Hot Peppers for Thanksgiving

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"

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

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.

Related post: "The Beefiest" (最牛) and "It Sucks"

The Legal Crime of Shanghai Hooks

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

by Maple, guest blogger

[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 .

Double Nature of Student Movements in China

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)

(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)

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

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.

Book Review: The Beijing of Possibilities

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"

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."

Here's the conclusion of the review:

Apologies Forthcoming is not perfect, but parts of it are. Florid praise draped over the back cover as it is, I think I shall put it more simply: it is a book you should read. Eberlein has done what we so often forget to do, she has put people into history and let them tell their own stories. These are not stories about Mao. They are stories about Shanzi, Sail, Wang Qiang, Wei Dong, and many more. The names may mean nothing to you now, but given a chance, some of them will surely find a place in your heart.

Read the complete review here.

Anomie in the New China

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

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.

Calyx Review of "Apologoies"

Calyx, a very good literary magazine, just published an intelligent review by Sharon McGill for "Apologies Forthcoming" in their Summer Issue (Volume 25:2). The content is not on-line, but you can probably find a copy in a B&N bookstore or a library.

Here's an excerpt of the review:

        In "Watch the Thrill," one of the eight stories in Xujun Eberlein's debut collection, Apologies Forthcoming, a Chinese official explains his cruelty toward a young boy's father when he states, It's revolution, kiddo, not personal. Each of these tales, mostly set during and immediately after China's Cultural Revolution, explores the truth and the irony of this statement. Eberlein's characters discover that political motives are, in fact, not personal and yet their effects will be -- as the consequences of political action break apart families, turn neighbors into rivals, victims into victimizers. Growing up in Chongqing in the 1960s and '70s, Eberlein witnessed the Cultural Revolution firsthand, and many of these pieces encompass her childhood memories. However, Apologies Forthcoming shines not simply as a fictionalized account of China's recent past, but as a testament to Eberlein's narrative skill in transforming tales of distress about a specific time into universal explorations of loss, betrayal, and hope.

A Radical Solution to Hearlth Care Reform in the Atlantic

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

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.