Sunday, May 31, 2009

China's Shadow/20 Years after Tiananmen 中国的阴影 - 天安门二十年后


陈凯一语 Kai Chen's Words:

自由是一种内心平静的状态。 自由并不是一种生理安全的状态。 承担风险并为真实付出代价是自由的先决条件。 中国的人们所说“只要有些事情你不去想、不去提,你在中国就是自由的”是一句欺骗自己的谎言。 他们应该把其中的“自由”换成“安全”那才是句实话。

恐惧逃避自由真实而迷恋安全虚假是中国专制文化的基核。 对概念的有意混淆是中国的人们逃避自身渺小与恐惧的传统惯用伎俩工具。 --- 陈凯

Freedom is a state of mind in which one is at peace with oneself. Freedom is often NOT a state of safety. Taking risks is essential to ensure one's freedom. In this article below, the saying by the Chinese youths today "if you don't mention certain things, in China you are free" is a big lie to deceive themselves and the world. It is only true if they replace the word "Free" with the word "Safe".

Fearing freedom and escaping from it are the essential characteristics in the Chinese despotic/nihilistic culture. Confusing concepts to evade the truth and the smallness/fear of themselves is the traditional trick/tool for the Chinese. --- Kai Chen


China's Shadow/20 Years after Tiananmen 中国的阴影 - 天安门二十年后

A prominent slogan at a space center vows world conquest, but should that shouldn't be taken literally.

By Simon Winchester
May 31, 2009

Jiuquan, a small town in the gritty deserts of northwestern China, was a place once moderately celebrated around the world as the birthplace of that most singular vegetable, rhubarb. But, along with the profound changes that have engulfed modern China, this remote and half-forgotten town has lately taken a very different direction from its botanical beginnings. It has become instead -- and largely because of its splendid isolation -- the main launch center for China's ever-swelling armada of space rockets.

And at the entrance to its interplanetary complex there is currently a billboard, half in English, that bristles with pride at the community's makeover. In very large letters at its base there is written a slogan that Western visitors may find more than a little chilling. It proclaims, and without apparent fear of contradiction or challenge: "Without Haste. Without Fear. We Will Conquer the World."

It is a sentiment well worth bearing in mind the next time you go -- as all visitors to Beijing should -- to see China's daily national flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square. This event takes place in precisely the location where the tragedy of two decades ago happened. And it is everything that what these days is referred to as merely "the incident" was not. It is precise, disciplined, impeccably choreographed and hugely impressive.

The reverent crowds that show up in the chill before sunrise to watch do not seem to be aware at all that 20 years ago the pavement on which they stand was soaked in blood, that crushed bicycles and injured demonstrators lay all about, that trucks filled with soldiers careered wildly along the grand avenues, rifles blazing in all directions, and that the square was ringed with tanks and armored cars -- all directed at a few thousand defenseless young campaigners for freedom and democracy.

Today's only connection with that gruesome past -- personified by the soldiers of the goose-stepping honor guard who strut out from beneath the portrait of Mao Tse-tung toward the flag podium like giant automatons -- is that, on one level, the ceremony is a reminder of the raw and ever-present power of the Chinese state. The very power -- patient, measured and implacable -- that is suggested by the proclamation on the faraway space center billboard.

A question that troubles so many of the world's China-watchers, and quite reasonably, is this: Will that raw power ever be directed again toward the very people it is supposed to protect? Could there be another Tiananmen massacre? Would the government ever again risk bringing a firestorm of critical wrath down on the country that, in the last 20 years, has vaulted into the front row of the world's nations.

It is a difficult subject to discuss in China itself. It is said still to cause grave dissent among the ruling elite, and former dissidents are still subject to arrest -- a student leader, who had lived in the U.S. since 1993 and was trying to visit his ailing parents in China, was picked up in Hong Kong late last year and remains behind bars. But, generally, it is a non-topic in the media and has been essentially written out of the country's history.

Bringing it up among young Chinese, many of whom weren't born when the killings occurred, one becomes aware of what it must be like to live in a society in which information is so rigidly controlled. Most have only the vaguest idea that the tragedy ever occurred. It took several minutes of tactful prompting to remind Daisy, a 21-year-old Beijing sophomore, of what had happened -- and when the penny dropped, she blushed to the roots of her hair, began to stammer and gestured at the back of the taxi driver's head. "We would be in great trouble if he knew what we were talking about. I know now -- the 'incident' in the square. It is something that we know of, but we don't talk about it. Never."

I had much the same reaction from a student at Shanghai's Fudan University named Frederick. "This is a subject that we are afraid to talk about. When we try to do so, China suddenly feels like North Korea, a place that is terribly secretive and paranoid. Normally China ... isn't paranoid. It is a very free country, though I know Americans cannot imagine it being so. It is free, as long as you don't discuss certain things. And 'the incident' is one of them. The people who got into trouble, what happened to them? We don't know. We will never know. We are told not to care. There is no information."

And of those who died? I asked. "Some died, I know. Not many, probably. But we just don't know."

They are free as long as they don't discuss certain things. That is the key, the cleverly engineered way in which the Chinese government manages its population and that ensures, in my view, that, no, Tiananmen will never happen again.

Because to people like Daisy and Frederick, and even to those generations that have a more vivid recollection of the events of 1989, today's China offers up sufficient freedom for most to live a remarkably content life. Materially, most urban and educated Chinese are in clover; and most Chinese I know seem perfectly willing to accept some curbs on their liberty -- not even setting a particularly high value on those liberties, as once they did. They read of what they believe are the consequences of unfettered freedoms in the West -- violence, corruption, drugs, anomie -- and count themselves lucky that their society suffers so few of them.

Cynics will say that they have sold their liberties for a mess of pottage. But others will say -- and Daisy and Frederick did say -- that the corollary to China's growing economic well-being and contentment is the soaring condition of the country when compared with the rest of the world. A keen sense of national pride -- something the Olympics did much to nurture -- has the Chinese people in its unyielding grip.

And that, students of realpolitik argue, could lead to what truly matters: that though China's power will not again need to be directed at its own people, might it instead -- for the first time in China's history -- be directed beyond its borders?

For what did the signboard in Jiuquan mean? Precisely what ambition did the slogan "We Shall Conquer the World" truly signify?

Local officials explained to me that it did not mean military conquest; China wasn't about to invade a neighbor, wasn't going to make threats or commence a program of assertion, expansion or hegemonistic swagger. The slogan merely suggested, and mildly, that China might offer the world another way -- an alternative to the cultural influence of McDonald's, Exxon Mobil and General Foods -- a reminder that Confucian ideals, for instance, matter too.

Others are less sure the intent is so innocent. There is talk of China acquiring an aircraft carrier. American sailors have recently felt the lash of Chinese anger after straying into contested waters north of the Philippines. Chinese anti-piracy patrols off Somalia have been a great success. There is a growing impression that the Chinese government is beginning to turn its face to the world beyond and look the rest of us in the eye.

As it may need to. China's immense and ever-growing economy demands raw materials from abroad, secure trade routes, alliances, partnerships and treaties.

Now, with an almost cast-iron guarantee of domestic tranquillity at home, how best can China, in a fickle and dangerous world, guarantee a lasting peace abroad? I suspect that China will work that out, without haste. And I imagine China will accomplish it, without fear. Just as it has so adroitly managed to achieve what will most probably be a lasting peace at home.

Simon Winchester is the author of, most recently, "The Man Who Loved China."

Saturday, May 30, 2009

American capitalism gone with a whimper 共产邪灵蚕食美国


American capitalism gone with a whimper 共产邪灵蚕食美国

27.04.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru URL:

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-american_capitalism-0

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina

© 1999-2009. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.

Definition of Integrity 完整与尊严/一个人的真实成就


Definition of Integrity 完整与尊严/一个人的真实成就

By: Chris Czach Hidalgo
Monday December 16, 2002

According to Merriam Webster, integrity is:

1: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2: an unimpaired condition: SOUNDNESS
3: the quality or state of being complete or undivided: COMPLETENESS


synonym see HONESTY

According to Oxford Dictionary, (the origin of) integrity is:

Noun


• 1 - the quality of being honest and morally upright.
• 2 - the state of being whole or unified.
• 3 - soundness of construction.


— ORIGIN - Latin: integritas; from integer ‘intact, whole’.

A few thoughts on the matter

The following information is simply an opinion based on life experiences and a personal understanding of truth and honesty--which are part of the foundational aspects of true integrity.

Integrity is a skill

As with all skills, they're developed and learned over time. For example, few people have an inherent skill in math and most people must learn the rules and exceptions associated with math to finally get a grasp on the concept. As a result, math is learned after repeating special techniques over and over including doing some memorization. This is also true with Integrity.

Training

A qualified carpenter must endure years of training, practice and exposure to building materials and circumstances that call for his talent. Integrity must also endure years of practice and exposure, for integrity is NOT necessarily inherent within a person's personality. Instead, integrity is a trait that is taught and learned over an entire lifetime. Integrity is an achievement.

Point of reference

Integrity is a guideline, a benchmark, a point of reference or a goal that is used to make decisions that rely on truth and honesty. All things are related to this point of reference and judged accordingly. To maintain integrity, you must remember to refer to truth and honesty in ALL decisions, thoughts, actions and reactions. That's not an option if you are to have and maintain integrity.

A great tower

Integrity is something that a person builds and maintains during a lifetime. You can consider integrity as a building within a person's heart that starts when the person is young.

This "building" begins with the first hole that is dug. Once the hole is dug, the foundation is laid--usually by parents and other leaders (church and school instructors). The walls follow with windows and doors added along the way. The windows would allow for transparency and serve as a type of checks-and-balances. The doors would allow for modifications of a person's definition of integrity to easily take place--hopefully for the better. The roof is added later and serves to protect from outside forces.

Re-building

Just as you can re-build a house when it falls down, so too can you re-establish integrity if you fall away from it's blessings.

A plant

Integrity can also be considered as a seed. It is planted in youth, watered in childhood and blossoms in adulthood. The more you water it throughout life, the more it grows and blooms. Just as it is with plants, if neglected at any point, it WILL wither and die. If your plant has died, simply plant a new seed and water it daily! Note that a plant does not blossom immediately but must go through a life cycle first. So, integrity will take a while to get used to...again.

Maintenance

Integrity must be maintained. A janitor cleans and straightens rooms for a living. You must be a janitor and maintain true integrity. If you avoid the dust that settles, your definition of integrity begins to diminish and decrease in value. A strict maintenance schedule must be kept or what has taken a lifetime to build will come crumbling down in minutes.

Loss

It's critical to note that integrity can be lost or compromised beyond recognition in a person's life. I've been there and am in the process of re-establishing integrity in my life...and it's not easy. Recognizing that integrity has been compromised or is totally lost from your life is the first step of many. The second step is to do something about it--and that would be to make the decision to plant a new seed and water it daily...even minute-to-minute.

