Those who want to sacrifice liberty for a little security deserve neither liberty, nor security. Awaken Your Dormant Conscience! Give me liberty or give me death! Winning your inner struggle as a "Free Being" against your nihilistic identity of "being Chinese".
那些想用放弃自由去得到安全感的人们既不值得自由也不会得到安全感。 唤醒你沉睡的良知！不自由，毋宁死！开始并赢得一场你内心的“自由人”搏击你外在的“中国人”的文化反思反省浪潮。 “自由人”必胜！ “中国人”必败！
Contact Kai Chen 联络陈凯--电邮信箱 Email：elecshadow@aol.com 电话 Phone: 661-367-7556
4/29/1968 林昭被害纪念日四十周年 Let's Remember Lin Zhao and What She Represents
中国邪恶性质根本没变 The Cultural Revolution Continues The Cultural Revolution Continues
On blog in "Weekly Standard"
Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Lin Zhao, a fearless critic of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party who was executed at the height of the Cultural Revolution. This past February, a campaign was launched in Chinese cyberspace calling on the public to gather on April 29 by her tomb in Suzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, for a memorial.
The online proposal seems to have caught the eye of the authorities. Hu Di, one of the signatories, has been summoned by police for questioning. Video cameras have reportedly been installed around Lin Zhao’s grave. A plaque marking the entrance to the cemetery has been removed, and local residents have been instructed by police not to disclose the location of her tomb.
Lin Zhao is the pen name of Peng Lingzhao. In 1957, while studying at Peking University, she was branded a "rightist" and a "class enemy" after criticizing Mao’s Anti-rightist Movement.
In 1960, Lin Zhao drafted a petition regarding the case against Peng Dehuai, the Red Army commander and onetime defense minister who incurred Mao’s wrath for his criticism of the disastrous Great Leap Forward. In October of that year, Lin Zhao was arrested on charges of "active counter-revolution" for publishing an underground magazine. Shortly after her arrest, Lin Zhao’s British-educated father, who had himself been labeled a "counter-revolutionary," committed suicide by taking rat poison.
In 1962, Lin Zhao was sentenced to 20 years in prison. While there, she continued her writings. After the authorities confiscated her pen and paper in September 1964, she used a hairpin dipped in her own blood to write poems and essays on her cell walls, clothes, and bed sheets.
On April 29, 1968, Lin Zhao’s 20-year sentence was changed to death by immediate execution. Gagged and handcuffed, Lin Zhao was shot dead at Longhua Airport in Shanghai. She was 36. Her mother and sister learned of the execution two days later when the police showed up at their doorstep demanding payment for the bullets used to kill her.
The beefed-up security at Lin Zhao’s tomb in anticipation of tomorrow’s graveside memorial is Beijing’s most recent attempt to erase her from the collective memory of the Chinese people. The majority of her writings remain sealed by the authorities. A 2004 documentary titled Looking for Lin Zhao’s Soul was limited to private showings. Filmmaker Hu Jie lost his job with the official Xinhua News Agency because of his involvement in the project. And Lu Xuesong, an instructor at the Jilin College of Fine Arts, was suspended after showing the film to her students.
What has the Chinese government got to fear from a woman who perished four decades ago? Organizers of the memorial expressed one view when they noted that "even though Lin Zhao’s country has witnessed many changes in the 40 years since her passing, the totalitarian politics that she strove to change remain the same."
Posted by Jennifer Chou on April 28, 2008 11:18 AM | Permalink
我叔叔李邦训-台湾空军英雄 My Uncle's Photo and Squadron Information
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOnSNzjE8ZM
我叔叔李邦训-台湾空军英雄 My Uncle's Photo and Squadron Information
From left to right: My aunt Li Bangqin, my father Li Bangding, my mother Doris Chen, my uncle Li Bangxun （1987）
从左至右： 姑姑李邦琴，父亲李邦定，母亲陈斗娥，叔叔李邦训 （1987年）
Folks:
This is a photo of my uncle when he received the Best Pilot Award from the Flying Tigers. For 50 years of military and civilian services, my uncle as a pilot had never crashed a single airplane. He had served in the Chinese Civil War, in WWII, in Vietnam War and various civilian airlines after he retired from the military. Indeed he had always served with distinction. He is my hero.
One amazing feat my uncle pulled was when he piloted a recon plane above the mainland, his plane was hit by a rocket from the communists. The fuel was leaking badly. But he managed to fly the plane safely to South Korea, saving a crew of seven. When he touched down on the runway, there was no single drop of fuel left. There are many stories like this.
I met my uncle again in Taipei this February when I attended the Human Rights and Beijing Olympics Forum. He is in his 80s and fragile with early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. I wish him the best and regret that he had not written a memoir of his life.
Here I pay my tribute to my uncle Li Bangxun 李邦训: You are my hero and I will always respect what you have accomplished in your life. I love you very much.
Best. Kai Chen
Video link to my uncle's squadrons: Black Cat, Black Bat.
