One year ago Alice Rhett was doing what she did so often: Helping a friend by taking them to a medical appointment. She and her friend both died just north of Farmville when a vehicle traveling on the wrong side of the road hit them head on.

Alice was the most fit person I knew: physically, mentally, and spiritually. She could have easily lived to be 100. Last year, I shared some details of her amazing life story. I’ve since learned more, and it is such an inspiring tale that it bears repeating.

She was born as Rùnpíng Zheng in Shanghai in 1957. She would have been almost nine years old when the Mao’s devastating Cultural Revolution began to spread in China. Alice seldom spoke about her own life, but one day she told me of a vision of her grandmother “washing money to take to the dump” with a full moon shining through the kitchen window.

I’ve since learned that families with money could easily be accused of being “capitalist roaders” (those on the road to capitalism). Out of fear, they would destroy paper money in hopes of avoiding beatings, death or imprisonment. You can understand why such a life-changing “washing money” moment would be remembered by a young girl.

There was no due process for the accused. The so-called “justice” was administered by the Red Guard, which was mostly composed of middle schoolers, high schoolers, and some young adults in their twenties. The Red Guard not only targeted wealthy families or those who were not supremely loyal to Mao, but many teachers as well. In a lesson for our times, it was the educated elite that were identified as the enemy within.

In many cases, Red Guard members who did not like a particular teacher for any reason would make accusations, resulting in imprisonment or beatings administered by the kids at school. It was often a quest for revenge—a personal vendetta. The picture illustrates this well. Young people of the Red Guard are shown attacking an elderly provincial governor. In a society which had deeply respected the elderly, the world was turned on its head. People who spoke politely were considered weak compared to the loud, brash talkers.

Families often had some warning of trouble when “Big Character Posters” were anonymously displayed accusing certain people of disloyalty to the state. The accused lived in terror of loud knocking on the door in the middle of the night. A gang of Red Guard members would then burst in, interrogating the family, looking for suspicious possessions, including money which they would take.

Alice told me the Red Guard came to their house and took many things. Then they came back and took more. The third time the Red Guard moved into their home. But her family was lucky, she said, because they were not kicked out on the street, homeless and penniless, as many were. Instead, they were allowed to live on the third floor of their home with a few belongings while the Red Guard stayed below.

I can imagine much more happened. Members of her family could have been beaten. I do not know. I only know with certainty that she was a frightened child like so many others in her country.

That awful day when the Red Guard came for a third time led to a life-changing moment. Her grandfather took little Rùnpíng aside and said, “Everybody makes mistakes…Today, the government made a mistake.”

Read that again. “Everybody makes mistakes…Today, the government made a mistake.”

Alice told me what a difference that statement made in her life. Her grandfather could have been very angry and bitter. Wouldn’t most of us be that way if such a thing happened? But instead, Alice told me, it influenced her outlook for life. It made her more accepting, always focusing on hope and gratitude.

For many years, Alice’s mother and father were away. It was not uncommon for parents to work in distant locations, and often people were housed under supervision if they were suspected of being disloyal. The Communist Party advocated that parents should be more loyal to the state than their own children.

Alice needed the words of her grandfather to make it through the years ahead as she was immediately shunned at school, like all children of families identified as dissidents. She was a virtual outcast among her peers. She did not tell me much about this, but in other accounts written by survivors this included beatings and other typical bullying behavior.

During this turbulent time Alice was also virtually the mother for her little brother, Kelly, born as the Cultural Revolution began. She raised him and tutored him to prepare for school. She was such a great teacher that when Kelly began school he started at fourth grade level. Kelly points to Alice as the source of so much of his success in life.

A few years later, Alice suffered the same fate as other urban-educated youth—she was sent away from her family to work in a rural area. These teens were referred to as “sent-downs.” The official reason was for “re-education” by working in the country with peasant families, and since schools had been shut down it gave urban young people something to do. But there was no doubt this was also a form of punishment of the elite. Alice told me much of her extended family were doctors, lawyers, teachers or other professionals, but she was being sent to the country for manual labor.

