What Everyone Needs to Know about China

China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Oxford University Press, USA, $16.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by Xujun Eberlein

Being surprised is something I expect from a good work of fiction, but not necessarily from nonfiction, especially when I am familiar with the subject – or so I thought.

Thus it was a treat when I found plenty of surprises in Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s new book, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, such as the following passage from the section titled “What is the alternative to viewing Mao as a monster?”:

There are many alternatives to thinking of Mao as a fiend who was China’s Hitler. One useful one is to see Mao’s place in China today as comparable to that of Andrew Jackson’s in the United States. Though admittedly far from perfect, the comparison is based on the fact that Jackson is remembered both as someone who played a significant role in the development of a political organization (the Democratic Party) that still has many partisans, and as someone responsible for brutal policies toward Native Americans that are now often referred to as genocidal.

Both men are thought of as having done terrible things, yet this does not necessarily prevent them from being used as positive symbols. And Jackson still appears on $20 bills, even though Americans tend now to view as heinous the institution of slavery (of which he was a passionate defender) and the early 19th-century military campaigns against Native Americans (in which he took part).

This comparison is refreshing, and it could only come from someone who knows both American and Chinese history intimately. Admittedly, I have limited knowledge about President Andrew Jackson. Growing up in China before “reform and opening,” the most familiar images of US presidents to my generation then were Johnson and Nixon – the former a caricatured warmonger and the latter a chameleon suddenly changing from China’s number one enemy to the hero who normalized Sino-America relations to the world’s biggest scandal maker. (If you find those one-sided images laughable, perhaps it sheds some light on why many images of China commonplace in the West make no sense to Chinese.) 

On the Chinese internet today, however, when searching for “President Jackson,” glorious descriptions fill my eyes: “people’s friend,”  “the bank killer,” a war hero who defeated the British army, a wise politician who prevented the US from splitting apart. No mention of his not-so-glorious role in killing Native Americans.  You wonder how an average internet surfer in mainland China can get a complete picture of this controversial American president.

But, before you feel fortunate to have the benefit of a free press and internet, hold on a second. Can the average American reader get the whole picture of Mao? This really depends on what you happen to read or hear. If you have only read Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s best-selling biography, Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, and see my review here), for example, then Mao was born a monster. If you have only read Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China (1937), on the other hand, then Mao was a legendary hero of the Chinese peasants. The actual Mao, of course, was a more complex historical figure than either of those works portray.  

Chinese in the Tang Dynasty already understood “Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; heed only one side and you will be benighted” (兼听则明，偏听则暗), but it is never easy to consistently follow this practice. The few American writers I know of who write about China with this maxim in mind include James Fallows, Peter Hessler, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom. If you are interested in China and don’t want to be benighted or brainwashed, read books with different views before forming your opinion. Or, as a short cut, start with a book like China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. The parallel between Mao and Andrew Jackson might be imperfect, as Wasserstrom has noted, but it is a big step up from good-evil dichotomy that seems so pervasive.

In fact, one of the most appealing characteristics of Wasserstrom’s new book is that it does not sidestep controversial issues and opinions.  On the contrary, it deliberately provides the reader with views from opposite sides, in a rather straightforward and balanced manner.  Here’s another example. In addressing the question “How does the reputation of the [Boxer] crisis differ in China?” Wasserstrom writes:

In the West and in Japan, the Boxer Rebellion is presented as a tale of the rise and fall of a violent Chinese group. Emphasis is placed on the Boxers’ superstitious beliefs, including their notion that they could make themselves impervious to bullets and that railway tracks should be torn up to appease local gods. In China, by contrast, while the violence and superstitions of the Boxers are sometimes criticized, there is more emphasis on other aspects of the crisis, such as the grievances that led to the insurrection. These injustices included decades of foreign powers’ extending their reach into Chinese territory, and the atrocities committed during the “Invasion of the Eight Allied Armies,” including the looting of Chinese national treasures and the revenge killing of thousands of northern Chinese. In Chinese accounts now, the Boxer Protocol is described as one of many humiliating and unjustly one-sided treaties.

Perhaps no viewpoints are as starkly in contrast as those on the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” crisis. I still remember the shock, just after moving to the US, of hearing how Westerners view the Boxers as nothing more than a frenzied mob engaged in slaughtering and burning. In China, now as then, a common view is that the Boxers were patriots, though perhaps too superstitious and prone to violence.  In other words, they were regarded as flawed and tragic heroes. Tales of a bare-handed Boxer, with his outstanding kungfu, beating an armed foreign bully are still greatly entertaining among common Chinese.  There has been a change over the past three decades though: today when people talk about the historical event itself, more emphasis seems to be placed on how stupid the Boxers were to use bare-hands to fight firearms, and how backward China was then in terms of national defense.

The official view has changed more dramatically. As a deeply cultured Chinese writer, Feng Jicai, whose novel about the Boxers was very popular in the 1970s and who is now unhappy with the portrayal in that book, says in an interview earlier this year, Chinese understanding of the Boxer movement has never been free of political utilitarianism. During the Cultural Revolution, to meet the political needs of the time, the Boxers were portrayed as revolutionaries consciously anti-imperialistic. Today, on the other hand, to comply with the reform and opening policy “we treat the Boxer movement as a typical case of blind xenophobia.” As such, Feng believes no historian has really touched the truth of that history, which he is trying to find. A native of Tianjin, a city with rich stories of the Boxers, Feng says the subject is always a knot in his heart. He has been writing new stories about it.

I like what Feng said, that the truth has yet to be found, because it whets my appetite to learn something new about an old topic. In a sense, Wasserstrom’s book has a similar effect on me. In recognizing differences between Western and Chinese views, Wasserstrom helps break stereotypical perceptions and opens the reader’s inquiring minds. He does so throughout the book.

The breadth of this relatively short, 150-page book is amazing. Starting with “Who was Confucius,” it continues without pause to  “What was the Dynastic Cycle,” “What was the Opium War,” “Why did the Qing Dynasty Fail,” and much more. Given the brevity and the format, there is a necessary lack of nuance, but there is a great overview of the backbone of Chinese history presented in the blink of an eye.

Building off of the past, the book devotes a chapter to the post-Mao development of China into the modern state it now is. Then it outlines “U.S. –China Misunderstandings,” and finally presents a chapter on what the future holds, providing useful insights into the different ways that Americans and Chinese view one another and how differently they interpret the same events.

Understanding what is happening in China, or America, is difficult for even the best informed people on both sides of the globe. If you are trying to get real insight into the Boxer Rebellion, Mao Zedong, Tibet or a host of other issues relating to China, one short book is surely not enough. But whether you are new to things Chinese or are an old China-hand, something said in China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know will make you think twice, and the references included should carry you quite a way. If you feel a bit lost for not getting a definitive answer to some questions, then you might be one step closer to learning the truth.

Sichuan: Land of Abundance or Emptiness?

For thousands of years Sichuan, "Land of Abundance," has been recognized as China’s most fertile agricultural base. A new development model being pushed by the provincial government may forever change that. Yesterday I received an email from Maple describing a “pilot program” :

(In translation; 阅读中文原文)

My husband and I were in Chengdu’s Qingcheng Mountains last week, and visited some newly built peasant residences, all beautiful two-story small villas. A woman in her thirties very politely invited us into her house, and answered all my questions in detail.