The existence of the Black Bats Squadron, which flew numerous clandestine missions in the Korean and Vietnam wars in support of the US, is only now being recognized.
By Shelley Shan STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jul 10, 2007, Page 14
Eighty-two year old Tai Shu-ching, who claims to have flown 78 secret missions over China in the 1950s and 1960s, displays records from his glory days.
In the Military Dependants Village Museum in Hsinchu City, 85-year-old veteran Liu Chiao-chi (劉教之), a member of the 34th Squadron in the ROC Air Force, was telling a visitor of the dangers and hardship he experienced when he was still in service.
While talking, Liu pointed the different travel routes he had flown on a map and to photos of pilots he recognizes. He also explained in detail the significance of the squadron's emblem - a bat with seven stars - and explains how this special squadron was formed.
"Not too many knew about this," Liu told the Taipei Times. "The Ministry of Defense even acted like we'd never existed and tried to dissociate themselves from this part of history."
Liu's disappointment may have been shared by other members who used to serve in this particular air force squadron, whose sacrifices have been ignored by the government and were almost unknown by their contemporaries.
A Bit of History
In the early 1950s, when the US was engaged in the Korean War, the US government recognized the strategic role that Taiwan could play and decided to work more closely with Taiwan.
The Nationalist Government in Taiwan at the time had its own agenda, with President Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) still hoping to one day retake China. For this, he would need US military aid.
A secret cooperation between the two began through the establishment of Western Enterprises Inc in Taipei, which was composed mainly of experienced combat and intelligence specialists from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The purpose was to facilitate the provision of advanced armaments and personnel training from the US to Taiwan.
Some of the local trainees eventually became members of the 34th Squadron, which was charged with flying secret low-altitude reconnaissance flights over China. Special cameras were installed on their planes, allowing them to capture photos of China's military infrastructure. As they would only be sent for missions at night, they were nicknamed the Black Bats Squadron (黑蝙蝠中隊).
The Bats reported directly to Taiwan's Air Force Intelligence Administration, an organization independent of the Air Force's chain of command.
General I Fuen (衣復恩) was the chief of the administration and the main coordinator between the US and Taiwan in this project. As the actions taken by the Bats were highly classified, General I was granted the authority to report directly to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
Members of the 34th "Black Bat" squadron listen to a briefing by commanders in a photo from 1959.
Each member of the squadron was asked to write his will before he began to fly missions. Each also was required to sign a document demanding they keep all their actions secret.
Between 1955 and 1968, the Bats flew 838 missions, during which 142 officers were killed.
In the documentary The Secret Hidden in the Sky of Taiwan (台灣天空的祕密), director Ting Wen-chin (丁雯靜) located some members of the Bats Squadron and persuaded them to tell their story.
Pilot Chu Cheng (朱震) remembered being on a mission one night, when Chinese planes got a lock on him soon after the team had completed their task.
"They were following us closely and I couldn't fly any lower to the ground," Chu recalled. "The situation left me with no time to think about questions of life and death; I only knew I needed to find ways to dodge."
Chu survived - but only because his attacker used up all his bullets.
The first-hand information the squadron collected enabled the US to deliver an effective counterstrategy against China's military advancement.
The Creation of China Airlines
In the build up to the Vietnam War in the early 1960s, the 34th Squadron was also dispatched in support of the US. To avoid controversy in the international community, the Bats needed a new identity. China Airlines, Taiwan's first airline carrier, was born under these circumstances.
Wang Chi-cheng (汪積成), the former general manager of the China Airlines, said in Ting's documentary that the CIA had appropriated quite a few aircraft for the airline. He said these aircrafts had first to be "sterilized," meaning that staff had to remove all identifying marks on the plane.
"In those days, China Airlines was really just a top-notch D-squad in the air force," Wang said.
Liu was one of the Bats who worked as a member of China Airlines' personnel. He was once in charge of transporting special US Army combat teams to North Vietnam. The facade of a civil airliner, however, didn't free his team from the threat of relentless attack. Until this day, Liu can still remember the night when a bullet passed through his cabin and almost hit him in the neck.
During the Vietnam War, the airline lost 10 airplanes and 49 personnel.
Following a successful nuclear test by China in 1964, the Chi Long Project (奇龍計畫) was launched to send Bats to Xinjiang Province - where nuclear tests were executed - to gather information.
Huang Wen-lu (黃文騄) recalled the 13-hour flight experience on May 17, 1969, when his team was ordered to drop a large nuclear dust detector in the target zone.
"You only have one chance to do it right, and you could not afford to miss," he said.
Based on Huang's descriptions, a small bag of explosives would be hidden in the parachute attached to the detector, which would explode soon after the detector hit the ground, so that no one could identify it easily.
Two high sensitivity antennas were set up in Huko (湖口), Hsinchu to receive the data transmitted by the detector. The project allowed US and Taiwan officials to track China's progress in developing nuclear weapons.
