the red lie: a story of family, betrayal, and my escape from china

Born into the Mao era, the author’s education in school and at home by her father, a devoted Communist propaganda officer, was a brainwashing process. She was just seven when her father described how the enemy Nationalists beheaded his parents with a straw cutter during the civil war. Before she was old enough to understand the concept of love, she learned who to love and who to hate, believing all enemies deserve to die.

When student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 demanded freedom and democracy, Foley risked prison passing them secret information about army troop deployment. This act ended her career as a university assistant professor and put her on a wanted list. She embarked on a smuggler-aided border crossing to Macau, and eventually arriving in Hong Kong, and from there, departed for a new life in the United States.

Returning to China after an eight-year exile, she discovered her father’s betrayal and lies. She eventually came to understand that his fear-driven loyalty to the Party arose from survival instincts. He chose to dance with the devil. Over time, he learned to dance with ease and grace, and in the end, such dancing became his life.

The Red Lie is an account of the struggle to free oneself from the binding tentacles of brainwashing. It is a tale of loyalty tested, humanity challenged, and lives ruined by lies. At its core, it is a woman’s struggle in a world so hardened by ignorance, hatred and fear that compassion and kindness are largely nonexistent. It shows one person’s quest for self-invention against the backdrop of late twentieth century politics--a tale still current given the East-West tensions of today.

Hua Foley was born in Beijing, China. During her first sixteen years she was a communist believer before discovering the truth of the outside world. In the Mao era, she listened to music played on a record player kept hidden under the floor, read banned books sneaked out from locked library rooms, and became resentful of the cruel world she lived in.

After receiving her Master’s degree in communications, she became a university lecturer and the first to introduce public relations into Chinese university classes. Later, she joined a public opinion research team that helped the premier carry out free-market reform.

Following the Tiananmen massacre, she was hunted by martial law soldiers for passing military deployment information to student protesters, forcing her to set out on a harrowing journey of escape to freedom.

She arrived in the United States in 1990, and received her second Master’s from Harvard University in 1994. She worked for multinational companies as a business consultant and communications specialist in Boston, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai.

Her short narrative nonfiction, A Crack in Everything, was published in Mount Hope magazine in February 2022.