Chongqing Dispatch: Wang Lijun's Planned Police Monument

In early April, a few days after I arrived in Chongqing, a friend called to tell me about a construction project that Wang Lijun had started in November of last year – "The Wall of Police Heroes and Martyrs." The unfinished project, located at Gele Mountain's Yunding Peak (云顶峰) inside the Forest Park, is unknown to the public except for observant tourists who happen upon it and notice the construction signs.  

Police Monument: artist rendering of the visual effect

Work on the site started around the time of Neil Heywood's alleged murder in Chongqing.  One can’t help but imagine that, right up to the moment of Heywood's death, Wang Lijun was still immersed in his police hero fantasy.  Local sources told me that Wang was a big fan of Hollywood police-hero movies and TV shows, and fancied himself as such.  He had also ordered a local writer, Huang Jiren, a friend from my youth, to put together a heroic biography for him. This police monument might have been more for himself than for his fallen comrades.

tram track for the project

The project, undertaken by a construction company that has not been paid for their work so far, was not halted until the week of my visit to the site in mid-April, more than two months after Wang Lijun fled to the US consulate in Chengdu on February 6. Such a long delay makes one wonder how many matters are left from the Bo Xilai period that will have to be dealt with in the months and years ahead.

construction site

On April 15^th, I went to the mountain with two friends; one of them was familiar with the project and upset about its destruction to the protected national forest park.  He said Wang Lijun had not obtained any permits from either the National Forestry Bureau or the Bureau of Parks and Woods, both of which oversee the forest park. Wang simply told the park that this was where he wanted to build the police monument.  "Who are we to resist his order?" A park manager is claimed to have said.

The planned monument comprises a platform of 1000 square meter and a series of 72 columns rising from the platform to the top of the mountain. The estimated cost is 5.97 million yuan, but some say it would likely cost ten times as much. If built, the project would effectively reshape the mountain peak.

The construction area was closed off with temporary walls and fences surrounding the mountain top, but we found a small gap between them and squeezed ourselves inside. We climbed up along leaf-covered mountain paths. 

Origin of Chongqing's Coordinates

At the highest point on Yunding Peak stands a slab that says "The Origin Point of Chongqing's Coordinates." The symbolic significance of the point might have been the reason Wang Lijun chose the spot for his monument. 

Going down from there, along a flight of stone steps, one could see a series of naked metal poles – intended to hold up the 72 columns – gradually spiraling into a huge pile of cement bags.  A tram track, exclusively built to transport construction materials for this project, runs down the hill to meet the road that construction vehicles can access.

Staring at a pair of concrete bases, one of the friends said miserably, "Now what is the government going to do about it?  To let the monument continue to be built?  Or to deconstruct what is already laid?  What a big waste!"

I wondered if the name of the monument was inspired by the "Wall of the Paris Commune." Wang Lijun must have really wanted his name to go down in history.  And it may, just not the way he thought.

The next day, I described the project to The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore, who also happened to be in Chongqing at the time.  He subsequently visited the site and mentioned it in a report on April 18^th.

Chongqing Dispatch: April 11, 2012

Even before I reached the news kiosk on the street corner, the seller waved his hand and shouted, "No more newspapers!"  It was only mid-morning, and on each of the past few days I had easily bought papers at that spot when I passed it in the afternoon. 

"Every paper is sold out?" I asked in disbelief. 
"Yes, because every paper carries the news about Bo Xilai," the mid-aged man replied.  "Even Legal Daily is sold out."
"Have you sold out all your papers before?"  I said.
"Never," he said, "lots of leftovers every day."

I am in Chongqing this week to see my parents. My father, who is recovering from liver surgery, shares a hospital room with two other patients. Each weekday morning, the hospital distributes a free copy of Chongqing Morning News to every room on his floor. However the paper never reached my father's room today, a Wednesday.

The woman in the bed next to my father's offered me the paper her husband had just brought her.  On top of the first page is the headline in large, bold font: "CPC Central Committee Decides to Investigate Comrade Bo Xilai's Serious Discipline Violations."  Under it, a separate line in much smaller font reads: "Police reinvestigate the death of Neil Heywood in accordance with the law."

"Are you surprised by the news?" I asked the woman, who looked to be in her late forties.
"Not surprised about Bo's treatment, but very surprised by the murder charge on his wife," she told me. She had never heard about Heywood before. "But we ordinary people don't care about politics that much.  We just care about our health and issues of daily life." Her husband nodded in agreement.

A while later I went to see my mother who was undergoing tests and observation in the gerontology wing of the same hospital.  At the nurses station on her floor, I saw young nurses talking in hushed tones stop in mid sentence as I passed by.  In my mother's room, the first words her roommate said to me were "Have you heard it?" by which she meant the involvement of Bo's wife in Heywood's death, not Bo’s removal from his party posts.

In the past week, since my arrival in Chongqing, nine out of ten people I spoke to had not heard of the Heywood case. The breaking of the news today apparently came as a shock.

Two days earlier, a friend who works as a mid-level cadre in a government-run enterprise said that the cadres in his unit have little mood to work. "All are waiting for the situation to get clearer," he said. "Nobody wants to follow the wrong line."

To many Chongqing residents, however, today's news seems to have just brought more confusion. As recently as last week, Chongqing was one of the banned internet words. Whether Party Central is really trying to achieve transparency by the sudden announcement today, or just using it as a new political tactic, the changes are too fast and too spotty to help in the never-ending chase for stability.

On Bo Xilai's "Chongqing Model"

(Note:  this is a longer variant of the piece published in the China Beat today. Here it includes the economic aspects of Bo's performance and my comments on the so-called "Chongqing Model."  – Xujun)

So here is a curious thing: since Bo Xilai's downfall, the international media has gone wild speculating on its causes, but few have mentioned the economic factor.  The majority of English reports focus on Bo's attention-generating personal style that might have offended Beijing's top leaders.  Behind the visible factors, however, is a hidden, and much more alarming, issue: Bo's Chongqing government had (still has) huge fiscal deficits. Premier Wen Jiabao, in his March14th press conference, emphasized controlling local government debt. This suggests that Chongqing's deficits likely played a big role in Beijing's assessment of Bo's performance.

A Chinese report shows that Chongqing's 2011 fiscal deficit was more than 100 billion yuan (roughly 16 billion in US dollar). This, a 30% of the year's fiscal revenue, may not look to be the worst, but deficits have been persistent throughout Bo's tenure. The highest – at 50% – occurred in 2009,  the year the "crackdown on gangsters" campaign began. Mayor Huang Qifan was quoted as saying the deficits were to be balanced out by the central government. The talk of the town is that one motivation for Bo's crackdown was to confiscate private business money to fill the hole in his government spending.

