The Story of Some Mangoes

According to writer Xu Shanbin, during the Cultural, Mao Zedong received some mangoes from foreign guests, and passed on the fruits to members of Beijing’s Mao Zedong propaganda team (首都工农毛泽东思想宣传队).

“这本来是一件再平常不过的小事。这件小事后来变成了惊天动地的大事。” (“This is really an ordinarily small matter, but it later turned into an earth-shattering issue.”) (证照中国1966-1970，共和国特殊年代的纸上历史，许善斌，新华出版社，2009)

In the 7 August 1967 edition of the Beijing Daily, the headline read “最大关怀　最大信任　最大支持　最大鼓舞” (“Profound Concern, Profound Trust, Profound Support, Profound Encouragement”)

As if that was not enough, the mangoes were taken on a nationwide “tour”. And since it was hard to keep the fruits fresh, plastic replicas were produced.

“我们教师学生中谁都没有见过芒果，甚至连听都没有听说过，大家猜这种水果一定非同小可，是个稀世珍品，有人把它想象成了《西游记》里王母娘娘的蟠桃，吃了就可以长生不老.” (“Among us teachers and students, none had ever seen a mango. We had not even heard of it. Everyone guessed that the fruit must be truly exceptional, and was a rarity. Some even imagined it to be like the fruit in the epic “Journey to the West”, where ingesting it will ensure an everlasting life.”)

The stampede to catch a glimpse of the crudely produced replicas was described as 人山人海 (massively crowded). The replicas were placed in a glass box, carried by two Red Guards, and guarded by four PLA soldiers bearing arms. It was as if the fruits were 超级国宝 (exceptional national treasures).

On the Cultural Revolution, Xu had this to say:

文化大革命时“煮豆燃豆萁，豆在釜中泣”，我们用八年的时间打败了日本鬼子，却用了十年的时间来消灭“阶级敌人”。如果说抗日战争上的是“身体”的话，那么文化大革命伤的就是“灵魂”。(During the Cultural Revolution, it was like the poem where brothers were killing each other. We used eight years to defeat the Japanese demons, but took ten years to extinguish “class enemies.” If the anti-Japanese war had harmed the “body”, then the Cultural Revolution had damaged the “soul.”)

China and Legal Wars

An extremely interesting (though somewhat self-serving and contro-versial) article, I thought, from Chinese legal professor Guo Shuyong who argued that what he termed as "legal wars" (合法性战争)had and will contribute to China's growth as a major power.

These wars included the Sino-Russo border war in August 1929, the Sino-Japanese war from 1931 to 1941, the Korean War beginning in 1950 (pictured) and the 1979 Sino-Vietnam War.

Guo noted that the 1979 Vietnam War was an attempt by China to support the Cambodian people in their fight against aggression, and to oppose "regional hegemony" in Southeast Asia.

The self-serving part came in when Guo argued that "中国的战争行动增强了中国帮助弱者，反抗强权的良好国际形象." ("China's war efforts had strengthened China's positive international image of helping the weak and opposing hegemony.") Worse, Guo added that "我们有理由把中越战争作为国际社会意志的体现，是中国执行国际社会意志的战争行动." ("We have reasons to believe that the Sino-Vietnam War is a manifestation of the will of the international community, and that China is acting on the will of the international community.")(郭树勇，试论合法性战争与中国崛起，国际体系与中国的软力量，上海社会科学院世界经济与政治研究院，时事出版社，2006)

Yeah, right.

Guo was(slightly) more convincing when he noted that China's involvement in the Korean War had helped the East Asian region maintained five decades of stability, though I am not sure if it had necessarily 打击了美国霸权主义的气焰。("defeated the arrogance of American hegemony".)

Guo's central argument was that during the process of developing into a major power, it would be advantageous for China to engage in "one or two legal wars, so as to consolidate its development."