Monument for a new peasant residence (photo by Maple Xu)

These new peasant residences were built after the [2008’s] earthquake. They look very handsome, however the residents are not victims of the earthquake – they did not have personal or property losses from the disaster. Rather, the new houses are the result of a pilot project taking advantage of the post-disaster rebuilding momentum. These “urban-rural synthesis overall planning” developments are government programs currently ongoing in Sichuan and Chongqing. Simply put, the peasants provide the land, and the government selects a developer to do the unified planning, design, and construction in an urban style. Each participating peasant contributes 2 fens(133.3 square meters) of land, and after the construction is complete, each gets 35 square meters of housing in return. The developer can use the remaining land in any way he wants. Thus, neither the peasants nor the government have to pay a penny, and the developer also gets practical benefits. All are happy.

The family we visited is a household of five. Using 10 fens (666.7 square meter) of their land, they exchanged for a small villa of 175 square meters with a beautiful interior. When asked how they’d make a living without land, the woman replied: 打工- migrant work. They still have a small portion of their land left, and they use it to plant vegetables for sale. Apparently, the woman and her family are very satisfied with their current living condition. After visiting her, I talked to two other people in the neighborhood, and got similar answers.

New peasant residence in Chengdu's Qingcheng Mountains
(photo by Maple Xu)

No farmland could be seen around the residences. There were only a few stalks of corn planted by the “rural home inn” (农家乐) where we stayed, in a small yard, probably smaller than your flower garden.

In my eyes, their life style is no different from that of city people. The peasants themselves also work in the city. But I don’t know if this is a good change. Farmland all turning into villas, vegetable patches become parking, where do we get food and vegetables from? My husband disagrees. He says peasants have the right to live the city people’s life. It is a trend of China’s agricultural reform: centralizing peasants’ scattered residences, and centralizing rural land management so as to bring it to scale. He also says nowadays China imports lots of grains, because the cost is lower than domestic production.

I can only speak intuitively that, when rural is not like rural, city is not like city, it is problematic. Now if you go to Sichuan’s rural areas, you rarely see a piece of farm land, let alone pigs and cows. That’s why when tourists come to Hainan, a relatively backward region, and see water buffaloes pulling plows in paddies, they exclaim, "Exotic!" The media and propaganda keep shouting about building great metropolises, about bringing China’s economy more in line with world standards, about world as one community and the earth as flat, et cetera – I can agree with none of them. If one day Shanghai becomes a clone of Paris, Chongqing a mirror of New York, wouldn’t life becomes meaningless? Look at today’s Chongqing, where hills are dynamited to flatten land, the rubble is used to fill in valleys, and the numerous high rises stand up like a forest. The “mountain city” has no mountain. The “fog capital” has no fog. Isn’t this extremely sad?

And here is a headline from last week’s media: “Sichuan forcefully advances rural tourism and the development of vacation agriculture.”

“Vacation agriculture”: instead of working the fields, peasants take care of tourists from the city. Nothing gets growing – can you call that agriculture at all?

On Writings about the Cultural Revolution

Random Thoughts on Writings about the Cultural Revolution

by Mu Ting

(excerpt in translation; read the Chinese text here.)

Chinese often say, “Misfortune of the country is the fortune of poets.”  Actually, this depends on time and place. WWII brought disaster to many countries, but also provided endless source material for writers and artists. The Cultural Revolution brought China a catastrophe, but only increased the never ending troubles of [Chinese] artists and writers:  A painter’s oil painting “Shouting Long Live” can only be hidden in a corner of 798 art zone.  A sculptor who made a statue of Lin Zhao was summoned by the government many times. Writers wrote novels about the Red Guards and no publishers dared to publish. A director who made a movie called The Blue Kite,

Chinese Social Sci-Fi Follow-Up

Since my essay, “The Return of Politically Charged Science Fiction in China,” appeared in Foreign Policy, I’ve heard from a number of readers seeking further information on Chinese Sci Fi.  Interested readers should check out Joel Martinsen’s blog post "Social commentary in Chinese SF: 2013, Han Song, and others" for a more complete picture of the present Chinese SF scene.  I find the post, in which Joel (dubbed by a reader as "truly a Chinese SF fan") noted a number of recent SF works that are “socially conscious,” is very interesting and informative.  Joel concluded that, Chen Guanzhong’s China 2013 “may be the first political fantasy to take such direct aim at the modern social order and to discuss politics in such depth, but these and other science fiction stories also engage with contemporary Chinese society in

Literature and the Cultural Revolution

Remembrance (<记忆>) is a Chinese e-journal devoted to the Cultural Revolution research.  Its latest issue (54) is titled “Literature and the Cultural Revolution,” which contains interviews with three Chinese authors (including me), and reviews of their works.  I’ve posted this issue (in Chinese) on my website to share with interested readers.

The first two authors interviewed have novels you won’t normally find in China’s bookstores,  but you may be able to read excerpts on the internet . The novels are:

• Traces of History by Tian Jianmo  (<史迹>, 田建模)
• Lonely Curse  by  Xin Cunzhe  ( <孤独的咒语>, 行村哲)

The reviews of the above novels are very interesting to read (though I might not necessarily agree with everything they say).  One of them, Mu Ting’s “Random Thoughts about Writing on the Subject of the Cultural Revolution” (穆汀: “文革题材创作随感”) , contains comments on Yu Hua’s Brothers and Yan Lianke’s Serve the People.  I’m translating the first part of the review below:

• Random Thoughts on Writings about the Cultural Revolution

The Return of Politically Charged Science Fiction in China

My essay about social sci-fi in China and Chen Guanzhong's recent novel, China 2013, is now up on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. It seems to be getting quite a few reads. I've already gotten questions about an English translation of the book. It is not yet available; if you need further information about a translation, someone in this podcast, "Science Fiction in China," might know more than I do.
 
There was also a reader question as to whether Lao She's suicide was real or only an "official version" of the story. As far as I know, that is the fact. Lao She's son, Shu Yi (舒乙), has written many articles about his father's suicide; you can read one of them here (in Chinese).

If you are interested, here are some other English reviews of China 2013:

• Questioning the “Chinese Model of Development”, The China Beat
• Yawning Heights: Chan Koon-chung’s Harmonious China, China Heritage Quarterly
• The Fat Years: China, 2013, Jonathan in China blog
• (Update) The dystopian novel that's turning China upside down, io9

(Indeed there are different translations of the book title and even the author's name, the latter depending on whether Cantonese or Mandarin is in use for pronunciation.)

Speak of Motivation

People were asking why I had not commented on Wang Hui’s plagiarism scandal.  It’s not that I didn’t care. Truth is, I had selfish reasons for keeping silent.  The two recent open letters that stirred the water, one by Chinese scholars and the other by international scholars, have been dubbed as tit for tat, and I have friends in both camps of signatories.  Is my opinion on this more important than friendship?  For a while I was unsure. That was the main concern.  Another – somewhat petty – motivation was to steer clear of suspicion of personal grudge.

Not that I know Wang Hui personally.  Not really. I was a long-time reader of Du Shu (读书) magazine, and I liked it so much that I even subscribed from the US, which is quite expensive.  In my opinion it was during Wang Hui’s tenure as the editor that the magazine was the most interesting, thought provoking, and richest in content.  (With a different editor now, the magazine has become somewhat boring.)  I had always thought it’d be fun to chat with Wang Hui if there were a chance.

