Childhood
Zhang was born in the city of Guangzhou to English-translator parents who were forced, by the Chinese Cultural Revolution government, to move to the edge of Jishou, a village in the Hunan Province, soon after Zhang’s birth. In the countryside Zhang was exposed to and learned the language of ethnic minority groups like the Miao and the Tujia, and demonstrated her ability to adapt to situations where she was an “outsider.” Zhang remembers her childhood as “very peaceful and colorful,” and notes that this is where she established the foundation for her aesthetic preferences.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“I long for scenes where man has never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator God And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.”
—John Clare (1793–1864)
“But childhood prolonged, cannot remain a fairyland. It becomes a hell.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)
“Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky?
Was there a father?
Or have the planets cut holes in their nets
and let our childhood out,
or are we the dolls themselves,
born but never fed?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)