But what was most controversial was Guo's assertion that 一个有志向的崛起大国，必须时刻寻找战争的合法理由，必须深入研究国际社会的发展动向，必须成立专门的研究合法性战争与国际法的有效机构，必须对一些有可能演化成军事冲突的危机爆发点进行预防性的合法性战争准备。这种准备是一种政治准备，也是一种法律准备。一旦这种准备是相对充分的，就要抓住时机，高举国际人道主义与国际法原则的旗帜为中国的崛起而奋斗。

("A rising power with ambition should always be on the look out for legal reasons to enter a war, and deeply analyze the developmental trends of international society. It should also set up effective departments to research into both legal wars and international law, and be prepared to intervene into preventive legal wars in military hotspots. Such preparation must be both political and legal. Once these preparations are in place, it should seize the opportunity and raise high the banner of international humanitarianism and principles of international law and forge ahead to ensure China's rise.")

Chinese Students and China's Soft Power

Soft power in China, it is argued, should also include the behavior of Chinese students when they are overseas.

According to Chinese authors Han Bo and Jiang Qingyong, overseas Chinese students had given Chinese a bad name. They refuse to take part in class discussions, are reluctant to think, and have a tendency of copying their homework from other classmates.

Students in one New Zealand university was said to be so frustrated with their Chinese counterparts that its campus newspaper published an article in 2007 titled "We Do Not Want to Be in the Same Study Group as the Chinese." (不要和中国人一个小组！) Teachers in New Zealand also lamented that "中国人的作业全都一样" ("Assignments submitted by Chinese all look the same!")

As Han and Jiang noted, "相比之下，日本人和韩国人虽然也比较沉默，但却不会抄作业." ("In comparison, the Japanese and Koreans are also relatively quiet (in class), but they will certainly not copy homework from one another.")(韩勃 江庆勇 著 软实力：中国视角 人民出版社2009）

Certainly not copy homework from one another? Hmm. I am not so sure about that.

Another example cited include how Chinese students signed one-year cell phone contracts with British phone companies just so that they can get the free cell phone. But immediately after signing, they leave the country, and of course there will be no way to trace them thereafter.

Yet another example is how Chinese students apply for credit cards and spend to the card's maximum limit just before leaving the country. As later Chinese students lamented, this had given all Chinese students a bad name, and British banks have since decided only to grant minimum credit limits to Chinese students.

As Chinese students later lamented, this is known as "前人砍树，后人倒霉." ("Those who come earlier on cut the trees, while those who come later suffer the consequences." - A twist on a more popular expression 前人种树，后人乘凉，or "those who come earlier plant the trees, while those who come later can rest in the shade.")

North Korea's Hamgyong Province

During the Chosun dynasty, Korean officials who incurred the wrath of the emperor were exiled to Hamgyong, the country’s northern-most province.

“Perhaps as a result of all these malcontents in the gene pool, what is now North Hamgyong province is thought to breed the toughest, hardest-to-subdue Koreans anywhere.” (Barbara Demick, Nothing To Envy, Spiegel & Grau, 2010)

Until the 20th century, this province, which extends all the way to the Tumen River, its border with China and Russia, was sparsely populated and of little economic significance. Its human population was probably outnumbered by tigers, “the beasts that still terrify small children in Korean folktales.”

But all that changed when the Japanese began their empire-building, and Hamgyong was seen as laying right in the pathway of Japan’s eventual push toward Manchuria. Apart from coveting the then largely unexploited coal and iron-ore deposits around Musan, the Japanese also turned Chongjin (pictured), then a small fishing village, into a port that could handle three million tons of freight each year.

The Japanese built massive steelworks at Chongin’s port and developed Namsan into a city with a rectangular street grid and large modern buildings. The Imperial Japanese Army’s 19th infantry division, which assisted in the invasion of eastern China, was headquartered there. Further south in the city of Hamhung, the Japanese built virtually from scratch a headquarters of massive chemical factories producing everything from gunpowder to fertilizers.

