Thriving Guangzhou

Two interesting nuggets of observation about China's southern city Guangzhou (广州) from Liu Yong's (刘勇) 媒体中国 (Media China, Sichuan Peoples' Publishing Press, 2000).

1. In the 1940s, youthful hearts were geared to Yan'an (延安, revolutionary base). In the 1980s, youthful hearts were geared to Guangzhou.

2. Guangzhou's Baiyun Airport (白云机场, pictured) is one of the busiest airports in China. There is a joke that goes like this. Someone was asked where he would go if he died. The reply was: "I do not know. But what I do know for sure is that no matter where I'd be, I'd have to transit at Baiyun Airport."

Taiwan's Precarious Military

If speakers at a recent conference in D.C. are to be believed, then Taiwan's military and security seem to be in a precarious position.

Thomas J. Bickford noted that China's People's Liberation Army has continually been upgrading both its hard and software, including integrating its IT and digital battlefield with its weapons system.

In short, Bickford, who is from the Center for Naval Analysis Corporations, contended that China's military had become much more capable.

But Taiwan, on the other hand, suffers from a lack of strategic depth that works against the island. It is easy to target, and does not have much space for command centers. The island also needs a better anti-air and missile defence. Taiwan also suffers from a lack of strategic coherence in planning and is poor at joint operations.

What makes security in Taiwan precarious, according to Elizabeth Hague, is the island's intense factionalism, President Chen Shui-bian's personalized decision-making system, and the high turnover of its defence ministers.

Hague, from RAND Corporation, said Taipei needs to put in place a more institutionalized decision-making process, ensure better coordination between the various branches of government, and bring about greater expertise in military and security among civilian decision-makers.

University of Richmond's Vincent Wang noted that security had been relegated to secondary importance, given the low mutual trust between civil servants and politicians. The increase expenditure on social welfare had also come at the expense of military spending.

Shirley Kan from the Congressional Research Service, on the other hand, noted that Taipei has no sense of urgency about self-defence, lacks consensus, and has a weak leadership. Indeed, the island is in the process of self-marginalization through acts such as withdrawing pilots from training in Arizona.

Paper Cranes in Japan

This itsy-bitsy piece of information came from a book by Chinese author An Dun (安顿) titled 情证今生: 当代中国人情感口述实录之三 (Love Promised in this Life: A Verbal Account of Contemporary Chinese Love and Relations, Volume 3).

According to anecdotal evidence, every time a course of medication is completed, Japanese would fold the paper containing the medicine into a paper crane.

By doing so, it is hoped that the illness will be taken away, and hope and happiness delivered.

North Korean Jokes

The following jokes were translated from a Chinese newspaper published in the DC metropolitan area. So Mr. ECP Flintstone, whatever you do, do not shoot the messenger, like you did about the Ethiopian joke!

1. A North Korean caught a big fish from the river and happily went home and told his wife "look, we can have fried fish for dinner!"
Wife: "But we have no oil."
Husband: "Then we'd cook it!"
Wife: "But we have no pot."
Husband: "Then we'd grill it!"
Wife: "But we have no firewood."
Frustrated, the North Korean walked back to the river and threw the fish back into the water.
The fish first circled and then raised its head out of the water. While raising its right gill, the fish shouted "Long Live Kim Jong-il!"

2. In the art museum was a painting depicting Adam and Eve.
An English saw it and said: "They must be English - when the man has something delicious, he'd want to share it with the lady."
A French saw it and said: "They must be French - a couple strolling around naked."
A North Korean saw it and said: "They must be North Koreans - they have no clothes, have little to eat, but yet think they are in paradise."

3. Kim Jong-il toured a pig farm and decided to have a photograph taken with a herd of pigs.
When the photo had to be published, a newspaper editor tried very hard to think of a caption.
"Comrade Kim Jong-il together with pigs?" Hmm, no good.
"Pigs together with Comrade Kim Jong-il?" Hmm, no good either.
When the photograph was eventually published, the caption read: "Third from left is Comrade Kim Jong-il."

4. An English, a French and a North Korean were chatting.
The English said: "The happiest thing in life is to return home on a cold winter night, change into woollen clothes, and sit in front of the fireplace."
The French said: "You English are so boring. The happiest thing in life is to have a good time with a blond at a Mediterranean holiday resort, and then part ways amicably."
The North Korean said: "The happiest thing in life is when someone knocks on your door at midnight and said "Kim Lee Park, you are under arrest", and you tell the person "Sorry, you have made a mistake, Kim Lee Park lives next door."

5. Kim Jong-il was having a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a break, both men started to compare the loyalty of their bodyguards.
Putin summoned his bodyguard into the meeting room, opened the 20th floor window and said: "Ivan, jump!"
Ivan cried and said: "How can you ask me to do this, Mr. President? I have a wife and kids..."
Putin was moved to tears and said he was wrong to have made the request.
Next, Kim Jong-il summoned his bodyguard into the meeting room, opened the 20th floor window and said: "Lee Myong-wan, jump!"
Without a word, Lee prepared to jump.
Putin grabbed hold of Lee and said: "Are you crazy? You will die if you jump!"
Lee struggled and said: "You fool, let me go! I still have a wife and kids!"

War Against Pigeons

According to a report dated 25 June, Beijing airport had apparently declared war on pigeons.