Buried memories
The Bats' operation ceased after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Despite the sacrifices, the records on this special unit remained unknown to most people in Taiwan. During the 1960s, it was even treated as a forbidden subject after I Fuen was detained for three years on unknown charges.
Even after I Fuen and some of the Bats passed away, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has yet to declassify documents related to the operation of the 34th Squadron.
And while the US has already declassified part of the records in 1992 and made it available for public access, statements or terms indicating the cooperation between Taiwan and US have all been censored.
Some of the Bats, however, have begun to disclose logs, photos and personal journals they kept when they were still in the service. Their effort to make people understand and recognize this part of history has gained support from the Hsinchu City Government and former Taipei City cultural affairs department commissioner Lung Ying-tai (龍應台).
"Some people said we agreed to do this to protect the Chiangs (蔣家)," Liu sighed, "We were flying every night to monitor if there is any noteworthy military activity in China so that we could set up a rapid response. We were actually protecting Taiwan!"
Lu said it was time that this history became known.
"Chiang Ching-kuo once said to us that we couldn't tell what we were doing. We are unsung heroes. All this would be made known to people some day. Now it's the time."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taiwan's spy pilots honored for Cold War work
The Black Bats' major function was to drop Taiwanese spies to incite mainlanders to rise up against communist rule — an enterprise that almost invariably ended in failure..
By Annie Huang, Associated Press
HSINCHU, Taiwan — They gathered quietly on a rainy night in the northern Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, six survivors of a secret cadre of pilots who risked their lives against the communist enemy during the darkest days of the Cold War.
Known as "The Black Bats," they say they were working for the CIA, a claim backed up by a photo of them posing with the then CIA station chief. Between 1953 and 1967 they flew more than 800 sorties over the Chinese mainland, dropping agents, testing radar responses, even collecting air samples from suspected nuclear test sites.
After decades in the shadows, they are now coming forward, encouraged by the planned establishment of a museum honoring their exploits in this high tech center that was once the base of their operations.
Though their main mission — laying the groundwork for an anti-communist insurrection — unquestionably failed, they are seen by many on this democratic island of 23 million people as national heroes, because they helped cement a crucial connection with the United States when their homeland needed all the big power help it could get.
The Black Bats' story first emerged in Taiwan in 1992 when China repatriated the remains of 14 crewmembers who died when their plane was shot down over the mainland in 1959. A few books on their exploits were published in subsequent years, including one by the Taiwanese Defense Ministry detailing their clandestine China overflights.
But the Bats had remained largely anonymous until the gathering early in June at Hsinchu's National Tsing Hua University, where hundreds of Taiwanese observed a minute of silence for the 148 Black Bats who didn't return from their missions and paid an emotional tribute to the few surviving members of the group.
"We owe our national and social stability to them, but we had never thanked them in public," said Tsing Hua humanities professor Lung Ying-tai.
The Black Bats were formed in 1953, just four years after Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces were defeated on the mainland by Mao Zedong's communists. That loss precipitated their wholesale retreat to this leaf-shaped island 100 miles off the Chinese coast.
During his more than 20 years in power on the mainland, Chiang had maintained an uneasy relationship with the United States — many historians accuse him of widescale corruption — but once on Taiwan, Washington embraced him as an anti-communist bulwark.
The CIA was a major link in the new Taiwan-U.S. connection, Black Bat veterans say, providing the group with P2V, B17 and B26 aircraft to carry out their mission of scoping out the communist enemy, and inserting agents on the mainland to promote an anti-communist insurrection.
The veterans proudly display photographs taken with Ray Cline, then the agency's Taipei station chief, and show other memorabilia supporting their claim of CIA sponsorship.
"There's no doubt about the cooperation between the Black Bats and the CIA," said Tseng Wen-shu, who helped organize an exhibition about the Bats at a municipally sponsored Hsinchu military museum.
A 2004 book co-authored by CIA Taiwan veteran James Lilley says the agency used aircraft to insert Taiwanese agents into the mainland, though it does not mention the Bats specifically.
The CIA did not respond to an e-mail asking about its connection to the group.
Seventy-seven-year-old Chu Chen, one of about 10 surviving Black Bats pilots, said crews were trained in Taiwan by Americans he later learned were CIA employees. Like others in the group, he kept his exploits secret until recently — even from members of his own family.
"If we had disclosed anything, we could have been shot as intelligence agents leaking secrets," he said.
Taiwanese defense expert Fu Ching-ping said the CIA purposely hid its connection to the Black Bats because of fear of being implicated in military forays against the mainland.
"They employed the Taiwanese pilots so they could deny any connection if the mission went wrong," he said.
The Black Bats' major function was to drop Taiwanese spies to incite mainlanders to rise up against communist rule — an enterprise that almost invariably ended in failure.
No figures are available on how many spies were dropped, but surviving Black Bat pilots say few ever returned to Taiwan.
Former navigator Chou Li-hsu recalled numerous infiltration missions and extolled the bravery of the agents.