But when the Communists came to power in the 1950s, factories that had been bombed in the successive wars were rebuilt and reclaimed as their own. Chongjin’s Nippon Steel became Kim Chaek Iron and Steel, the largest factory in North Korea. And the industrial might of the northeast served as a shining example of Kim Il-sung’s economic achievements.

“To this day, Chongjin residents know little of their city’s history – indeed, it seems to be a place without any past at all – because the North Korean regime does not credit the Japanese for anything.”

Chongjin, also known as the city of irons produced watches, television, synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals, machine tools, tractors, plows, steel plates, and munitions. Crabs, squids and other marine products were fished for export.

Much like the South, it is understandable for the North not to “credit the Japanese for anything” even though the colonial masters had developed the Peninsula by putting in place a relatively good set of hardware and infrastructure, though admittedly not for altruistic reasons. Because of nationalistic reasons and the painful memories of Japanese colonialism, it is still hard for Koreans to objectively assess the positive aspects of the colonial period, as the negatives simply far outweigh the positives. But then a question to ask would be, how different would Korea’s trajectory be if the Japanese had not come barging in?

Revival of Confucianism

Remember the saying that China had thrown out the baby with the bath water in the early 20th century during a wave of internal self-criticisms and attempts to learn from the West?

One of the things that it was determined to throw out then was Confucianism which was seen as an outdated feudal doctrine that had deterred the modernization and development of China.

As writer Xu Jialu noted in an article on the revival of Confucianism in recent years, attempts to do so now are mainly to "carry the baby that had been thrown out with the dirty water home. We no longer want the dirty water. Moreover, water that had been thrown out cannot be taken back." (我们今天研究儒学，是把随着脏水泼出去的孩子再抱回家里，脏水并不收回，也收不回.) (许嘉璐 从中国文化与世界文化大视野看儒学复兴 高端讲坛 大国软实力 唐晋 主编 华文出版社 2009)

Though the question to ask here is - isn't the baby injured from having been thrown out together with the bath water earlier on? Perhaps by now it is crippled, if not suffering from damaged internal organs or even brain hemorrhage?

Xu does not think that there is a widespread revival of Confucianism, arguing that the revival is only within a handful of scholars and students, and negligible in a nation of 1.3 billion people.

"在中国内地上复兴儒学，任重道远。今天，弹奏古琴，古筝，吹吹箫,演奏民乐，如果在社会上卖票，那么，这样的乐团能很好的活下去吗？很难！但是，穿上露脐的衣服，来个脐钉，来个耳钉，拿着话筒，甩头发，跺脚，握手，最后来个飞吻，人们对此却是趋之若鹜。学术根植于社会。因此在今天这样一个社会环境下，要振兴儒学，道路太漫长了，需要一个文化的复兴，不是以年计，也不是以十年计，常常要以百年计."

("To revive Confucianism in China is a long and momentous task. Today, if a band were to perform on traditional musical instruments such as guzheng or the flute, can it possibly survive? With great difficulty! But if one were to dress up in belly-protruding clothes, carries a microphone, flips one's hair, stomps one's feet and then ends with a flying kiss, they will generate a lot more interest. With such a social environment, the path to reviving Confucianism is way too long. What is needed is a cultural renaissance that is calculated not in terms of years or decades, but in centuries.")

Yiwu Market

Some of us might be familiar with the Yiwu Small Commod-ities Market(义乌小商品城，pictured) in Zhejiang province.

But there is a story behind its origins, according to author Huang Jianguo (黄建国 主编 软实力 硬武器 改变世界的社会科学创新 党建读物出版社 2009).

In 1982, peasant Feng Aiqian (冯爱倩) walked into the Yiwu government office, and demanded to know from Party Secretary Xie Gaohua (谢高华) as to why she was arrested time and again for being a street peddler. Feng argued that she was jobless, and needed to be a street peddler to make ends meet. The argument reportedly lasted the whole afternoon.

