usband attempted to adapt to each change in the government, whether it be the Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957 or the land reform of 1950-52. As Cheng notes regarding her observations of Communist China at the time:
It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment and no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. . . the government's policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to extremes. . . Beijing would take corrective measures. Then these corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected" (13).
By 1966, Shell had closed, most of the workers been found jobs elsewhere and Cheng was retired and living in her spacious home with her only daughter, a student and actress, and their three servants (4, 6).
While Cheng had several bank accounts outside of China, she lived mainly on what she made in China and conducted her life in what she deemed to be a modest manner. She had done what she could to remain outside of any political movements. Therefore, when she was called upon to attend a struggle meeting in July 1966 (where a fellow citizen is bombarded with criticism and told to confess his or her crimes against the
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