Inside-Out China

Hot Peppers for Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T21:33:00.002-05:00

Monday night Bob and I had dinner with Jonathan Tel, author of The Beijing of Possibilities, in a Chinese restaurant named Chili Garden (川王府). This is one of the few truly authentic sources of Sichuan cuisine in the Boston area. (Numerous Chinese restaurants here advertise themselves as Sichuan, but provide only dishes catered to American eaters who don't know what they are getting.) Another authentic Sichuan cuisine is Red Pepper (重庆食府) on Rt. 9, which we go to most frequently, because it has a great Chongqing chef and is closer to us. Chili Garden and Red Pepper have different specialties and varieties; the dishes in both restaurants are mouth-watering. Not surprisingly, many of their dishes are cooked with hot peppers as the dominant spice. Try them for Thanksgiving if you want to go for something non-traditional.

A Chengdu restaurant prepares hot peppers for lunch (photo by Xujun)

I had thought I was pretty knowledgeable about Sichuan's, especially Chongqing's, history. So much for my conceit. One thing Jonathan mentioned during dinner surprised me: he said all chili peppers came from South America, and the Chinese history of eating chili peppers is only about three to four hundred years old.

I was suspicious; in my mind we Sichuanese had been eating hot peppers since time immemorial. Digging further after returning home, however, I had to admit Jonathan was right. Apparently, chili peppers migrated into China at the end of the 16^th century, and the first written record of them was found in Ming Dynasty's '草花谱' ("grass and flower album"). They were called 番椒 ("fan jiao," meaning "foreign pepper") at the time. In Sichuan we call hot peppers 海椒 ("hai jiao"), which makes perfect sense to me now because 'hai' in this context means "overseas."

It seems only appropriate to have a post about food today. Tomorrow, for our vegetarian daughter's sake we are going to have a turkey-free Thanksgiving dinner. While Bob is going to cook all those traditional veggy dishes such as cranberries, sweet potatoes and beans, I will cook a Tofu dish spiced with chili pepper. Not your traditional Thanksgiving dish, but neither the turkey nor the chili pepper tradition has been going that long after all. The White House's hypocritical tradition of pardoning one turkey (and eating another) is even shorter. Anyhow, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

"The Beefiest" (最牛) and "It Sucks"

2009-11-19T21:25:00.012-05:00

Yesterday, Damjan of the Asia Healthcare Blog had an interesting comment on my post "The Beefiest Translation." He asked, "[H]ave you explored the possibility that this vulgar expression has been coopted into a more socially acceptable form due to its popularity with Chinese youth?"

The Beefiest Tug-of-War, with100,000 Participants
(最牛的拔河 from bbs.huanqiu.com)

It made me wonder. Are there similar examples in English, of expressions that were once considered vulgar but have come into mainstream use in the same or a slightly modified form and divorced from their past vulgarity? I asked Bob the question, which seemed to fascinate him. He was pretty sure that accepted vulgarisms existed in English, but couldn't come up an example right away.

Bob then asked a good friend whose college major was English. The friend passed the question to his librarian wife. The knowledgeable librarian mentioned the word "sucks", which used to be prohibited in polite company but is a common word today (as in "This book sucks").

The friend inspired me to dig around the internet a bit further and I found a Slate article titled "Suck It Up – A defense of the much-maligned word" by Seth Stevenson. It is so curious that all the reasons the author listed in defending the word "sucks" can be applied to the case of '最牛'. Stevenson's defense begins with the following:

Sucks is here to stay. And what's more, it deserves its place in our lexicon, for a couple of reasons. First, it's impossible to intelligently maintain that sucks is still offensive. The word is now completely divorced from any past reference it may have made to a certain sex act. When I tell you that the new M. Night Shyamalan movie sucks (and man, does it suck), my mind in no way conjures up an image of a film reel somehow fellating an unnamed beneficiary.

The similarity between the two cases in two different languages is striking. Even the way each expression's past reference to vulgarity is alike, as well as the ways in which their current usages are divorced from that past. The most notable disparity might be that "sucks" is used only with negative connotations, while '最牛' can be used either negatively or positively, with a slant toward the latter.

The librarian friend also mentioned a big change in young adult literature over the past five years: it has gone from being very straight laced to being much more explicit in language and in situations. This is equally interesting. Does this mean a cultural trend toward more tolerance for vulgarity, or more indulgence of our youngsters, than ever?

Whatever it means, how an expression becomes socially acceptable is independent of one's will. In the case of '最牛', because it has already been broadly used in China, I'm more interested in finding a better translation for it. So far, based on the discussion stemmed from my previous post, we have a few good candidates:

"the niuest" (h/t Matthew)

"the ballsy-est" (h/t Mouseneb and Anonymous)

"the beefiest"

But again, which translation will be most accepted is beyond our will. We can only propose and see. For now, I'll probably continue to use "the beefiest."

By the way, I asked my sister Maple, who lives in Shanghai, to help me find the origin of '牛逼' (niu bi), and she sent me this link http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/7421922.html. For those of you who know Chinese, have fun reading.

The "Beefiest" Translation

2009-11-15T21:38:00.020-05:00

The Chinese internet is a melting pot of popular creations, where new expressions (even new words/characters) constantly emerge like an endless stream. This presents a continuous challenge to a translator like me.

One popular adjective created and becoming fashionable in the new millennium is '最牛'. It is a mocking term that can mean, in humorless translation, "boldest" or "hottest" or "most awesome" or "formidable," depending on the object it modifies. The following image, borrowed from a Chinese blog called 西交虫, might help illustrate the meaning of '最牛':

最牛的司机 "The most [ ] driver"

I've left the English translation for '最牛' blank in the caption above, because none of the English adjectives I mentioned earlier can convey the mocking tone of this Chinese term. Furthermore, "awesome" is a commending word while '最牛' could be used with either positive or negative connotation. The other modifiers might be neutral enough, but they do not bring laughter.

When in doubt, I find that often the best solution to such a challenge is go for the literal, or verbatim (直译), as opposed to free translation by meaning (意译). In this case, because '牛' means "cow," and an associated adjective is "beefy," I'm inclined to translate '最牛' as "the beefiest." The (invisible) driver in the above image thus becomes "the beefiest driver."

The origin of '最牛' seems no longer traceable. In fact, I noticed on the Chinese internet that several such origin-seeking questions had met with mocking answers like "you've posed the beefiest question!". I remember one of the first times the term caught my eye was when bloggers named the Chongqing nail house "the beefiest nail house" and brought it to the attention of the public and the media (even NYT) in early 2007.

More recently, this seemly harmless mocking expression has been frequently applied to bad behaviors of government officials. For example, when a judge tried to force Zhang Hui, a victim of Shanghai hooks, to drop his lawsuit and Zhang did not agree, the judge angrily yelled at Zhang as if to a child, "Be obedient!" ("你要听话!") Immediately that judge surnamed Huang was termed "the beefiest judge" on the internet.

"The beefiest official line" occurred in Guangzhou two weeks ago on Oct. 30^th. In a public hearing on traffic jams, attended by several departments of the city government, a reporter asked whether the traffic police should first notify the public before closing a road. A middle-aged man replied, "Do I have to tell you whether I'm going to shit or not? Do I have to tell you whether my shit stinks or not?" These words quickly became a catch phrase on the internet, which in turn led to the man's public apology and job suspension.

The term has become so trendy that even main stream media can't afford to not use it. On Nov. 11^th, xinhuanet.com reported "The Beefiest Developer Sentenced to Death," about a Chongqing developer who tried to get rid of a nail house owned by an old couple, by hiring thugs to kill their only son.

"Beefiest" is only one of many new slang words coming into being with the internet. I don't view this as simple folk language evolution; rather internet slang symbolizes a new popular culture, providing for the first time a viable means for Chinese people to publicly make fun of officials. I would be curious to know how those officials who are named "the beefiest" something feel when they see their new title. Perhaps they will step a bit more gingerly next time.

The Legal Crime of Shanghai Hooks

2009-11-07T20:18:00.018-05:00

If you are searching the Chinese internet, a new high-frequency keyword is 钩子 – "hook." It was an innocent young man's blood that brought this word to the media's attention.

(image from xinhuanet.com)

In the evening of October 14^th, a tearful 18-year-old man named Sun Zhongjie (孙中界) chopped off his little finger with a kitchen knife, while grieving after being framed by a government "hook."

Sun Zhongjie was a new driver employed by a construction company in Shanghai, and October 14^th was his second day at work. That night, on a work-related trip, his car was stopped by a man standing in the middle of the street. The stranger, shivering in the cold weather, climbed into Sun's car uninvited and told Sun that he had something urgent to deal with but couldn't find a taxi or bus. Sun was sympathetic. Considering that the man's stated destination wasn't too far ahead along, he gave him the requested short ride of 1.5 kilometers. The man threw Sun a 10-yuan (=US$1.47) bill, which Sun hadn't asked for. But instead of getting off, the man grabbed Sun's car keys and stepped on the brake pedal. Dumbstruck, Sun's first thought was that he was being robbed.

Only it was not a robbery, but a government scheme, and the hitchhiker was a "hook." A hook's task is to entice a non-taxi driver to provide a ride, so that he'll be able to accuse the driver of operating a "black taxi" without a license. In each successful hook case, the hook gets paid several hundred Yuan, while the driver is fined 10,000 or more, by the local government's Traffic Management Bureau.

While Sun was struggling with the "hook," trying to grab back his car keys, the conspiring traffic police arrived. They dragged Sun out of his car and held him in their van for a couple of hours without showing any ID. Sun was released only after being forced to sign three receipts, which he did not even get to read. He learned that he had been accused of "black taxi" operation afterward, from several others who were also being "hooked" and brought to the police van.

The injustice and agony Sun felt was unbearable. Though newly employed and poor, his first concern wasn't the big fine or the seized car, but that he was unjustly wronged. He was innocent. He gave the stranger a ride for kindness, not money. Now his clean name was tainted by the hook. But where could he go to prove his innocence? When he was being held in the unknown van, he had shouted that he wanted to call the police, but his captors laughed and told him "We are."

After returning home, Sun picked up a kitchen knife (the big, heavy kind we Chinese use) and chopped off his left pinkie. The 18-year-old was in so much emotional distress that he did not even feel the pain. He then threw himself in bed and cried, while his severed finger bled unattended. If it were not for his older brother living upstairs, who heard the unusual sound and took him to the hospital immediately, Sun might have bled to death that night.

The next day, on October 15^th, young migrant worker Sun Zhongjie appealed to the media for help getting back his good name, and reporters interviewed him in the hospital where he went through an operation to reconnect the severed finger. (A question remains: had Sun not chopped off his finger, would the reporters pay as much attention to his case as they do now?)

Under public and media pressure, five days later, on October 20^th, the Traffic Management Bureau of Pudong New District issued an official report of their "investigation results," claming that everything the traffic police did in Sun's case was legal and Sun was truly an illegal taxi driver. The Bureau said their witness was not a hook but a "society member with a sense of righteousness."

The public was unsatisfied. Sun told a reporter that what the government bureau did was "having the father investigating the son," as the traffic police team belonged to the Traffic Management Bureau, and of course it wouldn't be truthful. Sun requested a face-to-face confrontation with the "witness," which did not happen. Even CCTV and People's Daily declared their suspicions with the "investigation."

The case caught the Shanghai City government's attention and a new investigation involving independent lawyers was ordered. The investigators discovered that the name of the "society member with a sense of righteousness" had appeared as a witness in other similar cases before. Eventually the man's identity as a paid "hook" was verified.