Holding up to the test

Consider a cup that cannot hold water. A person that lives their life without integrity is like that cup. The crack may be invisible to the eye, but if it doesn't hold up to the test, it's virtually worthless. Many people walk around with a small crack that is easily hidden, but time reveals their flaw.

Honesty

...a totally separate issue that definitely applies to real integrity. To be honest is to apply integrity to a situation or instance. The two go hand-in-hand without exception or separation. There are few things that complicate an issue or hurt more than dishonesty. At least honesty leaves a person with some sense of closure and dignity...despite the fact that it may sometimes really hurt to know the truth.

Other definitions

People can tweak or modify their definition of integrity to suit their needs, desires and ambitions at the time. For that reason, it's possible to have a large number of definitions of the word or state of affairs in a person's life--but that doesn't necessarily mean they're all sound definitions.

Integrity will:

• begin and continue as a personal ON-GOING decision to stand firm on principals that are inherently good.

• most likely take the long, straight and narrow road and does not cave into cheating.

• tell the truth over a lie despite the consequences.

• suffer the consequences instead of compromise itself.

• help to steer a person clear of those that easily bow to a corrupt nature.

• be apt to lend a helping hand simply as a by-product of this special lifestyle decision.

• diminish and eventually disappear if you choose to ignore and abandon it's blessing.

• set you apart from a great number of people who have chosen to follow the lead of a different drummer.

• sometimes separate you from the "in" crowd, but that's not always the case.

• on some occasions, make other people feel uncomfortable around you because of their own insecurities, problems and guilt.

• impress others only because of your decision to adhere to such a (sometimes) difficult lifestyle.

• sometimes put you into tight situations that APPEAR to be needlessly difficult.

• allow for rebuilding. It will come back and continue to blossom if you choose and allow it to grow within.

Integrity will NOT:

• allow for decisions that may compromise personal belief and faith.

• always APPEAR to help a situation.

• be an easy decision for all situations.

• be Disneyland and roses all the time.

• give in to peer pressure simply because "everyone's doing it."

• give up on you--you can always re-establish integrity by making a conscious effort to re-build what past mistakes have broken down.

• in an obvious way come to the rescue of a person.

Benefits

Integrity always benefits a person, but the benefit is NOT always immediately recognizable. In fact, some times the benefits of Integrity are not obvious for many years down the road. It's possible for a person to live most of their lives and not see the benefits of integrity until late in life. It's different for everyone and doesn't mean it's better or worse for you, it just means it's different, that's all.

Notice

As a side note, please know that in many cases, "things are not as they appear."

Experiences

Integrity is NOT a one time experience or situation. Instead, Integrity is an on-going experience of a collection of situations where sound decisions are made based on good judgment, discernment, wisdom and knowledge.

By-Products

Integrity has its by-products. As you become more familiar with a lifestyle that allows for integrity to bloom wild and free, life is usually filled with more and more peace--a by-product. After a while of on-going decisions guided by integrity, people begin to take notice. Employers begin to place more trust in you and your abilities. Friends rely more and more on your apparent wisdom. Better decisions lead to a better life.

Misdirected hate

As a direct result of your decision to establish integrity within yourself, you will gain favor with many people. Others will hate you for it--another by-product. People hate other people for the weirdest reasons. Someone dedicated to truth and honesty is a typical target. There are many reasons for this misdirected hate, but the most common reason is their own insecurity (referring to the person who hates). People WILL be threatened by you because of your decision to maintain integrity.

Personal definition

This personal definition of integrity is an attempt to offer an unbiased presentation of what integrity can and cannot mean.

That is to say this definition of integrity:

• is in no way the one-and-only true definition;

• may actually serve to corrupt someone's definition of integrity--BUT this definition has a sincere intention to help explain the many sides of integrity's purity and benefits so that the reader can decide for themselves.

• should help to answer some of the many questions people may have about integrity and the possible role it may play in a person's life, decision making, thoughts, actions and destiny.

• should broaden one's insight about how much of a role integrity plays in their daily life, even minute-to-minute.

The great cathedral

Remember, you can live life the way you want, for good or for evil. But I'd like to suggest the following story for your consideration:

Back in the middle ages (1200-1600 A.D.) a great cathedral was being built by many skilled laborers. One day a strange man came to town and asked each of the men what they were doing.

One man answered, "I have to lay this brick to feed my nagging wife and my many ungrateful children."

Another answered by saying, "I'm just trying to pass the time until I die and at the same time keep myself afloat."

Another man said, "I'm following my father's footsteps and doing what I'm told."

An old man answered, "I am a mason, this is what I do."
Yet another man was heard saying, "I do this because I have many debts to pay."

Then the stranger saw a young man laying brick who was working feverishly unlike the other workers. Intrigued, the stranger questioned this young man next.

After being questioned, the young brick layer stopped, starred at the yet unfinished building and answered by saying, "I'm taking part in the greatest building project in history. A cathedral unlike any other in the world. One of surpassing beauty and size. This cathedral will be the greatest the world has ever seen.

I'm only laying the block, but my efforts will help this great cathedral to stand the test of time so future generations can marvel at and appreciate it's awesome beauty."

Needless to say, the previous story about the building of the cathedral reveals that it's not what you have to do, it's not what you want to do or what you think you should do, but it's about how you do all things in life.

How you do what you have to do, how you do what you want to do, and how you do what you think you should do, will determine your success. You'll "have to do things," you'll "want to do things," and you'll "think you should do things" your whole life, but it's the quality of how you do them that really matters.
Integrity plays a critical part in quality decisions, thoughts and actions. It'll be obvious in how you act and react to expected and unexpected circumstances.

The "Gifted" Musician

Everybody enjoys one or several types of music, regardless of their sex, culture, age or beliefs. Music is truly one of the few universal avenues to express yourself to where others will consider your art despite who you might be in their eyes.
Most people only enjoy listening to music, but few enjoy listening and creating music. Some musicians are good, some are better and then there are those who are exceptionally good--considered to have the "gift" of music. But even they have to practice.

I attended a concert recently where a fan of the featured musician anxiously walked up to his favorite performer and said;
"you're an outstanding musician!"

The artist replied by saying;

"thank you, I appreciate you saying so. I practice every day."
Just as the great musician must practice everyday to maintain his high level of artistic talent, so too must we practice implementing integrity into our every-day lives.

Remembering

Allowing integrity to seep out only every now-and-then is not acceptable if we are to benefit fully from the blessing that integrity has to offer over a lifetime.

Integrity should be allowed to flow freely in the mainstream of our thoughts and actions. That, realistically, does not happen over night. It's a decision we must make every morning after we wake up. It's a decision we need to "remember" to make every morning after we wake up.

Studies show that if you do something twenty-one times in a row (but not like a robot in immediate succession),
that "function" should be ingrained enough to where it becomes second nature after a while.

A simple note on the bathroom mirror, one just above the door knob of your bedroom or some other place where you're sure to see it every morning--for 21 days---should do the trick. Give it a shot.

-------------------------------------------------------

A wonderful life

Choosing a wonderful life over (just) life can make the difference between success and failure, peace and chaos, love and hate, and integrity plays a key role in those decisions.

Chose to be like the young man laying the brick to build what he believes to be the greatest cathedral in the whole world.

Chose to plant a seed that will become the immovable oak.

Chose to be like the janitor that maintains a clean household.

Chose to be a cup that can hold water and is half full instead of half empty.

You can do it, it's as simple as a decision--one of many that will be based on wisdom, good judgment, discernment and knowledge.

Chose to incorporate integrity in your life today.
That, my friend, is integrity.

----------------------------------------------------

Interesting Experience

Defining Integrity In a nutshell...or in this case, in a fortune cookie.

The other day I was having lunch with two friends, Ken Mac Court and Sam Quick, at a Chinese restaurant in Flagstaff, Arizona when I received an interesting "fortune" from the traditional after-dinner fortune cookie (that I usually smash on the table, work through the pieces for the "fortune," then consider the alleged "fortune" and toss what's left--I don't like the cookie, just the fortune):

On this particular day the unusually unique "fortune" read:
"Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching."

After I stopped coughing and finally got some air as a result of the shock of reading something so prevalent in my constant search to define words that I want to apply to my life, I realized that this "fortune" was by far the most profound, applicable and true "fortune" cookie I had ever received.
Such a simple yet concise definition of the word integrity from a fortune cookie? I could hardly believe it!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Chinese Junk 中国的制造业只生产垃圾


陈凯一语:

从四川地震暴露的“豆腐渣”工程到所有中国制造业出产的“糟毒”产品反映了中国人长期在专制下产生的坚顽的“精明对付政府与顾客而牟利”的剧毒商业文化心态。 中国人正在害己中害人。 --- 陈凯

From the shoddy construction (of schools) exposed in Sichuan earthquake to all the poisonous products made in China to pollute the world, an insidious, vicious yet most tenacious pathology in the Chinese business-cultural mindset has been thoroughly revealed in front of the world. The victims of this cultural trait in China now is victimizing the world. --- Kai Chen

Chinese Junk 中国的制造业只生产垃圾

Book: Poorly Made in China 书: 中国的粗制滥造

http://www.amazon.com/Poorly-Made-China-Insiders-Production/dp/0470405589/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243525119&sr=1-1#

Quote from the Book: 中国人的商业品行 (书中引评):

"a love of excuse and pretense, the elevation of appearance over substance, admiration for unprincipled cleverness, shame a much stronger sanction than guilt. The old stereotype of the Chinese as chronic gamblers has some foundation in the Chinese psyche, too."

“热爱谎言托词,崇尚外表而忽略实质,热衷于无原则的精明,只有羞愧而无内疚自责、、。 -- 中国赌徒心态深深地扎在中国人文化之中。”

The problems underlying China’s pathologies.


By John Derbyshire

Is China really a modern country? Can China be a modern country? Paul Midler’s book leaves you wondering.

After studying Chinese at college, Midler lived and worked in mainland China through the 1990s before returning to the U.S.A. to take a business degree. In 2001 he went back to China, setting himself up as a consultant to American importers dealing with Chinese manufacturers. This has given him profound insights into the Chinese way of doing business. In Poorly Made in China he shares those insights. After reading his book, you will find yourself thinking carefully before putting Made in China items into your shopping cart.

Midler identifies the features of China’s production environment that make a joke of all the free-trade slogans. There is, for example, “quality fade.” You cut a deal with a Chinese manufacturer to import beauty lotions in plastic bottles. You give precise specifications for the product and container. The first shipments are fine. Then customers begin to complain that the plastic of the bottles is too thin. You squeeze a bottle, it collapses. It turns out that your manufacturer has quietly adjusted the molds so that less plastic goes into making each bottle. Neither the importer nor his customers has been told of the change.