Flocks of the birds were said to have thronged the airport, crashed into planes, and threatened public security.

Citing the state-run China Daily, the report noted that some of these winged-creatures are "carrier pigeons raised as pets, a centuries-old Beijing tradition."

An airport manager was quoted as saying "pigeons are now of the greatest threats to airplanes," and that "it is with urgency that local authorities ban pigeon breeding, feeding, and flying anywhere near the airport."

The airport has also reportedly strung nets and tried to scare away pigeons with loudspeakers that broadcast sounds of owls and other predators, but apparently with little success.

If you ask me, the airport should also wage a war against taxi touts inundating its arrival halls!

Understanding Corruption in China

Bai Yansong's (白岩松) 痛并快乐着 had a thoughtful account of corruption in China.

In 1997, the president of Yunnan Yuxijuan Tobacco Factory (云南玉溪卷烟厂) Zhu Shijian (褚时健) was arrested and sentenced to life in imprisonment for corruption.

Zhu first became president of the factory in 1979. Under his leadership, the factory's ranking soared from 40th to number 1 in the country. Its main product - the Hongdashan (红塔山) cigarettes - emerged not only as a household name, but also raked in mountains of profits from both domestic and overseas sales.

After Zhu was sentenced, his daughter committed suicide, his wife had to be watched all day (presumably to prevent her from committing suicide), and his son ran away from home.

Yet, as Bai noted, was Zhu's misfortune simply a case of personal tragedy?

Bai wrote: "No matter how outstanding an entrepreneur (of a state-owned company) is, he is unable to receive much monetary rewards or incentives. Are large doses of passion and conviction all that are needed to revive moribund SOEs? Are these in line with economic fundamentals? If Zhu was given a share of profits in the process of creating wealth for his country, would this tragedy have occurred?"

Media Perverting Justice

Another anecdote from Bai Yansong's (白岩松) book 痛并快乐着 on the power of the media.

Zhang Jinzhu (张金柱) was a former director of public security of Zhengzhou (郑州) in Henan (河南) province.

One day in the 1990s, Zhang was drunk and drove against the flow of traffic. He knocked down a father and son riding a bicycle. The son died instantly, while the father was dragged a shot distance before Zhang was stopped by furious onlookers.

Incidentally, Bai suggested that Zhang had a propensity to drive in the reverse direction due to the sense of "privilege" cultivated as a public security elite. Any Chinese or anyone who has been in China long enough will instinctively understand what Bai was talking about.

Anyway, in a large country like China, not every incident will be reported, let alone brought to national attention. But in this case, it was a local newspaper that first reported the incident, and this was then followed up by China's Central Television (CCTV).

It did not take long before newspapers across the country picked up on the story. Unsurprising, the incident triggered off a nationwide outrage. As Bai noted, "in the hearts of many people, Zhang had already been given a death sentence."

As it turned out, the courts later pronounced Zhang guilty. He was sentenced to death, to the jubilation of many, who felt that justice had been served.

But after the verdict was issued, the two lawyers representing Zhang circulated an open letter arguing that even though Zhang was guilty, he should not have been sentenced to death. The lawyers also consulted 8 other legal experts in Beijing, and all agreed that Zhang should not have received the death sentence.

Others also pointed to what they felt were troubling wordings in the court's verdict. In sentencing Zhang, the judge/s had written "罪大恶极. 不杀不足以平民愤" (or "crime most hideous, nothing short of a death sentence will sooth the rage of ordinary citizens")

Hence, many wondered if the media and the reaction of the masses had influenced the legal outcome, thus leading to Zhang's ultimate death sentence.

As Bai noted, one of the last words uttered by Zhang was "我是被你们记者杀死的" (or "I am killed by you reporters")

Media Dilemma - Chinese Style

A few years ago in Beijing, books written and published by well-known Chinese journalists/television anchors appeared to be a trend.

One such book was Bai Yansong's (白岩松, pictured) 痛并快乐着 (roughly translated as Concurrently Pained and Happy), which was published in 2000. Bai was a television journalist/anchor for China's Central Television (CCTV).

Personally, I did not think the content was so riveting that it merited close to almost 400 pages. There were simply too many lengthy narratives detailing what the writer did while going places and covering events as a journalist/anchor.

But some of Bai's accounts depicting media dilemmas - Chinese style - were fairly interesting.

For example, Bai spoke of how his team filmed and highlighted the extreme poverty yet diligence of a school girl Xiao Xiangli (肖想莉), who was abandoned and raised by blind foster parents in Wuhan (武汉).

After the story was aired on national television in 1995, help and monetary assistance poured in from all over China. In the school that Xiao attended, slogans such as "learn from Lei Feng (雷锋), and learn from Xiao Xiangli" were displayed, where students were exhorted to learn from both the revolutionary hero and Xiao. The family that once suffered from dire poverty also began to witness drastic material improvements to their lives.

Yet, as Bai observed, Xiao's sudden shot to fame had changed the once simple school girl. When interviewed by journalists later on, Xiao apparently "knew how to tell the story in such a way so as to elicit sympathy from others." And since Xiao became accustomed to opening up envelopes containing money from well-wishers, "she became visibly unhappy if the envelopes contained no cash."