On October 26^th, twelve days after Sun Zhongjie was "hooked," the government of Pudong New District issued a public apology to Sun, returned his car, and revoked the fine. The government also announced the cessation of the "hooking" practice in crashing-down "black taxis."

This quick reversal brought out tears from Sun Zhongjie's eyes. He has since left Shanghai and returned to his home village in Zhejiang Province. Before his departure, he told the media that he probably would go out again as a migrant worker, but not likely to Shanghai. When asked if he'd pick up a stranger who needs help in the future, he evaded the question.

According to reports, 99% of the so-called "black taxi" drivers have been "hooked" before, and among the hook victims also are many innocent people. On September 8^th, Zhang Hui, a white collar driving his private car on the way to work at a high-paying foreign-invested company, "in a moment of soft heart" picked up a man who complained of a stomach ache and persistently begged for a ride. The man was a hook. Despite the fact that Zhang had refused the man's offer of taxi-price payment, Zhang was arrested and fined 10,000 Yuan on the grounds of illegal-taxi operation. Zhang has been blogging about the case and received broad support on the internet. Meanwhile, media coverage on his case was sparse, and the local government that wronged him kept ignoring his request for justice.

A month after he was framed and two days before Sun Zhongjie's encounter with a hook, on October 12^th, Zhang Hui brought his case to the court. Probably helped by Sun's case, on the same day Sun's name was cleared, Zhang's fine was also refunded. However, the next day a judge from the court that accepted Zhang's lawsuit came to his office and shouted at him, because Zhang did not accept the judge's request for withdrawal of the lawsuit. This story is still unfolding.

Hundreds more hook victims who received big fines are requesting their money back now.

In light of Chongqing's "crashing-down on organized crime" storm, Chinese netizens are inquiring whether the government scheme of hiring hooks, now termed as an "illegal form of law enforcement" by the media, should be considered organized crime.

Chang Ping, a well-known journalist and social commentator, says in a blog post titled "上海钩子" that not only should the hooks bear legal responsibility but they should also sue their government bosses who brought them into a criminal career.

(Update: I just saw that the quick and thorough ESWN has posted and translated a bunch of earlier Chinese reports on this case, providing good references.)

The Ancient Battlefield at Bowang Hill

2009-10-30T21:56:00.021-04:00

by Maple Xu

(Note: the following is my sister Maple's travelogue from her latest trip in early October. You can find her other fascinating travelogues in this category. - Xujun)

[in translation]

For this year's National Day vacation, our target was Nanyang City in Henan Province. There are many historical sites from the Three-Kingdom period (220-280) in this area, one of them the famous Bowang Hill (博望坡).

The three of us – my husband and I, plus our friend Shen – drove from Haikou to Henan. Shen is a Three Kingdoms fan. As we approached Bowang Hill, our usually taciturn friend became amazingly voluble, stories flowing out from his mouth like a running river.

It is said that, shortly after Liu Bei's three courteous visits to Zhuge Liang's thatch hut won the heart of the great war strategist, Cao Cao led an army of 100,000 to attack them. Liu Bei had only a few thousand troops, and he placed all his hope on Zhuge Liang's help. The two discussed strategies alone all day, leaving out Liu Bei's two blood brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. Guan and Zhang did not trust the new strategist and were upset by Liu Bei's intimacy with him. With such a big disparity in strength between the enemy's troops and theirs, they didn't believe there would be any way for Zhuge Liang to defeat Cao Cao. But they were, of course, wrong.

Shen explained to me that, at the time Bowang Hill was a rugged area full of bushes and old trees. Zhuge Liang lured Cao Cao's army up the hill, then started a fire all around them. Trapped, Cao's soldiers could neither advance nor retreat, and most were burned to death. Thus Zhuge Liang easily won the first battle after taking up his official post as Liu Bei's adviser.

My heart couldn't bear the burning scene and I said to Shen, This Mr. Zhuge was too insidious and cruel.

What do you know? Shen glared at me, That's called war strategy. Further more, Liu Bei was defending himself; it was Cao Cao, the invader, who was on the wrong side.

Even so, I said, Need he have burned so many men? That was hardly a green strategy either.

Shen was so angry he could only laugh. Lady, he said, That was a time of cold weapons, what else do you expect? Available strategies were nothing more than fire or water.

At the point we had reached Bowang Hill. We chose an ancient post road crossing the hill from north to south. The road was over five feet wide, and we had learned that it was on this section of the road Liu Bei's army had ambushed Cao Cao.

Unexpectedly, challenge began as soon as our car got on that road.

Bowang Hill (photo by Maple Xu)

It wasn't a surprise that the ancient path had been changed to a concrete road, however even Zhuge Liang couldn't have guessed that 1800 years later it would become the villagers' drying square. It was the season for harvesting corn and canola, and the peasants dried the stalks on the road in order to use them as fuel. Those stalks didn't just occupy part of the road; they were piled over the entire road like small mountains everywhere.

We had to look for the lowest "peaks" for our car to pass. The plant stalks screeched under the wheels and scratched the windows, and our car crawled slower than an ant.

Seeing the sun was about to set, I asked my husband to find a different path. He sneered, Obviously you don't know where you are! I looked around and realized that we, like Cao Cao's army, were trapped in a situation in which neither advance nor retreat was viable. There wasn't even a place to turn around.

The villagers not only were unapologetic for the trouble they created for traffic, they held their wooden harrows tight and angrily stared at the cars, as if to say, Did you city people eat so much that you have to come to our drying ground to burst?

My husband advised me to accept fate. Let's just crawl as we can. If you don't behave, that man standing over there might light up the stalks and replay the Bowang Hill burning scene.

Shen lost patience and started to yell. I consoled him that we should soon see a big ancient tree, the sole witness remaining from the Bowang fire battle. Who knows whether that tree is real or fabricated for tourists? He shouted.

I got out of the car to ask a few peasants about the tree. They looked totally lost, unaware what their place had to do with Zhuge Liang. An old man pushing a bike passed by and asked, Are you looking for the Three-Kingdom sites? There's nothing left except a dead old tree. It's still several kilometers away, not worth all your trouble.

— So the Bowang Hill's fire battle was real?
— What a question! Of course it was real. The old generation all know clearly about it. In the fields we often dig out dirt that was burned black. The young people don't know because they are only interested in making money today. Old stories are useless to them.
— Why don't you locals take pride in the history and preserve the old sites?
— What's there to be proud of? Zhuge Liang, he wasn't even a Bowang person. Spending money on a few broken old walls is not as useful as building a temple to burn incense, don't you think? All we peasants want is to farm well, and have a temple to pray for good weather. It's just a little inconvenience for you city people to come down and play during our busy season, right?
— Right.

Thus we never got to see the tree, or any relic from the Three Kingdoms time at Bowang Hill .

Fortune or Calamity? A Gift for Chongqing's Indicted Police Chief

2009-10-21T21:51:00.022-04:00

In recent weeks, the news that Chongqing has cracked down on a large organized crime network commanded attention not only from Chinese people but also major Western media. (Update: even CNN is belatedly reporting it now .) WSJ, for example, calls the crack-down "sensational." To be sure, there indeed are sensational details surfacing in the investigation, and one of them is the story of the "Oh Fortune Oh Calamity" stone monument.

In August, I wrote in this space a post titled Chongqing's Judicial Chief Shot off Horse, about the arrest of Wen Qiang, a long time police boss and newly appointed judicial chief. I just read another Chinese report about the investigation of Wen's crimes, with astonishing anecdotes that don't come up in the English reports, and I thought I should share one of those with you.

Among the huge amount of wealth Wen Qiang acquired for being the umbrella for gang crimes and local government corruption is a luxurious villa worth over 30 million Yuan (about US$ 4.4 million), located in the scenic area of Wulong. Wen did not spend a penny on it: a local official gave him the land as a gift, and a developer built him the villa as a gift.

In the villa's yard is a stone monument weighing over one ton. In the front of the monument are carved four characters in seal script: 福兮祸兮, which can be translated to "Oh Fortune Oh Calamity." The phrase comes from Lao Tzu's famous line, "In calamity lies fortune, in fortune lurks calamity" ("祸兮福之所倚，福兮祸之所伏"). On the stone's back is carved 永安宫 ("Yong'an Palace"). The base is a turtle with a snake wound on its back, two animals that symbolize "fortune" and "calamity" respectively.

It is an unusual looking stone, but Wen Qiang had no clue as to its origin. Neither did the police investigators who found it after Wen's arrest. Experts of cultural relics were called to appraise it, and that brought out the story.

During the Three Kingdom period, in year 222, Liu Bei, the emperor of the Shu Kingdom, anxious to avenge his blood brother Guan Yu's death, brought an army 200,000 strong to attack the Eastern Wu Kingdom, despite Zhuge Liang's advice against doing so. The consequence was that nearly all of Liu Bei's army was destroyed by an 800-mile fire set by East Wu's general Lu Xun. The defeated Liu Bei retreated to a small town on the Yangtze and renamed it to Yong'an – "forever safe." It was there that the miserable and gravely-ill Liu Bei had the "Oh Fortune Oh Calamity" stone monument made, hoping it would bring a change to his and the Shu Kingdom's bad luck. He ended up dying there the next spring, leaving behind the ever-circulating tale of "Liu Bei entrusting sons" to us Three Kingdoms fans.

The original stone monument is still at the site of the Yong'an Palace, located in Fengjie County now part of Chongqing. I found a travel info webpage that provides a panoramic view of the monument and the historical site.

The stone Wen Qiang got was a replica. The person who gave him the "gift" had told him that the turtle and snake represent emperors and their highest court officials; only such important people could have the monument at their residence; and "Chief Wen is exactly such an important official in today's China." Wen Qiang admitted that he was very pleased to hear the flattering words.

It is reported that, after the investigators relayed the ancient story to Wen Qiang, he mocked himself by saying that his calamity today had been foretold by the "Oh Fortune Oh Calamity" stone when he received it five years ago. Now in detainment, he keeps saying to his guards "It's good to be an ordinary person. Ordinary is fortune."Well, his regrets came a tad too late.

Wen Qiang's trial has not started yet. It will certainly be interesting. It is good that Wen Qiang is down, but a more important investigation is still needed into the nature of the soil that nourishes wide-spread gang crimes and police corruption in Chongqing.

Double Nature of Student Movements in China

2009-10-12T09:36:00.012-04:00

It was like déjà vu. About one-third into Leslie Chang's Factory Girls, a book I was reviewing for WRB, I found a story about the tragic death of the author's American-educated grandfather, Zhang Shenfu, who had become a leading engineer in China's mining industry in the 1940s.

I knew the story. I knew the name. But from where? I didn't know anything about the author before reading her book. I went to check my notes from another project. Sure enough, in an interview with my mother four years ago, she had cited the "Zhang Shenfu Incident" as the earliest trigger of her political career. I’d just started to work on a memoir provisionally titled Letters Lost in Chongqing, researching my parents' youth as Communists also in the 1940s.

On August 9, 1945, the same day the U.S. dropped its second atomic bomb on Japan, the Soviet Union attacked the Japanese army in Northeast China. The entire war of Chinese resistance against Japan ended within a week. Both America and the Soviet Union took the credit.

When Japanese soldiers laid down their arms, the Soviets replaced them as occupiers of Northeast China. The then-government of China was anxious to regain control of the industry infrastructure there. In January 1946, the Nationalist government in Chongqing (my home city) sent eight engineers, led by Zhang Shenfu, to take over operations at the Fushun Coal Mine. The Soviet occupiers refused to cooperate.