Why did Chongqing's deficits continually run high?  A few examples might provide a clue. One thing I wrote about last year was Bo Xilai's billion-dollar gingko trees.  In a Great Leap Forward like zeal to carry out his vision of "Forest Chongqing," in 2010 alone Bo spent 10 billion yuan to plant expensive gingko trees that he favors but are not suitable for local conditions. That expense was 10% of the city's fiscal revenue for 2009. (I wonder if it is the symbolic value of gingko – a species dubbed as "living fossil" – that Bo was after.  His image would never be far away as long as the gingkoes were around, much like the first well Mao helped to dig in Ruijin in the 1930s that is forever commemorated.)

Another example: in Bo's "red culture" campaign, he prevented Chongqing's satellite TV from showing commercials.  So where could the TV station get its revenue from?  The city's fiscal budget covered 50% of it.  (On March 15, hours after the news broke that Bo was gone, the TV station broadcast its first ad in two years.)

As I've also reported, Bo's "red song" campaign had been a big burden on the city's finance.  The singing activities were a mandatory task driven down through the system's hierarchy to every work unit.  "They arrange work time to sing 'red songs,' and the city finances it," commented a Chongqing historian I interviewed last year, "This expense goes through neither process of auditing nor process of argumentation.  A word from the leader, then you must support the activity."

A source said that, after Chongqing's police force was reorganized in the "crackdown on gangsters" campaign (and Wen Qiang, the old police chief and Wang Lijun's predecessor, was executed), each year Chongqing would order 70,000 police uniforms – at a cost of

 4000 yuan each – from Dalian, where Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun came from. That annual expense alone totals 280 million.

One outcome of the "crackdown" are the so-called "police platforms" that Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun placed everywhere along Chongqing's streets. Each one of those modern-equipped platforms cost several million yuan. There was no study on cost-effectiveness, but the platforms apparently have made people feel safer and thankful to Bo.

~

Here is another curious thing: in the wake of Bo Xilai's sudden downfall, shortly after what could be called an online carnival among China watchers – probably more in celebration of a rare, real-life political drama than anything else – the international media is changing its tune and beginning to paint a more sympathetic image of Bo than previously reported, by focusing on Chinese people's love of him.  Reuters, for example, has a report titled "In China's Chongqing, dismay over downfall of Bo Xilai" that quotes a working "stick man" (棒棒军, a porter-for-hire) who praises Bo as "a good man" that "made life a lot better here." The Telegraph's Malcolm Moore (the intrepid reporter who brought Wukan to the world's attention) even went so far as to call Bo "one of the most loved" officials in China. 

Those reports, however, can be misleading if not balanced by a variety of opinions or careful analysis.

China is the most populous country in the world, and Chongqing is the most populous metropolis in China.  With that many people, one can find any and all kinds of opinions among them, certainly including the ones quoted above.  But when we assess Chinese public opinion about a leader, a crucial factor that should never be forgotten is the opacity of China's politics.  Under this condition, there is only so much one can read into either love or hatred of a leader by the masses.  Mao was the most loved in the 1950s and 60s, but it was Mao's policies that caused tens of millions of deaths during that period.  Deng Xiaoping was one of the most hated during the Cultural Revolution (as "China's second biggest capitalist roader"), but he went on to make China richer with his "reform and opening" policies. As I wrote in a dual book review on Mao's Great Famine and Tombstone, an information blackout during the 1959-61 famine had caused millions of peasants to quietly die with no complaints about Mao and the Communist Party. Today, the Internet has greatly increased information accessibility (often in the form of rumors), but that is still largely beyond people at the bottom of the society who struggle to make a daily living, people like the "stick men."

I have been talking to fellow townsfolk throughout Bo's tenure in Chongqing, both in person during my visits and via phone and email.  One thing I notice – though this is not to claim that my sample set is statistically significant – is that the more access to information people have, the more negative their opinions of Bo are.  (The "stick man" quoted by the Reuters report above provides collateral evidence to my observation – he "said he could not read and did not watch television.")  Age also mattered, with people who had experienced the Cultural Revolution tending to be more suspicious of Bo.

Others’ attitudes toward Bo went through a change after the "crackdown on gangsters" campaign began. I noted this in February 2010, in a blog post titled "Turning Winds in Chongqing's Crackdown." I am one of those who changed.

Watching my hometown from afar, my first impression of Bo Xilai was rather good. In November 2008, Chongqing's taxi drivers went on strike, the first such occurrence in Communist China. I followed this event online as closely as I could, and was worried that a bloody repression might be inevitable. At the time, Bo had held his post as Chongqing Party chief for less than a year.  He was in Beijing when the strike started on a Monday; meanwhile, Chongqing's official media reported arrests of cab drivers. On Thursday, however, after Bo returned to Chongqing, he held a three-hour long televised meeting with representatives of the taxi drivers and citizens to discuss their requests.  He appeared fair and open-minded, telling the drivers that their demands were legitimate and their problems would be attended to.  He gained their trust and the strike ended peacefully. As I wrote at the time, I was very impressed. I still remember the relief I felt for my townsmen. I thought that Bo was different, and that he might make a difference for Chongqing—perhaps for China, too.

A year later, when the "crackdown on gangsters" began, the taxi strike was deemed to have been organized by "mafia."  I visit my home city often and I knew the predicament of the cab drivers was real – so that verdict was enough for me to be alarmed. Where had the sympathetic Bo gone? What was the real purpose of the "crackdown"?

Today I continue to wonder what role the taxi strike played in Bo's decision to start a Cultural Revolution-style campaign, and what he had really felt inside when he appeared as a sympathetic listener to the strikers. 

Initially, the crackdown made a positive impression on me as well – like the general public, I was eager to see the corrupt punished. The irony is, later I would be as shocked by the death sentence of Wen Qiang, Chongqing's police chief preceding Wang Lijun, as I was pleased by Wen's arrest at first.

Then came the official attempt to overturn the verdict of the taxi strike.  Then came the Li Zhuang case. Then came a dozen death sentences and executions in quick succession – a batch execution, really, with a concentration not seen since the heyday of the Cultural Revolution.

An ex-judge I met last year questioned the legality of Chongqing's crackdown. "There is no such a term as 'mafia' or 'gangsters' in China's criminal law," he told me. 

~

The last curious thing I want to mention here is this:  on March 8^th, during the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, Bo Xilai gave a press conference that attracted a big crowd of journalists; lots of questions were asked and answered, but no one brought up the disappearance of a Chongqing delegation member, Zhang Mingyu. Zhang was taken by force from his Beijing residence by Chongqing police, believed to have been sent by Bo Xilai. Zhang's lawyer tried to reach out to media and netizens through microblogs.  I saw reports of Zhang’s disappearance on March 7^th and tweeted about it with a bit of shock – this was happening during the NPC, which is supposed to be China's highest legislative meeting.  Would anybody inquire about a violation of the basic rights of its own delegates? 