Bai said the initial intention of highlighting Xiao's case was to highlight the plight of less fortunate children, and also out of "love and concern for the child." But later on, Bai wondered if their good intentions had been misplaced, and if the media publicity had inadvertently "harmed and damaged the child."

Bai added that he felt a sense of anguish when he discovered that Xiao later left school to make her fortune "down south." Bai wondered if the media publicity had altered Xiao's nature, and set her on an entirely different course in life.

But that is precisely the power, and dilemma, of the media - whether in China, or anywhere else in the world.

A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots

Another book to be removed from my collection* is Katy Robinson's A Single Square Picture A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots.

I first read this book in 2002 after a visit to North Korea, and at the start of my fascination with Korea and Korean issues. Somehow, the only books that I managed to find that year in Beijing were those written by former Korean adoptees.

Perhaps that is the reason why despite my soft spot for Korea, the adoption issue will always induce in me feelings of sadness, futility, despair and regret. Especially after I had met some of these adoptees when I was in Korea in 2005.

Robinson's sense of despair was palpable when she wrote: "I despised my father and loved him with equal strength, as I did Korea itself, for the strong hold it had on me, while at the same time rejecting me as one of its own."

"No matter how much I craved a frank discussion with my father, it would not happen in a society that honored age, spoke in measured words, and strove for harmony above all else - even above truth."

Robinson was born out of wedlock, and she accepted that giving her up for adoption was a choice that her mother had to make.

As she reasoned: "Korean society did not easily forgive women. Her family's discovery of a former child could lead to disdain from her in-laws, divorce, and eventual ostracism for her current children. The discovery of a secret past would be the ultimate source of shame in a society that honored a woman's chastity above all else. This sounded melodramatic to my Western mind, but I also knew it was reality in Korean culture."

Despite earlier attempts, Robinson eventually gave up the search for her mother. Why?

"Who was to say my quest for the truth and the past was more important than my mother's honor? My mother was alive, but I would never meet her," Robinson wrote, adding that the "Koreans seemed to me overly sentimental on the one hand" yet "heartless on the other."

As for me, what right do I have, and who am I to castigate the Koreans? Especially when the Koreans have already castigated themselves, with even greater force and vigor?

As Robinson noted, Koreans admired and were grateful to foreigners who adopted Korean children, when their own countrymen would not. She said it was not uncommon for a foreign couple travelling to Korea to pick up an adopted child to be stopped on the streets and given "heartfelt thanks by complete strangers."

"But underneath the gratitude lay great shame and embarrassment at the legacy of being a "baby exporting" country," Robinson wrote.

Indeed, in a speech given to Korean adoptees by former Korean President Kim Dae Jung, the regret was equally profound and heartfelt.

Kim reportedly said: "I am pained to think that we could not raise you ourselves, and had to give you away for foreign adoption. The reason for the adoption was primarily economic difficulty. But there were other reasons. Koreans traditionally have a habit-of-the-heart that places too much importance on blood ties. And when you don't have that, people rarely adopt children. So we sent you away."

"Imagining all the pain and psychological conflicts that you must have gone through, we are shamed. We are grateful to your adopted parents, who have loved you and raised you, but we are also filled with shame."

* Though I will be most happy if Mr. ECP Flintstone wouldn't mind if I progressively transfer my former favourite books to him. And I hope that this footnoting style will meet with his approval.

Korean Drinking Culture

I have always known that the proper Korean way to pour wine for someone is to hold the bottle by the right hand, and support the right elbow with the left hand.

But I only found out why after reading Katy Robinson's A Single Square Picture A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots.

Apparently, in the old days, royal servants did this so the sleeves of their robes would not get in the way.

Separately, a younger person should cover his mouth and turn to the side when he drinks "because Koreans believe it's improper for young people to drink in front of an elder."

The rest about not declining a (or several) drink(s), drinking until one is boisterous or drunk or both, needs no elaboration!

More on Zhou Enlai

Lynn Pan had an interesting yet lyrical write-up of Zhou Enlai (周恩来) in her book Mao Memorabilia The Man and the Myth.

In it, Zhou was described as "the most intriguing Chinese communist leader who ever lived."

"Highborn and bred, he was an urbane and cosmopolitan patrician in a circle of clodhopping, coarse-grained provincials. He cast a spell on all who met him, Chinese and foreign; and so great was his personal charm, so gracious and cultivated his conversation and manner, that in his presence any aversion one felt for Chinese communism invariably withered."

Zhou was also said to have worked "to an unremitting schedule", all the while "measuring those around him as the fortunes of power conflicts shifted daily, trimming his sails to the swirling gusts of Chinese politics yet hiding his course in spite of rising hurricanes."

Pan continued: "It was easy for the Chinese people to love him, the exemplar of political loyalty whose lifelong and selfless devotion to the affairs of state was inspired and ennobled by patriotism. It is also easy, in hindsight, to have misgivings about him, to see in his allegiance to Mao too much subservience and too great a readiness to compromise."

"The story is told that when a Party cadre fulminated at the thought of having to consort with fascist butchers in the communists' second alliance with the Nationalists, asking: "Are we to become concubines?" Zhou's answer was, "We will become prostitutes if necessary." No surrender was too base if survival were at stake."

