“
Outside the bubble of my subjective bliss, China was changing. Liu Shaoqi, China’s president, had been jailed. At the university, whole departments were being shuttered. Professors and public intellectuals were replaced by those who could reeducate students. At first it was the history and literature and philosophy departments—their teachers torn down, denounced, humiliated. It seemed impossible that the revolution could come to us. We were scientists, and science was necessary. And me? I wasn’t careful until it was too late.
”
”