A few months ago, I attended the “Red Legacy in China” forum at Harvard University;   Wang Hui was one of the speakers. This was the first time I saw Wang Hui in person.  After the meeting, I went up to say Hello in the hallway.  I had already heard about his plagiarism scandal then, but I had no intention of mentioning it (and never did).  All I wanted to say was how much I enjoyed Du Shu under his editorship, with a slim hope for an intelligent conversation.

What I got was totally unexpected.  Wang Hui showed nothing but rudeness to me.  So much so that later Bob, who was waiting for me aside at the time, said, “Wow, that guy’s a real asshole. Either that, or he really needed to go to the bathroom.”

What was Wang Hui’s motivation for treating me, a stranger and a “fan” no less, so rudely?  Perhaps because he is too important to be polite to someone not as famous as he is?  Or maybe because I’m a Chinese, not an American who could be of more use to him?  (If so, he might be right about that.)  Of course, equally possible is that I just happened upon him at a bad moment, when he was too upset about the plagiarism accusation to behave normally.

Look, I have no basis to second guess his motivation. I simply don’t know him well enough, so what happened in the halls of Harvard is moot.  Though my personal impression of him was crashed by that brief encounter, my conscience tells me as a writer I shouldn’t allow the unpleasant experience to dictate my opinions on his plagiarism accusations.

Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that the support letter from the eighty-some international scholars suggests that Wang Hui is the victim of “unmotivated attacks from the media culture” and that “ordinary cultural politics inside the university are criminalized.”  A signatory believes that “the ‘real reason’ Wang Hui came under attack was his political opinions.”

This is certainly possible, but again I don’t have enough evidence to verify it.  As such I decided to ask a friend, a signatory of the Chinese letter calling for an objective investigation, why he signed the letter.  Here is his answer:

[in translation]

“I know a letter like this may not do much, but I am too disgusted by current academic corruption and counterfeiting.  To make a small sound is still something.  I read the joint letter by the overseas scholars who support Wang Hui; [they] seem to be either Wang’s students or from the New Left?  Why does the left also play factionalism? Don’t they know what a thing China’s present-day universities really are?  In their letter they completely equate China’s universities to those in developed countries."

This friend, by the way, is not in any political faction, though at times he showed sympathy to the New Left. From our many years of acquaintance, he is an honest scholar who has my trust.  At least in his case as a signatory, there isn’t a political motivation.

Now, what is my opinion on Wang Hui’s plagiarism accusations? When first reading Wang Binbin’s article, I was put off by his unconcealed pleasure in finding a big target.  There is a Chinese saying, "Words are like the writer (文如其人)".  Judging from his writing style, Wang Binbin is not someone I would admire.  Given the history of Wang Binbin as I read from the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if his motivation was more personal (fame-thirst?) than political.  Also, at least half of the evidences Wang Binbin provided against Wang Hui is pretty weak IMO.

This said, one or two of the pieces of evidence could be potentially damaging, not to mention that a couple of internet researchers have added more findings supporting the plagiarism charge.  Without reading Wang Hui’s dissertation/book, I can’t really make a confident judgment, but an objective investigation makes sense to me.  Motivations might not be measurable, plagiarism should be.  As the Chinese open letter says, if Wang Hui is innocent, the investigation could clear his name.  At a minimum, the investigation would help establish the academic norm (which is lacking in present China) against counterfeit work.  To ensure objectivity, the investigation committee should invite scholars from both sides (of the debate, and the Pacific).

To end this piece, I must say it was only after great hesitation that I wrote it, for the reasons mentioned earlier.  I’m an independent writer who refuses to get involved in any political parties, and I intend to keep this position for the rest of my life.  As such please do not place me in a particular camp. 

Matchmaking Morality

I'd thought that enough was written about the matchmaking show "If you are not sincere" (also referred to as "If you are the one"), until I got the following questions from a reader: 

Why do you think these remarks set off such a firestorm? More than a half century ago Marilyn Monroe could sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" in Hays code Hollywood and no one got too upset. Are the woman's comments troubling to you? What do you think about the government move? Is it a noble effort to try to encourage virtue or a hopeless attempt to impose an ancient moral code?  Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality?

Actually, I was equally curious about who in particular ordered the censorship.  Was it from some sanctimonious leaders in The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), or from higher authority of the Party central (e.g. Hu Jintao)? The latter possibility is certainly more worrisome.  I have written in this space before that the Party nowadays, though still active in political censorship, seemed to have left people's lifestyle issues alone. The return of such control is not a good sign.

Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality? It certainly did in the Mao era.  Not only "shaping," the government (which was the Party itself) defined morality for the public and the public sincerely followed its rules. However, that sincerity largely came from people's belief in Communism.  This is to say, administrative command alone wouldn't have been so effective.  But Communism as practiced by Mao suppressed human nature (e.g., desire for a better material life) to an extreme and thus was doomed to be short lived. The destructive Cultural Revolution, in a sense, was a violent release of suppressed human nature.  Consequently, the belief in Communism collapsed after the CR.  Now the situation is that the administrative command may be obeyed, but not sincerely.  As an observant reader commented on my previous post, "The woman from the Party School is totally superfluous, and people on the show seem to be protesting silently."
 

The "mammonism" being scolded upon today is actually a consequence of an earlier notion of Deng Xiaoping's that "to be rich is glorious," which, to my understanding, was a  hypercorrection of Mao's collective-poverty policy.  Now the government seems to be quietly trying to re-correct Deng's correction, probably motivated by concerns about social unrest caused by the ever larger wealth gap.  But as long as the wealth gap exists, there's no way to eliminate the poor's desire to catch up the rich.  The censorship itself seems laughable and, without sincere beliefs to back it up, can only result in a new immorality of hypocrisy.  This is a post-Communist dilemma that the authority must deal with.  Stop issuing such stupid commands.  If you are sincere, do something about the wealth gap. 

I should also add that, from the pre-censorship episodes of the matchmaking show I've watched, I only saw two women (among hundreds) who openly placed wealth as the top criterion for choosing a mate.  Both were, from time to time, mocked by Meng Fei  and Le Jia in a good-natured way.  Most women apparently considered the men's character and personality first, and economic condition second (certainly not ignoring it).  One thing that particularly touches me is that the majority men and women have mentioned as a condition for a prospect mate:  "Be filial to my parents." You often hear a statement like "It's my biggest happiness to make my parents happy."  This is sincerity. This is morality with "Chinese characteristics." 

Aftermath of Matchmaking Censorship

Yesterday, a reader gave me a heads-up on a Washington Post article titled "TV matchmaking show runs afoul of China's morality campaign" by Keith B. Richburg, which came 20 days after I wrote about the same subject in this space.  It does not add much new, but other than a couple of minor inaccuracies (for example the half-misquote “rather cry in a BMW than ride a bicycle while laughing”), the writing is alright.

I don't know if the author knows Chinese, or if he has watched the show himself, but since his report came so much later, it would have been more informative if he included updates about the show after the censorship.  Because he didn't, I'll take the opportunity to tell you about a few of the most obvious changes.

One is that the program ("If you are not sincere" or "If you are the one," whichever way you like to call it) now has a Party School teacher, a middle-aged woman, sitting on the stage, next to the popular commentator Le Jia. Whether this was government imposed, or the program's way to add protection, I don't know (it is for Keith Richburg to find out :-)).  Her presence reminds me of the "model Beijing operas" during the Cultural Revolution – in those there was often a female Party representative who could do nothing wrong.  Not surprisingly, the show’s Party School teacher dresses sedately in a politically correct way.  And she does not display the emotional personality that Le Jia does.  To her credit, her words so far have not been as doctrinaire as I had expected, but they haven’t offered much insight either.  With her sitting there, I'm sure all the women guests will behave themselves, and hide some of their true sides.  Too bad the contestants still dress multifariously – I wonder why the government has not required them to wear the same outfit, for example only blue or green like we did during the Cultural Revolution.