A few foreign media outlets reported Zhang's lawyer's calls for help on March 7^th. After that, Zhang, and his name, were no longer seen anywhere, as if he had vanished or never even existed. For a week, I searched for his name on the Chinese internet every day. Nothing. 

Until March 15^th, that is, the day Bo Xilai's removal was announced.  A friend who knew I was concerned with Zhang's fate sent me a link to a VOC report on Zhang's release.

He was lucky.  Another Chongqing citizen, Fang Hong, disappeared a year ago after calling Bo Xilai "shit," and was never seen or heard from again.

It is thinking about the helplessness of individuals like those that brings fear to me. I write things like this essay – will I disappear one day when visiting Chongqing? Bo's departure has made me feel safer.

What about Bo's "Chongqing Model" though?  First, I don't believe there is such a thing as a "Chongqing Model."  If we are talking about the mass-campaign style of carrying out a government policy, that's as old as Maoist China; that's not Chongqing's patent. If we are talking about the urbanization policies, we have to ask whether individual wishes and rights are respected.  Recently a Chongqing farmer attempted suicide when visiting Taiwan with a tourist group; his misery was that all his land was forcibly taken by the government. Meanwhile, Chongqing is to spend $6 billion this year contracting out agriculture to Brazil, Argentina, Canada and other countries, the implications of which are unclear.

I have seen Bo Xilai characterized as a Western-style politician, which I find amusing. Bo is a product of China's political system, pure and simple. His education was Mao worship and he has not transcended it; his ideas are all out of old playbooks; his suffering in his youth – years of unjust imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution – seems to have only made him more cynical and cruel.

China's political system needs to be reformed in order to prevent bigger crises.  So where is the hope? If nobody coming out of the system I grew up in could carve a new path forward, we will probably need to wait for those who grew up after the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution had subsided. Alas, that is a generation raised on crony-capitalism and rampant corruption. Such is the dilemma.

-------------
Update 3/22:

As a follow up, I got a note from the Australian journalist John Garnaut, who works for Sydney Morning Herald. He told me he has been following Zhang Mingyu's story since last year.  Unfortunately he and a colleague "were both locked out of the Bo presser at the NPC, along with many others. I was disappointed no one asked about zhang mingyu. We reported as soon as he was released."

The following links he sent me might be of interest:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/show-them-the-money-old-china-20110325-1ca3f.html

http://www.watoday.com.au/world/bo-can-do-one-man-does-his-bit-to-be-the-great-will-of-china-20110806-1iglu.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/chinese-businessman-held-on-brink-of-mafia-expose-20120307-1ukx2.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/sacking-overshadows-china-power-shift-20120315-1v86b.html?skin=text-only

Bo Xilai's Billion-Dollar Gingko Trees

Note:  In the wake of Bo Xilai's downfall, I noticed that many American readers are not familiar with what Bo actually did in Chongqing.  This report, which I sent to Jim Fallows in May 2011 (when Bo was still in his heydays) and first published in Jim's Atlantic pages, provides a glimpse.  I've never posted it on my blog; thought it might be of interest. -- Xujun

Gingko Fever in Chongqing

By Xujun Eberlein, May 2011

In Chongqing, China's fastest growing metropolis, slogans boldly plaster walls everywhere - "Forest Chongqing," "Livable Chongqing," "Accessible Chongqing." Evidently, the first target is being indulgently pursued:  when I visited in April, there were a lot more newly planted trees along the roads than I saw in my previous trip two years before. Most of the new trees were of the same kind, tall and densely planted in neat rows. Supported by wooden rods from three sides, many of them had an "IV bottle" - that's what the locals called it, I later learned - hanging on their bare branches. 

From the moving car I couldn't tell immediately what kind of trees they were, and I did not give much thought to them, though a gardener's instinct made me wonder why trees of this size - thick as a big bowl - needed to be planted so close together.

A few days later, I heard a story:

Bo Xilai Is Gone from Chongqing

Happy to hear that.

Wang Lijun, Bo Xilai, and the US Consulate: What Happened

I just left China today.  By now the whole world knows that Wang Lijun, Chongqing's deputy mayor (and police chief until February 2^nd), is in trouble; so is Bo Xilai, Chongqing's Party boss who has charmed many Western journalists.  

What on earth happened that led to Wang Lijun's "defection" into the US consulate in Chengdu?  Below is what I heard while in China.  Keep in mind part of this is informed speculation, so take it with a grain of salt. 

First, Wang Lijun was not seeking asylum with the US as some have guessed.  He was running away from Bo Xilai and seeking the protection of Beijing's Party Central, and he used the US consulate as a safe house, possibly also a message relay point.  He waited an entire day until the people sent from Beijing arrived, at which point he walked out of the US consulate "of his own volition," as state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland put it.

Wang then walked into a melee between two forces waiting outside:  Seventy police wagons sent by Bo Xilai, and agents of State Security sent from Beijing. The two parties scuffled and argued about who would take Wang Lijun into custody. In the end, Wang's plan worked: he was escorted to Beijing instead of Chongqing.

So why, at such a key point in Bo Xilai's political future, was he taking this unusual action against his right-hand man and police chief?

According to sources, Wang Lijun was involved in the "Tieling case" and is under investigation.  To make a deal for himself, he informed the Party Central's Commission for Discipline Inspection that Bo Xilai and his family had transferred money and property overseas.  Bo, of course, found out about Wang’s accusations and it led to the sudden arrests of Wang's eleven henchmen, including Wang's driver, as well as the removal of Wang from the post of Chongqing's police chief on February 2^nd. 

Thailand World News says that, a reporter of the Chinese Southern Weekend spoke to Wang Lijun by phone on February 4^th . When asked whether his driver had been arrested, Wang replied, "If he's arrested, so be it."  ("抓就抓唄.")

How Wang escaped Bo's control and drove three hours from Chongqing to Chengdu's US consulate on the 6^th is still unclear. It is said that Wang used the excuse of visiting a university and received Bo's approval.  Which university is that?  It must be somewhere between Chongqing and Chengdu to provide Wang the possibility of escape.

Only 19 months ago, in July 2010, Chongqing's previous police chief, Wen Qiang, was executed by lethal injection.  Wang Lijun, who succeeded Wen Qiang as Chongqing's police chief, played a key role in Wen Qiang's downfall, and has been hailed as the heroic gangbuster.  Ironically and astonishingly, Wang turned from a police hero to a criminal more quickly than Wen Qiang did.  It brings forth the vivid image from the Chinese adage:  "The mantis stalks the cicada, while the oriole is after the mantis."

