In the West, there is one iconic image that encapsulates the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square: a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks. Equally arresting, but less well known, was the vandalism of a portrait of Chairman Mao that graced the square. During the protests, paint-filled eggs  were thrown at Mao’s image. What made the act more spectacular was that the perpetrators, all in their twenties, were neither students nor from Beijing. They were ordinary workers who had travelled more than 1,500 kilometres from Hunan province to support the pro-democracy students. With the People’s Liberation Army on the outskirts of the city, the students themselves delivered the egg-throwers to the police.  

This dramatic story is the basis of Denise Chong’s marvellous new book. Of the three vandals who were eventually jailed, Chong focuses on Lu Decheng, an ordinary mechanic for the local bus company in Liuyang. Raised by a bully of a father and a doting grandmother, Lu grew up uneasy with the authoritarianism that was everywhere around him, an unease that helped precipitate his act of vandalism.

Chong is a masterful storyteller. By alternating between the aftermath of Lu’s “counter-revolutionary” act and his life before the incident, she infuses the narrative with suspense, and even manages to introduce a surprisingly bittersweet love story. 

It helps that Chong is writing about an extraordinary man. She is able to interweave stories from Chinese history and literature into the narrative without ever appearing pedantic, because Lu himself is interested in these things. She also reveals both the unexpected freedoms and the cold brutality of everyday life under the rule of the Communist Party and its civilian collaborators. 

More importantly, Chong emphasizes the fact that Lu was never completely abandoned, even during his incarceration in a labour prison.  Egg on Mao is a lovely and fascinating look at not only China, but also the power of friendship and human decency.