"They tossed their weapons down first and then they jumped," he said.
Several former pilots also recounted close encounters with pursuing communist planes, which narrowly missed shooting them down.
Eighty-two-year-old Tai Shu-ching said that in five years of Black Bat service he flew 78 sorties over China, including one in 1960 in which eight communist airmen were killed when their planes crashed into a mountain during a futile chase of Tai's P2V.
"Unarmed we broke through the Iron Curtain in the darkness of the night," he said. "Each time, we were confident that we could get the mission accomplished."
Tai's 1960 encounter with his communist pursuers is described in detail in Fights to Protect the Motherland's Airspace, a book published in 2001 by China's People's Liberation Army.
Besides inserting agents, Black Bat aircraft also flew near Chinese radar installations to obtain their electronic signatures in preparation for possible American bombing missions of the mainland — missions that never took place.
Crews also helped the U.S. monitor Chinese nuclear weapons programs in the early 1960s by collecting air samples from suspected Chinese test sites.
Chu, the former pilot, said he flew his B17 on one such mission, but only learned its true purpose after the fact.
A Taiwanese defense expert, Andrew Yang of Taipei's Council of Advanced Political Studies, said programs like the Black Bats provided Washington valuable intelligence about China's secretive nuclear weapons program when the mainland was largely isolated from the rest of the world.
"Taiwan was an important source of information for the U.S. ... enabling it to avoid taking actions arising from misjudging the situation," he said.
In parallel with the Black Bats, another Taiwanese squadron — the Black Cats — flew surveillance missions over the mainland throughout the 1960s. These were high-altitude flights using U2 spy planes to photograph military establishments. At least five of the U2s were shot down by Chinese missiles before the squadron was disbanded in 1974.
Taiwan's Defense Ministry finally recognized the "important contributions" made by both the Cats and the Bats following the Hsinchu gathering.
"They ... provided crucial strategic and military intelligence that helped stabilize the Taiwan Straits situation," the ministry said in a statement. "We will never forget this chapter of our history."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
And now, the end is here And so I face the final curtain My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain I've lived a life that's full I traveled each and ev'ry highway And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Regrets, I've had a few But then again, too few to mention I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway And more, much more than this, I did it my way
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew When I bit off more than I could chew But through it all, when there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way
I've loved, I've laughed and cried I've had my fill, my share of losing And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing To think I did all that And may I say, not in a shy way, "Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"
For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!
盐湖城对阵 Pro-China and pro-Tibet demonstrators clash in Salt Lake City
By Brett Prettyman
The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 04/21/2008 06:31:31 AM MDT
(Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune )
With the exception of a quick hug, participants in opposing rallies confronted one another without physical contact in downtown Salt Lake City on Sunday.
The Global Human Rights Torch Relay demonstration, held on the west side of Washington Square Park, was designed to inform the world and stop human rights crimes in China while also protesting the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
A block away, at Salt Lake City Library Square, members of various Chinese groups had gathered in support of the Beijing Olympics. The groups clashed when the human rights group marched east on 400 South past the entrance to the library.
The situation escalated enough that Salt Lake City police officers had to position themselves between the groups, leaving most of the conflict to finger-pointing and accusations.
This was all preceded by a man in Washington Square Park who was wearing a wool hat in the color of the Tibetan flag. He approached, and then gently hugged, a man who held a sign claiming that a local Tibetan organization was a terrorist group.
"No contact," was the only response from the man holding the sign.
The majority of people participating in the Human Rights Torch Relay were there in protest of recent and historical actions by the Chinese government in Tibet.
"Every day we have to fight to wake people up about what is happening and what has happened in Tibet," Tenzink Tsering, a 23-year-old woman from Salt Lake and political science student at the University of Utah, said during the march. "The Olympics are a good platform for us to stand up against the Chinese government. We are not against the Chinese people or the Olympics. We only want the Chinese government to improve human rights in Tibet."
After the four-block march, the relay group returned to hear speeches from local politicians and hear songs and poems on human rights, but participants seemed most charged by the words of Kai Chen, a former member of the Chinese national basketball team.
Chen used the popular American history saying "Give me liberty or give me death" from Patrick Henry in 1775 as an example of what should be done to ensure human rights across the world.
"Not once in my life over there was I treated as a human. I was only used by them and they used my love for basketball as hostage against my freedom," Chen said.
Chen called the communist rule in China "slavery of the soul."
Over at Library Square, dragons were dancing and Beijing 2008 Olympic shirts were proudly displayed.
Zemin and Qin Zhon, Chinese students at the University of Utah, were proud to support the Olympics in Beijing and said they do not agree with the accusations of human rights injustices in Tibet.
"Life is different than it was before [for Tibetans]," Zemin said. "Everyone's life is very good in Tibet."
Yifan Shi, also a Chinese student at the University of Utah, was handing out fact sheets about Tibet.
"Both sides should realize there are some problems," he said. "Talk and peace is the way to go about making changes."