Wang Lijun is now in the hands of Party Central.  It will be very interesting to see how (or if) Beijing will explain his role reversal to the public. As to Bo Xilai, his hope to ascend is probably finished, though, as I heard someone say, don’t rule him out yet!

A Dual Review of Tombstone and Mao's Great Famine

(Note:  I'm traveling in China right now, where I don't have access to my own blog.  I have to ask someone else outside to put this post up for me.  It was a surprise to me, though, that LA Review of Books is also blocked.  I don't know why and doubt that there was a particular reason, but now with my following review published, the Chinese government might indeed feel the need. Sigh. )

THETEACHER OF THE FUTURE
XUJUN EBERLEIN
on two accounts of the great Chinese famine.

In July 2011, Frank Dikötter’s Mao’s Great Famine won the BBC’s Samuel Johnson Prize, one of Europe’s best known and most lucrative awards for a work of nonfiction. One of the judges, Brenda Maddox, explained to the Guardian why the book impressed her so much: “Why didn’t I know about this? We feel we know who the villains of the 20th century are — Stalin and Hitler. But here, fully 50 years after the event, is something we did not know about.”

That reaction highlights both the main contribution and main limitation of Dikötter’s book. Though there have been many books and articles published on the same subject — in English, Chinese, and I’m sure other languages — apparently Dikötter’s is the one that brought awareness to at least one more Westerner ignorant of the catastrophe. On the other hand, Dikötter’s attempt to draw parallels between the Mao-era famine that swept over the entirety of mainland China from 1959 to 1961 and killed tens of millions, the Holocaust, and the Soviet Gulag is, at best, an over-simplification that hinders understanding. To borrow what the discerning Asia scholar Ian Buruma once said on a different subject: “To distinguish between atrocities does not diminish the horror, but without clarity on these matters history recedes into myth and becomes a form of propaganda.”

The most authoritative study on the famine is Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone, which has a broader and deeper perspective. The Chinese language edition of the book was published in Hong Kong two years before Dikötter’s, and an English version is due out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in fall 2012.

(Read the complete review at LOSANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS)

A Few Anecdotes about My Hexagonal Pavilion

On its last day, let me end 2011 with a personal note.  After two laborious years, the hexagonal pavilion (六角亭) Bob and I started in September 2009 is finally finished (actually, I can only take credit for the inspiration, design and quality control; Bob is the one who built it):

To compare, here is a photo of it in the first winter:

From the beginning I racked my wits trying to come up with a good name for the pavilion. After many failed tries, the name arrived without effort. In December 2009, I emailed the above photo to a friend, Wang Yan, in China. He replied:

宋人当年每起一亭，必做文以记之，如“喜雨亭记”，“黄州快哉亭记”等，皆吾所爱。但最爱者，为苏东坡“超然台记”。

In translation:

In the Song Dynasty, whenever a pavilion was built, notes were written to record it.  I love such notes as those for "Happy Rain Pavilion," "Huangzhou Pleasure Pavilion," etc, but what I love the most is Su Dongpo's "Notes on the Terrace of Transcendence."

Terrace of Transcendence,  Shandong

I had forgotten all about it: The Terrace of Transcendence (超然台), in Shandong Province, was where the great Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo wrote his eternal verse "Bright Moon, When Was Your Birth" (明月几时有). (Some translate the poem title as "When Will the Moon Be Bright," which is clearly incorrect to me as the poem itself indicates that it was written during a full moon.)

The word "超然," besides "transcendence," can also be translated as "detachment,", "aloof," and so on.  "Transcendence" seems to fit our mood the best and, on reflection, it must be more than coincidence that we live in the area where the 19^th century "transcendental movement" originated.  It was sitting by Walden Pond one day in 2010, for example, that Bob wrote his letter of resignation to the company where he had worked for two decades. (Later, when discussing the pavilion name, I asked him, jokingly, what we are transcending, and he said, "The chaos of office politics." In that case, I “transcended” seven years earlier than him, when I quit my job as an algorithm developer with steady income and became a writer with two sleeves of clear wind (两袖清风). :-))

Looking back, my whole life seems to be a struggle between aspiration for some sort of transcendence and failure in achieving it. No matter.  Don't you know a classic Chinese saying, "Though unreachable, my heart longs" ("虽不能至，心向往之")?

Thus we settled on the name for our pavilion:  超然亭, or "The Pavilion of Transcendence."

The last touch to complete the construction requires an engraved plaque, or 匾 (bian), with the name inscribed.  I decided to use seal script (篆字) for the inscription, and easily found an on-line generator for the three characters. But the color combination for the background and the characters was a bit difficult to figure out, even with computer simulation.  I asked around for opinions among Chinese friends, but they were as varied as our own.  Alas, one friend convinced us that "only black characters on a wooden background would match the meaning of the words."

I sent the specification for the plaque to my sister and solicited her help to have it made in Shanghai. She took my request seriously.  A few days later, she wrote back (in translation):

At first I thought this would be simple, because on Puxi's Fuzhou Road there are all kinds of culture and art stores that make anything and everything. When I went to the store that made frames for my paintings, however, the wood-master who has worked on this 'culture street' for more than 30 years told me no store makes bian (匾). 

I didn't believe him, and walked through the entire Fuzhou Road to look. I found several engraving shops that make metal or plexiglass seals.  The workers, all young men in their 20s, had their mouths gasped in the shape of the question mark on hearing the word bian (匾), clueless as to what kind of thing it is. A nice young man called the storeowner for me. The owner asked, 'What is bian?'  I had no choice but say, 'It is a piece of wood engraved with words.' 'Aha,' he said, 'store sign!' I was speechless.  He then said if I provided a piece of wood he could engrave the words for me, 60 yuan a character.  Well, where do I go to find the wood?  Not to mention the wood for a bian requires certain machine processing.

I called directory information asking where to find a store that makes bian.  The operator was even more amazing. "Bian?" she said, 'you mean shoulder pole (bian dan 扁担)?'

I hadn't thought that Shanghai, the so-called international cosmopolitan center, would be so culturally ignorant.

I searched the internet with no results. An entire day was wasted.

The next day, my sister (who lives in Pudong) went to Puxi again and randomly looked around.  When she almost gave up, she ran into an auction store, above its door hanging an antique plaque with the inscription of "青莲阁," looking cultured.  She ran to the third floor asking if anyone knew where that plaque was made, and everyone thought her absurd. Fortunately she ran into a passerby, Mr. Dai, who said he knew which contractor made the plaque, and he helped to find their phone number. The very kind Mr. Dai also advised her that elm would be the best material for making a bian.