Party Secretary Xie eventually tabled two resolutions at the next sitting of the local government - 1) Should trade markets be opened or not? (应不应开放集市贸易市场) and 2) Should peasants be allowed in cities for the purpose of conducting trade and commerce? (允不允许农民进城经商)

This subsequently led to an affirmative answer, and trade by peasants in cities were soon made permissible, even though the author did not indicate how long the process took.

But perhaps this is yet another example that individuals too can make a difference on policy discourse in China.

Wang Guangmei

Another fast and easy book to read while recuperating from surgery was one depicting the life of China’s former first lady Wang Guangmei (pictured). Easy to read as there were probably more photographs than text. (王光美私人相册, 罗海岩 编著, 新华出版社, 2010)

Wang was of course the wife of former Chinese President Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇). My interest in the Liu family began in graduate school while researching into the final decade of Liu’s life.

As the author rightly pointed out, Wang’s experience was almost unprecedented in China’s history. At the prime of her life as First Lady, she was thrown into jail on falsified charges and remained there for the next 12 years, not knowing what had become of her husband (who died in a prison cell in Henan province).

Yet after she was released, Wang “confronted history, and eagerly embraced life,” (正视历史, 真诚地拥抱生活), and “responded to the ugliness and depravities with truth, kindness and beauty.” (以人性的真善美来回应丑陋和低下)

One of China’s first graduate students in physics, Wang was Liu’s third wife, and the two were drawn together by their diametrically different backgrounds. Wang came from a well-off family, while Liu a revolutionary background. Liu was said to be mesmerized by how Wang sliced off the skin of a pear in an entire piece using a knife, while Wang was amazed at the simple daily meals of noodles with vegetables and a few “burnt mantou slices” eaten by Liu.

When Wang accompanied Liu on a state visit to Burma in 1963, a necklace she was wearing broke and scattered into the sea while she went swimming. The necklace was borrowed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry Protocol Department for the occasion and Burmese authorities reportedly dispatched divers to search for the necklace but to no avail. The next day, President Ne Win presented Wang with a red ruby necklace, saying - “I know that you Communists do not accept gifts, but your necklace went missing in Burmese seas, so I need to compensate you. Red rubies are a Burmese specialty and the pride of the nation.” The necklace was later presented to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and now displayed in the Revolutionary Museum of China.

On another state visit to Cambodia, China reportedly uncovered intelligence that bombs had been planted along the route that Liu and Wang planned to take. This prompted some to call on Liu to cancel the visit. But Liu reportedly said that China could not afford to risk its credibility by not going. Moreover, China needed to have faith that the Cambodian authorities could handle security-related issues. So when Liu and Wang arrived in Phnom Penh, Prince Sihanouk hailed Liu as “the Chinese President who had delivered friendship using his life.” (用生命传送友谊的中国主席)

Wang was said to be a well-loved character. “在那个政治挂帅, 缺少美育的年代, 王光美典雅俊秀的形象, 给色彩单调的中国人带来了一缕充满人文情怀的温馨. 在国际社会上显示了泱泱大国红色夫人的优美风度, 让中国人深感骄傲和自豪. 许多中国人的心目中至今还记忆着光美当时的形象: 一袭白色旗袍, 映衬着高贵优雅的气质, 真诚的微笑挂在端庄的脸上 … 许多人当时反复看<新闻简报>, 是为了多看几眼王光美的形象.” (In an era where politics was overriding and aesthetics was sorely missing, Wang Guangmei’s classic elegance and beauty had brought about a heartwarming sensation to Chinese who lived mainly in a monochrome environment. Within the international community, Wang had displayed her beauty and elegance as the first lady of a large country, and this had instilled among the Chinese a sense of pride. Many Chinese still fondly remember Wang’s image as wearing a white cheongsam that brings out her elegance, and with a sincere smile on her face. Many Chinese read the newspapers repeatedly simply to look at Wang a few more times.”)

But it was Jiang Qing who was responsible for Wang’s incarceration in jail. Jealous of Wang’s favorable public image, Jiang reportedly hated Wang and during the madness of the Cultural Revolution, accused Wang for being a capitalist (by among other things, donning necklaces) and for being a US intelligence agent.