Another change is that now none of the male guests is allowed to state his income.  How does this stop the "mammonism" repeatedly scolded about in the government instructions?  The contestants  avoid using the word "money," but not "cars" or "houses."  I'm afraid the government will have to issue another set of instructions to ban those words as well.

Yet another change is that more hero-like male guests are appearing on the stage.  A selfless professional rescuer who kept saying "It is my happiness to rescue people and state property" (he failed to take away his choice woman), and a Canton policeman coming to help the pretty single-mother (whose bad luck with the male guests had made Le Jia cry), for example.  Both professions appeared for the first time, Meng Fei announced. 

The government ordered the exclusion of actors and disallowed any scripted interactions in matchmaking shows.  But the most noticeable consequence of the new rules seems to be that everyone must do some acting now.  "If you are not sincere" has lost some of the spontaneity it had before.

Pleasure and Pain at Shanghai World Expo

by Maple, guest blogger

[in translation; 阅读中文原文]

SHANGHAI, China – Before the Shanghai Expo began, a friend and I made different predications on which month would be the most crowded. She said May, because it'd start with the three-day labor-day holiday period. I said June, because everyone would think the same way my friend did and thus try to avoid May. I was unfortunately right, but because of a chance circumstance, I myself ended up going there in the peak month.

My husband and I planned on a three-day visit: one day each to the Asia Square, Europe and America Squares, and the Urban Best Practices Area, respectively.

Friends who had been there before told us, if you don't want to wait for hours in line outside the Expo gate, noon is a better time to go. Indeed, we arrived at the security point around 11:30 am, and there was almost no line. When asked, a staff said that since 9:00, over 400 thousand people had gone in. My heart tightened: what a rumpus would 400 thousand people kick up inside! But when we reached the square, it was surprisingly empty. Where had all the people gone? Standing in lines all over the world.

Lines at Expo gate (photo by Maple Xu)

On Translation of "Mob Mentality"

Yesterday I received an email from Beijing, which mentions in passing that a Chinese translation of my two articles (here and here) is circulating on the internet.  I took a look and saw that the translation was originated from China Digital Times (here and here). 

There is an error in the translation I'd like to correct. Before going there, however, I must say I have tremendous respect for China Digital Times, which has done a great job relaying China-themed news and commentaries between the English and Chinese worlds.  It appears to me that the translator of my articles is a young member of a Beijing voluntary translator group called 译者. I recommend you check out the 译者 website because it has rich, up-to-date information on China's current affairs.

The translation in question could use some polishing but is acceptable for the most part. One can't demand too much from volunteer work, which I appreciate very much.  As such I'm only going to address one error that, left uncorrected, makes parts of the article incoherent.  I've tried to contact the translator, but because the translation has been circulating extensively on the Chinese internet and can't be all corrected, I feel the need to post it on my blog.

Here is the part of the Chinese translation on China Digital Times I'm talking about:

毕竟，文革的一代中，没有几个人是完全清白的。 文化大革命是一场全民运动。 在那个时期，极少有人能逃脱思想煽动。 即便是今天，一想到那时如果我岁数够大，可能也会铸成什么令我悔恨终生的大错，就会出冷汗。

作为一个作者，比起对当时的人们指指点点的评论，我总是对了解当时的思想煽动更感兴趣。 为了了解当时的情况，我们必须不断的挖掘历史真相。 我认为我们挖掘的还不够深，了解的还不够多。 今年早些时候，我听说当很多人指责张艺谋新排的贺岁片很蠢时，这位著名的导演声称中国人民有着太多像文革那样的沉重话题，他们所需要的是一些轻松的电影。 张艺谋只从自己这一代人的角度看问题的狭窄眼界让我非常震惊。 难道他没发现当代的年轻人对文革和1989年一类的事件完全无知么？ 在思想煽动这件事上，他们并未从父辈那儿接受任何教训，现在，因特网上已经开始出现新式思想煽动的苗头。

And here is my original text:

After all, few of the CR generation were completely innocent. The Cultural Revolution was an all-people movement. It was a time that few escaped the mob mentality. Even today it gives me cold sweats with the thought that, if I were old enough then, I could have done terrible things that I would regret for a lifetime.

As a writer, I’ve always been more interested in understanding the mob mentality than pointing fingers. To understand we have to keep digging through the past. I don’t think we have dug deep enough, have understand enough. I heard that, early this year, when Zhang Yimou made a New Year movie that many deemed too stupid, the famous director claimed that Chinese people had enough heavy topics like the CR, what they needed now were light-hearted, relaxing movies. It surprises me that Zhang’s sight is this narrow, from only the viewpoint of his generation. Has he noticed that today’s young people are very ignorant of the recent past such as the CR and 1989? Without learning the lessons from their parents, new signs of mob mentality have already began to show on the internet.

As you can see, the phrase "mob mentality," which means "暴民心态", is wrongly translated as 思想煽动 (meaning "thought demagogy"). A totally different concept.

Again, I really appreciate the volunteer work of those young people and their interest in the CR history.  Perhaps the error occurred because "mob mentality" is an unfamiliar concept to the young generation of Chinese, which in turn might partially explain why mob mentality has been commonplace on the Chinese internet. If so, I hope this post may serve as stimulation for young people's interest in studying, and recognizing, mob mentality.

And I hope the promising translator will not be discouraged by this. To become good at translation requires lots of practice, so this should be just one small experience.

By the way, I rather like this translator's translation of my book title, "酝酿中的道歉"，which literally means "apologies in fermentation." I hope one day my book will have the opportunity to be published in Chinese, and this would be a good title for it.  

Update (6/27):  I received a kind email from the translator who says they'll fix the error on their website. I appreciate it.

Matchmaking Censorship

For a moment, I thought my previous post  was the curse:  this past Sunday, PPStream ceased broadcasting the reality TV show "If You Are Not Sincere, Don't Bother Me" (非诚勿扰),  just three days after my post.  Not only that, much to my chagrin, all the previous episodes have also been removed.  Then I found an announcement on the PPS website saying they did this to comply with new instructions from The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), issued twice on June 2 and 8. (My ominous post went up on June 9.)

Here is the gist of the SARFT instructions:

婚恋交友类电视节目不能由演员、模特、节目主持人、“富二代”、“成功人士”等身份的嘉宾占据荧屏；不得选择社会形象不佳或有争议的人物担当主持人；不得 以婚恋的名义对参与者进行羞辱或人身攻击，甚至讨论低俗涉性内容，不得展示和炒作拜金主义等不健康、不正确的婚恋观。

[In translation]

Matchmaking TV shows may not let actors, models, program hosts, 'the second generation of the rich,' and 'the successful figures'  appear as guests to occupy the screen; may not choose those with disreputable social image or contentious characters as hosts; may not use the name of love or marriage to insult or make personal attacks against participants, or discuss vulgar sexual content ;  may not demonstrate or  promote unhealthy and incorrect marriage-love views such as mammonism.

