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{{Short description|Autobiography by Sirin Phathanothai}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox novel
| image             = TheDragon'sPearls.jpg
| isbn              = 0-671-79546-5
| pub_date          = July 1, 1994
| publisher         = [[Simon & Schuster]]
| author            = Sirin Phathanothai and James Peck
}}
'''''The Dragon's Pearl: Growing Up Among Mao's Reclusive Circle''''' is a 1994 autobiography by [[Sirin Phathanothai]] with James Peck.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1994-05-15 |title=The Dragon's Pearl |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sirin-phathanothai/the-dragons-pearl/ |access-date=2024-10-18 |website=[[Kirkus Reviews]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1994-07-04 |title=The Dragon's Pearl by Sirin Phathanothai, Sirin |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780671795467 |access-date=2024-10-19 |website=[[Publishers Weekly]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=July 1994 |title=The Dragon's Pearl |url=https://www.booklistonline.com/The-Dragon-s-Pearl-Sirin-Phathanothai/pid=242351 |access-date=2024-10-18 |website=[[Booklist]]}}</ref> It tells of Phathanothai's experiences growing up in the 1950s and 1960s among the leaders of [[China]].
The book tells the story of how in 1956, when [[Bangkok]]-[[Beijing]] relations were tense at the height of the [[Cold War]], [[Thailand]] was trying to survive the power struggle between [[China]] and the [[United States]] in [[Asia]]. The new [[Politics of Thailand|Thai]] government desperately needed American money for its unstable economy, yet it could not ignore the threat posed by China, which had just demonstrated its strength in the Korean Peninsula. While the Thai government openly welcomed Americans and denounced China, the prime minister of Thailand secretly sent the two children of his principal adviser, [[Sang Phathanothai]], to China as a goodwill offering and to be brought up there by Premier [[Zhou Enlai]]; thus replaying the act of making human pledge practiced in China throughout history.
The children became the wards of Premier Zhou Enlai. Sirin was 8 years old; her brother 12.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Pye |first=Lucian W. |date=24 December 1994 |title=HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1994/12/25/hostages-to-fortune/0cfc3538-ec19-4b9b-8fb8-fc2c1b9f0e18/ |access-date=2024-02-08 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref> The book relates how she was caught up in the [[Cultural Revolution]] in the mid-1960s. Accused of the crime of having been reared in a bourgeois [[Thai people|Thai]] family and by the capitalist sympathizer Zhou, she was forced to denounce her family in public. Then, in an unforeseen turn of events, Sirin becomes a [[Communist Party of China|Communist Party]] heroine by saving two children in a fire -but she was required to announce that her deed was inspired by the teachings of Chairman [[Mao Zedong]]. Sirin's memoir provides a valuable eyewitness account of the Cultural Revolution.
==TV productions==
The book was translated to several languages. A joint Thai-Chinese production made a TV mini-series adaptation that aired in Thai, Chinese and Japanese television. It was broadcast in Thailand in 1998 under the name of ''Mook Mangkorn''.
== References ==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dragon's Pearl}}
[[Category:Novels set during the Cold War]]
[[Category:Political autobiographies]]
[[Category:Fiction set in 1956]]
[[Category:1994 novels]]
[[Category:Books about the Cultural Revolution]]