The reason for this:

Factories did not see an attention to quality as something that would improve their business prospects, but merely as a barrier to increased profitability. Working to achieve higher levels of quality did not make me a friend of the factory, but a pariah.

In this, as in much else, the Chinese are great testers of limits. Just how much “quality fade” can a supplier get away with before the business relationship breaks down? You can be sure they will find out, and stop short a millimeter before the electric fence.

Then there is intellectual-property arbitrage. Under pressure from the advanced nations, the flagrant disregard for intellectual-property rights that was on display in China through the 1980s and 1990s has been brought under some measure of control, but much of it has just gone underground. As Midler writes, “Americans somehow imagined that Chinese factories existed to manufacture merchandise only for the United States, but this was not the view from China at all.”

From the point of view of a Chinese manufacturer, the world is divided into “first” and “second” markets. In the first market — North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and some lesser outposts of legal order — new product designs originate, and the designs are protected by patent, trademark, and copyright laws. By all means go along with that: Get business relationships going with customers in those places. Manufacture according to their designs, observe their laws, give them good deals — even sell to them below cost. Then sell knock-offs of their designs to Latin America and the Middle East, where intellectual-property protection is not so valued. This arbitrage game explains the curious fact that Chinese-made products are often more expensive in the developing world than in the U.S.A. That’s where the profits are made.

The most vexing game to Midler was the one in which Chinese manufacturers relentlessly play off importers against buyers. Everyone is trying to make a profit, of course: the manufacturer from the importer, the importer from the U.S. store chain’s buyers, the store chain from the retail customer. The importer is at the Chinese end of this linkage, negotiating with the Chinese manufacturer, and must bear the brunt of Chinese gamesmanship.

Manufacturers are highly skilled at shifting profit margins from the importers to themselves. If a Chinese factory boss knows any English at all, Midler tells us, it is likely to be the phrase: “Price go up!” Whether the manufacturer’s costs actually have gone up is impossible to ascertain, accounting standards in China being, well, Chinese. Since the importer-buyer deal is fixed under American law, the importer must swallow the manufacturer’s price increases, which happened under Chinese law — which is to say, no law at all.

But then the importer can switch to another manufacturer, right? Not necessarily:

The health and beauty care industry was one that existed in a tight network. Some manufacturers in the industry were even related to one another. Others shared an educational background. . . . Others shared a kinship that was based in part on membership in the Communist Party. And then some had suppliers in common.

How skillful are Chinese manufacturers at gaming the free-trade system? Think three-card monte. One of Midler’s key import contacts in the U.S.A. is a man he calls Bernie. We learn in Chapter 4 that Bernie belongs to the Syrian-Jewish community, the most capable and exclusive of all the world’s “market-dominant minorities.” (They refer to ordinary Jews like Paul Midler rather dismissively as “jay-dubs,” from the consonants in “Jew.”)

Yet with all his savvy and connections, Bernie is outfoxed time and again by the Chinese. He turns the tables on them just once, in Chapter 21, but his advantage is merely temporary. The worldly and confident Jewish diamond dealer in Chapter 15 fares even worse. This would be a mighty King Kong vs. Godzilla clash of market-dominant minorities, except that the Chinese are on their home turf — actually a majority. Outsiders stand no chance.

With his strong background in Chinese history and culture, Midler is able to identify some of the underlying problems. Many of his vexations echo those voiced by foreigners in China for half a millennium or more: a love of excuse and pretense, the elevation of appearance over substance, admiration for unprincipled cleverness, shame a much stronger sanction than guilt. The old stereotype of the Chinese as chronic gamblers has some foundation in the Chinese psyche, too, as Midler notes:

The impression I got at some of the factories that engaged in quality manipulation schemes is that they did so after growing bored with their more conventional successes. . . . There was a great deal of excitement that came with getting a new business off the ground. These manufacturers were thrilled when they signed up their first major customer, and they got another kick from orders that were especially large. When deal flow leveled out, factory owners looked for other ways in which they could capture that hint of thrill.

All these quirks of national character would be harmlessly amusing in a business environment constrained by impartial law and rational politics, as indeed is the case in Hong Kong and Singapore, and increasingly in Taiwan. In mainland China’s barbarously low level of political and legal development, they express as poisonous pathologies — metaphorically poisonous to a healthy capitalist mentality, but sometimes literally poisonous to the unwary consumer, as we have seen in the recent scandals over toys, baby food, and pet food.

None of this will come right until the current odious dictatorship falls and the Chinese have a system of government worthy of their great talents and civilizational glories. Can we do anything to help? We might have, once. Paul Midler:

During the Clinton administration, when Most Favored Nation status for China was debated in Congress, there was a chance for the United States to hold out for political and economic reform in China, but the opportunity was lost. . . . Improved structural conditions made possible then might have more appropriately set the stage for stability going forward. Instead, American politicians and business leaders rushed headlong into greater levels of interdependency with China, a nation whose reliability is questionable.

Poorly Made in China manages to be both instructive and entertaining, with lessons not only for businesspeople looking to China for profits, but also for our politicians seeking to promote honest trade and U.S. national interests. I wish I could believe that the latter, some of them at least, might pay attention. On past experience, though, that is too much to hope for.

— John Derbyshire is an NRO columnist. His book We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism will be published by Crown Forum in September.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

不一定与一定不(中英文)"May-not“ vs. "Will-never"


不一定与一定不(中英文)"May-not“ vs. "Will-never" (in Chinese & English)

每日一语:

如果中国人仍旧迷恋在”环形思维“的恶圈里停滞不前,而拒绝进入”线性进步“的良性思维中去,中国人自救的可能性是绝没有的。 --- 陈凯

If the Chinese refuse to abandon their "circular stagnant thinking" and as a result the vicious cycle they have mired themselves in for the last two thousand years, and if they refuse to whole-heartedly adopt the "linear progressive thinking" the West has been engaged themselves in since Christ, China will have no hope. --- Kai Chen

***************************************

Dear Visitors:

I will list many "May-nots" and "Will-nevers" here to illustrate the quote above, so you will have a better grasp about what is "circular stagnant thinking" and what is "linear progressive thinking".

有自由的个人不一定都幸福;没有自由的个人一定不幸福。

An individual with freedom may not find his happiness; but an individual without freedom will never have a chance to find his happiness.

吸毒者不一定没有时时的快活;但吸毒者一定没有真实的幸福欢乐。

A drug addict may not be devoid of pleasure from time to time; but a drug addict will never experience true joy and happiness.

有选举的社会不一定是一个民主的社会,没有选举的社会一定没有民主。

Election may not necessarily lead to democracy; but without election there will never be democracy.

有信仰的人不一定有良知道德;没有信仰的人一定没有良知道德。

Those who believe may not have conscience and morals; those who don't believe will never have conscience and morals.

有逻辑的思维不一定都导致正确的结论;没有逻辑的思维一定不会导致正确的结论。

With logic one may not reach a correct conclusion; without logic one will never reach a correct conclusion.

有资本主义的社会不一定是自由民主社会;没有资本主义的社会一定不是自由民主社会。

With capitalism a society may not be a free society; without capitalism, a society will never be a free society.

有言论自由的社会不一定都是人人诚实的社会;没有言论自由的社会一定不会成为追求诚实的社会。

With freedom of speech and press, a society may not be an honest society; without freedom of speech and press, a society will never be an honest society.

有个人自由的社会不一定都是法律秩序的社会;没有个人自由的社会一定不可能是一个以法治政的秩序社会。

With individual freedom, a society may not have law and order; without individual freedom, a society will never become a society of "rule of law" with order.

有意愿,勇气与能力的人不一定都能成功;没有意愿,勇气与能力的人一定不会成功。

With strong will, courage and ability, one may not succeed; without strong will, courage and ability, one will never succeed.

有客观历史感的人不一定都有眼光;没有客观历史感的人一定没有眼光。

With an objective view of history, one may not have a vision for the future; without an objective view of history, one will never have a vision for the future.

诚实的人不一定都自由幸福;不诚实的人一定不会自由幸福。

Honesty may not lead to freedom and happiness; dishonesty will never lead to freedom and happiness.

一个活着的人并不一定是真实的存在;一个存在的人一定是活在真实之中。

A person merely breathing may not be a person in true existence; a person in true existence will never be a person who is merely breathing.

憎恨中共的人不一定都是好人; 支持中共的人一定不是好东西。

Those who hate the Chinese communists may not be all good people; those who support the Chinese communists will never be good people.

支持美国的人不一定都是好人; 憎恨美国的人一定没有好东西。

Those who support America may not be all good people; those who hate America will never be good people.

中共消亡后不一定有自由民主社会; 中共不消亡一定不会有自由民主社会。

There may not necessarily be a free society after the Chinese communists perish; there will never be a free society if the Chinese communists still are in charge.


------------------------------------------------

I only list a few "may-nots" and "will-nevers" for you to think about. You may also find your own "may-nots" and "will-nevers". But always remember the Christ teaching:

"Only truth shall set you free."

Best. Kai Chen 陈凯

Friday, May 22, 2009

Tiananmen anniversary unimportant to China's youth 制造愚蠢与无灵

陈凯一语: Words from Kai Chen:

制造愚蠢与无灵是中国专制政权的灵丹妙药。 这剂迷幻毒品的基点要素是用恐惧消灭个体对幸福的向往与对自由的追求。

Creating soulless/zombie-like stupid individuals with only selective memories force-fed by the government is a very effective measure for the Chinese despotism to maintain its control. Destroying every individual's yearning for happiness and pursuit of freedom/liberty is the main ingredient in the government made hallucinogen that permeates the Chinese society today.


-----------------------------------------------------------

Tiananmen anniversary unimportant to China's youth 制造愚蠢与无灵

Barbara Demick / Los Angeles Times


‘GOOD COUNTRY’: Young men hang out in Tiananmen Square.

“Our generation doesn’t feel so much pressure as our parents,” said Hou Jue, 26, middle, who is studying to be a bartender. “Even the global recession hasn’t hit us much.”

Many are happy with the government and the country's direction and don't want to learn about the brutal crackdown in 1989.


By Barbara Demick
May 22, 2009

Reporting from Beijing -- In his baggy shorts hanging below the knees, Puma sneakers and spiky hair, Wang Kangkang is hip to the present, clueless about the past.

Although he comes often to see the nightly ceremony of the Chinese flag being lowered at Tiananmen Square, he doesn't know what happened here in 1989 and doesn't really care.

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"Well, it happened before I was born," the 19-year-old said, looking down at his sneakered feet as the crowd shuffled out of the vast expanse of concrete on a balmy evening. "In any case, it's history. Why should we dwell on the past?"