"If a single thread ran through Zhou's long career, it was his exceptional ability for political survival. Never to hanker for the number one position ensured that he remained number two until his dying day. This was the chief secret of his political staying power so high up the slippery sloped hierarchy. Another was his cultivation of a quality which one European observer has likened to water: utterly fluid yet absolutely resilient, taking the shape of whatever vessel it fills, yet never yielding "one single atom of its own nature."

"In stark contrast to Map, he expounded no theory, left no treatise on his thinking; and what he truly believed, where he stood politically, remains a mystery."

Pan added that Zhou knew never to stand up to or cross Mao. Zhou also "impassively endured the insults and enmities of people beneath his quality - Jiang Qing (江青) with Mao's endorsement, stopped at nothing to destroy him."

Pan asked: "What was it that made him abase himself? Was it his understanding of the terrible necessities of power? His determination to hang on to that power at whatever cost, not for the sake of power as such, but for the means it would give him to win? For win he assuredly did. He, not Mao, had the last laugh beyond the grave."

Zhou was also described as an "enigma to the end."

"What face, intent upon what truth, would the moon at the window show if he were glimpsed in the depth of night? The true face behind that handsome, polished exterior remains tantalizing, so elusive indeed that when we try to grasp it, it slips away from us into nothingness."

Chinese Communists and Gung-ho

According to Lynn Pan (pictured) in Mao Memorabilia The Man and the Myth, Mao Zedong, or at least the Chinese Communists, were said to have coined the English term "gung-ho."

As most of us know, the famed Long March in the 1930s culminated in Yan'an (延安), one of the poorest and harshest places in China.

It was in Yan'an that the Communists carried out various policies relating to land reform, education, youth corps, cooperatives, women's affairs, as well as Party recruitment and organization.

As Pan wrote: "A motto popularized by the Communists there, gonghe (共和), "working together," would be adopted by the U.S. Marines and passed on to the English language as "gung-ho."

1989 Tiananmen

Much has been said and written about the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. A refreshing account came from Jan Wong's Red China Blues. Wong was in Beijing at that time and reported on the event as a correspondent for a Canadian newspaper.

Wong described Chai Ling (柴玲), one of the key student activists, as follow:

"The television cameras loved her because her curtain of silky hair was always falling in her eyes, and because she tended to weep at the slightest provocation."

Enthusiastic students at the square reportedly shouted "Xiaoping Wansui" (小平万岁, or "Long Live Xiaoping"). But the slogan was also a pun on Deng's name, and meant "smash little bottle (Xiaoping) into ten thousand pieces."

Watching the event unfolded before her eyes, Wong said she could not decide who was more childish, the students or the "doddering gerontocracy."

Wong wrote: "An experienced mediator could have solved things so easily. But the students were drunk with their new-found celebrity, and communist dictators weren't used to negotiating. The Communist Party also had an internal power struggle to settle."

"Maybe it was sleep deprivation ... but to my jaundiced eye it seemed that the students were merely aping their oppressors. They established a lilliputian kingdom in Tiananmen Square, complete with a mini-bureaucracy with committees for sanitation, finance and propaganda."

"They even adopted grandiose titles. Chai Ling was elected Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Tiananamen Square Unified Action Headquarters. Like the government, the students' broadcast station sometimes deliberately disseminated misinformation, such as the resignation of key government officials, which wasn't true."

"They even, indignity of indignities, issued us press passes. Using transparent fishing line held in place by volunteers ... they carved the huge square into gigantic concentric circles of ascending importance. How our press passes were stamped determined how deeply we could penetrate those silly circles. We reporters had to show our passes to half a dozen officious monitors before we could interview the student leaders, who naturally, hung out at the very center, at the Monument to the People's Heroes."

But when the shooting occurred, Wong noted that like the students, she could hardly believed it. "Perhaps like me, they couldn't believe that the People's Liberation Army was shooting them," Wong noted, "or maybe after stopping an army in its track for days, armed only with moral certitude, they believed they were invincible."

Wong noted that in the aftermath of the shooting, Chinese who were normally afraid to give blood "even when offered large cash incentives", streamed in to donate.

While the students adopted non-violent means, there were instances of violence perpetrated by students after the shootings occurred.

As Wong wrote: "I later learnt that enraged protesters killed a number of soldiers with savage ferocity. After an army officer named Liu Guogeng shot four people, he was pulled from his jeep and beaten to death ... The crowd doused his corpse with gasoline, set it on fire and strung his charred remains, clad only in socks from a bus window ... someone stuck an army cap on his head and, in a chilling attempt at levity, put his glasses back on his nose. The furious mob still wasn't satisfied. Someone yanked him down and disemboweled him."

As Wong observed, in 40 years of communist rule, no one, not even Mao, had ever brought tanks into the capital."

Wong added: "So that there would be no finger-pointing afterward, Deng decided everyone had to have blood on their hands. He ordered every single military region to biao tai (表态), or demonstrate their attitude, with a tangible show of loyalty. Many commanders dragged their feet, but Deng waited, and lobbied."

"Those who didn't go along were arrested and eventually court-martialed. It took 15 tense days, from the declaration of independence of martial law to the start of the massacre, for him to bring every general on his side."

Hu Yaobang

In Jan Wong's Red China Blues, former Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦, pictured) was described as "a buffoonish character."

Hu had reportedly advocated that for sanitary reasons, Chinese should use knives and forks instead of chopsticks.