On their way back to the nearby city of Shenyang, all eight men were pulled off their train and brutally killed. A nation was in shock. The Nationalist government accused the Soviets of the murder; the Soviets blamed it on "anti-Soviet forces"; the Chinese Communists blamed it on local thugs. The case was never solved. Today the Chinese Wikipedia has an item for "Zhang Shenfu" plainly stating that he was murdered by the Soviet Red Army. According to Chang’s version of the story in Factory Girls, her family believed this as well.

My mother was a sixteen-year-old student in Chongqing when news broke of Zhang Shenfu's murder. Thousands of angry people took to the streets to protest, my mother among them. She and her fellow students shouted slogans such as “Soviet Union Show Your Conscience!” and “Avenge Martyr Zhang Shenfu!” The demonstration, the first of many against the Soviet occupation, lasted all day.

Six decades later, however, my mother belittled the action and attributed it to her political naïveté. As she recalled, that demonstration also started her distrust of the Nationalist government supporting it.

Because of their political unity with the Soviets, the Chinese Communists took a restrained approach at the time, neither openly opposing nor contributing to the student movement. Meanwhile, the Nationalists used the murder to damage the Communists. The Nationalist officials running my mother’s school required everyone to participate, she told me, threatening to expel those who hung back.

Before the parade, the students were warned to be careful when passing the office of Xinhua Daily, the Communist newspaper, of a possible attack from the Communists. Male students took this warning so seriously that when the parade approached the Xinhua Daily office, they walked on the outer lines to protect their female schoolmates. What my mother saw, however, was the newspaper’s door tightly shut; no one seemed to be inside.

When the students returned to school, they heard that a mob had wrecked the Xinhua Daily office. The Nationalist media blamed angry students; the Communist media blamed the Nationalist secret police. My mother didn’t know which side to believe, but she trusted the student leaders, who firmly denied any role in the destruction . She found a copy of Xinhua Daily and eventually became convinced by its version that Zhang Shenfu had been killed by local thugs.

The nationwide protests apparently did help to speed up the Soviet Army's withdrawal; this began a month and a half later. Meanwhile, the American troops that came to China's aid during the war stayed on. On Christmas Eve of the same year, a female student in Beijing named Shen Chung was raped by two U.S. marines. This incident triggered another, larger wave of student demonstrations across China.

This time, my mother was no longer a mere participant. She became a leader and an organizer at her school, fighting on campus against the officials who tried to block the news of Shen Chung's rape, and protesting American troops on Chongqing's streets. She did this because of her "righteous hatred toward injustice and violence," as she proudly put it during my interview. Curiously, she didn’t note her political naïveté here. She was unaware of the heavy involvement of Communists in facilitating this later demonstration, but they were watching her, and she was soon recruited.

In fact, all her close friends who actively participated in the "Shen Chung Incident" demonstration were recruited and later joined the Communist Party. Organizing student movements was a most effective way for the underground Communists to discover new blood. To many young patriots at the time, the Communist Party’s anti-American position was exactly what attracted them to join, as it had become clear that the Nationalist government wanted to keep American forces in the country for support in fighting China’s civil war. In a sense, the American military activities in post-war China helped cultivate massive future cadres for the Chinese Communists.

So my mother became an underground Communist at age 17, and met my father, another comrade, two years later. My family's tortuous fate was thus sealed, long before my birth, by the "Zhang Shenfu Incident.” Our path was the opposite of the one followed by Leslie Chang's family. And although many decades have passed, the double nature of student movements in China has never ceased.

(A slightly shorter version of this piece was originally posted on WOMEN = BOOKS, the Blog for the Women's Review of Books, with the title "Déjà Vu: A Surprising Link from Author to Reviewer.")

Why Didn't Peasants Riot During China's Three-Year Famine? (2)

2009-10-07T09:56:00.017-04:00

(2 of 2, continued from yesterday's post)

Raised on hot and tingling peppers, tempered by relentless harsh winters with no central heating, my Sichuan folk are known to have firecracker tempers. This was one reason that, during the early years of the Cultural Revolution, Sichuan, especially my home city Chongqing, became the biggest factional battlefield in China, killing thousands and thousands.

This makes the lack of protests during the three-year famine more puzzling. Local characteristics notwithstanding, at the point of life-and-death, even the herbivorous rabbit will bite.

Some might attribute the "peaceful" deaths to the government's tight control and the peasants' fear of retribution. That line of reasoning does not stand up to scrutiny. In the 1950s and 60s, China's countryside had limited law enforcement. The main force to maintain public order was the so-called "people's militia"(民兵), who were peasants themselves. In the rural communes where my mother was sent down to during late 50s and early 60s, each commune had only one "public security officer." In terms of training, arms and size, they were no match for today's riot police who still can’t prevent riots.

Historically, when there was more than one way to die, Chinese peasants did not hesitate to choose rebellion. The famous Chen Sheng uprising that destroyed the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) was a good example. Chen Sheng and other peasants were being escorted to a military post as compelled recruits, when days of rain delayed their trip. The punishment for missing the deadline was said to be beheading. Chen Sheng said to his fellow recruits, "It's death either way, why not die for a big cause?" His calling was echoed by all. They killed the two escorting officers, "chopped down trees to arm the soldiers, and hoisted their banner on a bamboo pole." That is the first peasant uprising on written record, followed by numerous others in every dynasty during disastrous times.

The tradition ceased in the Mao era. Again, this can't be simply explained by fear. The peasants loved Mao. It was Mao who took the land from the old-society's land owners and gave it to them. When Mao died in September 1976, I was a sent-down student in the countryside. The villagers cried sorrowfully, which made me feel guilty for my dry eyes. A decade after Mao's death, in the mid-1980s, my American husband, Bob, rode a bike through rural China. He was surprised and baffled by the peasants' apparent veneration for Mao. He did not realize at the time that such veneration was consistent with thousands years of Chinese people's dependency on and loyalty to wise and able emperors. When life was bitter, they'd rather take on corrupted local officials; the emperor was the last person they would lay blame on.

As for the local officials, in the 1950s-60s, party members and cadres were required to "be the first to eat bitterness and the last to enjoy life." Mao had believed that wealth was the cause of corruption, and the way to keep corruption at bay within the ruling party was to keep everyone equally poor. He apparently took Confucius's edification, that "the head of a state need not be concerned lest his people be poor, but only lest there be ill-portioned distribution among them" (不患寡而患不均) to an extreme.

In those years, from elementary school on, children were taught to "build up the country through arduous struggle and frugality." Nationalism and idealism were high, and making personal sacrifices for the country did not need much mobilization. A slogan that excited everyone then was "Surpass England and catch up to America in twenty years," my father recalled, thus the enthusiasm for the "backyard steel making" that ended up producing useless iron lumps while crops rotted in the fields. Meanwhile, no individual was allowed effective means to obtain wealth.

That was why the peasants could not see whom, or what, to blame for the famine. In the grassroots government, the commune and village cadres ate – or did not eat – the same as the peasants. So did the cadres sent-down from the district, like my mother and Mr. Chen. Though there indeed existed an urban-rural gap, across the visible community equality prevailed. It was a collective poverty; no one was rich or corrupted enough to become a target for mass protests.

They did not realize, however, that corruption does not have to involve money. Mao's practice of maintaining collective poverty did keep embezzlement at bay, especially at the grassroots government level. But beyond the peasants' sight, corruption took a different form, as exemplified by what Sichuan's then-governor Li Jingquan did to accelerate the peasants' starvation: blocking famine information from the central government, inflating grain production statistics to cover up the disaster, transporting large amounts of grains to Beijing and Shanghai despite Sichuan itself suffered severe food shortages…

The internet was still in the remote future then, and the provincial courtyard was too far away. The peasants had no way to know what Li Jingquan did. The grassroots cadres like my parents and Mr. Chen didn't either. Not even the central government knew what their trusted Sichuan governor was up to, until it was too late.

In January 1962, during a congress of seven thousand government officials from the county level up, a Sichuan man wrote an anonymous letter to the national leaders, exposing Li's crime and Sichuan's severe famine for the first time. Li was then criticized in the meeting, but never punished, because the fact that he had sent grains to support Beijing and Shanghai was regarded as a major credit, enough to cancel his "mistakes." The fact that he was Deng Xiaoping's close friend also helped.

After that congress, Li's crime remained unknown to the public, until the Cultural Revolution began in summer 1966. The rebelling Red Guards, while destroying every level of government, dug up Li's history and denounced him as the number one "capitalist roader" in the province. The facts of what he did during the famine years were listed on "big character posters" and put up on urban walls everywhere, but peasants in the countryside remained largely uninformed. When I was in middle school in early 1970s, we often had sessions to "recall the bitter past and think of the sweet today," in order to enhance our concept of "class struggle." The school would invite a poor peasant to vent his grievances against a land owner of the "old society," referring to the pre-communist regime. In one of the sessions, an old peasant invited by my school was asked to tell us his bitterest experience, and he immediately began to cry over his suffering during the "three difficult years" – the official term for the famine period starting in 1959. The teacher who was chairing the meeting got confused and asked who he was complaining against, and the peasant was agape, unable to name a name. Quickly he was taken away.

So the "nice peasants" in the countryside accepted their fate quietly, apparently believing that the "emperor" in Beijing knew about their situation (how could he not?), and would eventually do something to save them. Even long after the famine, people still believed it was a natural disaster caused by bad weather. I wonder, had the starving peasants in Sichuan seen their commune's storage rooms full of grains waiting to be sent to other cities, had they heard their governor's dismissive words about their insignificant life and death, what would they do?

In a nutshell, the appearance of equality (= collective poverty), the lack of information, and the tradition of Chinese' faith in wise emperors, had all contributed to the "peaceful" mass deaths during the three-year famine. Today, the first two conditions are diminishing, which at least partially explains the rapid rise of mass protests in recent years. As for the third, it still exists, and it is too soon to judge its present impact.

An additional observation: now as in the 1960s, China's government corruption is much worse at the city and provincial levels than at the grassroots and national levels. The grassroots governments are too closely watched by people, and the national leaders of such a big country usually have aspirations and incentives beyond personal wealth. The city and provincial governments are less encumbered by observation and ideals, thus providing the most fertile soil for corruption. The latest issue of the Economist has an article suggesting that "part of the problem lies with there being too many tiers of government—China has five, compared with three in America." Cutting one or two layers might indeed be a great idea.

Why Didn't Peasants Riot During China's Three-Year Famine? (1)

2009-10-06T09:10:00.013-04:00

Yesterday, Sam of The Useless Tree commented on my post What Kept China from Total Collapse during the Cultural Revolution: "I think you're right about the CR, but the key point about the maintenance of agricultural production raises another question: how is it that the Great Leap Forward did not produce a massive anti-government backlash?"

A great question, and I'm glad it has finally come up, though it would be nice to have someone Chinese ask it. For years I have wondered why I never heard anyone raise the issue, as if nothing were unusual about 30 million peasants passively starving to death without putting up so much as a fight.

From 1959 to 1961, ten million of the starvation deaths occurred in my home province, Sichuan. Today it is common knowledge that the severe famine was caused by the fanatic Great Leap Forward movement, the ludicrous practice of "backyard steel making," the wasteful all-you-can-eat communal dining rooms, and the fictitious reports of high agricultural production.

Puzzlingly, there were no riots during that period. Not even small revolts. There were individual complaints and "guai hua" (怪话), but that was pretty much it. Why didn't the peasants, the largest social group whose numerous uprisings were the primary forces pushing feudal

China

's history forward, put up fierce fights for their lives then? In light of frequent mass protests in recent years, the "peaceful" mass starvation then is utterly unimaginable.