On June 4, 1989, hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed as the army made its final push to crush a student-led pro-democracy demonstration in Tiananmen Square. As the 20th anniversary approaches, the government has fortified its extraordinary information blockade on the bloody crackdown. Anybody in the country trying to search on the Internet for information about the square, one of Beijing's most popular tourist attractions, is likely to get the message "This page cannot be displayed."

But to a large extent, the efforts are overkill: Apathy as much as censorship has pushed the events of 1989 into the dark recesses of history.

The young Chinese -- one graying activist calls them "the stupid generation" -- remain willfully ignorant about the past.

The pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989, to many of the young, seem so, well, 1980s -- a reflection of a time when communism was collapsing into the rubbish heap of concrete that was the Berlin Wall. From the perspective of 2009's global economic crisis, the Chinese system that represses political choice and speech in exchange for economic freedom doesn't look too bad to young people here.

"Our generation doesn't feel so much pressure as our parents. Even the global recession hasn't hit us much. It shows what a good country China is," said Hou Jue, 26, who along with his friend Wang is studying to be a bartender.

Although he lives only a few blocks from Tiananmen Square, he acknowledges that he is "not too clear" about 1989's events and doesn't feel a need to learn more.

"If the government tells us as Chinese citizens we should not know about something and shouldn't be searching material, we should be responsible and obey," Hou said.

The activists of the 1980s, many of them still involved with political issues, despair over the attitudes of the younger generation.

"This is the stupid generation. They were raised on Coca-Cola and Western movies and they're very isolated from their country's history," said Zhang Shihe, 56, a blogger and political activist.

Phelim Kine, a senior Asia analyst for Human Rights Watch, said the indifference of young Chinese about Tiananmen Square was more a result of censorship than willful ignorance.

"People can't care if they don't know," Kine said.

But many do know and still don't care.

Zhou Shuyang, 23, who works in marketing for a European company, speaks fluent English and is tech-savvy enough to get around the "Great Firewall of China" and read whatever she likes online.

But she fully supports the government's efforts to restrict the information.

"If there is too much freedom, all sorts of false rumors can spread on the Internet," she said. "It's not easy to control such a big and diverse country as China."

Zhou added, "For me right now, I feel satisfied with my life, my country. I seldom think about politics."

If anything, when young Chinese raise their voices, they are more likely to be chanting patriotic slogans, demonstrating in favor of their government rather than against.

The largest mass gathering in Beijing in recent memory came a week after the May 12, 2008, quake in Sichuan province, when tens of thousands of mourners poured into Tiananmen, raising their fists and shouting, "Stand up, China."

"The whole square was filled with people crying, shouting, waving flags," recalled Zhou, who said it was the only time in her life she had attended a demonstration.

Purged Chinese Communist chief wrote secret memoir
At times, the intense patriotism of the younger generation spills over into outbursts of nationalism. That happened last year in the run-up to the Summer Olympics in Beijing when free-Tibet protests disrupted the relay of the Olympic torch, infuriating many Chinese.

During the height of the demonstrations in April, the website anti-cnn.com was launched by a recent engineering graduate of Beijing's Qinghua University to protest what he believes is anti-China bias in the Western news media. It still receives about 500,000 hits daily and is the best-known of many new websites catering to young nationalists.

"They call us the post-1980s youth, the April youth, the Olympic torch generation or the 'Bird's Nest' generation," said the website's founder, 24-year-old Rao Jin, referring to the Olympic stadium. (Or rather, he "wrote." The interview was conducted by e-mail at his request.) "Our patriotism springs from a heartfelt love for the motherland, a belief in Chinese traditional culture, pride in being Chinese and confidence in China's future."

That confidence was reflected in a poll published last year by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, which found 86% of Chinese satisfied with their country's direction. It was the highest rate of satisfaction among 24 countries surveyed. (By contrast, 23% of Americans described themselves as satisfied with their country's direction.)

"The younger the people, the more they support the Chinese government," said Xu Wu, who first wrote about what he calls the Chinese "cyber-nationalists."

A Beijing native who was a student at Tiananmen in 1989, Xu believes that the government can't necessarily count in the long term on the support of the fenqing, or angry youth, as they are sometimes known.

"They are like a double-edged sword without a handle: very difficult to control," Xu said.

A prolonged recession that leaves large numbers of young people unemployed, for example, could radically change their sentiments.

Michael Anti, 34, a Nanjing-born blogger, also believes that the younger generation is just biding its time.

"The Chinese are very practical," he said. "They know if they protest right now it will destroy their middle-class lifestyle. But when the timing is right, nobody will refuse democracy."

Eliot Gao and Nicole Liu of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Tiananmen Anniversary: 林昭与天安门 - 追寻真实历史





Tiananmen Anniversary: 林昭与天安门 - 追寻真实历史

Memory of executed poet resonates

Lin Zhao, who was executed in 1968, challenged history and Mao.


By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 1, 2009 edition

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Paris - It was hard not to think of poet Lin Zhao when I heard about Charter 08 in China. The charter is a sweeping petition for democracy, civil reform, and to "end the practice of viewing words as crimes."

It was signed by 2,000 brave and quixotic Chinese in December – and then seemed to be quashed. But no: It is gaining traction on the Internet; even some Chinese officials have raised the question of democracy and the party's absolute hold on power.

Lin Zhao asked the same question – in the time of Mao Zedong. I discovered Ms. Lin – an extraordinary individual by any reckoning – in my last months as a Monitor correspondent in Beijing. She was a prophetic voice, a thinker, a Vaclav Havel of China who believed deeply in the reality of what she called "truth."

She was executed in 1968 at the age of 36, probably by the order of Mao. She remains virtually unknown in her country.

Lin's main insight was that Mao, to put it mildly, was not serving the people. Her prison writings during the Cultural Revolution may constitute the most incisive critique of "Red China" extant; they remain forbidden, kept under lock and key at a Beijing archive.

"She was rehabilitated in the late 1970s, during a thaw, but I don't think [today] she would be," the intellectual Li Datong told me. "In her day, Lin alone marked Mao as a big rotten egg, so she was way ahead of her time. Hers was the deepest accusation of the Communist Party written in the 60 years of its history. So this government will make sure we never hear from her fully."

Lin's story is about modern China's conscience and soul. It raises questions about the future, as do the Charter 08 authors: "Where is China headed in the 21st century? Will it continue … under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions."

But despite China's stunning progress, they, like Lin, have been avoided.

A trip to Suzhou

Had I learned of Lin earlier in my assignment, it would have been difficult to see how unusual she was – what it took for a frail young woman to remain so tough, so "pure," as her admirers call her. But while I was on a visit to Suzhou, Lin's birthplace, to do a story on China's passion for the Yangtze Delta hairy crabs, a Chinese friend filled me in.

He had just seen an underground film, "Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul," by director Hu Jie, who eluded the police for years in order to finish it.

Lin's father was educated in England. She was the top pupil in her province, and, at age 16, a committed revolutionary, saying, "I have only a Red Star in my heart."

At Peking University, she edited the campus literary magazine "Red Mansions." A quick wit and a strange incandescence made her attractive to nearly everyone. (Later, professors, doctors, and prison officials all tried to protect her, some losing their lives.)

But as China's intellectuals disappeared in Mao's antirightist "100 Flowers" campaign, after being encouraged to be critical, she soured.

"What I hate most is deception," she said.

Lin witnessed the Great Leap Forward, when millions died from starvation, though China was exporting grain. She thought Mao's program "insanity." Lin turned to Christianity. She criticized through poems such as "A Day of Suffering for Prometheus." In it, Zeus asks Prometheus, the god who brings fire to humans, "Is your head made of granite?" Prometheus says, "No, but it is protected by truth."

She had a relentless, stubborn quality that is a certain Chinese type – like the young teacher in Zhang Yimou's film "Not One Less." Or perhaps like the solitary young man who, 20 years ago this June, faced down a line of tanks in the famous Tiananmen video.

Now, thanks to Philip Pan of The Washington Post, we know more. Mr. Pan devotes two chapters to Lin in his recent "Out of Mao's Shadow," and tells the compelling story of Mr. Hu, the director. (Read the Monitor's review of "Out of Mao's Shadow" here .)

Hu's research on Lin opened up a history that the documentary filmmaker had never encountered in any Chinese school or book.

Hu saw that the antirightist campaign was "a turning point in Chinese history," as Pan tells it. "The moment when the party reneged on its promise to allow a more democratic political process."

My encounter with Lin formed two questions as I left China. First, must China confront past misdeeds to reach civil reform? Or is there a process hidden in China's tumultuous daily striving that will adjust things?

Second, can Beijing's unstated policy of "gradualism" – slow and stable change – be reconciled with "radical" hopes of those like Lin Zhao, or today's Charter 08 group, one of whose authors, Liu Xiaobo, remains in police detention?

I didn't find clear answers. But there was help from Yuan Weishi, a retired historian at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou:

"If China can't reflect on its own behavior, that is not good for the future. If we can't deal with the Cultural Revolution, how are we going to ever let people learn about basic civil rights? Modernization and civil rights go hand in hand."

No honesty about the past

China today is far from the China of Lin Zhao and the Cultural Revolution. That's plain at a time we talk about a "G-2," the US and China. Yet ahead of Tiananmen's 20th anniversary, the party still forbids honesty about its past, including Tiananmen – a moment when China decided to forgo political modernity for economic reform.

They say history is written by the winners. True?

After Lin's final sham trial in Shanghai, she wrote, "This is an extremely reprehensible and shameful judgment … but just watch! The court of history will proclaim a verdict for future generations. Justice will prevail!" She was shot, and her mother charged 5 cents for the bullet.

Last month, a senior party official, Yu Keping, advocated "incremental democracy characterized by some sort of radical reform" in a magazine published by the state news agency, Xinhua.

What that means, and whether efforts like Charter 08 will continue to stir China, is hard to know. The questions are still being asked. To paraphrase former Premier Zhou Enlai's famed comment on the American Revolution, many verdicts are still out.

Mao Portrait Protesters Get Asylum 毁魔像二勇士获政治庇护


Mao Portrait Protesters Get Asylum 毁魔像二勇士获政治庇护

2009-05-19

Two men jailed for a high-profile act of vandalism in 1989 get U.S. asylum and treatment for trauma suffered in prison.


AFP

The portrait of Mao Zedong which hangs over the entrance to the Forbidden City in Tiananmen Square is defaced with paint, May 23, 1989.



HONG KONG—Two protesters who helped splatter Mao Zedong’s portrait with red paint during the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement 20 years ago have been granted political asylum in the United States, informed sources said.

Former journalist and art critic Yu Dongyue was the last of three protesters jailed by Chinese authorities for defacing Mao's portrait to be freed. He was released in February 2006 after serving 17 years behind bars.