But peace was broken at the end of the rallies. Some participants in the Global Human Rights Torch Relay event wandered to the other side of the City-County building and taunts were quickly exchanged across 200 East.
In what may be the first honest expression of the Communist Chinese government’s "Olympic Spirit," the Olympic Torch Relay last week in London degenerated into a melee and near riot. In the British capital, thuggish Chinese security men brusquely ordered around athletes, manhandled pro-Tibet Protesters and became engaged in scuffles with London Police.
Just a taste of what it is like in China in the shadow of the Olympics.
Awarding the Olympics was a triumph of hope over experience; hope that this opening to the world would somehow promote a liberalization of the regime, even while the Chinese government made clear from the outset that it wanted to promote the idea of its emergence as a global power without changing anything about its totalitarian nature.
And – while the IOC turns a blind eye to things such as the Chinese slaughter of Tibetan protesters – China has upped the ante by protesting the protesters in Europe. The Olympic Games, unfortunately, are particularly congenial to dictators: a one-world spirit of athletic brotherhood across the globe; a focus on youth; and the kind of mass display that would win North Korea the Gold.
In a way reminiscent of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Beijing Games are being used to overawe the watchers, a Potemkin showcase to the world. Behind the scenes, a cadre of leaders with an adamantine will to power and wealth cracks down on anything that belies the picture of a happy and orderly people in a newly powerful China.
State financing of the Games would probably have made them political in any event, but since the modern Olympiad was established, it has become a pretense for murderous regimes to play to the press. In democratic countries like Japan in 1964 or South Korea in 1992, they have been an expression of openness and modernity; in countries like Germany in 1936 or in China in 2008, totalitarian regimes use the Games for the great sport of propaganda. The Games’ website is positively Orwellian; its theme is "One World, One Dream."
For the Chinese, it is only their world, and their dream that will matter. And the nightmare that is their oppression of their own citizens and others, such as Tibetans, is part of their “ideal.”
China's police state ethos spilled out into the streets of London as the Olympic Torch Relay was "protected" from pro-Tibet demonstrators by blue-track-suited Chinese security guards while Bobbies trotted alongside. According to British television personality (and athlete) Konnie Huq, "The men in blue perplexed everyone . . . . They were . . . very full on, and I noticed them having skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities . . . which was confusing. They were barking orders at me, like 'Run! Stop!'"
Now, it should be noted that the protesters, some of whom may have been of the professional, "usual insect" variety, in some instances engaged in aggressive behavior that should have been stopped -- by the Metropolitan Police. But the Chinese guards, apparently without the authorization of any British authorities, fought back.
Chinese media have reported that the "Flame Protection Squad" or "Wujing" was established by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee last year to safeguard the Flame 24 hours a day on its 85,130-mile relay. Its members come from the People's Armed Police, the security force responsible for riot control and domestic stability and who with grotesque irony have been deployed in Tibet to put down the recent unrest.
When they bid for the Games, the Chinese promised to improve their human rights record. But communists never change. Wishing to show off an apparently peaceful and orderly country, the government has turned the screws on political dissidents, internet use, non-governmental organizations, and ethnic minorities. It has swept beggars off the streets and jailed critics of the Games, including prominent democracy activist Hu Jia.
And what can we expect during the Games? Probably more of the same ugly panoply of oppression and control. Not the same thing but the same kind of thing: a heavy hand to prevent demonstrations and otherwise ensure the appearance of calm and order.
These sinister overtones will leave the West in a morally and politically precarious position come summer. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried to have it both ways, appearing at 10 Downing Street surrounded by the insolently prancing Wujing, but pointedly refusing to actually handle the Torch. The upcoming London Olympics means that Britain cannot boycott Beijing, but the PM announced that he will not attend the Opening Ceremonies.
Gordon Brown's equivocation is an apt metaphor for a Western World that lost the plot on China. And now, if there is a boycott of this most prestigious of national projects that cause the ultimate loss of "face," how will the Chinese government react? If it's viewed against a backdrop of the usual Western fecklessness will they feel free, for example, to move on Taiwan?
All the five year plans, the "Great Leap Forward," the "Four Modernizations" and such were tried and found wanting. To help maintain their personal status, the cynical leaders of the People's Republic have adopted the bread and circuses of a rapacious capitalism and now the Olympic Games.
These Olympics are just part and parcel. Part and parcel of a regime that oppresses its own people while at the same time escalating its offensive military capacity and its belligerent tone and behavior on the world stage.
Gold medals, then, for the West. For ignorance. For naiveté. And for the usual wishful thinking. Nothing new there, nor will there be in the 21st Century's first totalitarian Olympics.
我将加入盐湖城“人权圣火”接力跑 4/20 I Will Join Salt Lake City Human Rights Torch Relay
4/20: Global Human Rights Torch Relay (Washington Square Park)
------------------------------------------------------------- Reply to:
event-1*
Date: 2008-04-10, 12:33PM MDT
We invite you to participate in the Sunday morning walk to begin Salt Lake City’s Human Rights Torch Relay to be followed by speakers and music.
