Last month a friend asked me how much I really knew about China's past, even the recent past -- just 20 years ago. Had I read any Chinese books about the Cultural Revolution, for instance? He found it hard to believe that China could take an objective look at its Red Period while the generation that lived through it is still alive.
\nI told him I had read two books on the subject in Chinese, published in China, two months ago. One of them was Part One: A Hundred People's Memories of the Cultural Revolution by Feng Yi-cai; the other was The Past Does Not Disappear Like Smoke by Zhang Yi-he.
\nAs someone who experienced that moment in history, these two books brought back such bitter, painful memories that -- even though I was busy promoting a novel and setting up a new charity, Mothers' Bridge -- I just couldn't sleep.
\nOne of the stories in Part One was that of a woman who had killed her father with her own hands. She had tried to save him -- an elderly academic -- from the continual harassment of the Red Guards, but her parents had persuaded her to kill them both, one after the other. She killed her father, but there was not time to kill her mother: the Red Guards discovered that the family was trying to commit suicide. So she hugged her mother and held her as they jumped from a fourth-floor window. She survived, but her mother died a few days later.
\nShe was charged with murder and spent more than 20 years in jail. Her memories of her parents were very confused, she told the book's author, and although she ate three meals and went to sleep and got up every day, she hardly felt alive.
\nI completely understand these feelings of being dead and alive at the same time, and of having mixed emotions toward your parents. I was seven and a half when the Cultural Revolution took place and I, too, behaved as I thought a "good daughter" should. My father was in prison and I wrote him a sentence in blood pricked from my finger. It said, "You must repay the blood of the Chinese people!" I believed what I was told -- that my father's family had helped the British drink Chinese blood as if it were red wine (my grandfather worked for the British company GEC for more than 30 years). This letter was stuck on the wall next to the meal table in his prison cell. I never talked to my father about this; I knew I could never erase the letter from either of our memories.
\nIn one chapter of the other book I read, The Past Does Not Disappear Like Smoke, there is a story about an educated Westernized family during the Cultural Revolution. A mother and her daughter try to live as if nothing has changed: they wear beautiful clothes, use the best china, listen to English radio. Soon, though, to keep the Red Guards from these things, they decide they must destroy everything.
\nI know about this; I saw it too -- my skirts, my books, my toys, my beloved doll, all burned and destroyed at the same time.
\nThe Cultural Revolution was a mad, unbelievable and unforgettably painful moment in the lives of so many Chinese people.
\nBut I was sad to read, at the end of Feng's book, that when he went to interview young Chinese men and women about their feelings toward the Cultural Revolution, most of them had no idea what he was talking about. Some of them even asked why he would make these things up. Others said that China should have another revolution so that they could get out of exams; they couldn't believe that their parents had been so stupid as to sign up with Mao Zedong (
The global chip shortage last year caused an unprecedented supply-chain crisis, affecting many key industries, including the auto industry. Europe, Japan and the US began to realize the indispensability and ubiquitous dominance of Taiwan’s semiconductor manufacturing industry. At the same time, amid the US-China trade war, Beijing’s military aggressions against Taiwan became increasingly blatant and provocative. In light of these developments, Europe, Japan and the US are formulating new policies to rebuild their domestic semiconductor manufacturing base, so as to mitigate the enormous geopolitical and economic risks involved. Last year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) commanded 56 percent of the global
An April circular by the Chinese Ministry of Education on student admission criteria at Tibetan universities has been harrowing and discriminating to say the least. The circular said that prospective students must state their “political attitude and ideological morality” to be considered for admission. It also said that students should not be involved in religious movements and students who are proficient in Marxist theory should be preferred. Since Beijing started occupying Tibet, it has meticulously introduced policies to dismantle the Tibetan education system, which is closely tied to its rich monastic tradition, and has even pulled students from Afghanistan and eastern
Opinion polls show that Taiwan’s judicial system and law enforcement “enjoy” low approval ratings among Taiwanese. In spite of data showing low crime rates, many Taiwanese drivers have faced aggressive driving, unprovoked road rage, road blocking and unmotivated police officers. Some criminals seem to consider themselves above the law, which is not completely wrong. Reports about so-called “road blocking” can be found in newspapers or on YouTube. An example of this is when “road rowdies” block a vehicle on a road, get out of their vehicle and start to attack the occupants of the blocked vehicle — often attacking in a
When I was teaching in Lesotho in southern Africa during the 1980s, I taught a class on comparative foreign policy. The course included trips to the US embassy, the Soviet embassy, the British embassy and the newly established Chinese embassy. The students could ask the ambassadors and staff questions about foreign policy, and would then write a report as their final term paper. The Chinese ambassador felt that the US-style education I delivered was unique and invited me to go to China to teach. At the time, China was planning to open up to the world, and it needed professors versed
RSS