His family says he still suffers from severe mental impairment following repeated beatings in Chishan Prison, Yuanjiang city, in the central province of Hunan.

Yu Dongyue, his sister Yu Rixia, fellow portrait protester Yu Zhijian, and his wife are currently in Thailand after fleeing China secretly. All have been granted asylum.

An official who answered the phone at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok declined to comment on the matter.

Treatment sought

Yu Dongyue's brother Yu Xiyue said his mental state had shown little improvement since his release.

"We have taken him to the [mental] hospital many times but he has not recovered," Yu Xiyue said."The situation is still the same ... We don’t think he can recover here."

Yu Xiyue was deliberately vague about his brother's whereabouts, but confirmed that he had long since left home.

"My parents are missing him very much since he left," he said. "But if it is good for his health, that is OK."

"My father has high blood pressure and is currently in the hospital," he added.

Yu Xiyue said the main purpose of Yu's departure was to get better treatment for the mental illness he has suffered since his incarceration.

The third portrait protester, former bus driver Lu Decheng, escaped China illegally in 2004, spending several months in a Bangkok jail before finally arriving in Canada, but without his wife and child.

He declined to comment on the granting of asylum to Yu Dongyue and Yu Zhijian, saying it was "inconvenient" to speak about their case.

“It’s 20 years already,” Lu said, adding that he was overjoyed to be reunited with his old friends. “It is a kind of sadness.”

International pressure

After Lu and Yu Zhijiang were released in parole in 1998 and 2000, respectively, they visited Yu Dongyue in 2001 in prison. They reported that he was unable to recognize them, and spoke incoherently to himself.

“Without international pressure on China, Yu Dongyue would have died in prison,” Lu said.

All three men are expected to attend a memorial service held by the Washington-based Laogai Foundation on June 4, 2009, to mark the 20th anniversary of the armed crackdown, in which up to 1,000 people may have died.

Yu Dongyue was freed on Feb. 22, 2006, Lu Decheng in 1999 after 10 years in jail, while Yu Zhijian was freed in 2000 after serving 11 years.

Before they defaced the Mao portrait on May 23, 1989, all three had been active in the pro-democracy movement in the provincial capital Changsha, traveling to Beijing in mid-May that year to join thousands of demonstrators at Tiananmen Square.

Yu Dongyue, Lu, and Yu Zhijian were handed over to national security police after prolonged negotiations with the student command on the Square, a decision Lu and Yu Zhijian regard as having been made with the broader interests of the student movement in mind.

But U.S.-based former student activist Wang Dan has since said he deeply regrets what happened to the three men.

Original reporting in Cantonese by Lillian Cheung. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

善 vs. 好 Nicety vs. Goodness


善 vs. 好 Nicety vs. Goodness

每日一语:

在中文里,“善”只意味着“不从恶”而并没有“为正义而站立/斗争”的“好”的含义。 中国的宗信,对照西方的基督精神,充其量不过是在虚无中逃避现实、容忍邪恶的懦夫的苟且偷生的处世哲学而已。 只有当中国的人们懂得为自身的自由与幸福,为社会的正义勇敢博争的时候,“好”才会取代“善”成为真实的“活着”的人们的终极价值。 半死不活/行尸走肉般的、懦夫胆小鬼的、“宦奴娼”们的“善”才会被抛到人类价值的垃圾堆里去。 --- 陈凯

In Chinese, "善", nicety, only means that one does not do bad things. It does not entail the meaning of “好”, goodness. "好", goodness, means not only one does not do evil things, it means one must stand up to face down all evil around oneself regardless whether the evil is harming oneself or others. The Chinese religious tradition, as contrasted to that of Western Christian tradition, has always been a tradition of cowardice escape from reality, timid tolerance of the powerful evil forces, nihilistic existence in one's own fragile shells built to block out all sunlight to hide in the darkness.... Only when the Chinese start to understand such a fundamental difference between Nicety (善)and Goodness (好), only when they pluck up their courage to stand up for truth, justice, liberty and human dignity, only when they pay a necessary price to pursue these ultimate human values as the living, not half-dead, Nicety (善)can be discarded into the trash can of human values. Goodness (好)can finally take over to ensue human progress toward better tomorrow. --- Kai Chen


--------------------------------------------

Dear Visitors:

I have long realized that "善", not "好", is what the Chinese obsess as a fake value. That is why in China people tend to hide in their own shells and tell themselves that they are not doing evil, therefore they are good. But the truth is not such. The truth is that one is indeed doing evil when they refuse to do anything to the evil manifested around themselves.

In Western Christian tradition, the saying that "injustice done to one is injustice done to all" has always been well accepted as the moral code for everyone. "Live free or die" is a common slogan/expression in a free society. But in China, the saying that "one should rather live in slavery than die for freedom" (好死不如赖活着) is a wide-spread, deeply rooted code of behavior everyone adheres. I have invented the term "Eunuslawhore 宦奴娼 - eunuch, slave, whore" to describe the living condition of the cowardice Chinese mindset.

I can only pray that one day the Chinese people will understand the corruption and degradation among themselves, therefore understand the source of their enslaved state of living and mindset. "God is short for Goodness". I can only wish that one day the Chinese can grasp the meaning of this saying.

Best. Kai Chen 陈凯

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

一名新疆男子焚烧天安门毛泽东像 Decimating Mao's Portrait


Correction: This news item may be two years old. 更正: 这则新闻可能从2007年摘录的。

新华社证实一名新疆男子焚烧天安门毛泽东像 (图) Decimating Mao's Portrait

(博讯北京时间2009年5月19日 转载)

中国官方新华社罕有地报道并证实,悬挂在北京天安门城楼的已故中国领导人毛泽东的画像12日遭人破坏。经查,该男子为新疆乌鲁木齐人,曾在精神病医院接受治疗。

报道称,当天下午5时46分,一名男子将自制的燃烧物投向悬挂在天安门城楼上的毛泽东主席像,造成毛主席像右下框有轻微灼痕。

在场值勤的警察当即控制了这名男子。经调查,这名男子叫顾海欧,三十五岁,无业,新疆乌鲁木齐市人,今天中午到北京。报道表示,顾海欧曾于去年在乌鲁木齐市精神病医院治疗。目前警方正在进一步审查顾海欧。

事发后,天安门金水桥前停有两辆警车,长安街以北天安门城楼前区域有武警守卫,禁止游客进入;长安街以南的广场上则一切如常,仍有不少游客在拍照留念。

报道指出,晚上8时40分,可以看到毛主席画像右下框有一片黑色灰迹。有报道称,顾海欧当天中午到北京,用自制燃烧物掷向毛泽东画像,在画像右下角位置造成轻微灼痕。

有香港媒体报道,据目击者称,傍晚时间,看到有人向画像投掷燃烧物体,画像底部随即着火和冒出黑烟。一名目击者表示,“我当时都吓了一跳!真不敢相信有人会这样做!”,这位目击者称,在途经天安门广场时,突然看到毛泽东画像出现火舌及冒起大量浓烟,这时逾百名警察从周围冲上来,利用各种工具将火扑灭,但画像已被烧毁有15%。

部分警员疏散在场围观民众,所幸事件并未造成混乱。约十分钟后,当局已派员前往现场清理及修复画像,但右下角处仍有少许烧焦痕。

事发后,一百多名警察赶到并封锁现场,很快将火扑灭,而工人则利用吊车清理画像。入夜后,天安门广场加强守卫,有多辆公安车停在现场。

天安门广场由12晚10时起封闭,游人只能站在边缘地段远观换画像的过程。13日凌晨,天安门管理委员会派人更换毛泽东画像。现场见工作人员用吊臂将新的画像吊起,六名工作人员站在城楼上协助将新的画像安放在原来位置,25分钟后更换完毕。新的毛像与原来的属同一版本。

毛泽东画像高六米、宽4.6米,首幅画像于1950年出自中国著名肖像画家张振仕之手。 _(网文转载) (博讯 boxun.com)

Monday, May 18, 2009

女子篮球,家庭,与生命的价值(中译)Girl Basketball, Family, Life (in Chinese)


女子篮球,家庭,与生命的价值(中译)Girl Basketball, Family, Life (in Chinese)

陈凯著 吴必忠译

献给我的女儿艾丽克斯:“一个人如何打篮球体现一个人如何生活 ”

(译者)序:

这是一位前(中国)国家篮球队队员和他女儿的真实故事,一次家长与子女间爱的交融。

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一直以来,我都认为我女儿在篮球运动上只能算是一个普通人,一个和很多人一样对篮球无比热爱、渴望胜利、但却资质平平的普通人,所以最初我对她选择篮球运动并不抱太大希望。 在她刚接触篮球的时侯,我甚至以我曾是中国国家队队员的经历告诫她“这可是一项野蛮的运动!”我郑重地对她说“你真的确定你想从事这项运动吗?”没有多余的话语,她用“砰砰” 响起的运球声来告诉我,这就是她的回答。 从那时起,我们便在后院开始了她的篮球训练。 只是有谁知道,我的女儿要打好篮球将要面临多大困难,她是平足、没有速度、没有弹跳力甚至连跑动的时候手臂也是笨拙摇摆的。 当然,也许身高是她的一个优势,我身高2米,我妻子身高1.8米,我相信我的女儿应该能长得比较高。 但众所周知,长得高并不代表就能打好球,面对女儿这样的身体条件,我心里不无担忧。

平时我都比较早就去球场的。 今天我依旧早去,只是我的心格外难受。 前几天艾丽克斯曾抱怨说自己的左膝盖有些疼,因为她那里去年做过前十字韧带的修复手术,我不知道现在她的膝盖怎么样了。 应该说本赛季到目前为止,她的状态都很不错,在之前的三场小联赛中,她表现得相当出色。 她不仅没有让手术影响到她技术的发挥,而且她还打出了她前所未有的高水平。 对于她状态的复苏我很激动,甚至感到欣喜若狂。 直到两天前她告诉我她膝盖的疼痛,我才知道她出色的背后,有着强忍伤痛的坚持。

那是在一次球队的例行训练时队友不小心撞伤的。 她的膝盖肿胀了起来,里面充斥了一些淤血。 不过她只是把它当作一般的小伤来对待。 此时我的女儿已经是中学联赛第三赛季的球员。 经过长期艰苦训练,正是在技术上全面爆发、成绩上收获累累的季节。 难过的是,她却不得不经受这样伤痛的考验。 我不敢对女儿接下来的比赛和前途多想,心中满是了担忧、害怕和沮丧。

当我走进球馆的时侯她正在固定自行车上做腿部练习,由于校队在球场的一端做着训练,做完腿部练习后她就到另一端做投篮练习。 我走过去给她给捡球和喂球,这样的练习我们曾做过无数次了。