What: The global Human Rights Torch Relay arrived in North America in March, after its opening ceremony in Athens, Greece on August 9, 2007. It has been to 4 continents and is now in the United States with the premise of:
The Olympics and Crimes Against Humanity Cannot Coexist in China.
When: Sunday, April 20th / 10:00 am walk / 11:00 am speakers and music
Where: Washington Square, 450 S State Street (west side of City/County Building)
Website: www.HumanRightsTorch.org
Speakers: Chinese former Olympic Basketball player Kai Chen, Erika George a law professor from the U, Twewang Rinzin president of the Utah Tibetan Association, Representatives from the persecuted Falun Gong spiritual group, Bart Tippets with Mormons for equality and justice and more.
The Human Rights Torch Relay (HRTR) is an international campaign drawing attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) worsening human rights violations both inside and outside China’s borders. Since China was chosen as the 2008 Olympic host, Amnesty International and other human rights groups have reported increasingly violent repression aiming to silence those the CCP has labeled as enemies, including Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Uyghur Muslims, democracy activists and Falun Gong. The CCP also supports other totalitarian regimes in perpetuating slaughter upon their citizens in Sudan, Burma, Zimbabwe and North Korea.
We are calling on China to improve its human rights and respect human dignity, and we urge the International Olympic Committee to require that China keep its promises to follow the Olympic charter:
“Any form of discrimination against nation or person because of race, religion, political view, gender or other reason is inconsistent with membership in the Olympic movement.”
“The goal of the Olympics is to place sports everywhere at the service of a harmonious development of man, with a view to encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with preservation of human dignity.”
原中国国家篮球队的运动员、“奥运长跑自由衫”发起人陈凯，于4月2、3日应耶鲁大学“院长茶会”(Master Tea)系列座谈会的邀请，来到耶鲁与师生畅谈中共专制政权的真相，并在耶鲁书店举办了他的自传《一比十亿：通往自由的旅程》（One In A Billion: Journey Toward Freedom ）的签名会。
The Hartford Courant Report on Kai Chen 媒体对我在耶鲁签书的报道
Ex-Player On Chinese National Team Raises Warnings About Repression
Former Chinese Athlete Finds Freedom Priceless
By DOM AMORE | Courant Staff Writer April 5, 2008
NEW HAVEN — - The story still brings tears to Kai Chen's eyes. The images of his best friend and fellow athlete, forced to depart four decades ago.
The day Chen saw his friend leave, he could see, not far off, a similar fate for himself.
"I knew there had to be another way," Chen said, "another way besides misery and suffering and death."
Chen, who grew up in Maoist China, has nonetheless lived a life of free choice and survived to write about it. His book, "One in a Billion: Journey Toward Freedom," chronicles his life as a professional athlete in China, beginning in the days of the Cultural Revolution. Today, with the Olympics in Beijing a few months away, Chen wants to tell the world that little has really changed there.
In an emotional, often spellbinding 90-minute discussion at the Yale Bookstore this week, Chen, 55, recounted his life and insights as his daughter, Alex, a senior who played basketball at Yale, sat in the audience.
As a teenager, Chen was growing, on his way to 6 feet 7. During the late 1960s, when Mao insisted young people go out to the countryside to learn the ways of hard work, he was assigned to a grain depot. But his size and strength caught attention, and he was deemed a "special project," reassigned to Beijing to play basketball. With the growing popularity of China's table tennis program, the government had seen the propaganda possibilities of using sports to gain international legitimacy.
While in Beijing, Chen met Xiao, a track athlete, and they became close friends, but both had a secret.
"One day, he told me he was leaving," Chen said. "[The authorities] had found problems with his family background. I went to the train station to see him off, and I knew sooner or later I would face the same fate."
Xiao went back to the countryside, and shortly thereafter, when Chinese officials learned that Chen had relatives in Taiwan, he, too, was sent back. Chen continually resisted and joined the military so he could play basketball.
He was subjected to rigid training, at one point was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers and anemia, and he nearly died during his "training."
In 1972, he learned that Xiao, despondent over the end of his athletic career, had died of carbon monoxide poisoning; drunk, he had built a fire in a poorly ventilated room. From that day forward, Chen insisted on exercising his own choices, in spite of Chinese authoritarianism and culture.
"It is one thing to have fear," he said. "It is another to have moral confusion. People in China do not believe in individual freedom. They do not even believe such a thing is possible. They have been taught to believe that individual freedom would bring chaos."
Chen went on to play for top military teams in China and, eventually, for the national team, where he became more exposed to outside ideologies. After his retirement from basketball, in 1979, he met Susan Grueneberg, a U.S. exchange student. The two eventually married and in 1981 Chen moved to Los Angeles to start a family.