This was the primary question I had in mind when I interviewed Mr. Chen three years ago. I was writing a memoir about my parents' past, and it turned out the famine years were a key period in their life together. At the time, my mother was a grassroots government cadre sent down to the countryside as punishment for her "rightist thoughts." Mr. Chen had been her colleague and friend in the local government. They both closely witnessed the famine.

The following is an excerpt of the interview in translation, which I hope will shed some light on

China

's rural situation then.

Time: August 2006
Location: Mr. Chen's home in Chongqing, China

Me: Uncle Chen, when did the famine become apparent?

Chen: 1959.

Me: About the peasants' situation, what did you see in your own eyes then?

Chen: One thing stood out in 1960…I went to a production team. A family in the village steamed and ate, ah, a baby.

Me: (in shock) What? They killed the baby?

Chen: It seems the baby was sick or something.…it was bloated up by the steam...

Me: They steamed the baby whole?

Chen: Umm.

Me: Was the child killed or dead of sickness?

Chen: No no, wasn't killed. The child was very sick, dead or nearly dead, it seemed. I told Secretary Zhang after I returned to the district office…

Me: [still in disbelief] You really saw it?

Chen: Yes…Secretary Zhang said, [in rapid voice] "Never never tell this to anyone!"

Me: Secretary Zhang?

Chen: He was the party secretary of our district, my immediate superior.

Me: He prohibited you from talking about it.

Chen: Right, he said I couldn’t talk about it. The city's party secretary was Xin Yizhi at the time. Xin openly told us, "Ours is the people's country, no one is allowed to die by Liberation Monument! If someone's dying, go inside to die!"

Me: Can't die on the streets.

Chen: [bitter titters] Not on the streets around the Liberation Monument.

Me: One can only die inside.

Chen: Eh, if one is dying, get him inside to die, not outside.

Me: The peasant family you saw who steamed the baby, how many household members did they have?

Chen: I wasn't clear about those details…

Me: Which township was it?

Chen: Xiema.

Me: Oh, my mother was sent down there too! How come she didn't know this?

Chen: Of course she didn't know. Those things, you see it, you don't [talk]…

Me: Why were you there?

Chen: That place was Xin Yizhi's selected point. I was assigned to follow him down and do policy research, but he wasn't there that day.

Me: How did you find out about the baby?

Chen: I just bumped into it.

Me: How did the peasant family react after you saw it?

Chen: They were like, okay, now you've seen it, let it pass. These things, they were already enormously miserable. (sigh)

Me: Did you tell Xin Yizhi?

Chen: No, I only told Secretary Zhang.

Me: Did Xin Yizhi take any measure about the famine?

Chen: What measure could he have? (pause) We were given a 21-jin* monthly grain ration.

Chen's wife: That was in the city. Who could have that in the countryside?

Chen: Right, only in the city.

My mother: You guys in the district office had 21 jin. We who were sent down had 2 jin less. We had only 19 jin.

Chen's wife: I had 19 jin as well.

Me: Is it true that people died mostly in the countryside, but not many in the city?

Chen: It's true. Thousands and thousands died in the countryside, few in the city. The guideline at the time was that rural deaths were not a big deal, but we can’t let urban people die.

Me: So peasants' lives were not attached importance. How come they didn't run away to other places?

Chen: Where could they run to? (pause) Hmm, a few peasants did escape to Xinjiang, I heard.

Me: So they just sat at home waiting to die?

Chen: They didn't just sit; they still labored, even though they were all swollen from malnutrition. They died of exhaustion.

Me: My mother said the government distributed medicine for curing swelling?

My mother: It was chaff powder in boxes, chaff powder mixed with a little bit soybean powder.

Chen: Oh, the dross from the Daxi medicine factory became a big deal treasure!

My mother: Also, every commune opened a hospital to treat swelling.

Me: How did they treat it?

Chen: The hospital got a slightly higher grain ration.

My mother: Cadres and active elements with serious conditions were sent to the swelling hospital.

Me: They didn't treat common peasants?

Chen: Mmm.

My mother: They just couldn't. Too many of them.

Me: In ancient times, if the emperor and his local officials didn't care about the disaster-stricken people, people rebelled. Why for three years in this famine no one revolted?

Chen: Chinese peasants were too nice.

Me: Nice? There is no shortage of peasant uprisings in history.

Chen: But they didn't see bad officials [during the famine].

Me: Why couldn't they see? They surely knew cadres lied about their production.

Chen: (voice rose emotionally) How could they see? Everyone was equal. The provincial leaders ate the same, no special treatment. When cadres like us went down, we ate and lived exactly like the peasants.

Me: But in fact there was a difference. You guys had a 21-jin monthly ration; the peasants didn't.

Chen: This….

Chen's wife: [The peasants didn't need the ration] because they were the producer of the grains.

Chen: The peasants advocated the Communist Party. They believed in the Party. They didn't have antagonistic feeling toward the government.

My mother: Where I was sent down, every day I saw people die. They simply buried the bodies. They said nothing. They didn't know the disaster was man-made. How could they see it? The man-made factor would be corruption, but corruption meant embezzlement. There wasn't embezzlement then.

Chen: The Party's reputation was really high.

Me: So the peasants basically didn't complain.

Chen: Who could they complain about? The cadres were generally good.

* 1 jin = 1.1 lbs

More discussion will follow tomorrow. (to be continued)

What Kept China from Total Collapse during the Cultural Revolution

2009-10-01T13:22:00.012-04:00

Jaime FlorCruz, CNN's Beijing bureau chief, wrote a piece yesterday titled "China 60 years on: From Mao to today." When talking about the Cultural Revolution, he said, "For ten years, China was condemned to political turmoil and economic malaise. Perhaps the only factor that kept the country from total collapse was the people's incomparable resilience and their ability to 'chi ku' (eat bitterness, or bear hardship)."

What he said wasn't really wrong, but he missed the main factor. During the disastrous ten years from 1966 to 1976, peasants had kept farming and providing food for the nation. Because of this, despite the chaos and paralysis of the state apparatus, urban food shortages were not nearly as severe as in the "three-year famine" period (1959-61). I remember food rationing in my childhood during the Cultural Revolution, and how each family was forced to take a portion of "coarse grain" such as corn to supplement rice the "fine grain." I also remember meat rationing and my craving for pork dishes, but we did not starve. Not even close. Thanks to the hard-working peasants -- those are the people that have shouldered China's crises time and again.

The comparison between the two periods bookending the 1960s is especially worth noting for Sichuan, my home province nicknamed "the country of heaven," which suffered the most during the 1959-61 famine. The famine killed about 30 million people nationwide, and one third of the "abnormal deaths" were in Sichuan.

At the time, Sichuan's governor was Li Jingquan, a close friend of Deng Xiaoping (who was also from Sichuan). After the rural famine began, Li blocked information from the central government. Meanwhile, he inflated Sichuan's grain production statistics to please Mao and cover up the disaster. What he did was much the same as Madoff’s representations of double-digit returns on bogus investment funds, the difference being the scale of damage, as well as the motivation: not money but power. Consequentially, unaware of Sichuan's real situation, Beijing ordered Li to transport large amounts of grain to major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, while Sichuan's starvation deaths escalated. Even after the nation-wide famine finally came to an end in late 1961, Sichuan continued to have starvation deaths in 1962. Li's famous words were, "China is so big, which dynasty didn't have people starve to death?"

Ironically, the only time Li Jingquan was punished for his crime was during the Cultural Revolution. He was "struggled" by the Red Guards numerous times. His family suffered even more: his wife committed suicide, and a son was beaten to death. But Li himself returned to power after that movement and died of old age, with a glorious obituary on the lid of his coffin.

So, at least for people in Sichuan, one other reason we had avoided starvation during the Cultural Revolution might be because Li Jingquan was pulled off the horse by the lawless Red Guards. Just a glimpse into how complex and contradictory history often is.

Follow Up: Two Brothers Sentenced for Kidnapping that Saved Mother

2009-09-27T13:02:00.009-04:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote "Chongqing Brothers Risk Prison for Ailing Mother." I have kept a close eye on the case's developments. Today Gunagzhou's Baiyun District Court sentenced the older brother to 5.5 years, and the younger brother to two years with a three-year delay in incarceration.

The terms are pretty much in tune with what the defense lawyers had outlined, so there is no real surprise here. The sentencing is on the light end for kidnapping in China, apparently because the Zhang brothers' filial motive and their mother's predicament have attracted sympathy from even the judge and the prosecutor. However, this was still too much for the mother, who cried hard after the sentencing.

Mother and younger son walking out of court (source: Guangzhou Daily)

A few unusual humanistic measures were taken by the court. Two days before the sentencing, the judge made an appointment to meet the heartbroken mother who had made the trip with the financial support from Guangzhou people's donations. The poor peasant mother, who had never traveled beyond her hometown in her life, reportedly twice kneeled down before the judge to beg leniency for her sons. On the day of the sentencing, the court arranged medical and emergency services especially prepared for the mother. After the sentencing, the court provided psychological consultation for both the mother and her sons, something I've never heard of before.

This is big progress, while it also reflects the Chinese society's value judgment that weighs heavily toward filial devotion. It would be hard to imagine, for example, that a Chinese court would take similar humanistic measures for a political prisoner.

This case has also presented a moral dilemma to the local government. It was reported that, after the news of the Zhang brothers' crime and motive spread, their hometown government had planned a large fund-raising activity in order to help the poor family. However, the concern that such a publicized supportive action would encourage others to replicate the crime prevailed, and the fund-raising effort was canceled.

I need to correct one thing in my previous report, where I said "Apparently the Zhang brothers and their mother have not participated in such a [medical] co-op." According to this report, the Zhang brothers' family did join the medical co-op. However, this co-op would reimburse only about 2000 yuan for the mother's expense in the town hospital where she was initially admitted. As a matter of fact, that local hospital did not have the means to treat her illness and she was later transferred to a better hospital in the county. Her actual medical bill in the county hospital went over 40,000 yuan, most of which would not have been covered by the rural medical co-op program. Moreover, the common practice of hospitals is "pay first, then treatment." Without the generous donations from all over the country that have exceeded 50,000 yuan in total, the poor mother would have not received the treatment she had. As such, China's rural health care remains inadequate.

Book Review: The Beijing of Possibilities

2009-09-21T10:09:00.018-04:00

The Beijing of Possibilities by Jonathan Tel
Other Press (June 30, 2009), 208 pages, $14.95

Reviewed by Xujun Eberlein

Chinese stories can be exotic to foreigners, while a foreigner telling stories about China can be exotic to the natives of the land as well. In recent years, there has been no shortage of nonfiction books set in Beijing written by expats, but fiction in the same category remains sparse. Jonathan Tel's new story collection, The Beijing of Possibilities, stands out as a notable exception, its twelve stories displaying a gripping juxtaposition of realism and allegory.

Tel's prose treats serious themes in a romantic, humorous, at times mystical way. He is evidently very familiar with Beijing's settings, geographically and culturally, having lived in the capital city as early as 1988. The stories, set in places and with characters the author has clearly experienced or observed, present Beijing's distinctness in an enjoyable combination of realistic detail and imaginative musing. Often a story starts by building up a picture of a very real situation, only to surprise the reader by the sudden twist to parable. Or vice versa.

One familiar with Chinese literature might see traces of influence from the classical novel Journey to the West, a hybrid between a fictionalized historical event (a Tang Dynasty Buddhist's journey to India to fetch the holy scriptures) and the myth of Monkey King (who helped the monk completing the perilous journey). Tel's opening story, "Year of the Gorilla," features an unnamed migrant worker in a Monkey King suit. But that is hardly the only connection.