Did the bureaucrats at SARFT eat too much and have nothing better to do?  What made them issue such superfluous and laughable restrictions on non-political, entertaining, and revealing TV shows?  Rumor has it that Ma Nuo, one of the earlier female guests in "If You Are Not Sincere," triggered the shot.  Ma Nuo's most infamous quote circling on the internet is "I'd rather cry in a BMW" – her reply to a male guest, a cyclist, who asked if she'd like to ride a bike with him.  (But Baidu has a post that says what she actually said was "a BMW is rather cool." In Chinese, "cry" (哭)  and "cool" (酷) sound pretty much the same.) Because of this, Ma Nuo's name has become a synonym of "mammonism," and been attacked by numerous netizens.  And this, apparently, became the motive to restrict "the second generation of the rich" to participate in matchmaking shows.

Deng Xioaping, the "father of reform and opening," promulgated the notion that "being rich is glorious." No more, I guess, but wouldn't it be  more effective to simply order "the rich" to stay single, or have a "zero-child policy" for them and their children?
 

So what is next? Perhaps cooking shows that mention any meats other than pork, or any vegetable other than cabbage, will come under the lens. Or maybe weather programs that suggest anything but fine weather or needed rain are on the way will be nixed. Maybe business programs that discuss financial problems in the Euro-zone will be told to stop that and go along with the official position of expected stability.

Not surprisingly, the hypocritical call is met with hypocritical responses.  So far all the TV stations running a matchmaking show have made sonorous echoes that they "firmly advocate SARFT's instructions," while each and every one of them says they have nothing to do with the criticism. The shows continue; only we overseas audiences are deprived the pleasure of watching them at PPStream's mercy.

Times have certainly changed. It seems like those outside of China can be more strongly influenced by the edicts of Beijing than those inside. The government can continue to issue superfluous instructions that are not sincere, just don't expect everyone to be bothered as much as PPStream.

If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me

Sunday evening, June 6.  On the stage ablaze with lights stand 24 women, most in their early 20s, and not yet betrothed, waiting for their chance at “fast matchmaking.”  Before each of the women is a green-lighted podium with her number, her name and a switch.  A young man descends from a glass elevator:  first shoes, then pants, then the black jacket, black glasses, and a black hat hiding a lowered head.  Pop music and applause break out.

Meng Fei, the bald host aged 39, asks the 28-year-old handsome Shanghai man: “Why do you dress like a magician?”

We hear a nervous reply, ”Eh…they say I look a bit like Harry Potter…”

After some good-natured teasing, Meng Fei hands the young man a digital pad and asks him to choose one girl who “arouses your heart. “

We see the number he enters–  “1” – but it is concealed from the women on the stage.  Suspense immediately builds.  This woman, Xie Jia, is a college student 22 years young, who says she did not discover herself as a woman until age 21. Good looking, intelligent, she has nonetheless rarely been chosen by men, and has been standing there for many installments.  Judging by appearances, the two look like a match. I find myself hoping Xie Jia will be taken away in this man’s arms.

The women appraise him for a first impression.  Meng Fei turns to all, “Please choose.”

Ding, ding.   Two girls’ lights go off – “Not interested.” Most leave theirs on (I am relieved to see Xie Jia among them), watching the "magician" with open curiosity.  

Meng Fei asks the two girls why they turned off their lights.

”I have no interest in Harry Potter,” one woman replies.  Laughter ensues from the audience.

“He does not make me feel secure,” says the other, "not at all."

Three more thresholds await the man. If, after that, there are still lights on, he’ll be able to enter the final stage “rights reverse to the male.”   Otherwise he receives a “failure exit." The suspense is that of a well-plotted drama.

Only this is a reality show that is more engaging than most movies I’ve seen.  Titled after Feng Xiaogang's popular movie, “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” (非诚勿扰), the weekend matchmaking show broadcast on Jiangsu Satellite TV is currently China's highest rated program.  I first heard about it shortly after its launch in January, but did not pay much attention because reality shows don't usually interest me.  Over time, however, more and more Chinese friends were telling me how fun it is to watch.  When I started to watch the re-made Three Kingdoms on PPStream, Jiangsu TV had bundled it with “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” for weekend prime time.  Once I clicked it, I was hooked.

To my dismay, the young man who looked like Harry Potter did not pass the women's scrutiny.  Before he had a chance for "rights reverse to the male," all the lights had gone off, including Xie Jia's, who apparently was not aware of his admiration.  I'm not sure which of his statements, "I can peel lobster very fast," or "I love to hand-wash clothes on a washboard," had turned her off, except that those words did not demonstrate whatever quality Xie Jia was looking for in a man.

The program is one-hour long, and each male guest is given 20 minutes or so on stage. For the installments I've seen so far, the majority of male guests got a "failure exit."  Even for those lucky ones who enter the final stage, the remaining lights often do not include the woman "arousing his heart." Thus successful matchmaking remains rare.  At times, however, a happy ending can move the audience to tears.

Last Saturday, after two men exited with failure, an ordinary-looking, round-face young photographer with a collected, quiet humor took away his choice woman, Liu Huan, unexpectedly.  The outcome was unusual because of the beautiful young woman's odd situation: Liu Huan had been on stage together with her mother.  She had turned her light off early on, however the mother kept her light on. When Meng Fei asked why, the mother said the man would be an ideal son-in-law for her. Toward the end, six lights were still on. Meng Fei told the young photographer if he wanted one of those, he could take her hand right away. But if he insisted on Liu Huan, he might end up leaving alone. 

The young man insisted, and was given 30 seconds for a last-ditch pursuit.  "Do you know my situation?" Liu Huan asked. "Yes I do," the young man answered. Liu Huan (who apparently had turned down many pursuers) said she had joined the program to help her mother, and would not leave before her mother found a good match.  Her voice began to tremble; her mother covered her face as tears running down.  Applause and sobs could be heard from the audience.  "Today I'm surprised to see my mother kept her light on for me to the last minute. I’ve decided to be a good daughter," Liu Huan said. The young couple held hands; cheers and applause followed for a long time. The mother and daughter left together for good.

The show is a kaleidoscope of contemporary Chinese views of love, marriage, and life style.  I was especially amazed by the candid, openness of the young women, and their bravery to bear public scrutiny. The relentless internet spreads numerous comments on the looks, personality, and value system of the women, sometimes positive and more often negative. A righteous-sounding man even took his opportunity on the stage to scold a girl to tears, because she once said that to sit in a BMW would be more cool than riding a bike.   It is not easy to be oneself under such pressure. I recall my twenties in the 1980s, even to place an anonymous personal ad in newspaper was a disgrace.  Times have changed.

"If You Are Not Sincere" is not the only matchmaking show in China, however the others are not nearly as popular. Its success largely depends on host Meng Fei’s wit, sensibility, and broad-knowledge.  In researching his background, I was surprised to learn he was from my hometown Chongqing.  Between high school graduation and success as a TV program host, he had been a low-paid temp doing odd jobs for many years.  His story is that rare one of success for a self-learned man. 

As of last week, 160-170 thousand applications to participate in the show had queued up from all over China.  Meng Fei announced recently that, in response to keen overseas demand, this "fast matchmaking" program is going to be launched in London and other foreign cities as well.

I have seen several overseas Chinese men appear in the program (none with success), but not a single non-Chinese.   To those Americans who live in China and are single, would you like to give it a try?