Wang was step-mother to five children from Liu’s two earlier marriages, He Baozhen’s (何葆贞) three children Liu Yunbin (刘允斌), Liu Aiqin (刘爱琴) and Liu Yunruo (刘允若), and Wang Qian’s (王前) two children Liu Tao (刘涛) and Liu Yunzhen (刘允真). She had 4 children of her own, Liu Pingping (刘平平), Liu Yuan (刘源), Liu Tingting (刘亭亭) and Liu Xiaoxiao (刘小小).

Incidentally the last thing that Liu said to Wang before he was taken away was “好在历史是人民写的.” (It is a good thing that history is written by the people). Is it really? So Wang and Liu had been vindicated, but in the course of Chinese history, how many had been or will be as fortunate?

Life Within the Hermit Kingdom

In Soon Ok Lee’s book, the author noted that the tiniest infractions will land a North Korean in one of the country’s much feared labor camps. (Eyes of the Tailless Animals, Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman , Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1999).

Such as the case of a high school principal who petitioned the authorities about excessive manual labor required of her students as she felt that the work was hindering their education. The government subsequently decided that she was rebelling against government policy, and she was convicted of abusing her position by giving her students “the impression that manual labor was worth less than studying.”

Or the case of a farmer in North Pyong’an province who was given a three-year prison sentence for selling seashells to the Chinese to pay for his son’s wedding. Selling of seashells was considered an “illegal export activity.”

Within prisons, punishments can be meted out for "misdemeanors" ranging from laughing and staring at one’s reflection in the mirror.

Then there were the self-criticisms that prisoners have to churn out, which invariably began with the words “with the care of Kim Il Sung, I had a life without worry. Instead of giving my utmost loyalty to his care, I ungratefully betrayed him by breaking prison policy.”

Other revelations included how products produced by prisoners were exported for foreign currency which was in turn used to import television sets and refrigerators for senior officials otherwise known as “presents from Kim Il Sung.”

And presumably in the 80s and 90s, many Central Party committee members withdrew foreign currency for exchange and pocketed the gain for their own use. As the practice became more widespread, many were inspected and arrested, including bank workers who were merely running errands requested by their bosses. They were charged for “collaborating” with their bosses, where they “suffered, were tortured, and died for no reason.”

And after Kim II Sung returned from a trip to Europe in 1984, he permitted his people to start small businesses with rice cakes, bean curds and motels. And within three years, these businesses reportedly became the livelihoods for many living in Gusung City.

But Kim’s son Kim Jong II subsequently thought that business owners were adopting capitalism and decided to clamp down on such businesses. Many housewives were arrested and thrown into labor camps for doing precisely what the elder Kim had allowed them to do in the first place.

Eyes of the Tailless Animals

Needed a fairly quick and easy book to read while recovering from surgery, so turned to Soon Ok Lee’s Eyes of the Tailless Animals, Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman (Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1999).

It turned out to be quick and light due to its length (154 pages), as well as clear and simple writing. Even though I am supposed to be moderately immune to horror stories from those who survived North Korean labor camps, having read so much from the genre, the book still contained rather disturbing elements.

Such as prison guards pouring boiling liquid iron at a temperature of 1,200 degrees on top of prisoners who refused to renounce Christianity.

“Suddenly, the smell of burning flesh assailed my nostrils. The bodies began to shrivel from the intense heat as the liquid metal burned right through their flesh.”

“I looked at their shrunken bodies and wondered in my heart, what do they believe? What do they see in the empty sky? What could be more important to them than their lives?”

“In the years I was in prison, I saw many believers die. Yet they never, never denied the God who is in heaven. All they had to do was say they don’t believe in religion and they would have been released.”

Then there were the sadistic prison guards who told prisoners that if they dashed towards the prison fence and leap over it, they would be set free. Many did so only to have their bodies scorched when they touched the high-voltage wire on the fence. The guards were said to have watched prisoners die “as if they were watching a funny show.”