The joke went that Hu was chosen by former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) because at four feet eight inches, he was the only person on the ruling politburo who could "look up" to Deng.

Wong noted that Hu's fall from grace began when he made the "fatal mistake of looking enthusiastic" when Deng made a "bogus offer to retire."

As Wong wrote: "To me, Hu was just another party hack who proved once again that being heir apparent was bad for one's health."

Life and Death of Zhou Enlai

Jan Wong wrote in Red China Blues that with the death of Zhou Enlai (周恩来), many Chinese felt that they had lost their last voice of reason in the government.

She noted: "Of the top communist leaders, only Zhou had tried to mitigate the suffering of the Cultural Revolution, to stem some of the madness, and to protect some of his old comrades from Mao's wrath."

Wong added that although Zhou was a yes-man who never crossed Mao, many Chinese loved Zhou because he was "the best of the lot." But what the Chinese didn't know was that Zhou was so politically weak that he had failed to save his own adopted daughter, who was tortured to death in prison in 1968.

On the day of Zhou's funeral, Madam Mao was said to have scandalized every one by wearing a bright red sweater which could be seen under her black tunic!

Wong who was in Beijing in the aftermath of Zhou death said she had not realized she was witnessing the first spontaneous anti-government protest in communist Chinese history.

She wrote: "By commemorating Zhou, the Chinese people were indirectly expressing their anger at Mao and the Gang of Four. Under a dictatorship, commemorating a dead communist premier was the safest, and perhaps only way, to stage a protest."

As ancient poems were recited and circulated during the commemoration, Wong said she could not figure out "why thousands of perfectly normal people had developed a sudden passion for melodramatic Chinese poetry."

She added: "I did not understand that Empress Wu and the first Qin emperor were surrogates for Madam Mao and Mao himself, and that the poets were using the hoary Chinese technique of using the past to attack the present."

Wong observed that it is "eerie" to see how closely the 1976 Tiananmen incident foreshadowed the Tiananmen massacre 13 years later.

"Both protests began as disguised mourning for a senior communist official. Both crackdowns coincided with purges at the top. Both times, the victims were labelled counter-revolutionary, and the death toll was a state secret. The only difference was that in 1976, Deng was the victim. In 1989, he gave the order to shoot and kill."

Cultural Revolution Madness

The following snippets of Cultural Revolution madness came from Jan Wong's Red China Blues.

In 1973, a former Red Guard reportedly took a university entrance exam. He showed up late for the exam and scrawled across the top of his test paper that "life is too hard in the countryside - I had no time to prepare for the exams." Then he handed in a blank piece of paper.

The student was later dubbed a hero, by Madame Mao (江青).

Renowned Chinese director Chen Kaige (陈凯歌, pictured), whose evocative Farewell My Concubine won the 1993 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, was said to have betrayed his father - also a successful movie director - during the Cultural Revolution.

At a mass rally, Chen denounced his father, shoved him around, then stood by as his Red Guard classmates ransacked the family home and burned their books.

As Wong wrote: "Chen's three-hour epic, about the tragic fate of three actors during the Cultural Revolution, was partly intended as a tribute - and an apology - to his father."

China in the 1960s - And Now

Jan Wong's Red China Blues contained various humorous depictions of China during the 1960s.

Such as:

"New China book store (新华书店), a Chinese Barnes & Noble, except it was a state monopoly with only one bestseller, the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. (毛泽东)."

Well, things have certainly come a long way since then.

"To prevent breakage and shoplifting, and to keep surly people fully employed, all goods, including books, soap and socks, were kept behind counters policed by nasty sales clerks."

The nasty sales clerks behind counters had a longer legacy. Those at the Beijing Friendship Store (北京友谊商店) lasted till the turn of the last century.

"Words like "please" and "thank you" had disappeared under decades of communist influence. If I said "please pass the soy sauce", I would get the same look if I curtsied to a bus driver in Montreal. "Thank you" was appropriate only for big favors, such as when someone saved your life."

With reform and opening up, the Chinese have become increasingly more polite, at least those in the service and hospitality industries. But I am sure some of my friends would disagree.

Wong also wrote that China Pictorial, an official publication then, "specialized in bumper harvests."

But these publications are now collectors' items!

"During the xenophobic period, the handful of marriages between Chinese and foreigners had to be personally approved by Premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来) himself."

So apart from the various accolades showered on the late premier, another to add to the list must surely be "matchmaker."

"Watermelon was so scarce you required a doctor's note to buy one."

Now, doctors can write anything you want them to write, so long as there are adequate monetary incentives.

Describing elevators and elevator-operators, Wong had this to say: "Special staff, sitting in chairs, stabbed the buttons, using rubber-tipped chopsticks so they wouldn't have to over-exert themselves."

"Most buildings have several elevators, I rarely saw more than one in use at a time. The Chinese believed that elevators needed regular rest periods, and that complete rest was the best .. most elevators shut down for the night at 10.30 pm. At the theatre, it was not uncommon to see people bolt before the final curtain to catch the last elevator home. A man who suffered a late-night heart attack had to wait until six in the morning, when the elevators reopened, to go to the hospital because his wife couldn't carry him down 17 flights of steps."