Killing Children - An Act of War Against China’s Collective Future

New America Media, news analysis, Xujun Eberlein, Published: May 17, 2010

In Hanzhong, Shannxi, a mother-and-son team rented a rural property to open a private kindergarten for 20 children. One day the son found a snake inside and killed it. This disturbed the property owner, 48-year-old Wu Huanming, who had been suffering from a variety of diseases and had grown increasingly superstitious in recent years. Blaming the snake killing for the ineffectiveness of his medical treatment, Wu went into a frenzy. On the morning of May 12, Wu entered the kindergarten carrying a meat cleaver and hacked to death seven children, along with the mother-and-son proprietors, wounding another 11 children in the process. Wu committed suicide afterward.

Hanzhong police provided these details at a press conference a day after the killing, according to Xi’an Morning Post.  At first glance, it looked like another malignant but isolated crime. In fact, it was only the latest in a series of mass attacks on young children in different provinces of China that occurred between March 23 and May 12. Beijing police said last Wednesday they successfully interdicted seven criminal attempts targeting schools and kindergartens in that city alone.

All over China, people winced. Why are young children being slaughtered? Such massive attacks on children did not happen even in the Cultural Revolution, the most violent period of Communist China. And now China is experiencing unprecedented prosperity.

Despite the apparent similarities in actions and targets, there is no universal explanation of motive. Among the killers besides Wu Huanming were a doctor who could not find a job and, at age 42, had a history of failed relationships, a 40-year-old villager who had suffered mental illness for five years, a 31-year-old school teacher on sick leave for four years; a 46-year-old unemployed man with debts resulting from multi-level marketing, and a 45-year-old villager whose newly-built house faced demolition.

Two of the six suspects were said to have suffered mental illness, prompting concerns about China’s lack of mental health care. But insanity can hardly explain the other four cases.

Most of the suspects lived at the bottom of the society, leading observers to blame their anger and desperation on the wealth gap. The Internet is abuzz with questions about whether China’s economy should be characterized as that of a “rich state, poor people.” But even this does not explain why children were repeatedly targeted.

Chinese cherish children as the promise of their future and their defense against death. Though rare stories exist about “exchanging [dead] children to eat” (“易子而食”),  those were from disastrous periods of war and famine, when desperation was all there was. Has China today entered such a period of extreme disaster?

Harming children on a mass scale did not start this year. As early as 2004, long before the Sanlu milk scandal, there was the “dark-heart milk powder” incident in which counterfeit milk powder caused the deaths of 13 babies and permanent disablement of 171 others. It outraged the entire nation that someone would target babies to make a profit. That incident reflected a moral decay in China, but no one could have foreseen that child-harming would escalate to the raw violence seen this year.

In one of the six recent school attacks, 45-year-old Wang Yonglai was an even-tempered Shandong villager and a long-time party member. On the morning of April 30, Wang carried a hammer to the village’s elementary school, and pounded five preschool children on their heads. Wang then poured gasoline on himself, grabbed two children into his arms, and lit himself on fire. While Wang burned to death, the two children were pulled to safety by teachers.

This tragedy happened on the day Wang’s new house was to be demolished. According to an investigative report in the independent Caijing magazine, Wang’s greatest wish in life was to build a new house for his son, now 20 years old, so that he would be able to get a wife. Last year, after Wang spent his lifetime savings plus 60,000 yuan of debt, the new house was finally built. Wang had gone through all of the proper procedures. In June 2009, the local government issued Wang’s house the “rights certificate.” On the day of April 23, 2010, however, Wang received notice from a government department that his house was an illegal building and must be demolished in two days. Wang and his daughter called and went to many places trying to save the house -- the mayor’s hotline, the “law hotline,” the TV station -- to no effect.

“Wang Yonglai’s new house still stands right now,” the Caijing report says, “while the demolition day became the day of his death. Using his death, five little children’s blood, and the serial effect of other school attacks, he temporarily preserved the painstaking effort of his life.”

One office of the government approved Wang’s house’s legal status, but another government office judged it an illegal building. Wang was given only a few days notice before the demolition. The government was too powerful, and the ordinary villager powerless. Finally, “the weak take revenge on the weaker,” concludes a Chinese blogger. Robbed of his future by a state impervious to his plight, he took revenge by destroying others’ futures -- their children.

Wang’s plight is reminiscent of that of a Sichuan woman, Tang Fuzhen, who burned herself to death last November in a failed attempt to stop the local government from demolishing her house. After her death, the government judged Tang and her relatives to be criminals who “used violence to fight the law.” The government also tried to block media reports on the case. Tang’s death, and similar self-immolations in other Chinese cities, did not stop forceful house demolitions by the government and developers, nor did the tragedy rouse any remorse. Only about a month ago, a government official involved in demolishing Tang’s house was still saying the cause of the tragedy was that Tang “did not have knowledge of law.”

When suicide alone is no longer effective, the most horrific crime – mass killing of children -- becomes the most effective option to some of those desperate enough to end their own lives. More than a manifestation of individual problems or even of social injustice, it is an act of war against China’s collective future. It is a sign that now is a time of extreme desperation, for all China’s great strides toward prosperity.

After Four Decades, Apologies Are Coming Forth

In December 2007, I wrote a news commentary for NAM titled “On Mao’s 114th Birthday, Past Catches up to Former Red Guard Leader,” a story about Song Binbin. (If you are not familiar with the name “Song Binbin,” there is a short introduction in that piece.)

At the time, it was a mystery to me what Song’s role was in the beating death of her school’s vice principal Bian Zhongyun on the afternoon of August 5, 1966. Despite numerous Chinese people proclaiming Song’s guilt (and an American lawyer even advocating bringing her to trial today), in my research I never found evidence showing that Song directly participated in the beating.

On the other hand, witness citations pointed to the fact that Song was on campus at the time, and might even have been in the crowd watching.  For example, a schoolmate of hers named Tao Luosong said in a 2007 statement that while principal Bian and other teachers were beaten on a stage, “Song Binbin happened to stand behind me. I heard her say, ‘That might be a way to cut back their arrogance.’” (“煞煞他们的威风也好.” I should say that the expression “也好” is somewhat difficult to translate; it has a tone of “not the best option, but…”)

I wondered why, when Song gave a veiled interview in the documentary Morning Sun denying any involvement in violence, she did not provide particulars of her whereabouts on that tragic afternoon of her youth. If she wanted to clear up her name, aren’t particularities much more effective than an abstract claim?

Now, two and a half years after I wrote that piece, the picture is getting clearer. In the most recent issue (the 47^th) of a Chinese e-journal titled "记忆" (Remembrance) is a rather detailed dialogue between five women, one of them Song Binbin. The other participants include Song’s high school friend Liu Jin, and three  lower-grade schoolmates of theirs, who did not know Song personally at the time of the violence. In recent years, all of them are actively involved in investigations aimed at recovering facts around the “August 5 Incident.”

In her introduction, Feng Jinglan, who conducted the discussion, says they have visited 110 teachers and schoolmates in their investigations. The article is rather long, divided into six sections:

1.      - The first “big-character poster” (大字报)

2.      - The work-team (工作组) period

3.      - The post-work-team period

4.      - The August 5 incident

5.      -  Red Guards and August 18

6.      - About Song Binbin

On “the August 5 incident,” in a nutshell, the conclusion is that Liu Jin and Song Binbin (both student leaders whose influence was waning in the post-work-team period), as well as some others were meeting in an office when, unknown to them, the violence started in the central campus playground.  After they heard about it, Liu, Song and company went to the site to try to stop the beating, then left when they thought their persuasion had worked. A while later, they heard the teachers were again beaten in the rear playground. For the second time the student leaders went to the site.  Again they left when they saw the beating had apparently stopped. At dusk, they were shocked to hear principal Bian was dying in the rear school yard. They rushed Bian to a hospital, had arguments with a doctor who was reluctant to help a “black gang,” and finally got emergency treatment for Bian, but it was too late.