A prisoner who did not want to see her son’s execution screamed and ripped out her own eyeballs. “Everything happened so quickly. Her eyeballs were hanging by tendons and they were swinging. It was sickening and tragic to watch.”

Pregnant female prisoners were forced to abort their babies as the regime believed that all anti-communists should be eliminated within three generations. Poison was injected into the women who suffered tremendous pain until the babies were stillborn 24 hours later. Medical officers walked around the pregnant women and kicked their swollen bellies if they screamed or moaned.

“The mother of these newborn babies just laid on the floor, and sobbed so helplessly, while a medical officer twisted the babies’ necks,” Lee wrote, adding that the dead babies were used “to make medicine.”

Then there was the case of how prison kitchens ran out of water to rinse cabbages covered with chemicals. But cooks went ahead to prepare cabbage soup anyway. Hundreds of prisoners subsequently came down with food poisoning, and many died as they were already malnourished. That was in May 1988, in summer, where the bodies “quickly began to rot and stink". Many who passed out “were carried out with the dead to an ever-growing pile of bodies.”

As for public executions, prisoners were tied to a post, mouths covered with a mask and eyes left wide open. 18 bullets were then shot into the upper part of the body leading to blood spurting all over. Surviving prisoners were then ordered to walk around the body within three feet and look straight into it. “Look at him and feel hatred for him. Swear to yourself that you won’t follow his example.”

For one of the executed prisoners, the officer reportedly said: “He was against the government and dissatisfied with the Party policy, so he sneaked into the kitchen and stole balls of rice. When he was being punished for his crime of stealing, he said, “I’d rather die than live in this pain.” His remark showed that he betrayed the great care of Kim II Sung.”

And when blood from public executions spurted on those who were in the front row, some female prisoners “lost their minds and became psychotic.” They cried, laughed and sang, or fainted, and these reactions were seen as “disagreements with the Party or a lack of a firm belief in communism.”

It is indeed a mad, crazy and demented world.

Lee proclaimed that “the barbarous crimes of the North Korean government will never escape the severest judgment of God and history.”

Somehow, I am less optimistic. Judgment from God aside, will any earthly judgment matters when it comes at a different time, a different regime, and where all the protagonists have come to pass? Some people will certainly have to be judged, but perhaps not in their life times. Little solace for their countless tormented victims.

Genghis Khan as a source of inspiration

Genghis Khan is still a source of inspiration in modern-day Mongolia as “these are turbulent times, and people need something to hang on to”, so said Mongolian scientist Oyun (full name not known).

“Before, people had little, but enough. And now? Look around: what do ordinary Mongolians see? The social fabric torn apart, street children, corruption. People do not see the real fruits of democratic change yet. Democracy is supposed to empower people, but we have seen an increase in poverty and unemployment, and an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, so a lot of people are less powerful, more threatened economically, than they were under communism. Half the population has to struggle to survive. They see the nation threatened by poverty, by weakness. So they look to Genghis and that part of their history as a symbol of strength.” (John Mann, Genghis Khan – Life, Death and Resurrection, Bantam Press 2004)

Genghis’ strength lay not just in conquest, but also in the idea of just administration rooted in a written legal system. And this is appealing given the lack of the rule of law after 70 years of one-party rule and the introduction of the multi-party system.

“With pluralism, disagreement is natural. But here there is no notion of a loyal opposition. They – especially the older people – can’t take this political infighting. They think Mongolians are fighting each other, dividing the country. My personal opinion is that if you asked Mongolians what they feel, many would say: Since we were once strong, why can’t we be again? Shouldn’t we have a strong presidential role, a sort of modern version of Genghis Khan? Not that there is any dream of empire, but at least the rule of law.”

