[1] Ah Cheng's father, Zhong Dianfei, was in charge of the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Bureau.
Ah Cheng had to sell his father's books to support the family, and read these Chinese and western classics before doing so.
During the Cultural Revolution, Ah Cheng was also sent to the countryside, working in Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan, where he became a popular storyteller.
Together with He Dong, Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Qu Leilei and Ai Weiwei, Ah Cheng founded the Stars Group (XingXing), an assembly of untrained, experimental artists who challenged the strict tenets of Chinese politics.
It was praised in Wen yi bao, the journal of the China Writers Association, that October, and won an award in December.