This largely clears up Song Binbin’s role in the incident. I am pretty much convinced that she neither organized nor participated in the beating, and later that day she actively sought medical treatment for Bian.  In my mind some questions remain, but I’ll address those in another post.

In the section about the “August 5 incident,” Feng Jinglan asks questions, and Liu Jin gives most of the answers based on what she remembers as well as her latest investigations which fill the gaps in her faded memory. Ye Weili adds her part of witness memory and observations. Oddly though, Song Binbin, the center of focus, is quiet. None of Feng’s questions here is directly addressed to her. The only time Song speaks in this section is about a recent visit to an old teacher:

宋彬彬：那天去看梅老师，一进门看见他满头白发的样子，我心里充满愧疚，就说了对不起老师的话，这是发自内心的、一直想说的话。虽然8月5日事发当天，我们也去劝说、阻止过，但是并没有预想到事态的极端后果。想到卞校长被学生暴力殴打死于非命，其他校领导老师们身心遭受重创，40多年来我一直非常痛心、愧疚和懊悔。利用这个机会，我想再次表示对他们的歉意和追悔。

[in translation]

          Song Binbin: That day [we] went to see Teacher Mei, as soon as [I] entered the door and saw his all white-haired look, remorse filled my heart, so I said sorry to the teacher. The words came from [my] heart, what I had always wanted to say.  Although on the day of August 5 when the incident happened, we tried too to persuade them to stop [the violence], we did not anticipate the situation’s extreme consequence. Thinking of Principal Bian’s death under the students’ violent beating, and other teachers and administrators suffering severe physical and mental harm, for over 40 years I’ve always felt heartache, remorse, and regret. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my apology and regret to them again.

This is new and significant. Though I wish Song had laid out specifics in her own words about her activities on the day of August 5, 1966, not just let others speak on her behalf, I applaud for her sincere apology nearly 44 years later.  As I wrote two and a half years ago, “So far, few former Red Guards have come out and talked about their actions. Most are in their 60s now, remaining behind a wall of silence. I can understand their excuse that the violence they were involved in was circumstantial, non-personal, and, at the time, even politically correct.  Still, I can't help but wonder: Had Song Binbin acknowledged her part in, clarified her position on, and properly expressed her sorrow for that tragic day of 1966, would people's reaction today have been more restrained? Would she have been forgiven by those who crouched in terror that day, as well as by those who had terrorized and now try to forget their shame?”

I recall years earlier, after seeing the documentary Morning Sun, a friend, who felt Song was too caught up in clearing of her own name, commented, “Why didn’t she express any sorrow about Bian Zhongyun’s death at all?”  Yes, it would have been better for both Song and the film audience if she had spoken those sincere words then, but it’s still not too late now.

Many CR participants who weren’t physically involved in violence might feel their apologies are not called for. ("They haven't stepped out, why should I?")  Other more enlightened minds feel differently. A few weeks ago I went to Harvard University to attend a conference titled “Red Legacy in China.” One of the speakers, Carma Hinton, director of Morning Sun, told a story of her high school reunion in Beijing last year: the entire class gave a collective apology to their old teachers. The teachers, now aged, were very touched. So was I. My understanding is that none of those in the reunion had committed violence, yet they were not exceptions to denouncing teachers, as it was the norm of the time.

After all, few of the CR generation were completely innocent. The Cultural Revolution was an all-people movement. It was a time that few escaped the mob mentality. Even today it gives me cold sweats with the thought that, if I were old enough then, I could have done terrible things that I would regret for a lifetime.

As a writer, I’ve always been more interested in understanding the mob mentality than pointing fingers. To understand we have to keep digging through the past. I don’t think we have dug deep enough, have understand enough. I heard that, early this year, when Zhang Yimou made a New Year movie that many deemed too stupid, the famous director claimed that Chinese people had enough heavy topics like the CR, what they needed now were light-hearted, relaxing movies. It surprises me that Zhang’s sight is this narrow, from only the viewpoint of his generation. Has he noticed that today’s young people are very ignorant of the recent past such as the CR and 1989? Without learning the lessons from their parents, new signs of mob mentality have already began to show on the internet.

A reader once asked me what I think the present effects are in China of people not being able to openly discuss what happened during the CR. I told her the real danger is not from the government restriction on the topic but from a voluntary silence of the people who participated, because what was glorious then, is shameful now. And there are a lot of them, the entire generation that grew up with Mao’s New China, the older sisters and brothers or my generation, the parents of the post-70s and even 80s.

I’m a pessimist when it comes to human nature and I’d thought the apology would forever be in the forthcoming (but never arriving), thus my book title. Song Binbin’s apology and that from Carma Hinton’s class seem to be rays of new hope. I can see how the courage to apologize has taken more than 4 decades to pluck up; it is courageous nonetheless. Perhaps the wall of silence is starting to crack?

Of course, for those who committed violence, the obstacle in delivering the apology is a lot bigger.  I remain pessimistic on this.

Ba Manzi's Tomb

It was reported that, early this month, the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing was reopened to the public ("for free"), after being closed for more than a decade.  This news bears certain intimacy to me because, I suspect, Ba Manzi's blood once steeped deep in my mother's veins.

During China's Warring State Period (475-221BC), Ba Manzi was a general commanding the Ba Kingdom's army. This small kingdom was caught in a civil strife that its tiny army was unable to quell. Manzi turned for help to Chu, a much bigger neighboring kingdom, and offered Chu three towns to restore order. Chu’s army came to Ba and quelled the internecine war, at which point Chu’s king sent an envoy to receive the three promised towns. Manzi said to the envoy, “My head may be given, our land may not. Because I can’t give you our land, to keep my promise I’ll give you my head.” He drew out his sword and cut off his own head. All were shocked. The envoy brought Ba Manzi’s head back to the King of Chu. The king was so moved that he held a grand burial for the head, while the Kingdom of Ba gave an equally grand burial to the body. The three towns of Ba stayed intact.

Thus Ba Manzi's head and body were buried in separate locations. However, Huayang Guozhi (《华阳国志》), the ancient book that recorded the story, does not say exactly where. Experts say the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing does not contain his remains; it could contain just clothing, or could be empty. Why such an empty tomb is in Chongqing, who built it and when, is one of numerous puzzles in China's history.

My mother shares the hometown, now the Zhong County (忠县), with Ba Manzi. The place, a few hundred miles downstream from Chongqing, was the ancestral land of the Ba tribe that mysteriously vanished some two thousand years ago. It was an improbable chance of literacy that brought my mother, the daughter and only surviving child of poor peasants, to learn the story of Ba Manzi at age thirteen. For two thousand years until the 1949 liberation, in each spring, on the third day of the third moon of the Old Calendar, Zhong County held a grand temple fair called “third moon festival” to commemorate Ba Manzi.  As a middle school student in the early 1940s, my mother danced and sang and paraded in each year’s “third moon festive." Since then, Ba Manzi's patriotic, self-sacrificing heroism has never lost its vitality for her. I suspect her drive to join the underground Communists before the liberation and risk her life for a cause that later proved vain, that brought her life-long pain, had something to do with Ba Manzi's spirit. On the other hand, her illiterate mother, my grandma who we called Gaga, who knew nothing of heroes beyond cats, water buffaloes and mythical rhinoceroses, lived a relatively more contented life of 95 years. Gaga was born in the same year as Mao – 1893, but out-lived Mao for a full cycle of twelve Earthly Branch years.