Some of these elevator operators existed even until as recently as a few years ago. They occupied a comfortable corner in the elevator, and get annoyed if too many people want to get into the elevator at the same time (quite forgetting that the operator had taken up at least the standing room of two persons). The operator usually had a tiny table and chair, and on the table are essentials such as books, tea cups and even a radio.

"Travelling through the Chinese countryside was an exercise in bladder control."

Even now! Unless you are the type that can answer the call of nature without a roof over your head.

"When I joked "luckily I'm type AB, I can take anybody's blood, but hardly anybody can use mine," that only confirmed to Fu the selfishness of the capitalist class."

"I memorized Chairman Mao's quotations such as "shit or get off the pot." People actually recited this pearl of wisdom to one another, which Mao had once barked at a meeting when he grew exasperated at colleagues who were all talk and no action."

This pearl of wisdom should be used more often at many existing work places.

"At lunch I had to hunt through my portion of cabbage to find the postage-sized scrap of pork fat, with the skin and coarse black hairs still attached. It was my daily protein, and after a while I even found it delicious."

"Our professors were supposed to be ideologically bankrupt. the more book learning they had, the more polluted their thinking. In contrast, we were pure. Our ignorance was a virtue. To ensure the textbook would have the correct revolutionary spin, we would show our draft not to our teachers but to the local peasants, the motherlode of political correctness."

As someone who is left-handed, Wong said she "attracted instant crowds", and that Chinese thought she was weird or retarded.

I am a lefty too, but in China, everyone seemed to think I am very intelligent, if not a genius.

Wong also noted that she was "rudely treated until people realized we weren't Chinese."

Again, this rudeness to people Chinese thought were Chinese persisted, even till now.

"On the good side, sexually transmitted disease were said to be so rare that in the 1970s, many young Chinese doctors had never seen an actual case of VD."

Finally, describing her path from Maoist fanatic to non-believer, Wong had to this say:

"Maoism suited the absoluteness of youth. I was so self-absorbed. I knew so little about human suffering ... To paraphrase Tennyson, 'tis better to have believed and lost than never to have believed at all. Those years taught me about who I am, and what kind of world I want to live in ... if I adhere to any creed today, it is a belief in human dignity and strength."

Canada's Discrimination of Chinese

In Jan Wong's Red China Blues, the author wrote briefly about Canada's discrimination of Chinese during the first half of the last century.

As Wong wrote: "When my uncle was a little boy in Victoria, British Columbia, people pelted him with lumps of coal and taunted "Ching Chong Chinamen, washee my pants."

"The nursing school in London, Ontario, where my mother was the first Chinese-Canadian graduate, rejected an earlier applicant with this remark: "A sick person doesn't want to look up and see a yellow face."

"Ottawa stripped my aunt, the third Chinese-Canadian woman in Canada to earn a medical degree, of her citizenship in the 1940s when she married a Chinese."

Mao the Crotch Scratcher and Other Trivial

Another book which I had disposed of, but rather reluctantly, was Jan Wong's Red China Blues.

The book started with a description of Mao Zedong's (毛泽东) grandson Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), and Wong's observation that the Mao family harbored a "disdain for bourgeois hygiene."

As Wong wrote: "Mao Zedong had been a crotch scratcher, once dropping his pants to search for lice during an interview in the 1930s with the American reporter Edgar Snow."

According to Wong, Mao studied English using the Communist Manifesto as his textbook. "No wonder he never learnt to speak English," Wong mused.

Describing her time spent in China during the Cultural Revolution, Wong added: "I, on the other hand, became fluent in Maoist lingo. Phrases like "down with the imperialists and all their running dogs" rolled off my tongue. But I couldn't say "May I please have a tube of Bright and Glorious toothpaste."

A funny account, but it also reminded me of a Mr. Zhang whom I used to work with briefly when I was in Beijing. Having grown up during the Cultural Revolution, the only English Zhang ever learnt was "Mao Zedong is the red sun in our heart" and one or two other equally propagandist and useless phrases. Like those of his generation, Zhang spoke wistfully about his wasted youth, and wished he had acquired more useful skills when he was growing up.

Coming back to Wong's book, Mao was also described as "a coarse-spoken man with a love of elegant poetry," and someone "obsessed with physical culture as a youth."

Apparently, Mao bathed in icy water even in winter and toughened the soles of his feet by climbing rocky cliffs barefoot. Hmm, if Mao was reportedly so athletic, then how come he looked so, er, portly?

For someone so egolomaniacal, it is surprising to learn that Mao had given specific directive not to celebrate his birthday, or name anything after him. Hence, even till this day there is no Mao Zedong avenue, square, park or ship. Hmm, I wonder why.

Factual Inaccuracies About Singapore

Despite having quoted T.R. Reid's book over the past few entries, there are a number of things I found disagreeable about his book. Such as the many factual inaccuracies about Singapore.

For instance, Reid wrote: "Singapore is also a world capital of the Confucian ethic, with Confucius sayings taught in all schools and even set into the tiles on the walls of the subway stations."

Aw, come on, world capital? Taught in all schools? Inscribed on tiles? I am not sure if any Singaporean will recognize the Singapore as portrayed by Mr. Reid.

Reid also wrote: "Police with binoculars watch from the rooftops to snare any citizen who dares to jay walk, chew gum, or paste a sticker on a street post."