Among the so-called "four greatest Chinese classics" – A Dream of Red Mansions, Three Kingdoms, and Out Laws of the Marsh being the other three – only Journey to the West is a fantasy with a happy ending. In Chinese literature typically filled with great tragic stories, that is a rare presence. In world literature, though written some 350 years earlier, Journey to the West belongs to The Lord of the Rings category. It seems that its fantastic nature makes Journey to the West more easily resonate with Westerners than the other Chinese classics.

It may not be a mere coincidence that The Beijing of Possibilities opens with the line "It's been a while since the Monkey King set out on his Journey to the West." In more than one way, many of Tel's stories apparently continue the literary tradition of Journey to the West, bringing the reader into a fictional dream where reality, parable and fantasy can hardly be told apart.

One of my favorites is "The Three Lives of Little Yu," which tells the story about a childless country couple's life-long attempts at adopting a daughter. Each time they name the girl "Little Yu," and each Little Yu is "as delightful and talented as the previous versions," but each dies unexpectedly young, until time turns to the mid 1980s. At last, to the reader's relief and fascination, the third Little Yu grows up, her "health couldn't have been better," and she has memory of her previous lives:

She remembers her first childhood: the precious spoonfuls of sorghum gruel and how in her hunger she chewed bark off the trees. She remembers the coughing, the ache in her chest, the fever and the fading away of her body. She remembers her second childhood too: the entire school dancing the Loyalty Dance – left hand up, right hand out, "Loyal loyal loyal / to Chairman Mao! / Boundless boundless boundless / Forever forever forever!" – while the commune secretary kept time, taping a spoon on the desk."

Thus, in a clever, parable-like structure, the story reflects a three-decade history realistically.

Another amusing story is "The Unofficial History of the Embroidered Couch." It starts as a time-travel sort of tale, about a relationship across four centuries, between a Ming Dynasty princess and a modern-day young man who works at an advertising agency in Beijing. The cross-century communication between the two is certainly entertaining, but it is the turn at the end that is the drollest yet totally realistic: their dialogue that has been exuding tenderness and love unexpectedly turns into a text message war. Both characters' personalities change, a common phenomenon we can't be more familiar on today's internet.

Tel's stories are full of contrasts. The past and the present are comingled in the romance across time. The city and countryside are blended when the two farmers arrive in Beijing to collect baby Yu on the words of a soothsayer. Right and wrong are confused when the man dressed as a monkey is punished for his good deeds. Adventure and duty are probed when a boy tries to collect a cotton-candy machine for his grandfather. The underlying theme in all of this, not surprisingly, is that Beijing offers opportunities both real and imagined for those who come. That the opportunities are fraught with peril, and that the people taking them are both good and bad is as it should be.

Americans are said to be an optimistic people. The Chinese are accustomed to millennia of calamities. Perhaps the biggest contrast between Chinese and American authored stories is pessimism vs. optimism. From China's classical literature to its contemporary counterpart, it is rare that a novel or story has a happy ending. In contrast, none of the stories in The Beijing of Possibilities ends tragically. For those readers who have had their fill of Chinese "scar fiction," this book should be a pleasant change. On the other hand, while the descriptive details about the Chinese lives usually ring true, the musings and imaginative reality that occupy in the stories seem more akin to Western perceptions of China than to the way Chinese people think. A reader should not expect to gain significant insights into Chinese thinking, but he or she will certainly get a good glance at the Beijing life through an observant expat's eye.

ChinaGeeks' Review of "Apologies Forthcoming"

2009-09-11T12:31:00.003-04:00

ChinaGeeks has an excellent review of Apologies Forthcoming. As another writer commented on Facebook, this review is "one that can be taken seriously by prospective readers."

Anomie in the New China

2009-09-08T19:58:00.006-04:00

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

Reviewed by Xujun Eberlein, published: Women's Review of Books, September 2009

The Chinese say, “The River is in the east for thirty years, then in the west for thirty years.” The adage uses the unpredictable behavior of the Yellow River as an analogy for periodic upheavals in Chinese life and society.

Within a thirty-year time span, China has seen two grand-scale migrations, each involving many millions of young people. The first began in the late 1960s and continued through most of the 1970s: more than seventeen million urban youths took part in the so-called “sent-down” movement—most against their will. I was one of them. After my 1974 high school graduation in the city of Chongqing, I spent nearly four years toiling in the rural fields of Fuling, leaving only when the end of the Cultural Revolution provided me the opportunity to enter university in 1978.

By the end of the 1970s, nearly all the “sent-down” youths, miserable and desperate, had managed to return to the city by one means or another. Barely catching our breath, none of us could have foreseen the reverse migration that would begin in the mid-1980s, when young peasants spontaneously left their rural homes to find jobs in the urban areas. >> continue reading

Chongqing Brothers Risk Prison for Ailing Mother

2009-09-01T20:14:00.009-04:00

New America Media, Xujun Eberlein, Published: Sept. 1, 2009

Zhang Fangshu holds a knife at the hostage's neck; the hostage is crying while making cellphone calls.

(photo from Nanfang Daily)

On Aug. 27, the criminal trial of two migrant worker brothers in Guangzhou, China, drew unusual media attention. A prosecutor alleged that the two brothers from Chongqing kidnapped a white-collar woman from a busy street on April 21. The Zhang brothers pleaded guilty, but said they only wanted to raise money to save their sick mother and had no intention of hurting the victim. The brothers' filial devotion attracted sympathy from many Chinese, including lawyers. Working pro-bono, three lawyers from Chongqing presented the Zhang brothers' defense.

The brothers are from a remote rural village in Kaixian, Chongqing, some 1,200 miles away from Guangzhou. They lost their father early, left home to work as teenagers, and have now been migrant workers for over a decade. With little skill and only an elementary school education, however, they have not made enough money to live on. They have incurred a debt of 45,000 yuan (about $6,600) over the years.

At home, on the evening of April 20, their 53-year-old mother suddenly collapsed while working in the fields. She was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition and diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage, but lacking money she could not receive the life-saving treatment. The village doctor called the patient's two sons in Guangzhou. The next morning, the Zhang brothers went to a busy street and kidnapped a woman at knife point. Meanwhile, they held a hand-written sign that stated they were asking the government for a loan of 18,000 yuan. At first, police tried to convince them to let go of the hostage. When it did not work, the police overwhelmed the Zhang brothers and rescued the hostage unhurt.

In court, the older brother, who had held the knife to the hostage's neck during the short standoff, said the purpose of the kidnapping was not to commit a crime but to get the media's and society's attention. He was careful not to hurt the woman, he said: "I wanted to take the knife away from her neck, but I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to raise money." He cried several times and expressed remorse. According to reports, many in the audience also shed tears. The victim testified that the kidnappers had treated her carefully. A security guard testified that it was when the older brother was wiping tears from his eyes that the police took the opportunity to end the standoff.

The prosecutor told the brothers "your situation deserves sympathy, but the law does not excuse crimes," and suggested a prison term of 5-10 years for the older brother, and under 5 years for the younger brother.

Back at home in April, their mother remained unconscious for days, and three times her medical treatment was nearly stopped because her poor relatives could not collect enough money to pay for it. The situation changed on April 24, when 20,000 yuan raised by sympathetic Guangzhou media workers arrived. She was sent to a better hospital to be treated and eventually gained consciousness. The brothers' criminal action actually achieved their goal.

The day before the trial, when the heartbroken mother, who was slowly recovering at home, learned about the sentences her sons might serve, she asked if it was okay to sentence only one of the two. "If both were in jail, how could the family get by?" she reportedly said. According to reports, she had been the only working force of the family before she fell sick. Beside herself she was supporting her second husband, who is said to be developmentally disabled, and a four-year-old grandson, whose mother had run away.

In court, following the prosecutor's statement, the defense lawyers suggested a delayed incarceration for the younger brother. The sentencing will be decided at a later date.

China's official media website, xinhuanet.com, is running a poll: "Two brothers kidnapped a hostage in order to raise money to treat their mother's illness; how do you view their action?" At the time of this writing, 1,397 readers have voted, with the following results:

"Deserves sympathy; for their mother they don't even fear prison, that is a great filial devotion": 40.52 percent

"It's pitiful and detestable; using this way to raise money is a stupid filial piety": 41.59 percent

"Don't want to make any judgment": 17.9 percent

Filial devotion is considered one of the most important virtues in Chinese society. Throughout history, many emperors have promoted and practiced the tradition of "governing the world by the filial piety."

This case provoked a heated discussion on the Internet as to whether the brothers' filial devotion should reduce their sentence. While there is a consensus that the brothers have committed a crime, some law experts say the punishment should take into consideration their motivation as well as their social and family background, while others consider kidnapping in a public place a very odious crime that deserves heavy punishment. Still others point out that the case reflects serious problems in China's health care system and welfare system.

China's rural health care is far behind that of the cities. Research from 2007 indicates nearly half of the rural population do not have any form of health care coverage, and have to bear any medical costs completely on their own. In recent years, the government has been trying to expand coverage by developing a co-op system, which requires peasants to pay small insurance premiums, while the government provides a larger subsidy. Apparently the Zhang brothers and their mother have not participated in such a co-op.

An official from the Zhang brothers' hometown told the media they would consider including the family for welfare provision, but the decision has to wait till next year because the quota of welfare recipients is adjusted only once a year.

China's One-Child Policy, Two?

2009-08-26T15:30:00.003-04:00

A popular Chinese newspaper, Nanfang Daily, yesterday ran an interview with a renowned demographer, Professor Li Jianmin, about adjustments to China's population control policy. Professor Li suggests that – with an emphasis it is only his academic opinion – if either husband or wife is an only-child, the couple should be allowed to have two children. This should be feasible and still keep to China's strategic plan of maintaining an annual birth rate at 1.8%. Li says some cities have already begun to experiment this idea.

China has been allowing couples a second child if both parents are only-children.

There have also been worries over a descent in overall population quality, thus a suggestion from several years ago to allow anyone with a doctoral degree to have a second child. Prof. Li says this is unreasonable, because the right of birth should be equal between rich and poor, educated and uneducated.

Since its implementation in 1979, the so-called "one-child policy" has effectively slowed population growth in China, the most populous country in the world.

Calyx Review of "Apologoies"

2009-08-25T14:20:00.004-04:00

Calyx, a very good literary magazine, just published an intelligent review by Sharon McGill for "Apologies Forthcoming" in their Summer Issue. The content is not on-line, but you can probably find a copy in a B&N bookstore or a library.

A Radical Solution to Hearlth Care Reform in the Atlantic

2009-08-23T15:58:00.004-04:00

The current issue of Atlantic Monthly has a very good article titled "How American Health Care Killed My Father." It does tell that story, and goes on to give a detailed analysis of the way the current system works and fails to work. The article also includes some radical, but common sense, suggestions. At their heart is the reconnection of the consumer with the cost of receiving health care. In short, health insurance would be more like automobile insurance than what we know today. An interesting read all around, congratulations to the Atlantic for publishing it.

The Health Care Rebate

2009-08-17T19:19:00.002-04:00

by Larry Mongoss, guest blogger

This is not a particularly China related topic, though it does reflect on the public versus private view that is one of the big disconnects between China’s government and its Western critics. Now that China has started to try some sort of insurance system for its public health care, Chinese people may find themselves on the other side of that divide. Perhaps there are some lessons from the US experience they can apply.