“你觉得怎么样?”我强忍着自己焦急的心情。 她没有看我。“不舒服……当我收紧肌肉的时候,就感觉里面很疼。” 她的声音微微的颤抖。 我走近她,蹲下来检查她的膝盖,揉捏她的腿部。 手术疤痕仍然红润光滑。 我很难过,默默地站了起来,我觉察到她眼里闪烁着泪光。 然而,当注视我女儿的脸时,我惊讶的发现她的表情充满了坚定。 那一刻,我突然有股把我近期一直萦绕在我脑子里的想法一股脑向她诉说的冲动,虽然我之前并没有打算这么早就告诉她。

“艾丽克斯!”我双手抓着她的肩膀。 “我知道我平时对你非常严格和非常苛刻。 但是,有些事情我得告诉你……。” 突然,我哽咽住了,泪水如决堤般喷涌而出,我无法继续讲下去了。 我发现我的一只手仍在她肩上,但另一只捂着自己的嘴巴,眼泪顺着我的脸颊不住往下淌。 然后我紧紧地将她抱在我的怀里。 此刻时间静止了。

在马尔伯勒学校体育馆,在耀眼的灯光下,我双臂紧紧拥抱着我的女儿,将她完全地揽入我的心窝。 我在她耳边喃喃说: “我多么爱你,多么爱你,艾丽克斯……作为你的父亲我感到非常自豪,非常骄傲……。” 我尝到自己急切亲吻她额头时流下的泪水。 “我也爱你,爸爸!”她啜泣着对我说。 那一刻,我意识到我的眼泪不再是悲伤和沮丧,而是由衷的喜悦和内心的全然释放。 我意识到,她不但知道自己在这项运动上已经取得了哪些成就,而且她知道有什么东西正摆在她的面前,同时她也做好了应对将来困难和挑战的心理准备。 我意识到,她这样如此坚定的信心,足以战胜未来发生的一切。 同时我意识到,我们彼此相爱,无论将来发生什么事情,我们一家人都会幸福的生活下去。 这一刻,我沉浸在她魅力和品格所带给我的激励中。 而经历了这几天难以言状的难过后,我的内心重又回到了平静。 我们是生活的主人。

看着女儿1米85的挺拔身姿,我站在那里,轻声呼喊她的名字。 我对她说:“你已经展现了你自己!你已经证明了你在这项运动中的价值!你是生活的强者!”我欣慰地笑了笑,接着半开玩笑地正色道: “毕竟,那都是源于你遗传了我的基因。” 她倏地笑了起来,犹如一朵夏日清晨绚丽绽放的牵牛花,多么美丽的一幅画面。


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GIRL BASKETBALL, FAMILY, LIFE 女子篮球,家庭,与生命的价值

-A TRUE AND CONTINUING SAGA OF A RETIRED CHINESE NATIONAL TEAM BASKETBALL PLAYER AND HIS AMERICAN DREAM-

By Kai Chen, 1-07-2003

DEDICATED TO MY DAUGHTER ALEX

“The way one approaches the game is the way one approaches life”

Prelude


I had always thought of her as just another player, with ordinary talent and a big heart and the love of basketball. I remembered that when she just started to get into this game, I even tried to discourage her. “It’s a brutal game.” stating my own experience as a former basketball player for the Chinese National Team. “Are you sure you really want to get into this?” The only answer I got was the sound of dribbling the ball. Sure I got a basketball stand in the backyard the moment she started running. But how did I know she had flat feet, no speed and jumping ability and an awkward swing of arms when she runs? I know she is going to be tall since I am 6’7” and my wife Susan is 5’11”. But being tall does not mean she can play the game. Everybody knows that.

I arrived the gym a little early, as usual. But this day I was unusually distressed. I was concerned about the pain she had complained in her left knee. She had an ACL reconstructive surgery last year on that knee. So far she had felt fine. And she had performed quite well in the last three tournaments this season. Not only did she not show signs of rustiness, she had some of her best games ever. I was excited and even ecstatic about her recovery, till two days ago she told me about the pain. A teammate inadvertently ran into her during a routine practice. Her left knee had swollen and there was some fluid in it. She was just about to put things together after she first had the injury in her sophomore year. Now just when she was about to blossom into herself in her junior season, now just when she was about to taste her own fruit of hard work, she had to…. I did not even want to spell out the fear, the uncertainty, the helplessness.

She was working on a stationary bicycle when I walked in. After she was done, she picked up a ball to shoot at one end of the court while the school varsity was practicing at the other end. I walked over to rebound and feed her the ball as I had done for thousands of times.

“How do you feel?” I felt compelled by my own urge to know.

“Shaky.” She answered without looking at me. “When I tighten my muscles, there is a pain inside.” Her voice became a little unsteady.

I approached her, squatted and examined her knee. I reached and touched her leg. The surgical scars were still red and shiny.

I stood up. I could see a little moist sparkled in her eyes. There was a little helplessness. Yet she was quiet with that typical determined look on her face. I suddenly realized that this couple of days I was preparing something to say to her in my head, a speech I never thought I would come up with this early.

“Alex,” I reached out my hands to hold her shoulder. “I know that I am your harshest critic. Yet there is something that needs to be said….”

Suddenly I was choked with emotions. I could not continue. I found that one of my hands was still holding her, but the other hand was covering my own mouth. Tears started to trickle down my cheeks. Then both of my hands held her tightly in my arms. Time stood still.

Here in the Marlborough School gym, under the glaring lights, I was holding my daughter in my arms, I was embracing her fully in my heart, as I murmured words into her ears: “I love you so much, so much , Alex…. You make me feel so proud to be your father. So proud….” I could taste my own tears with my feverish kisses on her forehead.

“I love you, too, Dad.” was all I heard through her sobs.

I realized at that moment that my tears were not tears of sadness and disappointment, but tears of happiness and deliverance. I realized that not only she knows how much she had achieved since she started playing this game, she knows what lay ahead and she is ready to face the challenge. I realized that she had such a flare of confidence that no matter what happens in her future, she will be OK. And I realized that no matter what happens in our family's future, we will be OK. For a few moments, I was immersed in her grace and dignity. I felt a serenity coming back to me after some unspeakable distress. I realized words can not express what I felt: Life is being lived.

As I stood there watching her 6’1” beautiful frame, I whispered her name to myself as I thought. “ You have shown me who you are. You have proven to yourself that you are worthy of this game. You are a winner in life.”

I smiled and felt like joking as I extracted myself from the moment: “After all, you got my genes.” She laughed and her face radiated like a Summer morning glory. What a beautiful sight!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

With God in China 神与人在中国


With God in China 神与人在中国

by Theresa Marie Moreau


First Published in The Remnant

Joseph Marie Louis Stanislas Winance was 4 years old when he stood on a train platform in Mons, Belgium, in 1914. Surrounded by his family, he squeezed his way past long skirts and stepped over thick leather shoes to say goodbye to his Aunt Marta Reumont, who was heading to China that June morning to become a novitiate with the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary.

“Aunt Marta, one day I will go to China and be your cook,” he said, looking up into her smiling face.

Little did that small boy realize how part of his childhood pledge would come true. For 20 years later, as a cleric in St. Andrew Abbey in Bruges, Belgium, Winance was walking along the cloister, reading his breviary when he received an order to go to the office of Father Abbot Théodore Nève.

“My dear son,” Nève said to the 24-year-old dressed in the long black Benedictine habit, draped in the long black shadows of the late afternoon, “I plan to send you to China.”

“Yes,” was all Winance said, but he wasn’t prepared for what he heard. He didn’t sleep all that night. His thoughts dwelled on the trouble the Communists had caused in Szechwan, the province where he would be sent. His Aunt Marta, who had become Sister Marie Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, mourned the loss of several buildings her order had built in the city of Suining and that the Red armies had burned and destroyed.

Nonetheless, after a restless night, the morning brought a tranquility that sedated his soul. He accepted his fate as the will of God and wrote to tell his parents about the future mission of their eldest of four sons.

Two years later, on the morning of September 4, 1936, the bells of St. Andrew rang out to celebrate the departure of three newly ordained priests: Father Vincent Martin, Father Wilfrid Weitz and Winance, who as a novitiate had taken the name Eleutherius. They were all young men in their 20s who had dedicated their lives and their work to God. They were headed for the Republic of China.

Before leaving the cloister, Winance received a bon voyage gift from Nève. “The Rule of St. Benedict,” with the following inscription: “I wish never to see you again.” Winance smiled. He completely understood the message. Many had left the abbey for their missions, but some had failed and returned. He slipped the book into his leather suitcase – a gift from his Uncle Henri Reumont, a Capuchin missionary with the religious name Father Damian.

The three priests traveled to China via Moscow, the Communist capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There they boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway’s Trans-Manchurian line and readied for the 5,568-mile trip to Peking (old form of Beijing), China’s northern capital. There he paid a visit to a woman he hadn’t seen in many years.

“Here is my cook in China,” Aunt Marta joked as she introduced her lanky nephew to her sisters in the convent. She had not forgotten. It was a marvelous reunion.

From Peking, it was another train, to Hanku, a big city on the third longest river in the world – the Yangtze, also known as the Chang Jiang and the Blue River. Then west. Their steamboat coughed its way along the water, which flowed red, a prophetic color of muddied blood, and chugged between moss-covered sky-high gorges. Winance stared at the mountains that broke through the water and stretched straight up, endlessly. One of the wonders of the world, he thought.

Passing Chinese junks with their dragon-wing sails flapping, Winance’s boat pulled up for a breather in Chungking. Then one more ship, one more day, northward, to Hechuan, where Winance and his two confreres hired porters, lovers of the opium pipe who bore their burdens – priests and possessions – upon chairs dangling from poles that rode upon their calloused shoulders. Yes, the priests had traveled from West to East, from Occident to Orient, but in their journey, they had been, seemingly, transported – in all they saw, in all they experienced – from the 20th century back to the 14th.

Late one afternoon, after a week of traveling on foot and upon chair through Suining, Pengxi, Nanchung, a final deep valley led up a hill to the other side. At the top, the men paused. Winance walked to the edge and looked down. Just below, for the first time, he saw his future home: SS. Peter and Andrew Priory of Nanchung.

When they arrived at the hilltop, the day was gray. So, too, was Winance’s mood. I shall never be happy here, he thought.

It was 5:15 in the afternoon, November 19, 1936. The sun, still up, but sinking fast. Winance looked at the main building, designed with a classical Chinese style, its roof corners decorated with upturned eaves, like erect dragon tails. A courtyard peeked out from the center. To the left, a small red-sand mountain covered with rows of mandarin orange trees leaning sunward, lurching from their three hillside terraces. For the final 10 minutes of a 10-week-long journey, Winance jogged downhill.