"I remember the first time Susan and I celebrated my birthday," Chen said, fighting back tears. "I never knew I had a birthday. We always celebrated Mao's birthday, the army's birthday, China's birthdays. It was the first time I realized my existence was significant."
By coincidence, Chen was back in Beijing visiting family members in 1989 at the time of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. "In a way, I am like the Forrest Gump of China," he said.
In the years since, Chen has become an activist, to raise awareness of China's regime and to raise the call for human rights. Last year, he launched an "Olympic Freedom" T-shirt campaign to remind the world of the bloody events at Tiananmen. The shirts are emblazoned with the words, "We will never forget."
In recent years, basketball players such as Wang Zhizhi and Yao Ming have left China for the NBA, but to Chen that does not represent progress. "First they must sign what I call a 'soul-selling contract,'" he said. "They are still the property of China."
Chen gave a copy of his book to an old friend, the mother of a young athlete in China. They began exchanging e-mails across the Pacific, the woman telling Chen she wished to learn English so she could read the book more thoroughly. Then in one e-mail, she told him the officials had become aware of his book.
"I thought, 'oh-oh,'" Chen said. "I got no more e-mails from her, and when I sent her one, it came back. That e-mail address no longer existed. I saw again how nothing has really changed."
发表于: Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:42 am 发表主题: Bball player Chen criticizes China 耶鲁大学对陈凯讲演的报道
http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24217
Bball player Chen criticizes China 耶鲁大学对陈凯讲演的报道
Bball player Chen criticizes China
Reddit Eric Randall
Kai Chen has a request for those traveling to China for this summer’s Olympics: “When you go there, do something or say something. Tell people that Tiananmen Square happened.”
The political activist, author and former member of the Chinese National Basketball Team spoke Thursday at a Jonathan Edwards College Master’s Tea to an audience of about 25. Chen, who said he fears returning to his homeland because of his activism, discussed his life, his grievances with the Chinese government and the upcoming Olympics.
Growing up during China’s Cultural Revolution, Chen, 54, said he found “sustenance” playing basketball. At the age of 17, the six-foot-seven Chen was recruited to the Chinese National Basketball Team.
But the government soon expelled him from the team because of his grandmother’s connections with the Nationalist Army in Taiwan, which fought against the Communist regime before China’s civil war in the 1940s. It was a low point for Chen, he said.
Despite this setback, he said, “I chose to make an effort to live and succeed and go towards freedom and happiness.”
After years of evading the government’s order to send him back to the countryside and a brief but near deadly stint with the army — poor nutrition and an ulcer left him hospitalized — Chen managed to work his way back to the National Team.
At the age of 27, when he was at what he describes as the peak of his career, Chen made the difficult decision to leave basketball by faking a heart condition because he felt he could no longer represent the Chinese government.
“The system and the country have always held my love for the sport as a hostage against me,” he explained. “They force you to use this thing that you love to benefit something you despise.”
After China opened up diplomatic relations with the United States in 1979, Chen met his future wife, Susan, a U.S. student studying in Beijing. They married after two years of courtship and soon moved to the United States.
Chen described his bleak outlook on life before he came to America: “I never believed happiness existed because I’d never seen it.”
Yet in America he found it. When asked what makes America strong, Chen gestured to the audience.
“Here, in your eyes I can see a yearning for truth and trust,” he said. “I’m here for that. In China they do not have that look.”
Now a U.S. citizen, Chen said he still harbors anger towards the Chinese government.
“The damage they do to you is not material; it’s spiritual,” he said. “The people in China have no way to judge right and wrong — only what is powerful.”
With this in mind, Chen began the Olympic Freedom T-Shirt Movement. While not a proponent of a boycott — as an athlete, he understands the importance of the games — he wants those traveling to the Olympics this summer wear his shirt as a sign of protest.
Haley Warden ’08 said she took issue with some of Chen’s characterizations of the Chinese people.
“While he seemed to attribute the passivity of [the] Chinese to a pervasive slave mentality, I have been encouraged by my interactions with Chinese people,” she said in an e-mail after the talk.
One sophomore in attendance, who declined to give his name, said he liked Chen’s viewpoint.
“I thought he was a very reasonable speaker,” he said. “I didn’t think he was radical at all.”
Warden agreed: “I think that he’s very hopeful that he and like-minded individuals can bring change to China, or at least awareness,” she said.
A True American(a free being), Former Pro-Basketball player in China, National Team, August 1st Team (1970-1979). Graduated from UCLA in Political Science, 1986. Staunch Anti-communism/socialism/despotism activist. Author of "One in a Billion - Journey toward Freedom". "My Way"(my life story)DVD produced and released in 2008 by NTDTV.