To the point is the ongoing bickering, arguing and fighting about health care reform that is going on in Washington and around the country. To call it a debate would be elevating it above its current station. Since most the arguments seem to be recycled I have decided to call it a “rebate,” though anyone hoping to get something back is likely to be disappointed.

As I see it, there are three basic things at issue in health care: who has access to it; how much do we spend on it; and how well does it work. The crisis in health care that many people are pointing to is a result of the reality that many people do not have access, we spend a lot, and by objective public health measures the system does not work very well. So what do we do to fix it?

Clearly we give more people access, we spend less, and we get better results. Public policy is so straightforward.

Politicians, unfortunately, seem to have pretty short attention spans and it appears they have gotten themselves completely stuck on the issue of coverage and simply want to argue about how much that will or will not fail to decrease costs and ignore the final question altogether. Worse, hampered by narrow vision, reelection worries, special interest groups and lobbyists, the only viable solution for expanding coverage seems to be a new “insurance company.” Thus the debate on what it will do to costs.

What exactly is required to lower the cost of healthcare?

I have heard people say increase competition in the insurance industry. Bush 43 used to like to talk about getting rid of malpractice law suits. More thoughtful conversations do look at lifestyle, nutrition and the ratio of general practitioners to specialists. But I have never heard anyone say that we need to have fewer doctors.

This is what confuses me. If we are going to decrease the cost of health care, does not that mean exactly that – we need to lower the number of doctors, nurses, hospitals, researchers and (of course) insurance workers. If we really like to have lots and lots of these people around I guess we could just pay them less, but somehow I don’t think that will work. More people means more money, fewer people means less money.

For those of you who want to simply take it all out of corporate profits, there is a legitimate argument to be made there. The United States does, to some extent, subsidize the rest of the world in pharmaceuticals by paying much higher prices for prescription drugs than most of the rest of the world. But that, like malpractice costs and insurance inefficiencies, is not enough to turn the tide.

As a society we need to make some serious choices going forward. It would be great if everyone in America was a doctor. But where would we shop, and who would grow our food? We won’t be able to import that because, frankly, as good as the doctors are in America they are also expensive. People in other countries are very price conscious, and only the very richest of them will come to America for treatment.

Market forces will eventually take care of this, by making it very unattractive to be in the health care industry in America. When this happens it will be seen as a terrible thing and the politicians will try to reverse the trend. If the current thinking on Capitol Hill persists I expect we will see this day sooner rather than later.

We need to add price consciousness to health care to our list of imports from China and other developing nations. The current employer-based insurance schemes and the extensions of that scheme under discussion will not do this. Health care, like any service, can’t be provided in unlimited quantities. It has to be rationed, either by price or by another mechanism. Until everyone recognizes that, and we are willing to actually talk about the hard choices, there will be little fruitful discussion.

South China Morning Post: "Beyond Apologies"

2009-08-17T19:11:00.003-04:00

Hong Kong based South China Morning Post published an interview with me in their Sunday book column. It is titled "Beyond Apologies," written by Ed Peters, who says, "Chinese-American authors such as Iris Chang and Amy Tan have made a significant contribution to factual and fictional literature, but few have a tale to tell as piquant as Xujun Eberlein's."

Chongqing's Judicial Chief Shot off Horse

2009-08-11T13:15:00.014-04:00

As soon as the news of Wen Qiang's arrest was officially verified three days ago, Chongqing's usually tardy newspapers reported it right away; you can almost hear the loud cheers between the lines in the dreary brief reporting. The guy had been the long-time police head of China's largest city, and a year ago was promoted to be the judicial bureau head.

(left: arrested judicial chief Wen Qiang, photo from usqiaobao.com)

Sina.com reports that the news was posted by someone on Sina early on the morning of August 7^th (that's one day ahead of any official media outlet), and people distributed fliers on the streets to celebrate the arrest, some even lighting up firecrackers.

Posts on Chongqing's commercial web portal cqnews.net say that "actually Chongqing people all knew that the biggest boss of organized crime was Wen Qiang; it's just that nobody dared to say it." This echoes a local policeman's words that "I heard a lot of rumors about his ties with gangs as early as 1999" in Global Times's report. I myself have seen internet comments last year that said in Chongqing "police and criminals are one family", with Wen in charge of the police.

One would wonder why, then, only last July Wen was promoted to be the city's judicial bureau head, moving up from his previous position as the deputy police chief. Interesting enough, the man who replaced him at the police bureau last year, Wang Lijun, is the exact person who made Wen fall this year. Wang Lijun, now the police chief, had been hailed as a "fighting-underground hero" even before his transfer from his Liaoning post to Chongqing. "Someone counted that, during his 20 years as a policeman, he and his comrades have sent more than 800 criminals to court." I suspect that the coincidence between the two men's transfers and promotions was already part of an investigation scheme into Wen Qiang's crimes. It might have been a strategy to "leave someone at large to better apprehend him."

(right: new police head Wang Lijun, photo from http://news.sohu.com)

During my visit to Chongqing early this year, I frequently heard taxi drivers express their admiration for Wang Lijun, for his zero tolerance toward organized crime and his effective means in crushing it. "The powerful dragon can't outdo the snake in its old hunt," goes a Chinese adage. Apparently this one needs to be rewritten. In modern times, probably only an outside dragon can overwhelm a ferocious local snake.

The problem is that an outside dragon doesn't usually stay long. People are now worried that Wang Lijun will depart for a new position before the underground organizations are completely eradicated. I have heard the same worry expressed for Bo Xilai, Chongqing's Party Secretary and Wang Lijun's solid backing. After his sympathetic handling of the taxi strike last November, rumors spread that Bo would soon leave, though he's still there today.

Officials like Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai are often referred as "blue sky" (青天), an ancient concept referring to a just judge or upright magistrate. Unfortunately such individuals do not occur that frequently, in history or in modern times. A system, not just individual do-gooders, is needed to better protect citizens.

It is quite dramatic for a police chief to shoot a judicial chief off his horse. It certainly is another credit of Wang Lijun the "fighting-underground hero," but can the same be said for the justice system?

By the way, there was no underground crime in Mao's era, though also there was no shortage of collective poverty. Can the Chinese people ever get both wealth and public security?

Phurbu the Tibetan

2009-08-04T16:16:00.019-04:00

by Maple Xu

(Note: Whether or not you agree with statements about

Tibet

and Tibetans cited in this post, please refrain from hostility. Personal attacks will be deleted. Readers who have followed my sister Maple's travelogues before know by now that she hardly concerns herself with any political topic. She has always been "an apolitical person" as she puts it. She has simply written down what she saw and heard.

Maple wrote this piece long before the July 5^th Xinjiang riot; I just didn't get the time to translate it sooner. In the process of reading and translating it, I recognized a major difference between the Tibetans and the Uyghurs: the Tibetans have a history of serfdom while the Uyghurs don't. This factor might well be playing a role in their different attitudes. – Xujun)

[in translation]

Gongbo'gyamda, Tibet (photo by Maple Xu)

Phurbu is a 28-year-old Tibetan tour guide. He never took us shopping, nor did he crow about local products like other tour guides who give extravagantly colorful but unfaithful descriptions. When some tourists asked where to buy legendary Tibetan treasures such as Tianshan snow lotus, saffron crocus, or thousand-year Dzi bead, Phurbu would say frankly, "I won't take you to Bar-skor [Lhasa's old-town shopping street] or private stores, because I can't be sure you'll get authentic goods. I don't want you to curse us Tibetans as swindlers after you go home." Instead he took us to the official department stores that promise to repay you ten-times for counterfeit goods.

A member of our tourist group – a smart ass Shanghaier – once half teased, "Is that because you'll get kickbacks here?" Phurbu answered with a smile, "Yes. The Tourism Bureau has a rule, when tourists shop in official department stores, their tour guide is entitled for 2.5% kickback. That is to say, if you buy 1000 yuan worth of things, I can get 25 yuan, enough to drink a cup of sweet tea. Uncle and aunt, how much do you plan to spend?" The "uncle and aunt" were embarrassed, and mumbled that they just wanted to buy some high-altitude Judas's ear fungus. Phurbu laughed: "Then you won't spend 100 yuan. Looks like I only get to drink a bottle of spring water. But I guarantee that you won't be buying anything fake here."

That afternoon, a young couple asked: "We heard Lhasa has a dance performance called 'Tanggula Wind.' Where can we buy tickets?" Phurbu said, "That's easy. Come with me." Another tourist said puzzled, "Why didn't you advertise it? You could get another kickback." Phurbu laughed again, "Ha-ha, thank you thank you. You are so considerate. The reason I didn't tell you about the dance was because our tour today ends around 6pm, then we'll have dinner. I worry it would be too laborious for all of you to catch the 7:30 performance. Don't forget tomorrow morning we have to get up at 6 am to go to Nyingchi. If you are overworked, your altitude sickness will get worse. The dance tickets are selling for 180 yuan each, and I would get some kickbacks if you all go, but that money will make me a bit uneasy."

These two incidents started my interest in knowing more about Phurbu. I asked him privately: "I was once an accountant in a travel agency, and know that kickbacks are the main income source for low-salary tour guides. This is also the characteristic of our country's tourism industry. If you really don't care about kickbacks, is your salary enough to live on?"

Phurbu looked at me with his clear, pure Tibetan eyes: "You are right, a tour guide's salary alone is not enough for my living. But I don't accept every tourist group. I only accept those groups that interest me, so I can have time to do my own things." He told me he had been preparing a business for three years.

It turned out he and a friend were going to start a unique "donkey-friend inn" aimed at services for backpack travelers, and he hoped to take them to places official travel agencies wouldn't touch, "the really beautiful, mysterious Tibetan places."

I said, "You are so smart, don't you think you'll have more opportunities and room to develop in the heartland instead of the relatively backward Tibet?"

So, when others were visiting a Tibetan style temple for the God of Fortune, Phurbu and I took the opportunity to sit down in a sweet-tea house and chat.

Phurbu had graduated from the tourism department of a university in Sichuan 5 years before, and then worked for a travel agency in Chengdu for two years as a tour guide to the Tibet area. He hated the industry culture that made obtaining kickbacks its only purpose. He was ashamed of his career and the job held no pleasure for him. That was why he eventually chose to return to Tibet.

"Being here makes a big difference," he said with pride. His hint: the money he made in Tibet was cleaner than that he made in the heartland. It's not okay if it's only money, and it's definitely not okay if there's no money. He wanted to combine his personal interest with his career, and that was how the idea of "donkey-friend inn" came to life. The inn was nearly finished now.

A sudden voice interrupted us: "Could you take me to see your inn?" A thirty-ish man from our group appeared beside us, who knew when. He said he was from Shanghai, and ran a chain motel business. He was attracted by Phurbu's idea and interested in a joint venture. I politely left the two alone.

The next day, on the bus to Nyingchi, at first Phurbu stood in the middle and talked excitedly about the scenery along the route. He even sang a couple of Tibetan folk songs, trying to lift everyone's spirit. Unfortunately most of the tourists were numb and dazed, short of oxygen. Seeing no reaction to his effort, Phurbu muttered, "Fine, get on the bus and sleep, get off the bus and pee, get to the site and take photos, get home having learned nothing."

He came to sit next to me and said, "What can we chat about today?"

"You seem to have a super surplus of energy," I teased.

"I just like to talk, to communicate with people. My entire motley knowledge has been collected from talking to all sorts of people."

"Then could I ask you a sensitive question: is it true that Tibetans all want to follow the Dalai Lama to strive for Tibetan independence?"

