482: Xi Van Fleet— Don't Be a Shiny Little Screw

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe · May 5, 2026 · 1h 49m

Mike sits down with author and Cultural Revolution survivor Xi Van Fleet for a conversation that's equal parts personal history and cautionary tale.

Xi recounts her childhood under Mao Zedong's China, where conformity wasn't encouraged—it was enforced. As a schoolgirl, she watched teachers publicly humiliated, neighbors turn on each other, and young people mobilized as ideological foot soldiers. Education gave way to indoctrination, and individuality was crushed in favor of collective obedience—the kind that produces "shiny little screws."

Drawing from her first book, Mao's America, Xi lays…