I just went down this fascinating rabbit hole about Joan Hinton. She is a very interesting figure and I’m surprised that not many people know her outside of China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Hinton

Look at her achievements. She had to be insanely smart to study under Fermi and get selected into the Manhattan Program, doing all that as a woman in the 1930s. Oh, and on top of that, she also won a berth on the U.S national Ski team…

When the US dropped the atomic bombs in Japan, she was absolutely disgusted by what she had done. After she learned about communism, she went to China with her fiance at the age of 27 and ultimately becomes a dairy farmer. There was a interview of her taken in the 2000s. She still lived in the same frugal lifestyle as 40 years ago, tending the cows in the farm. Forget the grillpill, long live cowpill! She also strictly abided by Mao, even doing self crit sessions. The interviewer fixed her broken violin and handed it to her. Guess what she played? The East is Red. She remained a commited communist until the very end of her life.

All of this is cool and all, but her family is where the wacky part begins. She had two sons and a daughter. The eldest son is very active publically and is currently a economics professor at a Chinese university. His lectures on the cultural revolution are actually really good. There was an article on this weird definitely-cia news website about him and his younger brother that talked about their relationship. It seems like the younger brother hated the older brother for scolding him for not following the party line. After Tiananmen the younger brother became a lib while the older brother remained a communist. Here’s some really funny quotes:

Fred moved back to China in 2007, but the two brothers check in regularly via Skype, and they argue about the U.S. and China. Fred remains skeptical of the American system of democracy.

“So what if you can speak up in the U.S.? If they speak up (to) imperialist power, then (it’s) still imperialism,” Fred said. “My brother probably doesn’t see that. I don’t know. That’s why we need to talk more.”

Bill also wants to chat more.

“The more I talk, the more I think, the more I believe in myself, and the more I dare to challenge the past and challenge him,” Bill said.

The best part is both of them speak with a pretty heavy chinese accent, it’s pretty rare for white people to do that.

Finally, the one that was hardest find was her daughter. There are actually two articles by her archived on marxists.org, both on the tiananmen square incident and written with questionable grammar. Surprisingly interesting first hand account that is also initially very positive about china.

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/lrs-square-1.htm

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/lrs-square-5.htm

And then, I stumbled upon her twitter account somehow. It was an absolute dumpster fire, a mix of american liberalism, spirituality shit, and chinese boomer liberalism. The pinnacle of her twitter was retweeting video of a us veteran supporting andrew yang during the primaries.

I mean, of course it was expected that someone’s brain would be turned into mush after experiencing the cultural revolution, tiananmen square, all while being white in China. That is a completely unique experience that no one else on earth has lived through. Still, seeing the daughter of a great communist warrior descend to such levels is quite absurd. I wonder what the conversations between mother and daughter would be like.