In her book “A Sent-Down Girl from Shanghai,” author Anne Shen describes the scene at a railway station where 250 kids are being sent down, their mothers and other family members in tears. They were crammed into passenger cars and often stayed on the train for three days with only short stops for breaks.

Many were sent to farms, but it is important to understand that in a country as vast and isolated as China, it was like landing in an alien world. Some kids were sent to large-scale projects for digging reservoirs, canals, or creating embankments. Alice ended up on such a project with 20,000 workers digging in the dirt. The day began at 5am and the kids worked until sunset. Much of Alice’s work involved using a shovel, though at some sites no tools were available.

Roughly half of the sent-downs were girls. They might get to visit their families for a week or two every six months, but there were no guarantees. Some did not visit home at all. Most kids worked for 5–10 years, but some worked even longer. A lost generation.

Alice took a few things with her which were forbidden. Her mom was an English teacher, and Alice smuggled in a book named “900 Sentences” for learning English, along with a flashlight so she could secretly read at night. The problem was she was so tired after all-day manual labor that she would fall asleep reading. She then would kneel as she read to stay awake.

She also took a shortwave radio, which looked like a normal radio, but allowed her to learn even more English by illegally listening to the Voice of America and the BBC. Scrounging ways to get more batteries for the radio and flashlight was a challenge.

Eventually, the government realized that with all of the educated banished to the fields they would have no one left to teach others. Her mother called her to tell her of an opportunity to apply to go back to school. Alice told her mom that she wasn’t ready. She needed to study some more first. But her mom said to apply now because “the government might change its mind.”

Alice did as her mother said, though there were very few positions open at the university. Out of the 20,000 kids at the labor camp, Alice was one of only two accepted into college that first year. Because of this she “only” worked at the labor camp for three years.

She studied to become an English teacher. Years later, somehow, she was given a scholarship to an American school. She arrived in California with only $60. Because of her fluent English, she got a job as a tutor and nanny for the children of a Hollywood director. What she told me next illustrates how very isolated from the West people in China were.

Each time she would walk in the neighborhood of the family’s home, people kept stopping to ask her, “Is this Beverly Hills? Are we in Beverly Hills?” She told them yes but did not understand why so many people asked where they were. Finally, one day a Chinese American friend called her. He had seen the program Beverly Hills 90210 on TV. He called her to excitedly proclaim, “Alice, you are living somewhere famous!”

Alice earned her Master’s degree in Education at UCLA in 1988. She went on to earn a doctorate in Education in 1996. She married her husband, Dr. Leigh Rhett, in 1993, and worked as  Management Services Officer for Graduate School at the  Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

Whew! It is an amazing story of a journey an exile digging in the dirt to a PhD and working for a prestigious university. Yet Alice seldom talked about her own life.

In our area many knew her as someone who was always smiling, always helping others, and involved in many local activity groups. She later told me why she was so upbeat: “Having gone through a lot, I see no reason to complain about anything.”

These words will also stay with me for a long time: “Having gone through a lot, I see no reason to complain about anything.” What a goal to have in life.

In my class, Alice was always quiet, but I could see her eyes light up occasionally. The last time I remember this happening was when I shared an ancient Chinese saying I had just learned. It is about what happens if we only focus on perfecting the physical movements of the practice instead of the internal awareness: “You kept the beautiful box and returned the pearl.” Fascinated with the form, with the outward, material things, we don’t see the true value of the internal practice—the pearl within the box. I saw her eyes light up then at the wisdom of these words.

Only after her death did I learn her real name: Rùnpíng. The name can be broken down into two characters to understand its meaning. Rùn means to moisten or to enrich. It often conveys a sense of smoothness, prosperity, or nurturing. Píng means flat, level, or peaceful. It is commonly associated with peace, calmness, or stability.

When combined, the name Rùnpíng can be interpreted to mean smooth and peaceful or
enriched and level, suggesting a harmonious, prosperous, and stable life.

Our friend, despite so many challenging years, fully embodied the meaning of her beautiful name. We miss you, Rùnpíng, but know you are now a shining pearl in the sky.