Is this the mindset of a people who had once been strong? But it also attests to the notion that no nation or empire will remain strong, and there will always be fluctuations in the fortunes of a country or empire. Food for thought for a sunny island state in Southeast Asia. And doesn’t this harking to a better bygone days resemble a similar approach by Confucian adherents who reminisce about the golden days of Yao and Shun?

As Oyun added, industrialization would “court failure” as Mongolia’s countryside would be under threat, its towns polluted, and its industries owned by outsiders. So what needs to be done is to capitalize on Mongolia’s strength “which lies outside our towns, and under our feet.”

“I believe our competitive advantage lies in three things: our countryside, our nomadic ways and our resources. Genghis know the strength of the first two – the beauty and purity of our pastures and mountains and deserts, our freedom to wander and raise our animals. What we should be doing is looking back to the rural economy from which we came originally, looking back to look forward. And in this Genghis as a symbol is perfectly valid.”

But to the Chinese, Genghis is, according to Mann, not just a symbol of past strength but also of future assertiveness.

“In the eyes of those with a sense of history and of what China should be, there is a wrong to be righted; a “righting” which, if it ever comes to pass, will be done in the name, naturally, of Genghis Khan, because it was his heirs who reunited old China, and thus he, as the founder of a Chinese dynasty, who reasserted the roots of new China.”

Three Years in Beijing

Thanks to Dr Tay Eng Hseon and Dr Chiu Jen Wun for a surgery that “went very well”. At least those were the few gratifying words that I remember as I was wheeled out of the operating theatre last week in a semi-conscious mode. But who uttered those words? Dr Tay or Dr Chiu? Hmmm.

Thanks also to friends who had visited, showered concerns, brought food and reading materials, both during and after hospitalization.

Particularly enjoyed LL’s fried beehoon (vermicelli), dang gui (angelica root) chicken soup and her book Three Years in Beijing, a compilation of articles written and published in Singapore’s Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao while she was based in the Chinese capital. (朱亮亮, 北京三年, 时报出版社, 2000)

Thanks LL for the common Beijing memories we shared, and for mentioning me in the article about China’s reaction to the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade (pictured). Those were indeed the days. The article should also have mentioned how I was pushed, shoved, and sustained minor injuries while covering the student protests. :)

Two interesting snippets from LL’s book – the extreme actions taken by Chinese petitioners to get their grievances heard by the central authorities, and the changing perceptions towards soldiers in the country.

Some petitioners who wished to highlight their grievances apparently headed to CCTV (China Central Television), where one man was said to have dashed into the premises smeared in feces, and security guards who tried to stop him were also tainted with feces. Another man, an elderly farmer, whose brother was falsely accused and beaten to death showed up at the gates of CCTV where he knelt down while holding a bag with his brother’s head in it! Absolutely gruesome stuff, which reminds me of a television documentary I produced on petitioners in 2004 which was never aired due partly to its grisly details.

As for the changing perceptions of soldiers, there is the following ditty:

抗美援朝打美帝时是可爱的人
扑灭黑龙江大火时是可敬的人
拯救唐山大地震灾民时是最可靠的人
对付学生运动时是可恨的人

(When they resisted the American imperialists while assisting Korea during the Korean war they were the most lovable people.
When they put out the massive fires in Heilongjiang they were people to be admired and respected.
When they assisted those affected by the Tangshan earthquake, they were the most reliable people.
And when they cracked down on the student movement they were the most detestable people.)

Given China’s reform and opening up, soldiers had emerged as a less admired profession, and it was no longer a case of girls lining up to get married to men donned in army fatigues.

Hence, there is another saying about the kind of women that these soldiers can hope to marry – 搁在家里放心, 想起来伤心, 见了面恶心. (One’s heart can be at ease even if left at home, one’s heart will break whenever thoughts of them arise, and one’s heart will turn disgusted when comes face to face with them.) Hmm, not the best translation I guess.

Incidentally, this is the first national day I spent in Singapore in over a decade or more. I thought the national day parade was rather sleep-inducing. But nevertheless, happy 45th birthday Singapore.