My sister then called the number Mr. Dai gave her, and found a Mr. Shen, who said he wasn't the right person and provided another number. Through that number my sister reached a Ms. Li, who told her to meet at a far place, nearly an hour's subway ride away. It turns out Ms. Li is a Fujian migrant worker in the business of antique imitation. My sister had finally found someone who is not a Shanghaies and knows what a bian 匾is.

And certainly, the bian is made of elm, just as Mr. Dai advised:

I can't wait to hang it up on the pavilion next spring.

Btw, Bob is writing a series of posts on the process of building this beautiful monster.  His first post is already up here.

Christmas in Shanghai

by Maple, guest blogger,  December 25, 2011

[in translation， 中文原文附后]

At Jing'an Temple in Shanghai

I don't know when it started, but my Chinese countrymen have increasingly lost feeling for traditional festivals and become more and more heated up by Western holidays. Even economic depression and "End of the World" panic can't hold back Shanghai's fervor to welcome Christmas.

At a mall in Shanghai

In a place that always leads the fashion trend and where there is no shortage of foreigners and foreign enterprises, it may not be so strange for some people to take this ride for a bit of fun, but when an entire city collectively goes crazy for a foreign holiday, it is a different matter indeed.  Here is the humility that goes with Christianity—such respect for others' cultures must be an overwhelmingly pleasant surprise to the 0.5% of the population in Shanghai that is foreign. So harmonious.

In Shanghai's Zhengda Square

 Each year, when Christmas approaches, the joyful atmosphere seeps to every corner of the city like overflowing water. When nights fall, the city is ever so gorgeous with lit-up trees, silver flowers and colorful embroideries of light, while Christmas music incessantly drones on. Excited young people dress exquisitely, like flowering branches vying for attention. No matter a big department store or small supermarket, no matter a bank or restaurant, no matter a foreign-invested or domestic enterprise or even a government organization, at every building's door there is a Christmas tree fully decorated with neon lights and bags of  presents. Even small residential enclaves and ordinary hospitals are not spared. So what if you are a Buddhist or Muslim, when you go home or go to the hospital, you get to celebrate Christmas.

In Shanghai's hotel

A while ago there was a joke circulating on the internet: in a contest for the most enigmatic department on the earth, the winner is China's "relevant department" ("有关部门").  I suspect, to place Christmas trees in every corner of Shanghai is the glorious mission of a "relevant department."

In a residential enclave of Shanghai

Perhaps people so exhaust their enjoyment during Christmas, that when it actually comes time for our own spring festival, the reaction from both businesses and the populace is fatigued.  Besides the dull red lanterns, sausage and smoked pork, plus the CCTV Gala Show that gets worse and worse every year, there is nothing else. Compared with people's enthusiasm for Christmas, spring festival no doubt is cast in the shadows.

In Shanghai's supermarket

Nowadays when commenting on something interesting, the Shanghai idiom goes, "That has some tunes" ("老有腔调的").  Is it because we Chinese are so insipid and constrained in nature that our traditional festivals are spent with fewer and fewer tunes?  Otherwise why, when the fun and relaxing foreign holidays such as Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Christmas are introduced,  do we progress from fascination to enthusiastic talk  to glad acceptance?  As to why Halloween involves masks, where Valentine's originated or whose birth Christmas is celebrating, no one cares as long as there are big meals to eat, discount goods to buy and colorful decorations to see.

But let's cut the cackle. On Christmas day, real Christians go to church to hear sermons, sing hymns, and read the Bible. There you will again run into situations between laughter and tears.  At the gate of the following church, for example, a bunch of Henanese sit there begging—

On Christmas Day, beggers at a Shanghai church

Even beggers in Shanghai know today is Christmas. That adds some tunes. They must have their simple logic – merciful Christians probably won't refuse to give charity on this special day.  That is why they deploy the most primitive ruse of bodily suffering:  on a frigid winter day, sitting on icy cement ground, wearing patched clothing and a faint smile, they languidly chant to the church goers: Please do something kind, bosses, please do something kind!

The foreigners pass by unfazed, but how can the fellow Chinese bear it? One digs into his pocket and hands money to a begging woman.  The woman takes the bills and says loudly, Thank you, you the good heart! You really are a living Buddha!

The Good Heart sighs looking up to the heavens, Oh my Lord!

Yang Rebuts Dikötter on Famine Research

[Note:  I don't know either Frank Dikötter or Yang Jisheng, but I have read both China's Great Famine (in English) and Tombstone (in Chinese), two books I'll be reviewing.

For research purposes, I'm intensely interested in finding out whether Mao really said "It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill," and if he did, in what context.  According to Dikötter, Mao made the speech on March 25, 1959, in a secret meeting in Shanghai, but the source Dikötter cites in his book is "Gansu" – Gansu's provincial archive. If Dikötter can show us the complete speech of Mao that contains those words, or the complete context if they are words attributed to Mao by someone else, that would be a great help to all researchers of the subject. – Xujun]

Update:  my review for both books has been published in LA Review of Books in January 2012:  "The Teacher of the Future"

杨继绳答冯克先生对《墓碑》的评论

In Response to Mr. Dikötter's Comments on Tombstone

by Yang Jisheng 

Independent Chinese Pen Center, November 16, 2011

[In translation]

Not long ago, when I heard that Mr. Dikötter's book on China's great famine had been published, I was very happy: with one more comrade researching China's great famine, I felt in my heart the consolation of not being alone. Later, when I heard his book had received an award, I was again very happy, for our research field had attracted serious attention from international academic circles.

I got to know Dikötter in 2007.  I was visiting the Chinese University of Hong Kong, mainly to make use of its various chorographic resources for my final proofreading and correction of the Tombstone manuscript. Beijing’s Library on Wenjin Street also has chorographies, but does not allow open-shelf reading; one has to check out a single book a time to read, which is very inconvenient. 

One day perhaps in May 2007, through the introduction of Prof. Cao Shuji of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Dikötter found me at CUHK. I told him about my research.  He said, "You study about death; I study about survival."  I thought his angle was original.  We also discussed the number of [starvation] deaths. I said 36 million is only an approximate number; it is impossible to find an accurate count. Later I gave a talk at a lunch meeting on China's great famine; I remember Mr. Dikötter was also there.

Tombstone was published in May 2008 in Hong Kong by Cosmos Books, and it triggered unexpectedly strong reaction.  Sometime later, probably in 2009, Dikötter's assistant Ms. Zhou Xun visited me in Beijing. I gave her some information and methods for gathering famine data.  I half joked, "With your Chinese face and pure Sichuan dialect, maybe you could sneak into Sichuan's Provincial archives!" 

I have not read Mr. Dikötter's book (note: Mao's Great Famine has not been translated into Chinese – Xujun), and can't make comments except to congratulate. But I'll have to say a few words in response to his comments on Tombstone. I read his comments from the October 30, 2011 issue of Asia Weekly.  This is an influential journal; if I don't provide a bit of the necessary response, it will be difficult to clear up its many readers' misunderstanding of Tombstone.  A few things are discussed in what follows.