Actually, I'm most apolitical. But since our arrival at Lhasa, the fully armed soldiers everywhere, the checkpoints on highest alert, and the locals' vigilant and cold looks, all incited my curiosity. The riots had been more than a year ago, was it really necessary to still be so tense? Wasn't this a bit of overkill? Were the Tibetans frightened and forced to obey the government?

Phurbu answered my question without any hesitation, and emphasized that most Tibetans would think the same as him.

He said more than 80% of Tibetans advocate the CCP. The reason was simple: it was the CCP that turned the serfs into free men. This sounded like a CPPCC (政协) member's official speech, but it was true, he said.

He said including his father's generation, all his family members were pure serfs. Tibet's serfdom was very brutal and savage; serfs did not have any rights or the least bit of dignity. In holiday parties the nobles could kill serfs as they pleased, and use the serfs' viscera for dishes, their bones and skin for religious utensils. Phurbu's grandfather and father eye-witnessed such things.

Serf owners did all the atrocious things in the name of Buddha. Serfs used to believe they were born to suffer, and their owners were sent by Buddha to redeem their souls by tormenting their bodies. They believed the more suffering in the current life, the more happiness in the next life. Praying was the only thing they lived for.

All this changed after liberation. No need to mention other things, just the quarterly distribution of food and clothing that had been happening for several decades were enough to please the Tibetans. "If these are the CCP's sugar-coated bullets," Phurbu joked, "then they shot us comfortably." He even expressed worry that the government's abundant supply would encourage laziness among some young Tibetans.

Phurbu then talked about how the PLA sent food and medical supplies to north Tibet's high mountains during the snow-sealed winter every year, and how people there worshiped the PLA as much as Buddha.

As such, Phurbu said, Tibetan people became deeply suspicious of the benefits of independence. People's chief concern was, with independence, would the new ruler treat them as good as the CCP? Or would the Dalai Lama bring back the serfdom system?

This was why, Phurbu said, during the 3/14 riot last year the participants were not common Tibetans but men sent by the Dalai with a few local noblemen, plus some bought-over thugs. He said if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed what they had done. Those men, all dressed in lama robes but displaying nothing humanistic or religious, slashed whoever they ran into – no mercy even for children – and burned whatever houses were in their path. That scene of hell brought Phurbu a sudden doubt about Tibetan Buddhism passed down generation after generation. If those men represented Tibetan Buddhists and the Dalai Lama, Phurbu questioned, is Buddhism a religion or a political tool?

Even long after the riot, the locals still shuddered at the thought of it, so the fully armed soldiers on the streets actually gave them a feeling of security, Phurbu said.

Phurbu also disapproved of the way the government handled the riots. He believed the government likely knew about the riots from the very beginning, but intentionally waited without any action until the killing and burning escalated to a large scale. Only then did it jump in to clean up the mess with military force, so as to not give international opinion a chance to blame China for its lack of human rights.

Phurbu had a friend he grew up together with. Because his father was an officer in the Tibet military region, that young man was quite supercilious. During the riots, the friend claimed publicly that the government made a fuss over a trifle, and the whole event was a frame-up. Then one day the friend just disappeared. Soon after his father also disappeared. Phurbu was sympathetic to his friend, but also thought the friend's words had gone too far.

Our last stop was the ancient-cypress park in Nyingchi. The park has over a hundred thousand-year-old cypresses.

The cypress park in Nyingchi (photo by Maple Xu)

Here and there in the tree shadows were a dozen or so elementary students, looking to be seven or eight. They were either kneeling at a stone bench writing homework, or reciting from textbooks in crude Mandarin. The tourists chatted with them and praised their diligence in studying. A while later, the Tibetan children asked in a sincere tone, "Uncles and aunts, do you have a pen? Would you like to give me a pen?"

The tourists were taken off guard. They searched their own pockets, but only two people had pens with them. The rest of us felt apologetic: the children just wanted pens to do their homework, it would be a shame not to satisfy their small request. So, one after another, people took out their money, one yuan, two yuan, five, ten. They told the children to go buy a pen and study well. The kids accepted the money, and politely thanked us with a bow.

In the entire time, Phurbu did not utter a word. He watched the whole thing with a stern face.

Tibetan students in the cypress park (photo by Maple Xu)

I saw another seven- or eight-year-old boy was riding a broken bike circling on an open spot. Seeing me approaching him, his sun-reddened face beamed. He shouted, "Be careful, my bike does not have brake!"

"How come you are not doing homework like the others?" I asked.

"I finished a long time ago," he replied proudly.

"What's your name?"

"Phurbu."

Both the big Phurbu and I laughed. Next, our tour guide asked the little Phurbu a surprising question: "You didn't beg for money, did you?"

The little Phurbu answered quietly, "No."

The big Phurbu sighed; for the first time I saw a helpless expression on his always cheerful face.

"You mean that was their trick to beg for money?" I asked.

He nodded, "Always."

I felt lost. The little Phurbu suddenly ran up to a hill. On top of the hill he began to sing a popular song, "The Road to Heaven." The big Phurbu joined the singing, his thick voice and the boy's childish thin one in perfect harmony.

When they finished singing, the tour guide Phurbu shouted, "Good boy, Phurbu!"

People clapped. A tourist said, "Why did the boy run so far away to sing? Otherwise we could pay him a bit of money."

The big Phurbu again shouted, "Good boy, Phurbu!"

My eyes went moist for no reason. I remembered once when I asked Phurbu how he positions himself in the world, he replied:

"A Tibetan."

Truth and Steel in China

2009-07-29T08:13:00.018-04:00

New America Media, News Analysis, Xujun Eberlein, Published: July 29, 2009

(Note: the following text is my original draft, slightly longer than the NAM published version, and with links to sources. - Xujun)

Two seemly unrelated but notable events took place in China on Friday, July 24th. In the morning, the official news agency Xinhua published an article titled "Ten Suggestions for Local Governments on How to Respond to Internet Opinion" on its website. In a commanding tone, the article tells local governments:

When sudden incidents occur, the government should aim at the earliest time to issue press releases, grasp the right to speak, create first impressions, and lead the initiative. "Crisis management" is actually "crisis communication management." For example crisis management expert Norman Augustine advocates to "tell the truth and tell it fast."    Some of the local governments in China sum up their experience as "reporting facts fast, reporting causes with caution." The "open government information regulations" require "being open as the principle, not being open as an exception."

(Update: I just saw that Danwei has a full translation of the "ten suggestions" today - h/t ESWN.)

Its bureaucratic style notwithstanding, the call to "tell the truth and tell it fast" coming from a government mouthpiece surprised some Chinese dissidents who have long been protesting China's strict media control. An active dissident on Twitter dismissed the article as "just some journalist's opinion," even though the official tone of the article suggests a high level policy instruction disguised as an opinion piece, which is not unusual in China.

As if setting up an immediate reality test for the government's new media policy, that very day a large mass incident erupted in Tonghua, Jilin. Thousands of workers of the Tonghua Steel Corp protested a private takeover of their enterprise, which had a 50-year history of state ownership. The steel factory had already suffered a failed privatization attempt from the same company. It was recovering from that and last year's financial crisis, when the renewed and expanded ownership was announced. Angry workers beat to death the new general manager appointed by the private company, Jianlong of Beijing, on his first day at work. The workers gradually dispersed only after the Jilin provincial government announced its on-the-site decision to have the private company withdraw from Tonghua Steel's business. Some Chinese netizens called the event "the first workers movement since 1949" – the year Communist rule in China began.

As a test of the new media policy, it seems to have failed. For three days, China's media kept totally silent on the shocking incident, not even the independent and daring papers such as Caijing said a word. On every commercial web portal, posts and discussions on the Tonghua riot were quickly deleted. The Western media first learned the news from a Hong Kong human rights group and reported the incident briefly on the 25^th , all in a monotonous and minimalist way, quoting the same source.

Meanwhile, Chinese netizens acted quicker than the government's media controllers, and one detailed anonymous eye-witness account landed on overseas Chinese websites and was circulated around the world. It could no longer be deleted. (An English translation of this account can be found on Hong Kong-based ESWN, one of the most popular China blogs.) So far no Western media outlet has cited the far more informative account, whose content seems to be verified by various sources, including the government's own belated reporting. The speed of selection and elimination by internet surfers is amazing, and the quality control of the selection process is even more impressive.

China's media waited until July 27 to react. Curiously, this time English reporting led the way. The first report I found was published on China Daily's English site, titled "Manager killed in plant riot." This was followed by Chinese language reports that tagged along in a few major papers (apparently the smaller papers were still waiting to see which direction the wind was blowing). While the Chinese media did not follow the aforementioned policy advice to "tell the truth fast," they nonetheless acted according to the second part of it, i.e., "reporting causes with caution." Those articles were terse and dry reports with little analysis.

To be fair, for government-controlled media with a reputation for directing public opinion and suppressing real journalism, the attempt to "tell the truth" should be viewed as progress. The problem, however, is that the aforementioned policy suggestions treat telling the truth as a tactic rather than a principle; its author(s) apparently have not forgotten Mao's famous teaching, "Policy and tactics are the life of the Party."

While delayed factual reporting is better than no or distorted reporting, continued disillusion comes from the Jilin provincial government's bizarre media stance. On Monday afternoon, it issued a press release defending its failed effort to privatize Tonghua Steel, calling the takeover plan "carefully researched" and its implementation "legal," while using customary language to accuse "a small number of individuals agitating others who didn't know the truth" and starting the riot.

Though the Tonghua riot appears to be anti-privatization, internet accounts of the incident indicate that the primary cause of the workers' resentment was income polarization and crony capitalism. The general-manager who was beaten to death, Chen Guojun, was said to have an annual salary of 3 million yuan; in comparison, a Tonghua Steel worker's income may be as low as 200 yuan per month. Meanwhile, the Jilin provincial government's alliance with the private enterprise Jianlong was seen as an attempt to sell out the steelworkers to fill the pockets of the rich and powerful. The owner of Jianlong is said to have deep family connections with high-level government officials.

Whether or not the Tonghua workers' accusation of "collusion between government and rich businessmen" is true, crony capitalism is certainly an acute reality in China that has been addressed by many scholars, notably Tsinghua University's sociology professors Sun Liping and Qin Hui. An MIT economist, Yasheng Huang, also discussed it in his recent book, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics : entrepreneurship and the state. An American journalist, Philip Pan, vividly described such realities in his book Out of Mao's Shadow. In my own exchanges with many people in China early this year, such behavior seems quite common. The institutional cause of China's crony capitalism is the lack of checks on power. As such, political reform is more and more urgently called for. Without political reform, the great achievements of China's economic reform might one day be destroyed by social upheavals caused by wealth polarization.

The media policy prescribed by the Xinhua article, even if it were followed, does not address this problem. While quick reporting might dampen the escalation of netizen outrage, it does not help the steelworkers. These stalwart symbols of labor's contribution to Communist China point at the necessity of new reform, and not new tactics.

He's Arrived!

2009-07-26T19:01:00.009-04:00

Bike Travelogue: the 22nd (and final) day, Santa Fe to Albuquerque NM 73 Miles

by Bob Eberlein

July 25, Santa Fe, NM – It is cool, but not cold this morning. I consider putting on a sweatshirt but am quite confident that being a little bit cold for a little while will be a nice contrast to the rest of the day. The road starts out as a big urban street – lots more motels go by so I was just at the beginning of that. The road is downhill, and I can cruise along. The stop lights are a little bit annoying but there is not too much traffic so I make good time. Once I pass Interstate 25 route 15 turns into a normal and relatively pleasant road with a generous shoulder and very little traffic.