Oh please! Where on earth did Mr. Reid get such bizarre information from? With the cost of manpower in Singapore, I am not sure if the Singapore Police Force has the budget to station police on rooftops for trivial things such as these. And besides, surely the police have better things to do.

And by the way, chewing gum is not illegal in Singapore. You just cannot buy and sell it in the island state. An inane policy, if you ask me.

A Cultural Divide?

Is the following account a case of East-West cultural divide or just the art of indirect speech?

According to T.R. Reid, U.S.- Japanese relations were soured for years during the Nixon administration after Richard Nixon (pictured) asked Prime Minister Sato Eisaku to open Japan's rice market to American imports.

The Japanese Prime Minister reportedly hemmed and hawed for a moment, and then said "Zensho itashimasu."

A translator told Nixon exactly what the words meant: "I will respectfully give your proposal positive consideration in the future."

The elated Nixon went back home and declared victory on the rice issue.

Sato, meanwhile, assured everybody in Japan that he had said "no". And indeed, any Japanese would know that "I will give your proposal positive consideration in the future" is the same thing as "no"

Anyway, as a Japanese diplomat pointed out later, Japan did eventually give Nixon's proposal positive consideration.

The rice market was opened to imports a mere 28 years after the conversation - just a few months' before Nixon's death.

Driving in Asia's Narrow Alleys

This account also came from T. R. Reid's Confucius Lives Next Door - What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West.

Perhaps it is a lesson in 1) how narrow some Asian streets can be, or 2) how foreign companies ought to adapt and modify their products to suit local conditions. Or both.

As Reid observed, drivers in Asia can flick a switch on the dashboard that made the car's outside mirrors fold in flat against the door of the car.

Reid noted that these motorized folding mirrors "are standard equipment on almost all cars made in East Asia,", adding that one of the many reasons automakers in Detroit "have flopped in Asia's markets is that they do not offer this simple feature."

As Reid mused: "In a crowded metropolis, the two inches of free space you gain on both sides by folding in the mirrors can often mean the difference between navigating the streets, and getting stuck against the front wall of somebody's house."

Brutally honest, Mr. Reid, but so true. Reminded me of my driving experience in the tiny alleys of Beijing.

T.R. Reid's Confucius Lives Next Door

Still on T. R. Reid's Confucius Lives Next Door - What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West.

Reid noted that since Americans had thrown off colonial rule almost 10 generations ago, it would be "hard to find anyone in the United States who still nurtures resentment towards England because of the excesses of King George III."

But unlike America, Asia is not even one generation removed from colonialism.

As Reid mused: "Little wonder that, to this day, many East Asian leaders carry a chip on their shoulders roughly the size of the Great Wall."

But the main message in his book seemed to be the need not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While "Asian values", however they are defined, can often lead to cronyism and nepotism, such values are not entirely without their merits.

Reid argued that "Confucian executives" who run businesses in Asia recognize that their companies do not exist in a vacuum. These executives know that they are part of a larger society, and that membership brings with it responsibilities.

As Reid wrote: "In the West, a corporate executive who lays off thousand of workers is often treated as a hero, with a big cover story in Fortune or Business Week and a hefty bonus at the next salary review. But western managers should realize that this kind of social disruption does not come free."

"There are inevitably social costs associated with a single-minded emphasis on efficiency ... and the vast gaps in earnings between corporate chieftains and their employees. Massive layoffs in any community are likely to produce a quick upward spike in crime, drug use, and family problems in the same community. Asian executives recognize this connection. In the west, we often ignore it."

While adding that efficiency cannot be the only measure of success, Reid added: "If a company enjoys big profits while the community around it grows desperate, neither company nor community really comes out ahead."

"At the same time we are teaching Asian societies about business efficiency, we might be learning a thing or two from them about loyalty, civility and the value of a stable community."

Baskin-Robbins in Japan

The following account came from T. R. Reid's book Confucius Lives Next Door - What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West.

In Japanese, Baskin-Robbins is apparently pronounced "Basu-keen Low-Beans."

Since "Low-Beans" did not sound very ice-cream like, even in Japanese, the chain rather cleverly advertised itself in Japan not by its corporate name, but by its most salient feature, the famous thirty-one flavors.

Hence all over Japan, Baskin-Robbins ice-cream stores are known not as "Basu-keen Low-Beans", but more simply as "thirty one." By the way, Mr. ECP Flintstone, look at the photograph, wasn't that the very same ice-cream flavor we had at Baskin-Robbins in Woodley Park?! Too bad I didn't have space for 15 scoops of that.

Richard Kim's Lost Names

Richard Kim's Lost Names Scenes From A Korean Boyhood is said to be a semi-autobiographic account of growing up in Korea during the Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Several aspects of life under Japanese domination were depicted.

Such as how rice were scarce and expensive not because rice harvest was poor, but because farmers were forced to sell their rice to the government at a low price. The rice were then shipped to Japan.

Meat and fowl in Korea were also purchased through a process known as "voluntary contribution to the national war effort for the glory of the Emperor." They were then, naturally, shipped to Japan, otherwise known as the "mainland."

Rather than have their produce shipped to Japan, many Korean farmers reportedly stopped farming and grew only enough to live on. As one farmer complained, "the Japanese are requisitioning everything, even our apples."