1.  Mr. Dikötter speaks of the causes of the Great Famine: "This is a system or structure issue, not that of a certain person.  That's the biggest difference between my book and Yang Jisheng's."  Anyone who read Tombstone knows that, from the introduction through every chapter, the book talks about the system issue; it never says the cause for the great famine was the problem of "a certain person." In addition, Chapter 26 focuses on analyzing systematic causes of the famine, and Chapter 27 explores the theoretic roots of the system. I always think that, to inculpate Mao Zedong alone for all China's problems in the 30 years before Reform, such as anti-rightists, the great famine, and the Cultural Revolution, is contrary to historical facts, and is superficial.

2. Mr. Dikötter says, "He [Yang Jisheng] writes Mao Zedong as very bad, the Communist Party as very good."  Tombstone neither says "Mao Zedong is very bad" nor "the Communist Party is very good," of course it does not say Mao is good either.  Not only are there no such words, but also no such meaning, in my book.  Readers who have read Tombstone must think Mr. Dikötter remembered wrong.  Tombstone just objectively writes the historical course as it occurred. When writing about several leaders of the Party central, the book does not give any evaluation of "good" or "bad," because that kind of simplified evaluation is not scholarly thinking, and is not scientific.  Especially for such a large-scale catastrophe as the great famine, the roots are in the system, it can't be the consequence of whether a certain person is "good" or "bad."

Speaking of Mao Zedong, I will have to point out, one piece of information Dikötter introduced to prove "Mao Zedong is bad" is not reliable. Dikötter quotes Mao as saying "It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill." Based on my many years of research on the great famine and Mao Zedong, I am positive that Mao did not say such words.

3. "He [Yang Jisheng] says Zhou Enlai is wonderful, Liu Shaoqi is wonderful, Deng Xiaoping is wonderful; as such this cuts apart the history of the relationship between Mao Zedong and the Party."  Readers of Tombstone can testify, my book absolutely does not have any such words as Dikötter says it has. Not even a hint of such. Tombstone only states historical facts and the systematic systemic causes that made them happen; it does not evaluate credits and faults of any particular leader. In addition to describing Mao's words and behavior, Tombstone especially spends many pages describing Liu Shaoqi's speeches during the Great Leap Forward, and then states: "When I list here a series of speeches by Liu Shaoqi that led to the 'Five Winds,' it is not to say that the source of the 'Five Winds' was Liu. It is also not to reduce Mao's responsibility; rather it is to illustrate that, after the criticism of 'countering rash advance,' the majority of the then Party leadership was in keeping with Mao’s attitudes and was supportive of Mao. Among them, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai were in tune with Mao; sometimes they even spoke more radically than Mao."

4. Dikötter says, "On the so-called three-year natural disasters, in fact there weren't big natural disasters." In fact, it is not that there weren't big natural disasters.  There were natural disasters. To research the impact of the natural disasters on farm crops, I went to the National Meteorological Administration five times to gather information and seek advice from meteorological experts.  My conclusion: "Natural disasters occur every year; those three years were normal years. The cause of the Great Famine was a man-made disaster."

5. Dikötter says, "His [Yang's] book rather emphasizes on how many deaths occurred in which province, which place. To use a not very appropriate word,  I feel that's a bit stupid (无聊)." 

Dikötter calls my research on each province's death numbers "stupid"; to this criticism I would rather not respond. Readers please make your own conclusion. But I do want to make clear that, for this "stupid" thing, I indeed expended great efforts. For example, I sought advice from many demographers, and had in-depth discussions with them. I collected nearly all foreign and Chinese demographers' research data on China's famine death figures, studied their methods, and analyzed their calculation results. Further, I hand-copied each province's relevant data, book by book, from the 30 books of  Population of China, drew up tables to organize the data,  and then calculated the data province by province.  Each day, I calculated the data after work; one evening was enough for only one province. Why did I devote such big efforts in such a "stupid" thing? I treasure life. Behind every figure is an array of lives from birth to death.

6. Dikötter said many times that, his biggest discover is that besides starvation deaths, many people were beaten to death.  Is this his new finding?  Readers of Tombstone know this well, readers of Ms. Qiao Peihua's Xinyang Incident know this well, too. Both books described many cases of peasants being beaten to death.  Tombstone was published three years earlier than Mr. Dikötter's book.  Xinyang Incident was published over a year earlier than Mr. Dikötter's book.

7. Mr. Dikötter said many times that China's archives are now opened, he visited China's inland archives and read over a thousand documents relating to the great famine, and said his book is based on the archive materials.  I went to 10+ Provincial Archive Establishments as well as the Central Archive, hand-copied and Xeroxed several thousand original documents; the hardship I experienced is unspeakable. I had the status of Xinhua Agency's senior reporter, and the help from many high-ranking friends, and still I ran into lots of trouble and setbacks; some provinces did not let me in. … As far as I know, China's famine archive is not opened. Some Archive Establishments opened other files, but those related to the famine have a small rectangular stamp on them with the word "restricted", and reading is not allowed. Mr. Dikötter is a foreigner with distinctive exterior and language, who'd have thought he could access over a thousand files of the famine archives!  There must be some tricks.  If he could tell of his experience, it would be a great help to all scholars of China.

Yang Jisheng, October 28, 2011

-------------------------------
(Update: Thanks to  Joshua Rosenzweig for pointing out that Mao's Great Famine has been translated into Chinese j.mp/rfrHtU.  – Xujun)

(Update 2: My review for both books has been published in LA Review of Books in January 2012:  "The Teacher of the Future"   – Xujun)

China's Officialdom Novels: Translators Pay Attention!

There is a rumor on the Chinese internet that, at various government levels, Party bosses are requiring their secretaries and subordinates to make a new novel their "must-read." This novel, which I'm reading right now, is titled "No. 2 Boss." (By the way, the Chinese word "首长" is a bit difficult to translate precisely in this context.  I'm using "boss" for the moment.  If anyone has a better suggestion, I'm all ears.)

In China's "officialdom" jargon, "No. 2 boss" refers to the boss's secretary (administrative assistant), and this novel's protagonist is the secretary of a provincial Party chief (roughly the equivalent of a governor). Such a character's wide perspective on the Chinese officialdom sphere, from the central government and Party apparatus to the local bureaucrats, supports a plot that is never dull.

The author, Huang Xiaoyang, apparently has intimate knowledge of government business and its daily particulars. In this tremendously entertaining and stunningly detailed novel, Tang Xiaozhou, a journalist-turned-secretary, navigates the open strife and veiled struggles of provincial politics with great skill and craftiness.  While more or less maintaining the tenets of basic decency in a world full of corruption, the protagonist does not sacrifice his own opportunities for advancement.