The monastery had been founded in 1929, an answer to a plea for more priests in China that had been requested of Nève on Christmas 1926, during a visit to St. Andrew’s by the much-celebrated, newly ordained Chinese bishops: Bishop Kai-Min “Simone” Chu, Bishop “Melchiorre” Souen, Bishop “Odorico” Tc’eng, Bishop “Filippo” Tchao, Bishop Chao-T’ien “Louis” Tchen and Bishop Jo-Shan “Joseph” Hu.

The monks called their monastery Shi Shan, Chinese for Mountain of the West, in which it nestled. Although Winance knew French, Latin, Greek, English, he knew not a word, not a character of Chinese, so he had to learn the language. After a month-long rest, just before winter’s drizzle soaked monks and monastery, Winance headed – on foot – to Suining, about 70 miles.

For the next nine months, Winance made his home with the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris in their two-story priory and offered Mass in its adjoining chapel – both built in a European style that stood like palaces surrounded by a city of hovels. To pick up the everyday language of the local dialect of Mandarin, the language of mainland China, his days were filled with hours of repetition. But the real challenge came after lunch, when local children gathered around the priests resting outdoors in the chapel’s garden.

Among them was a slim, shy boy of 10, Bang-Jiu Zhou.

Zhou’s family, Catholics for who-knows-how-many generations, lived in a one-story, four-room wood structure without amenities. No electricity, only wicks soaked with pork oil gave light. Water, carried from a public well on the street corner. Bare earth served as the floor. Ventilation came from a hole in the roof above the coal cooker. Fresh air, and rain, entered from two broken windows in the loft. Property of the church, it was located on the other side of a wall behind the chapel, so close, that Zhou often attended daily Mass with his family. But on holy days of obligation, the Zhous walked several miles to the big parish church, located within the city walls.

One Sunday in August 1934, Nève, father abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Bruges, and Father Gabriel Roux, then-prior of Shi Shan, had both visited Suining. After Mass, Zhou’s father, Zi-Nan “Paul” Zhou, had an idea. Although he persevered at selling eyeglasses from his sidewalk table, with seven sons, the few yuan he earned never seemed enough. He wanted his No. 6 son to have a future. Following thanksgiving prayers, he pulled Zhou from the pew, and the two walked to the priory, where Nève, Roux and the Chinese pastor sat in the lounge, waiting for breakfast. Zhou and his father entered, kneeled before Nève and kissed his ring.

“Please, receive my son in the monastery as an oblate to study to be a monk,” Zhou’s father asked. The Chinese pastor translated for the Belgians into Latin in sotto voce.

The two visiting priests said nothing, but smiled. Four years later, in August 1938, when the monastery began accepting oblates, Zhou, at the age of 12, was one of the first. He wanted a better life, that was clear, but to be a monk, that was not clear.

Even though life inside the monastery was – on most days – peaceful, life in China was anything but, for the country had been in turmoil for years.

After the Republican Revolution of 1911, which ended a centuries-long dynastic rule, the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) was formed by a number of Republican cliques that had ousted the traditional rulers. But in 1927, the Nationalists – after Kai-Shek Chiang assumed leadership – ousted its Communist contingent because of its incitement and sadistic fondness of mob violence – especially at the encouragement of its ringleader Tse-Tung Mao.

But Mao, a notorious sore loser, never, ever forgot or forgave a slight. That snub in 1927 ignited the highly volatile on-again-off-again Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist and Communist factions that ravaged China for more than two decades.

However, the Communists weren’t the only problem. There was also the Empire of Japan, which saw the fractures in China’s infrastructure as an opportunity to make land grabs. In an attempt to establish their own political and economic domination, in 1931, they invaded Manchuria, a region in northeast China, where they wanted to get their hands on China’s natural resources of coal, iron, gold and giant forests. Then in 1937, the Chinese-Japanese War began when the Imperial Japanese Army marched victoriously into Peking, then into Shanghai and on and on throughout China. As part of its plan of aggression, the Imperial Japanese Air Combat Groups dispatched war planes that dropped bombs upon populated areas, killing countless Chinese.

When Japanese military aircraft crossed the Szechwan border, a high-pitched steam whistle all the way in Nanchung alerted everyone within earshot, including those in the monastery. Although several miles away, it was impossible to miss. Winance rounded up the oblates, including Zhou, and all sought safety outdoors, away from the buildings, usually under a rock or in a hole in the ground. More than once, as the planes dropped their cargo onto Nanchung, Winance listened to the descending whistles of the bombs before they exploded upon the earth.

During the height of the Japanese invasion, the no-holds-barred death match between the Nationalists and the Communists was given a lengthy timeout when Communists kidnapped Chiang and compelled him to sign a truce, creating on paper a superficial United Front in the War of Resistance Against Japan to fight the invaders.

That was the situation in China. It was a mess.

And in Europe, World War II raged. The result: no communication, no money between Shi Shan and St. Andrew Abbey in Belgium. Cut off financially from its motherhouse, the fledgling religious community had to shutter Shi Shan in 1942 and seek refuge in Szechwan’s capital city, Chengtu, where Bishop Jacques Victor Marius Rouchouse offered the Benedictines a monastery and financial help.

Slowly, the monks and oblates migrated from mountain to metropolis. Zhou moved to the new priory in July 1944. Winance stayed in Shi Shan until July 1945, when he received a short letter from the new prior, Father Raphael Vinciarelli.
“Come to Chengtu,” Vinciarelli wrote.

With his breviary, diary, bits of paper with scribbles in Latin and Greek and a few other books packed away in the same leather suitcase his Uncle Henri had given him for his journey to Shi Shan in 1936, Winance shut the door to his cell a final time. He trudged up the hill he had jogged down 10 years before, turned and looked at the monastery one last time.

I was wrong. I was very, very happy here, he thought.

Never again did he see Shi Shan.

It was a familiar journey to Chengtu. Winance hiked one day to Nanchung, where he hitched a ride on a truck, which nearly killed him when it overturned. But he made it, exhausted, and finally walked through the front gate of his new home, 172 Yang Shi Kai (Goat Market Street). One month later, on August 15, 1945, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, World War II ended, and with the defeat of the Japanese, the Chinese celebrated Victory Over Japan (V-J) Day.

But it wasn’t fun and firecrackers for long.

The end of the Japanese occupation also brought the end of the so-called truce between Mao’s Communists and Chiang’s Nationalists. An all-out civil war between the two ensued in an elimination battle. Mao hounded Chiang and eventually chased him from the mainland to Formosa (old Portuguese name of Taiwan).

Nonetheless, with the theophobic Communists marauding around the northern border of Szechwan, the future looked grim for Catholics. Then when Mao – the materialist messiah of the “new” China – stood at the Gate of Heavenly Peace overlooking Tiananmen Square, on October 1, 1949, and announced the birth of the Marxist monster, the People’s Republic of China – with himself the head of the beast – that was truly the beginning of the end.

But for Zhou, the theophilic Catholic, what happened in the material world mattered not to his spiritual world. On October 15, 1949, he stepped into the sanctuary of the monastery’s chapel, kneeled before the altar and was admitted into the novitiate. He dedicated his life to that Benedictine battalion in the Church Militant, his body received the habit and he received a new name: Peter.

The final stages of the civil war continued. Throughout October 1949. Then November. In December, a constant firing of weapons outside the city could be heard inside the city. The Nationalists weakened. They couldn’t hold it together any longer. Following a two-week battle between the enemies in the countryside surrounding Chengtu, the Nationalists finally retreated. They gave up the fight, gave up the city, gave up the war and gave up the country. To Communism.

Few realized what had happened at 3 o’clock that early Christmas morning.

Winance had no idea as he mounted his bicycle around 9 a.m. and steered for a boulevard outside the city, which had turned oddly quiet. An affable sort, he wanted to spread holiday cheer and wish Merry Christmas to some Protestant intellectuals he had befriended at the Provincial Academy of Fine Arts, where they all taught. Wheeling along, he noticed freshly raised red flags flying everywhere, snapping in the winter wind and many new posters pasted on the city walls, splashed with huge, bold Chinese characters: FREEDOM OF THOUGHT, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF RELIGION.

His friends, the professors, had already heard about the change in government and were all atwitter. Unhappy under the Nationalists because of economic crises that had dominated the news during their rule, the Marxist intellectuals looked forward to a new life under the Communists, who had promised everyone everything: Everyone would be rich. Everyone would have a piano. (In reality, by the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76), mostly only Communist officials would be rich, most pianos would be destroyed and an estimated 77 million Chinese would be dead as a result of the regime’s orders.)

But nothing extraordinary happened at the monastery, until April 25, 1950. That night, at 9 o’clock, the monks heard the furious barking of their many dogs kept loose on the property to keep Communists out.

“Tie the dogs up,” shouted a stranger in the dark.

Slowly, deliberately, the monks calmed the dogs.

“We have an order to make a search of the buildings. Go to your rooms,” ordered a uniformed police officer, with 50 more behind him.

All the monks retreated. Behind a closed door, Winance listened to the goings-on outside his room. When he heard the clicking of gun metal in the room below, in the cell of Father Werner de Papeians de Morchoven, he opened the door to go downstairs and investigate.

“Stay in your room,” ordered an officer.

The situation in China had definitely taken a turn.

Winance returned to his room and quietly looked through his bureau. He found a photograph of de Morchoven dressed in his uniform as chaplain to the U.S. Air Force, which could cause definite trouble indefinitely. Winance immediately swallowed the photo. For six hours he stayed in his room. The officers didn’t leave until 3 a.m., after a thorough search for radios, transmitters, anything that could be used to make contact outside China. They also searched – unsuccessfully – for anything that could link the monks to the Legion of Mary, a benign, religious organization.

A year earlier, in 1949, the Communists had established the Three-Self Reform Movement, so named for its aim to be self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating. The Movement (later replaced by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association in July 15, 1957) was the Communist attempt to break completely with the Vatican and the Pope and to establish a schismatic Chinese catholic church.

When the Reds noticed that Catholics steered clear of the Movement, the regime decided to push their atheist agenda, and because the Legion of Mary, an apostolic association, had educated Catholics about the true intentions of the Communist-backed Three-Self Reform Movement, Mao launched a campaign of revenge. On October 8, 1951, the persecution of Roman Catholics officially began when Mao labeled the Legion as Public Enemy No. 1. Its group, counterrevolutionary. Its members, “running dogs of American imperialists.” So, too, were all Catholics who refused to cooperate and register with the Movement.

Freedom, Mao’s lie of the past, was followed by a new word whispered by everyone else: Purge.

Fear filled everyone.