In schools, students were not allowed to keep their hands in their pockets. That was because it would "harm your posture and weaken your constitution, resulting in your becoming weak men, unfit to serve the Imperial Cause."

At least once a week, students were required to visit the imperial shrine for an hour of meditation and prayer - so as to pray "for the victory and prosperity of the Empire."

And when the Japanese troops occupied all of Malaya and Borneo, Korean children were given a rubber ball each to celebrate the capture of "these vital rubber-producing areas from the British and other enemies of the Empire." The rubber balls bore stamped letters that read "Ten Thousand Years for the Occupation of Singapore and Malaya."

But the most touching aspect of the book was the chapter on how Koreans were forced to change their family names to Japanese ones. Many Koreans were depicted as wailing and hitting their heads on the ground in front of their ancestors' graves - in the depth of winter.

As Kim wrote: "All are shrouded with white snow; now, some are kneeling before graves; some, brushing the snow off gravestone; some, wandering about like lost souls."

As one sympathetic Japanese noted, it was unthinkable for one Asian people to inflict such a humiliation on another Asian people, "especially we Asians who should have a greater respect for our ancestors."

And as the Korean father - wearing a black armband - said to his son, "I am ashamed to look in your eyes", "someday, your generation will have to forgive us" and "survival, son, that's what my generation has accomplished, if that can be called an accomplishment."

Oh, what is a people without its name? The tragedy of the Korean people.

What was even more tragic was the thought uttered by the protagonist in the novel.

He said: "What I am really ashamed of is that our liberation was given to us, Mother. We didn't get it ourselves. It just dropped from the sky. Just like that. A present! That's what we ought to be really ashamed of."

Disparaging Comment About Korean/Japanese Men/Women

The following comment may appear heartfelt, but rather inappropriate coming from a senior official.

In a Chinese book titled Hong Kong People Ruling Hong Kong, Various Sparkling Talent (港人治港, 群英荟萃) published in 1997, the first group of senior officials to run Hong Kong after the territory's handover to China was profiled.

One such official was Hong Kong Executive Council Member Nellie Fong Wong Kut-man (方黄吉雯, pictured).

The writeup quoted her in the following way: "身为一名香港的女性, 方太感到幸运, 她说, 有男士爱护你, 事事让你, 又可穿得靓靓的, 实在很有满足感. 如果下一世有选择, 她仍然会选择做女性, 不过要做香港的女性, 而不是韩国或日本的女性, 因为她们的社会地位卑微."

Translated: "Mrs. Fong felt lucky to be a Hong Kong woman. She said men cared for women, gave in to women, and women can dress up prettily, and these gave her tremendous satisfaction. If she had a choice in her next life, she would still choose to be a woman, but more specifically a Hong Kong woman, and not a Korean or Japanese woman, as the latter had low social status."

With that one comment, Mrs. Fong had effectively disparaged four groups of people - 1) Korean women, 2) Japanese women, 3) Korean men, and 4) Japanese men.

Or was this just a case of having her foot in her mouth?

Lin Biao

Another book that will be tossed into the donation box is Jaia and Douglas Childers The White Haired Girl - Bittersweet Memories of a Little Red Soldier.

Apart from the need to address the problem of overflowing books in my possession, I think I have reached saturation point reading and keeping books about China's Cultural Revolution.

The author (Jaia) grew up, naturally, during the Revolution, and remembered Lin Biao (林彪, pictured) in the following way:

"He had sneaked into the Party as an evil worm burrows into the heart of a red apple and waved the red flag higher than anyone to hide his evil intentions.

"We heard many stories about his rotten life. He had slept every night in a bourgeois vibrating goosefeather bed. He had lived behind three layers of curtains, blocking the light, hiding from the Red Sun, proving his heart shadowy and dark. And he had secretly called himself the Flying Horse. What arrogance! Everyone knew there was only room in the sky for the Red Sun!"

"We also learned that our eternally wise Chairman Mao knew of Lin Biao's evil plans from the very beginning, even before the Long March. He was never deceived for even one moment. I puzzled much over this. Chairman Mao knew Lin Biao was an evil spy, yet wrote his name into the Constitution as future Chairman, making him the second most beloved leader of our nation. Why? But the Party told us we could not hope to understand the length, subtlety, and complexity of class struggle, especially as it applied to this situation. But Chairman Mao's great mind encompassed and resolved all the apparent contradictions. We could only trust in him."

Hong Kong Democracy

One book I was most happy to give away was Emily Lau's (刘慧卿, pictured) unimaginably named book Hong Kong Can Say No (香港可以说不). Lau is a well-known democracy activist in Hong Kong.

Written in Chinese and published in 1998, it must have been the most boring book I have read in a long while. There were hardly any interesting or readable stories or anecdotes. Just lots of raving and ranting about why democracy and direct elections are important for Hong Kong.

I do not oppose democracy and direct elections of course. But her one-dimensional ranting is tiresome after a while. I lost interest after the first couple of pages.

But in those couple of pages, and when castigating business people for putting economic prosperity ahead of democracy, a businessman was quoted as saying:

"如果你明知躲不过强暴, 何不干脆躺下来享受算了."

Translated: "If you know very well that you cannot avoid being raped, why not just lie down and enjoy it?"

Okay, whoever said that ought to be castigated.