I have finished reading the first two volumes of the long novel, which can be bought online and in bookstores everywhere in China. The author is still working on the third volume, and is publishing one page a day online as he writes it. Such serial installments as a form of novel publishing in China can be dated back to 1892, according to this study. The difference today is the internet has overtaken newspapers. I confess that reading one new page a day of a Chinese novel has added a certain addictive pleasure to my daily morning tea.

The political worldview expressed in "No.2 Boss," not surprisingly, has a heavy imprint from a Chinese politician's cynically pragmatic angle, and some of it might be unacceptable to American readers. At times, I also feel the book's excessive number of sex scenes undermine its literary quality. (I hope to address these issues more explicitly in a longer review later.) On the other hand, the novel's realistic and meticulous portrayal of Chinese political culture has irreplaceable value to anyone who is interested in understanding China.  Nowadays, an unprecedentedly large number of Western writers and journalists are working and living in Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities,  publishing more and more books written in English.  These books make significant contribution for the world's understanding of China, and the viewpoint of  outside observers is often refreshing to Chinese readers as well.  However, no foreigner could have written a book like "No.2 Boss"; the nuance could only come from the hand of a cultural insider.  

By the way, officialdom novels are not a new genre in China as some foreign observers think. The genre flourished in the Qing Dynasty. In my youth I read with great interest several of those novels mentioned in this article. The genre disappeared in the Mao era, but has made a comeback in recent decades. It seems to be reaching a new peak now. The fact that the genre has become hot again might be a bellwether for the level of government corruption.

Update: here's my longer review in Foreign Policy:  The Rules of the Game

Related links:

• The Officialdom Novel Shines Light in Dark Corners
• Novels about officialdom are hot sellers in 2010
• Rules of engagement
• 重庆一局长写《官场笔记》 登上全国作家富豪榜

Will Chinese Go Alphabetic?

Yesterday, an email header in my inbox caught my eye, not because of its subject but its language. So I clicked the link.  Here is the screenshot of what I saw:

Note the English word "Hold" in the middle of the otherwise all-Chinese headline that translates to: "Can Real Estate Developers Hold Any Longer?"  The article is a commentary from the independent media group (a rare presence in China) Caixin's website, caixin.cn.  

Though English words do show up here and there in Chinese blog posts nowadays, this is the first time I have seen a reputed Chinese publication mixing the two languages in an article.

Why does the author, who looks quite young from the photo, feel the need to repetedly use a particular English word in a Chinese article?  It's possible that he thinks it expresses his meaning more accurately than Chinese; it's also possible that he thinks this mixed language could be a more attractive style of writing for his readers. But, reading his headline makes my tongue feel utterly awkward.

It reminds me of a Mao quote that sticks from my childhood memory, when reciting Mao quotations was a fashion during the Cultural Revolution. "Language and writing must be reformed to go alphabetic, the common direction of languages in the world," Mao said.  And he indeed gave it a try in the 1950s.  Peter Hessler had an excellent piece in the New Yorker several years ago that tells the language reform history.  As it turns out, the reform attempt did not manage to alphabetize written Chinese, though it resulted in the official "pinyin" system that uses the Roman alphabet to assist the learning of Chinese pronunciation, as well as the simplification of some characters.

Since then, the debate on whether written Chinese should be replaced by an alphabet has never ceased.  By birth, I'm a big fan of the square Chinese characters, which hold cultural, artistic and semantic richness in strokes and structures. I am not eager to see them go. However, today's young generation of Chinese seem to be a lot less attached to their ancestral language, one of the consequences of globalization I suspect.  I had never believed our beautiful square characters would one day become obsolete; now I'm not so sure. 

My Own "9/11" Complex

... reposting a personal essay from three years ago.  

The Camphor Suitcase

(Published in Literal Latte, 2008)

In the recent Year of the Snake — I remember because it's my daughter's sign — the image of a maroon suitcase made of camphor wood began to follow me like a phantom. It became most vivid in the dusk as I drove home from work, when my mind was free from corporate politics and daily domestic troubles. Along the road from Newton to Wayland, the famous New England autumn painted my windshield with shifting hues of golden red, dark red, light yellow, bright yellow, eclipsing shades of green and other unnameable colors. For me, born in southwest China, New England’s icy five-month winter imposes an unjust imprisonment; spring is practically non-existent; summer plays the double role of benefactor and spoiler; only the brilliant and solemn autumn calms my soul. But it failed me that year.

I hadn’t set eyes on the camphor suitcase for 13 years. (>>read the complete essay here)

"9/13 Incident" Special Issue

Today is the 40th anniversary of the "9/13 Incident" that resulted in the death of Lin Biao, a man whose name was second only to Mao's during China's Cultural Revolution. Remembrance, a Chinese e-journal devoted to CR research, has published a double issue this week on the event and its aftermath. The editorial states:

The political earthquake that occurred on September 13, 1971 greatly changed China – the "thorough victory of the Cultural Revolution" myth,  the "proletariat headquarter" myth, the "united, victorious line of the Party's 9^th Congress" myth,  and the myths of how wise and great Mao Zedong was and how his sharp eyes could perceive the minutest detail, all tumbled in one huge sound [of a plane crash] in Öndörkhaan. Most of the six hundred million Chinese then, no matter they were the "force" or "subject" of that "great revolution," no matter the differences between their social status and living conditions, felt the power of that quake. Because of it, many people's life trajectories were changed, and even more changed their thought trajectories. After 40 years, to recall the marks of "9/13" left on individual lives and to assess the main characters of the event and the related national history, is interesting and meaningful.

I was in middle school at the time, and I experienced shock and confusion. Even today there are still many unanswered questions about Lin Biao's alleged defection and the plane crash. Several articles in the special issue of Remembrance are written by children of the army generals accused as Lin Biao's co-conspirators. I heaved a deep sigh reading their memories. They provide a rare glimpse into the politics of China's highest echelon at the time. If you can read Chinese, click here.

(Note: I volunteer to host Remembrance on my website because the high quality e-journal has been publishing valuable materials on CR that can't be found elsewhere. Due to the sensitivity of the subject matter, the monthly journal does not have a website in China.)

Who Is the Guilty Party?

by Anonymous

(Note: I got this from a friend in China who asked to remain anonymous. – Xujun)

[In translation]

CHINA — Two years ago, I bought a tiny flat from a stranger. While making some minor changes to the old interior, the electrician I hired found problematic wires, and that the electricity meter outside did not work. The electrician, who had more than 20 years of experience, concluded that the previous owner had messed about with the meter in order to steal electricity. He pointed to a jumble of wires and tried to explain – why this wire did not connect to the meter and that wire did not connect to ground – only to make me further confused. Finally I got the gist of what he was saying: the previous owner installed a very small switch inside the apartment, and reconnected the meter to the switch, which fully controlled the meter's readings. As the result, if he had used 100 kwh of electricity, the meter would only read 10 kwh.