My mother is sure that her ancestors were native Zhong County inhabitants ever since Pangu separated the sky and earth from chaos, because in her youth she had read her family genealogical chart. "It contains eight generations of my ancestors, all in Gingko Bay village," she once told me. When the Chinese say "eight generations," it does not mean eight; it means all. If this is the case, then I'm fairly confident my mother is a descendant of the Ba tribe, the valiant, dance-love ancients who forged bronze swords along the Yangtze and buried their dead in boat-coffins hanging on high cliffs above the gorges.

In February 2009, I revisited the Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing. It had become a forgotten, dilapidated, dark basement of the commercial world. Though its name was on the tourist map, few residents along the street knew about its exact location, and I had to ask many people to eventually find its obscured entrance. Down a flight of wide stone steps piled with furniture supplies, the tomb front had turned into an unauthorized storage room for a retail store. Another, fancier furniture store sat on top of the tomb. I asked a store worker if he worried about the government's punishment for occupying the site of a cultural relic, he said no, during the several years he worked next door to the tomb, he had seen occasional tourists, even foreigners, but no government people. That's why they had unscrupulously piled their furniture supplies, blocking the sight of it.

The Ba Manzi Tomb in Chongqing (February 2009)

in front of the tomb (Feb. 2009)

on the tomb's top (Feb. 2009)

Now, why did the Chongqing government suddenly remember it? Is it because Bo Xilai needed another teachable instrument for heroism and patriotism?

That's beyond me at this moment, as I'm fascinated by something else: it just occurred to me that my father's lineage has an almost opposite nature, almost anti-heroism, from that of my mother's.

The Chinese say marriage is the combination of yin and yang, in which the woman possesses the softness of yin and the man the power of yang.  In my upbringing, however, it had always seemed to us children that our mother was the yang element. This is to say, while we grew up, the family's roof had been pillared by our mother, not father. I wonder if my father's soft personality has to do with his ancient heritage.

Next time I'll tell you the fascinating story of my father's ancestry, one that he himself might not be aware of. 

New Photos of Covered Bridges in Taishun

A reader, Steve, recently left a comment under my post Dream Left on Covered Bridges 廊桥遗梦:

I spent a week in Taishun County during the Chinese New Year. You can see my photo's here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/byrnzie28/sets/72157623306936489/

Those are beautiful photos! Go take a look.

Han Han and Time's 100 Competition

Best on-line fun of the month: watching Han Han's climbing rank in Time's list of the "100 most influential people in the world" nominees. When I first noticed it, Han Han was 12^th; two days ago he was 7^th; today 5^th.

Meanwhile in China, the People’s Daily website, people.com.cn, reported this news with the headline "Han Han Included in World’s Influential People: Time Magazine Deeply Nearsighted?" In addition to the negative angle shown in the headline, the site holds two "small polls" (I've included the results so far):

1. "Do you like Han Han? Why?"

Like him because of his blog and books (64%)

Like him because of his intelligent and seasoned personality (13.4%)
Like him because of his unusual personal experience and appearance (4.6%)
Don't like this person (14.6%)

Can’t say clearly (3.3%)

2. "Do you think Han Han can represent China?"

Absolutely can't represent (34.4%)
Can only partially represent (58.8%)
Unclear (6.8%)

While the first question is sort of interesting, the second is a complete hack. First of all, Time's competition is not for the "most representative" people of a country. Second, the poll asks a positive question, then positions the most negative answer at the top. Further, such muddling of the issue of "representing a country" shows an inability to distinguish the identity of a person from that of a country; apparently the communist tradition of mixing the two still occupies some minds.  

Also strange is that, since the poll includes the extreme option "absolutely can't," shouldn’t it also include the other extreme "absolutely can" for completeness and symmetry? Plus, the word "only" in "Can only partially represent" is redundant unless its intention is to emphasize the negative biases against Han Han. If a poll is set to be biased, is it really a poll?

All that said, I'm not completely sure such negativity was the editors' true intention. It could also be a strategy. As far as I can see, since this report from people.com, Han Han's votes on Time.com have increased rapidly. The poll results on people.com also show that public opinion strongly opposes the editors' negative diction. So the question boils down to whether the editors there are smarter or stupider than we think: It is certainly a clever thing to do if they made the report and polls appear negative in order to pass censoring, while expecting the public to react differently. Otherwise, the unintended results have made fools of them.

Another article I found entertaining: "Han Han is hardly a hero of our times" from ShanghaiDaily.com (h/t ESWN). I thought the aim of a commentary should be to convince. Failing that, at least one should avoid contradicting oneself, right? Now hear this: "It strikes me as naive that being critical of the Chinese government should be the major, if not sole, criterion for making Time’s list..." Didn’t he see the Chinese government officials Bo Xilai and Wang Qishan on the same list? What is “the major, if not sole criterion” for them to make the list then?

While I do view Han Han as "a hero of our times," such a view is subjective and not a basis for meaningful argument. The commentary’s author, however, confuses the more measurable concept of "influential" with the largely subjective notion of "heroic,"  and his criticism of Time's "wrong" choice might have stemmed from another typical communist principle of "one standard for all." Well, Time is not a communist magazine that takes setting heroic examples as its mandate; as such applying a "hero" selection standard to its influential people list is like "donkey lips not matching horse jaws," as we Chinese like to say. "Influential" is not a moral term. There is nothing in the definition of "influential" that excludes a person whose influence is viewed as "good" by some and "bad" by others. The fact that Time's list has Chinese government officials Bo and Wang sharing space with Han Han (who's critical of the government) and an imprisoned dissident, Liu Xiaobo, certainly illustrates this point.

It is even more aimless for the author to suggest that Time replace Han Han with "Tang Fuzhen, a 47-year-old in Chengdu who died after setting herself on fire in November of last year to protest the forcible demolition of her home.” I wonder, if Time did include Tang in the list, how many votes she would get, given how few people know her name? And if she did not get many votes, wouldn't the ShanghaiDaily author become even more outraged with Time?

I must say that I'm not a big fan of Time, and I usually don't care about its 100 competitions. My main point here is that a journalist who opposes something should have a clear aim, and at least some knowledge of the target before shooting his bullets.  I guess being honest is the most essential quality for a journalist. Without it, one's words can easily become a laughing stock.

Personally, I'm very happy to see the ever rising votes for Han Han. For one thing, and an important one at that, based on my reading Han Han is a way more honest person and definitely a way better writer than most Chinese journalists. Not only is he bravely candid and sharp, he also makes sense, and has good humor. And he cares. He cares about social justice. Reading his blog posts often makes me feel 痛快 (to be honest I don't know how to translate this expression precisely and satisfactorily), a nice feeling I don't often have reading the writing of others.

As to why Liu Xiaobo's votes lag behind Han Han's, again it has to do with the extent of influence. Liu Xiaobo may be a deeper thinker, but for various reasons his influence has not spread to ordinary people of different ages and classes as extensively as Han Han’s. While Lui Xiaobo may be a hero to intellectuals, Han Han is a hero to ordinary people. And to say Han Han is one of the most influential people is no exaggeration. Really amazing, considering that he is only 27 years old, without even a high school diploma.