Daily papers printed by the regime ran editorials of pure propaganda that were to manipulate public opinion for the Party’s purpose. Anyone who did not share the Party’s ideas was labeled an “enemy of the People,” and when “the People” (Communist officials) demanded justice, the enemies were hauled before “judges” (interrogators) and dealt with as they deemed. Consequently, freight trucks packed with the condemned, wearing big labels on their backs, ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, headed day and night for Chengtu’s North Gate.

With tension taut, Zhou ventured outdoors very seldom, remaining in the monastery to study. On the other hand, to record for history what he witnessed, Winance continued to ride his bicycle around the city, where he noticed, at times, a certain man.

“A man of around 30 years old, clothed with the blue uniform of the ‘organized and conscious’ workers was inspecting the lorries with their load of human victims at the gate, among a roaring crowd,” Winance wrote in his diary.

“When the lorries were slowly passing the gate, the man ‘sketched’ in the air a small gesture while he looked at the lorries. That man was a priest, giving the last absolution to Catholics crouched in the lorries, all about to die. He was absolving some of his faithful parishioners lost in the crowd of ‘damned’ enemies of the People.”

Past the North Gate, a final ride across a bridge of stone, the victims were herded out of trucks and executed, usually shot in the back of the head. Their limp bodies, rolled into mass graves.

On November 4, 1951, Zhou was ordered to attend a public meeting, during which the Roman Catholic Church would be criticized. Before entering the monastery’s grand entrance hall, where the Communists ordered the meeting to be held, Zhou prepared a speech. In it, he described the Pope of Rome as the only visible head of the Roman Catholic Church, denounced the Three-Self Reform Movement as a Communist tool and defended the Legion of Mary as a religious organization.
As he wrote down his sentiments, he realized what effect his counterrevolutionary words would have on his future, which he summed up in his conclusion.

“My head is completely calm and clear. My soul is impregnated with the eternal truth of Jesus and with His inexhaustible goodness. In the final analysis, I know who Jesus Christ is. I understand where man comes from and where he goes after death. This gives me a more profound knowledge of the meaning of human life,” he said, in a clear and strong voice. He did not falter.

“Therefore, do no worry about me. Do not try to offer a hand of sympathy to save me from what are my chains of truth. I only ask you to do with me whatever you like, according to the common judgment of the masses. I deliver my body to you, but I keep my soul for the good God, for Him, who has created me, nourished me, redeemed me and loved me.”

Zhou was ready to accept his fate, and the chains.

So was Winance, who on the morning of February 5, 1952, received an order to go to the police station, where he underwent interrogation and insults. In a few hours, he found himself before the Supreme Court of the Military Government of Western Szechwan, who found him guilty of his “crimes”: that he had spread false rumors, opposed the Three-Self Reform Movement, etc., etc.

Sentence: “forever banished.”

That evening, around 6 p.m., Winance and 11 other foreigners, mostly elderly – five priests and six nuns – were marched forcibly through the streets of Chengtu and out the South Gate to walk along the old stone road. His Aunt Marta had left China years earlier. For 15 days, the political enemies were escorted by six armed guards as they traveled by foot, bus, train and boat until they reached China’s southern border on February 21, 1952. Many in the dirt-encrusted group were almost too weak, too sick to cross Lo Wu Bridge into Hong Kong, and into freedom.

Once safely on the other side, Winance wrote to his mother, “I come from hell.”

But in hell, Zhou remained. Because he was a native Chinese, he was not permitted to leave. And no one outside China heard a single word about him. Nothing. Nothing but complete silence. No one knew that the Communists forced him out of the monastery on April 26, 1952, after which he barely scraped by for a few years.

No one knew what happened to him on November 7, 1955, when he was wakened at 3 a.m. by the blare of a car horn, followed by someone pounding on the front door. He jumped out of bed, pulled on some clothes and started to answer the door on the first floor, when two police officers, each holding a revolver, ran up the stairs.

“Raise your hands,” they shouted.

For Zhou, that night he was arrested was the beginning of 26 years of torture.

Accused of crimes against the People’s Government because he had refused to join the Communist “church,” he was considered a counterrevolutionary, one who opposed the Communist Revolution, a political enemy. He was locked up and endured intense interrogations for nearly three years. At one point, his hands were cuffed behind his back for 29 days, in an attempt to get him to “reform” and give up his fidelity to Rome, to the Pope.

Zhou never gave in.

In August 1958, guards transported him to a courtroom and forced him to stand as his case was presented to three “judges,” who attempted to coerce him to admit his counterrevolutionary “crimes.” He was all alone. No defense attorney. No family. No friends. His “trial” lasted no more than 10 minutes. One month later, again he was led to a courtroom, where in fewer than five minutes he received his sentence: 20 years. After the pronouncement, he attempted to pull from his pocket a pre-written short declaration.

One of the judges jumped from his seat and ran toward Zhou.
“You needn’t read it! Just submit to us,” he screamed, snatching the paper out of Zhou’s hand.

For the next couple years, Zhou was transferred from one prison to another until June 15, 1960, when he was bused to No. 1 Prison of Szechwan Province. Upon arrival, he wrote on his registration form: “I was arrested without cause and imprisoned for the Church.” He refused to take part in the daily brainwashing “study sessions.” Prison rank and file didn’t like his “bad attitude.”

On August 10, 1960, he was summoned to the office of the section chief in charge of discipline and education.

“Do you admit that you have committed a crime?” the section chief asked.

“I have not committed any crime. I have only defended the faith of the Catholic Church,” Zhou answered.

Twice more the section chief asked the same question.
Twice more Zhou answered the same.

The section chief removed from his pants pocket a pair of bronze handcuffs and motioned for two of his assistants to grab Zhou’s arms and pull them behind his back. The section chief clicked the cuffs into place, about five inches above the wrists, and continued to tighten the cuffs, a click at a time. The right cuff, tightened almost to the limit.

For five days, Zhou endured not only the pain from the cuffs, but he had to endure harsh criticism and physical abuse from other inmates, who were forced to inflict punishment from dawn till dark or they could face the same. During an intense criticism session on August 15, 1960, someone grabbed the handcuff on his right forearm. Click. It was forcefully tightened to the fifth and last click.

Despite the pain – physical, mental, emotional – he resisted. Back in his cell, he prayed silently to Christ, to the Blessed Mother, to the Holy Ghost. He found tranquility.

In the unbearable summer heat, the cuff dug into the meat, the muscle. The rancid smell of the bloody mess stewing in his crematorium-like cell lured flies that laid eggs. When hatched, the maggots dined on his dying flesh. From the cuff down, his right arm grew completely numb, then withered. His fingers crippled, seized into a permanent claw-like grip. After four weeks, guards removed the cuffs, but clamped shackles onto his ankles.

After three years of dragging his chains, in May 1963, two prison guards summoned Zhou, all 5 feet, 1 inch and 90 pounds of him.

“Why do you not follow the example of the priest Wen-Jing Li? You must change your obstinate stand and take the path of siding with the Communist Party and the Chinese People. If you do this, you will gain a bright future,” they said.

Zhou completely rejected their suggestion; as a result, he was moved to solitary confinement.

Before slamming the door shut, they chided, “Here, you are to reflect carefully and do serious self-examination in this new situation.”

Enclosed in darkness for nearly two years, Zhou found an inner light as he reflected, prayed, meditated, composed lyrical lines of poetry.

On March 13, 1965, the door opened. Light bathed his filthy body.

“Thought reform is a long process, and you need a better environment to do self-remolding,” a guard said, removing Zhou’s iron shackles.

For the first time in five years, his ankles were free from the weight of the iron chains. It felt odd. He could barely walk. But there was never any freedom from torture in a Communist prison. For Zhou, it never ended.

For reciting one of his poems aloud, to show his unfaltering faith to God, an additional five years was added to his sentence in September 1966. On Ash Wednesday, February 24, 1971, when he refused to read the “Quotations from Chairman Tse-Tung Mao,” he was placed in solitary confinement, again handcuffed and shackled. He remained there for eight months. He spent another five months in solitary, when, on September 9, 1976, he refused to read an obituary glorifying the deceased Mao. Another five years was added to his sentence when, on Labor Day, May 1, 1977, he refused to purchase the fifth volume of “Selected Works of Mao Zedong,” with the few cents he earned for his prison labor.

But with the death of Mao in 1976, Xiao-Ping Deng rose to power. Best known as the Leader of China (1978-79), Deng opened China to the world, especially after December 1978, when he announced his capitalist reforms and Open Door Market Economy Reform Policy, which loosened the binds – a bit – that had constricted China under Mao. Some Chinese unjustly imprisoned were released.

Zhou was one of those.

On July 22, 1981, Zhou received word that his sentence would be reduced and that he would be immediately set free. At the age of 54, he packed up his few belongings. Over the years, he had been able to purchase from the prison store, small calendars, on which he had marked days of particular note regarding his imprisonment and treatment. Those, he concealed between pages of the dictionaries that he packed among his bits of clothing.

On July 25, 1981, without hatred or bitterness, he bid farewell and walked through the two iron gates to freedom. Prison officials assigned a reliable inmate to accompany Zhou the few miles to the Jialing River; once across, he spent his first night in nearly 26 years as a free man.

But almost 55 years old, he had no future. What was he to do.

Not knowing if it were possible to rejoin his monastic community, or if it even existed, he attempted contact. On July 28, he wrote and sent off three letters to St. Andrew Abbey in Bruges, and a fourth to Yu-Xiu “Pansy” Lang, an old friend of the monastery. On December 22, he learned that, yes, the monastery had survived and had reestablished itself in Valyermo, California, in 1956.

After all those years, after almost 30 years, it was possible. Yes, he would rejoin his community.

Zhou’s old teacher Winance was in Tournai, Belgium, visiting his brother André, when he received a letter from Father Gaetan Loriers, one of the monk-priests in Valyermo.

Opening the envelope and pulling out the letter, Winance read, “Brother Peter is alive.”

He’s alive, Winance thought, stunned with joy. Brother Peter’s alive.

POSTSCRIPT: On November 27, 1984, Bang-Jiu Zhou (Brother Peter) was reunited with his religious community. At the age of 58, he professed his solemn religious vows on June 29, 1985.

Zhou, now 82, and Joseph Marie Louis Stanislas Winance (Father Eleutherius), who will celebrate his 100th birthday on July 10, were interviewed extensively for this story. In addition, some facts and quotes were pulled from the unpublished memoirs of Father Werner de Papeians de Morchoven, Winance’s 1959 book, “The Communist Persuasion: A Personal Experience of Brainwashing,” his unpublished diaries (one in French, another in English) and Zhou’s autobiography, “Dawn Breaks in the East: A Time Revisited,” which may be purchased from him. Winance’s book, although currently out of print, may be found for sale online. Both published books are must reads.

Greetings and requests may be sent to: St. Andrew Abbey, 31001 N. Valyermo Road, Valyermo, CA, 93563.