This was the first time I heard of such a thing, so I was at a loss as to what to do. I asked the electrician, "Could you please rewire the meter to its original design for me?" He teased me, "Why should I? Isn't it better for you to save electricity cost?" I waved my hand and said, "Drop it, I'm a coward, I won't be able to sleep if I steal. The money saved this way wouldn't even be enough to buy me sleeping pills."

The electrician fiddled with the meter, but in the end couldn't do much to help, because there was a red seal in it that said, "Do not remove seal, Electricity Bureau only; otherwise bear full consequences." He said he couldn't take the responsibility.

I called the previous owner, who neatly denied everything. His voice was full of surprise: "Really? Really? I had no idea! How could it be?"

With no choice, I went to the housing estate's property management, hoping they would help me solve the problem. The director was a young man who looked like he was just out of college. He patiently heard me out and calmly said, "Things like that are not our responsibility. We wouldn't dare to touch that seal either. Why don't you call the Electricity Bureau, perhaps they will send someone for you? But…" he hesitated a few seconds and then said, "For this kind of thing, you know, the Electricity Bureau is very hard to deal with…" He stopped again, his expression looked restrained.

Coming out of the property management office with a foggy head, I ran into Manager Zhou of the real estate agency. After listening to my story, he warned me against acting rashly. "I have heard things like this before," he said, "the Electricity Bureau only holds the current owner accountable. Change electricity wires without authorization? Fine 5000 yuan. You don't pay? They cut your electricity immediately."

I argued, "Can't they be reasoned with? I haven't even moved in, how can it be my doing? Plus, if it were me who did it, why would I take the trouble telling them? It only makes sense for them to consider it the previous owner's responsibility!"

Manager Zhou laughed in surprise: "My God! Are you from an alien planet? China's electricity is a monopoly trade, they are the boss, who do they fear? What's there to reason with them? They don't care to figure out who's right or wrong; it is the most convenient to just grab you. You want to live in this house? Then you have no way to escape. Even going to the court it is 100% your fault. Believe it!"

I didn't believe, but I took his advice to make the call from a public phone a few housing estates away. I explained the situation to the Electricity Bureau. The woman who answered had a flat tone like machine: Please provide your name, phone number, and address.

With Manager Zhou wagging his head to signal me, I hurriedly said this was for a friend, who just wanted to know what she should do in this case.

The woman's tone was unchanged: 5000 yuan fine. After the fine is paid we will send someone to fix the wires.

I couldn't help but raise my voice: "But this wasn't my friend's fault! It was the previous owner, don't you understand? Wouldn't you be wronging a good person and letting a bad one go?"

The woman's same cold voice held to the end: We only hold the current owner accountable. This is the procedure.

I almost cried out: Fuck the procedure! Are you a robot?

I also wanted to say, Are you forcing an innocent girl to prostitute herself (逼良为娼)?

Manager Zhou looked at me sympathetically: "You really don't need to care, let it be. It's not just one or two households stealing electricity. To tell you the truth, the house I rent now has the same situation. In our building 60% of apartment owners do this."

I was speechless for a while. Then I said, "No way! Thieves are in the open, and a moral person must sneak around, this is turning things upside down! I don't care what others do, I must correct the meter. Please help me find a way."

Manager Zhou gave me a wry smile: "Never seen one as stubborn as you are. Go look in the famers market, there may be someone specialized in this sort of thing."

I suspected he was toying with me. I often went shopping in farmers market, how come I never saw such a person?


In a corner of the market, I asked a fish seller if there was an electricity master who could change wires. He pointed behind without lifting his head. A fat man wearing oil-stained clothes took the hint and came to me, asking directly: "Where do you live?" and then simply said: "500 yuan."

I glared at him: "Are you robbing me? At most 200."

He did not get upset, but smiled: "What a temper! 200 then. Deal."

The fat man made a call, lowering his voice to give the other end my address. He then told me "Go wait at home. Arrival within an hour."

In less than half an hour, a slight man wearing the work robe of Electricity Bureau arrived. Within a minute of opening the electricity meter, he was done. Seeing suspicion in my look, the man said: "Rest assured. Wires corrected and the seal replaced. I'm from the Electricity Bureau myself and have done this job often. There will be no problem."

I was curious: "You are often asked to change wires?"

He said frankly: "Illegal changes are naturally more than corrections. I do all. 500 yuan for an illegal change, not a penny less. For corrections I can give better prices."

I saw a big wad of seals in his bag and suddenly understood: When the electricity meter was changed in the first place, the seal must have been removed; why did I see one that was intact? The only answer is: the Electricity Bureau's staff must be the thief who steal what they are guarding (监守自盗). Who knows, perhaps the one who changed the wires last time was the same man today?

I sighed about the shadiness when I handed the man the money.

He said modestly: "We are just giving a hand to help everyone, otherwise what's to be done? Everyone needs to be fed, right?"


Nearly two years passed. On a hot day last month, the power went off at noon. I called the Electricity Bureau, and a worker arrived in 5 minutes. He said the fuse was burned and needed to be changed to a thicker one. Then he discovered something and said: "The meter has been messed around with."

The adage goes that "A thief's guilty consciences make him cowardly (做贼心虚)." I wasn't the thief but was cowardly all the same. I tried my utmost to deny.

The worker said: "Come and see – someone changed here. The ends are still here. We experts can tell with one glance. No need to deny. I'm going to call the Bureau and have them handle this."

He started to dial his cellphone. I was forced to ask pardon. I told him the whole story and hoped he would let me go.

I bet the man was just a big boy not even 23 years old. With plump cheeks and shining eyes, his face was full of innocent smile. He said: "I believe you. But the other guy did not do a thorough job. He must have been posing as an Electricity Bureau staff. Also possible he's a relative of a staff member, got the work robe, and used it to make money. You found me by calling the Bureau, so I can't be fake. I can redo the correction for you and ensure you can sleep in peace from now on."

Now seasoned, I asked: "How much?"

He said calmly: "At least 300 yuan."

I said: "At most 200. Please give me your name and cellphone number. I don't want to be endlessly extorted by you Electricity Bureau people."

He smiled brightly: "Don't get angry, we are only taking money to remove ill fortune (拿人钱财替人消灾)."

Two minutes later he declared everything was OK now. He left his cellphone number and told me to call him if there was any problem. "But there won't be any problem. Rest assured, there'll be problems no more." His smile was very warm.