He believes wholeheartedly in Red Azalea even though he knows it is wrong and it will harm him in the end. He believes in Madame Mao, he believes in the power of her story, and so, even though he wants desperately to tell the truth, he will never have the chance. For Madame Mao, the film becomes her undoing. She has taken too much power and used it at the expense of others. She begins to come under suspicion and so does her work, and that is why she becomes so critical of the film and of the cast. The story is actually her story, filled with her own fears and her own uncertainties that she felt, and the power that she has gained as she takes over the cultural ideals of the country. She is mad, therefore she can never be the "perfect" Communist woman, and that is why the film is flawed. She is flawed, and so is her life story. For China, the story means great change. Mao will die, and Jiang Ching will fall out of favor. The story will become her undoing, and the Supervisor's undoing, too.

The Supervisor tells Min that he truly loves Red Azalea because he thinks Red Azalea (or Jiang Ching) is really a part of himself, and a part of all of China. To kill the story and the film is to kill a part of himself. He wants Min to hold on to her feelings about the film because he wants her to remember him and hold on to her feelings for him, too. The irony of this entire image is that the Red Azalea is a beautiful and delicate flower, which represents the best of China and what China has to offer, while Madame Mao could be the very...

Flowers have to wither and die, and so does Madame Mao's popularity after Mao's death. As the Supervisor tells Min, "That's Chinese history. The fall of a kingdom in always the fault of the concubine" (Min 248). Madame Mao becomes the enemy after her husband dies, and like the flower her story is named after, her popularity and her importance wither and die.
The image of the flower and the book itself are propaganda in that they show the worst side of the Communist Party in China. They show the cruelty of the people who will turn on one of their leaders at a moment's notice, and they show the frail hold the Community Party has on reality. The Party will do anything to preserve itself, and that is the ultimate goal of the Party - survival. This book promotes its' message even while it shows the terrible conditions that still plague China and the Chinese people. It shows that even in America, some of the Party's teachings linger in Min's mind. She knows that what they taught was propaganda, and she fought it in her mind, but writing about it and showing how they manipulated and abused the people, and gives their message a new audience in the people that read this book.

In conclusion, Red Azalea in the story is a metaphor for Madame Mao, but it is also really a metaphor for the Chinese people. Their flower will always wither and die until the find their own freedom and happiness.

References

Min, Anchee. Red Azalea; Life and Love in China. New York: Pantheon, 1994.