一个真正的美国人（自由人）；前八一队、中国国家队男篮队员(1970-1979)；1986年毕业于加州大学政治系；坚定的反共反专制/崇尚自由人士；【一比十亿】一书的作者；【我的路】四集视频（通往自由的旅程）2008年由新唐人电视台【人杰地灵】制作播放。
One in a Billion - Journey toward Freedom by Kai Chen "一比十亿--通往自由的旅程" 陈凯 著
Click Bookcover to Order Kai Chen's Autobiography: One In A Billion - Journey toward Freedom (The Story of a Pro-Basketball Player in China) 点击书面网上购书/陈凯自传“一比十亿--通往自由的旅程”（一个中国职篮球员的故事）
Never Forget 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre 绝不要忘记中共反人类罪行：The Spirit of the Tank Man “坦克人”与天安门大屠杀视频
Click Photo to View Video Clips on Tank Man and Tiananmen Massacre 点击照片观看“坦克人”精神与六四天安门大屠杀视频
Global Museum on Communism 全球共产邪恶博物院 Learn/Educate Yourself on Evil of Communism 勿忘共产罪行，请点击如下链锁
Click DVD Cover to Watch Video "Killer Chic" (Chinese Subtitles, Translation by Kai Chen) 点击DVD画面观看视频" 崇魔的时尚"/陈凯访谈（中文字幕，陈凯翻译）
Video Program with Kai Chen Interview on Danger of Socialism in America 珊瑚崖对陈凯采访视频：社会主义对自由的不容置疑的威胁
Click Photo to View Video of Kai Chen Interview with Coral Ridge Ministries on Danger of Socialism in America 点击画面观看珊瑚崖圣训网的最新视频节目及对陈凯的个人采访 - 社会主义对自由的不容置疑的威胁
陈凯演讲： 从天安门广场到自由广场 Kai Chen Speech: From Tiananmen Square to Freedom Square
点击画面观看陈凯演讲： 从天安门广场到自由广场 Kai Chen Speech: From Tiananmen Square to Freedom Square
My Basketball Career in China 我的篮球生涯-八一男篮/国家男篮
Click Picture to See Photos from My Basketball Career in China 点击照片观看我的篮球生涯照片
“自由人”对抗“中国人”- 陈凯中文文摘集萃 Kai Chen's Signature Articles in Chinese - "Free Being vs. Chinese"
绝真实的丑态：一个崇尚虚无的受辱无尊严的奴才居然也每一刻都奢望着将造奴作奴的文化心态繁衍到世界的每一个角落。"Free Beings" vs. "Chinese" - Click photo to read Kai Chen articles in Chinese 点击照片阅读陈凯主要中文文章
屎虼螂的颂歌/陈凯谈中国专制文化心态 Sing in Praise of Dung Beetles/CK on China's Despotic Culture
Click Photo to Read Related Articles in Chinese on Chinese Despotic/Slave Culture/Mindset 点击屎虼螂图片阅读关于华语系人们专制心态与奴文化的中文文章
自由vs.专制 = 记忆vs.失忆 Freedom vs. Tyranny = Memory vs. Amnesia
Click Picture to See Wonderful Photos & Read the Article 点击照片观看陈凯“自由vs.专制 = 记忆vs.失忆”一文与家庭照片, 视频与文章
子女不是父母财产，人不是国家政府财产 Children Are Not Parents' Property, Human Beings Are Not Governments' Property
Click Picture to See Photos and Read the Article 点击照片观看陈凯“子女不是父母财产”一文与照片
从"文字笼罐"到"文字狱"-陈凯论中文的弊病危害 Chinese Language Fosters Despotism and Tyranny
Click Picture to Read All Articles about Chinese Language Defects and Harm 点击照片阅读所有关于中文语言弊病危害的文章
逐毛像签名录及媒体报道 Petition Signatures to Remove Mao Statue from Nixon Library/Museum & Media Coverage
请点击漫画进入签名录并阅读媒体报道 Click cartoon to view all the signatures on petition & read media coverage
Revisit 2007 Mao's Portrait Incident in Alhambra 重温2007年阿罕布拉市“毛像事件”
Click Painting to Review 2007 "Mao Portrait Incident" in Alhambra 点击画面重温2007年春节阿罕布拉市“毛像事件”
Protest at Mao's Kitchen 抗议道德腐败的“毛的厨房”
Click Picture to View Video, Photos and Article about "Mao's Kitchen" Protest 点击照片观看抗议“毛的厨房”的视频，照片与文章
Kai Chen Protests "Confucius Classroom" 陈凯抗议“孔学堂”
Click Photo to Review All Related Articles/Reports about Kai Chen Protesting "Confucius Classroom" in American Schools 点击照片阅读有关陈凯抗议“孔学堂”的文章与报道
Olympic Freedom T-shirt Global Movement 奥运自由衫全球运动
Click T-shirt to Learn about My Olympic Freedom T-shirt Global Movement Video Clips, Photos and Article. 点击自由衫观看视频，照片与文章
“国歌”- 安.兰德 著，陈凯 译 "ANTHEM" by Ayn Rand, Translation by Kai Chen
Click Bookcover to Read "Anthem" in Chinese, Translation by Kai Chen 点击书面阅读安. 兰德“国歌”一书，陈凯翻译
