Notes on Re-education Through Labor: Life in a Re-education Through Labor Camp, as Recorded by an Eyewitness (Book title inscribed by Zhang Yihe)

The multifaceted nature of humanity in extreme circumstances. Understated dark humor. Gritty details that challenge the senses and aesthetics. A grassroots testament to a vanished history. In the summer of 1996, the author Chen Ping was arrested by the public security organs for co-authoring an article on constitutional issues with his friend Fu Guoyong. Without a public trial or defense proceedings, he was sent to a detention center and then to a labor camp. *Random Notes from a Labor Camp* records precisely this experience. With vivid, detailed, yet calm brushstrokes, the author recounts the real life in the detention center and labor camp between 1996 and 1997: crowded cells, strict and absurd daily routines, the complex hierarchy among prisoners, and the various characters within the high walls. In this confined world, the relationship between institutions, power, and human nature is gradually revealed. The book contains no grand narratives but, through dozens of true stories, records snippets of life in the detention center and labor camp, such as "White Steamed Buns," "Whoever You Tell Me to Kill, I Kill," "The Troubles of Defecating," "Odor Control," "Femininity," and "Chronicles of the Underworld." Through concrete and vivid details, a society almost unknown to the outside world gradually emerges. The re-education through labor system, established in 1955, existed in China for nearly sixty years until it was officially abolished in 2013. *Random Notes from a Labor Camp* is not only a record of personal experience but also a firsthand historical testament to this system. History exists not only in archives but also in individual memories. The One Plus Personal Histories Series is dedicated to preserving individual memories and recording the experiences of an era. One Plus Books

2026-03-10

1 Plus Books

246

9781966814238