Read this interesting article (thanks to Aaron Gardiner who pointed me to it) about the two Sidneys (and two rivals) who had both participated in Three years ago, after reading Rittenberg’s book The Man Who Stayed Behind, I posted a review on Amazon. To my surprise, three months later, just before Christmas, I received an email – in Chinese – from Rittenberg, who not only read my review but also one of my short stories online. In his email with the subject "谢谢" (thank you), he called my review 公正 ("fair-minded") and generously praised my story "Second Encounter" as 诚实而深刻 ("honest and profound"). Rittenberg compared the story to He Dong’s Ask the Sun, also about the Cultural Revolution.
From our correspondence I learned that Rittenberg, already 84 years old in 2005, and his wife of 50 years, Wang Yulin, had been working as business and cultural consultants for several
And again I highly recommend The Man Who Stayed Behind for anyone who’s interested in learning about
2 comments:
Xujun,
I can't remember his name, but there is a guy who lives out by the Summer palace whose story goes something like this: His parents were radical British communists who came to Beijing to help the revolution. Needless to say, they got thrown into prison during the CR. The authorities decided that he was okay, and despite being in his early teens, he was allowed to stay in their apartment and kept receiving his parent's salaries and food coupons. When his parents were released, years later, they decamped for England, but he stayed on. Now he lives in a siheyuan with a bomb shelter underneath it, that he uses as a wine cellar. I am good friends with an American who knows him, so I will see if I can rustle up some more details.
Aaron.
Aaron, I think I know who you are talking about. I visited him last summer in Beijing, introduced by a Chinese friend. He has great stories.
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