush, and the current Chinese cultural attaché watch Cunxin dance in Swan Lake. Afterwards, the attaché invites Cunxin for tea the following day. When Cunxin and Ben arrive at the Chinese embassy, he greets them warmly, congratulating Cunxin on his successful career and the glory he’s brought to Chinese ballet. Then, he explains that the Vice President asked him to help reunite Cunxin with his parents. He will try to obtain permission for them to visit America. Cunxin doubts he will succeed. But a few months later, he receives a letter saying that the Chinese government has granted permission for Niang and Dia to visit.
The Chinese cultural attaché responds to two things: Cunxin’s connection to powerful Americans like the Bushes and his personal excellence. The book thus suggests that both luck and Cunxin’s own hard work combine here to secure the attaché’s aid. Once again, his hard work alone isn’t enough to change his life, but it does position him to take advantage of an opportunity when it appears. And the fact that people as powerful as the Vice President of the United States care about reuniting Cunxin with his parents points toward an almost universal respect for the value of family.
Themes