It is still downhill, and I am making great time. I wonder if I can just coast to Albuquerque. The road ahead is perfectly straight and downhill, but header toward mountains. I begin to doubt that I will simply be able to coast. The road is going south, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what it will do when it hits the hills. Perhaps I am losing my touch, but I do enjoy a road that presents a mystery. I am heading south.

Eventually the mystery begins to resolve as I head into the hills and turn a little bit to the west. I will be going over these mountains; I guess it could be a challenge. But it starts as relatively short ups and downs, with some interesting vistas and one really great rock formation. I am definitely in a dry area that used to have an active river.

cool rock formations

After a time a come to the town of Madrid and it seems like a good time for second breakfast. Unfortunately I don’t see anything that looks like a store. There is a little café, but the people around make me a little uncomfortable. On reflection that is pretty strange, but this was like being blown back to the early 70s. I felt like a kid again surrounded by adults who had chosen a different lifestyle from that normally pursued. Madrid seems to be an odd artists Mecca. Perhaps it will turn into another Taos.

As it happens, it does have a hill climb that is pretty similar to what Taos boasts on either the High Road to Taos or the pass to Cimarron. Unfortunately the climb starts too low, and does not get high enough to make it a delightful mountain ride. Still, there is significant elevation gain and this does help to keep the temperature down, so the ride it not too uncomfortable. I pass a few cyclists going in the other direction – no packs just day riders.

the climb ahead

Having missed my second breakfast in Madrid I stop to down a little bit of water and a few cookies to keep up my strength, or perhaps spirits, on the grinding climb. It is daunting, partly because so much of it is visible from the bottom. But, like any climb, it eventually ends. At the top I try my cell phone on a whim and it actually has a signal. Amazed I call Xujun to tell her I am at the top of the hill. Unfortunately, or fortunately since I am just standing in the sun, I did not charge my battery last night and it is twirping out. Actually, this explains the odd noise I kept hearing which I thought was a strange bird.

There is a short steep descent, but for the most part the road continues along a high ridge roughly level. I just keep going until I get to a really spread out set of housing developments below what is clearly a ski resort. I don’t know if these are ski condos or just houses but there is no town, just the development. It is all kind of strange to me.

The road starts to climb slowly, but a big tail wind has kicked up so instead of going really slow, I simply go slow. I just plug along, feeling pretty hungry and hoping something like a store will appear. The road gets bigger and more cyclists appear. They seem very little interested in me, oh well. Eventually I do find a gas station store combo and buy a quart of chocolate milk. It tastes wonderful. The store is really busy, I guess it is the only thing around. Lots more cyclists ride by in both directions.

From there the road gets bigger and bigger. Usually there is a decent shoulder, so the riding is not bad, but the whole thing feels a little bit yuppie surreal. There are lots of cyclists, but this is not really the nice part of the road to be riding on. A couple pass me and say hello, but are only mildly curious about what I am up to.

Route 14 finally ends and this is where I am pretty sure there is a road that follows I-40 even though it does not show up on my map. It turns out to be NM 335 and is also marked bicycle route 66, which eventually becomes historic US 66. This road is basically downhill into Albuquerque, but now a big headwind has kicked up so I only make a moderate pace. More cyclists pass me in both directions.

The road is not really very interesting, and I reflect how much more fun it is to ride around the Boston area than it would be to ride around here. There are, however, probably lots more riding days here. Which one works better? Boston seems clear to me. These roads are too big with too much traffic. Plus it is a desert.

Eventually this road turns into historic US 66 which is an incredibly straight road that runs downhill about 10 miles from the outskirts of Albuquerque to the center of town. I stop at a Carl’s Junior for my final on the road fast food and all the root beer I can drink meal. It is a little bit too soon after my Chocolate milk and I have trouble finishing my hamburger. Still, it is a nice cap to the trip.

From there it is just down the long straight hill. Lots of traffic, stop lights, entering cars and similar obstacles. There are three lanes in my direction with no shoulder so I ride in the middle of the right lane. I decide to stop the stupid drivers, of which there seems to be no shortage, from passing too close. It works, and nobody seems to get mad at me so while they may be bad drivers, they are nice bad drivers.

The road is lined with miles of motels. The going rate seems to be 29.95 per day, though that may require a weekly rental. I am amused by all of this and also by the destruction of the Economy Motel on the left of the street. Still, for all its run down appearance there are not that many places that seem to be out of business. It just looks like business has never been that good.

I finally reach Rio Grande Blvd and call ahead so that Roberta and Robin can get a picture of me as I ride up to the hotel. There they are, a final photo op.

I started on July 4, the same day as the Tour de France, but they still have a day to go, and still will not go as far as I have. I look at the times and have to laugh – 81 hours, I can do way better than that, why I must have at least 200 under my belt by now. Gosh, I’m as good as a whole team. Still I will follow the end – it looks like Lance Armstrong has been a good team player and will help Alberto Contador to victory.

I am off the road, and into real life mode again. Or maybe not, I am writing this in a Laundromat as I wait for my clothes to dry. Who knows what tomorrow holds.

Total Distance 2425 miles. Average daily 110, riding daily 116.

Bike Travelogue: the 21st Day

2009-07-25T22:30:00.008-04:00

bike sculptures in Taos, NM (photo by Bob)

Taos-10 to Santa Fe NM 87 Miles

by Bob Eberlein

Taos-10, NM – Having gone to bed tired, cold and downtrodden I wake up early in the morning. No email to catch up on, but I do complete my log for the day before. As light begins to filter into the sky I get up to have breakfast. I only have 4 pieces of bread left so decide to make it peanut butter and jam for breakfast in order to push me further into the day. Since I am at a campsite with a picnic table I take advantage of it and have my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in style.

Next I start to look at the bike. I pull off the rear panniers and put out the cover to my tent to catch any loose bearings. Then I pull of the crank arms to inspect. I discover I do not have the tool to pull the bottom bracket so make do with looking. The bearing unit has fallen apart. The thin metal guide which holds the bearings in position has fallen out and the bearings are not in that any more. It looks pretty bad, all in all. I can pack the remaining ball bearings into the race and they seem to stay, though there are not nearly enough to fill the unit. I do this, put in the bearing shield which has also fallen out to hold them in place then roll up some electrical tape and pack that around the shield. To keep it all in place I wrap the whole bottom bracket with several layers of electrical tape, and put the cranks back on.

This is not a pretty solution, but it seems to be viable. I am pretty sure I can make it to Taos, but I am not hopeful of finding a bike shop there. I wash my hands with water from the stream, pack up camp, pay the $5 fee to the US Forest Service and limp out onto the road.

Fortunately the road from my campsite to town continues to be downhill. I eventually pass out of the mountains into an area that could almost be suburban Boston except for the Adobe buildings. A woman out for a morning walk says hello to me. I continue into town. My bike randomly shifts gears as the chain drops from one chainwheel onto the next when the peddles wobble. I get to an intersection with a coffee shop and see a man with a bike drinking coffee. I ask him if he is from around here, and if he knows whether there is a bike shop. He says he is, and that there are two. One is just down the street we are on, and another about a mile down a parallel street. He says he thinks the nearby one opens at 9:30 and the further one at 10. He also says the one further away has better mechanics.

It is still only about 7:30 but I decide to check out the shops. I go to the nearby one, which is on the left. Even at this time of day there is so much traffic it is hard to cross the street. Eventually I do, it is a big place, opens at 9:30, and looks like it will work. I sit down in front of it and get my computer out to catch up on email and call Xujun.

After looking at my email it is still early so I decide to check out the other bike shop. I use Google maps to figure out the location, though the instructions I got at the coffee shop turn out to be right. I ride toward it and notice a McDonald’s at Taos, one of those rare McDonald’s that tries to blend with the local character, and figure I will come back for some more breakfast.

The second bike shop Taos Cyclery is where it should be. Smaller than the first, the sign on the door says it opens at 9. That clinches it for me. I decide to forget about food and sit down to wait. The shop is in a small plaza and there is an electrical outlet by one of the stores so I plug myself in. About 8:40 somebody rides up and unlocks the door. I ask him if they will open soon and he says 9. Ten minutes later he is back though, and I head on in.

I pull all my packs off the bike and my mechanic, whose name I never learned, puts it up on the stand and pulls off the cranks. He has a bottom bracket the right size so it is just a matter of getting the old one off, and the new one on. That turns out to take a while.

They do not have the tool to remove the bottom bracket; it is smaller than the standard. We resort to tapping it out with a screwdriver but it just breaks up the part. I try a Vise Grips, but only have the same effect. I am almost ready to give in to despair, but eventually Doug, the owner, comes over and explains we are trying to tighten not loosen the thing. That is helpful info, and pretty soon we do manage to get the old one out.

Putting the new one in starts out smoothly, but once it is in the crank is hitting the bike frame. This requires a spacer and the adaptation of the retaining bracket so that it will thread into the frame. That takes a while, but it does work.

In the meantime somebody has come in flaunting TGIFFF burritos. I couldn’t figure out what the last two FFs are all about but say I would love one. He says it is chicken but is seemed to have bacon, eggs and a whole bunch of other stuff in it. It is good, I guess, but seems to require a cast iron stomach. Anyway, it serves as my second breakfast and lunch combined.

I go to the store to get some batteries for my camera, and also a loaf of bread. Come back and get some pictures of the bike shop.

I go over a map with Doug who tells me the straight shot to Santa Fe is a narrow busy road and that I should take what is known locally as the High Road to Taos (even though I am starting in Taos). He also says that Espanola is worth avoiding. Advice I would not take from the Wal-Mart bicycle guy I do take from Doug. And so I set off for the high road.

Only a block from the store there is a thunking every time I pedal. All this work and just trouble, I think to myself. I take a closer look and it turns out one of the bolts holding the small chain-ring is loose. An easy fix. I pull out my allen keys and tighten it up, and I am off.

Doug described a 5 mile climb to start the high road, and reality does not disappoint. It is getting warm as the sun comes out but as I climb the air cools so it is not so hot. The big problem is flies. I am going so slowly that the horseflies act as if I am standing still. The horseflies are more annoying because they bite. There is nothing to be done but wave at them, sometimes I wish I had a tail.

The road goes up and the mountains are beautiful, with a great vista looking back toward Taos. After that there is a descent, and I find some chocolate milk for a mid day snack, since the burrito took care of lunch. Food is followed by a brutal section of up and down riding. This is very much like New York, except the uphills seem steeper and the descents do not require as much braking. I am not sure what to make of that.

Eventually I come to what I can only describe as the edge of the desert. There is a very long, and very steep descent from the beautiful mountains to the scrub brush desert below. It is so steep that I hold the brakes tightly and creep my way down the hills. I get to the turnoff that will allow me to avoid Espanola and take it. But the road quickly turns tiny, and begins a difficult, and seemingly purposeless, climb. I decide to go back to the main road and deal with Espanola.

There is, however, a second chance. This time the road that avoids Espanola is recommended by a sign about the High Road to Taos and it looks like a more respectable road. With the exception of the odd cattle gate, indeed it is. After one more hard climb heading south I hit the road to the west and get to easier riding, that eventually takes me out to the main highway into Santa Fe.

I stop for dinner and rehydration. The cool of the mountains has given way to the heat of the desert and I am thirsty. It is only about 14 miles into Santa Fe and that seems like an easy ride to me so I set out. I climb for the next 10 miles. Most of it is not steep, but it is slow going and it takes a long time. By the time I reach Santa Fe the light is starting to fade. It is not getting dark yet, but soon will be and is later than I like to ride. I find a motel on the road and check in for the night. Not too impressive, but it will hold me.