Master Ballet Dance In Mao's Last Dancer

Does anyone know Li Cunxin or his extraordinary life? He is a Chinese-Australian former ballet dancer and stockbroker, and he also was one of the world's finest ballet dancer. Mao’s Last Dancer" is a heartwarming autobiography, which reflects on the past of Li Cunxin, the author, who went from living a life of extreme poverty to becoming an international dance performer. For master ballet dancer Li Cunxin the measure of his success, that Li recounts his determination, perseverance, vision, courage and hard work, Li recounts his determination, perseverance, vision, courage and hard work, and in particular, the sacred family values and integrity that he learned in poverty-stricken China, which has driven him to become one of the best dancers in the world.
Li Cunxin was born in 1961, as a poor boy living under Mao’s communist regime in the Qingdao province in China, the chances of becoming a world acclaimed ballet dancer were a million to one. the peasants in his village even ate tree barks to
survive. Despite the harsh reality of life, his childhood was full of love. The love of his parents gave him hope and courage. he was selected by Madame Mao's Beijing Dance Academy to become a classical ballet dancer at the age of 11.
Li’s education was barely fundamental. Much of his early schooling was dedicated to mouthing paeans to Chairman Mao, and knowledge of a world outside of China was limited to the information that the United States was an evil generator of poverty, corruption and crime.

At the age of eleven, he was selected by Madame Mao's cultural advisors to attend the Beijing Dance Academy, where students endured 16-hour days of training, which he attended for seven years.
Desperately lonely for his family, Li was initially unhappy with his education at the academy. The training in classical ballet, movement style of the Chinese opera, and acrobatics presented a daily task of dealing with the contradictions that each posed to the others. The instructors were stern and cruel, manipulating the students’ bodies mercilessly to achieve correct positions.

As a boy, Li was inspired by the fable his family and teachers told.
in particular, were very influential on his life's path - the story of the frog in the well and the story of the guard who becomes an archer. Told to him by his father, the "Frog in the Well" alludes to a world enormous and unseen by a frog on land who is describing the realities to a frog who is confined to the bottom of a well. The frog in the well jumped and hopped and "spent his whole life trying to escape from the cold, dark well," but the "big world above remained only a dream." Li Cunxin, too, dreamed of a world where he would not feel like a "bird in a cage" or a "frog in a well." He kept his dreams alive through a story told by his ballet teacher of a guard in an emperor's palace who becomes the best archer in the land because he can see what is beyond seeing. The archer story inspires him to work hard and persevere with a steadfast spirit and determination to become the best dancer he can
be.