REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

China tightens security in restive Xinjiang

BEIJING — China has banned pigeon flying and tightened airport security in the run-up to an international trade fair in Xinjiang after a series of deadly attacks in the restive region, state media said Tuesday.

A low-altitude no-fly zone over the provincial capital Urumqi also prohibits kites and hot-air balloons during the China-Eurasia Expo which begins Thursday, the official Xinhua news agency and local government said.

Airports in a dozen cities across China, including Beijing and Shanghai, have increased security checks for Urumqi-bound flights, requiring passengers to remove their belts and shoes, Xinhua and airport officials said.

The new measures reportedly caused lengthy queues, flight delays and even fights among frustrated passengers at Beijing Capital International Airport on Sunday.

Armed police are guarding the convention centre in Urumqi where leaders from China and neighbouring countries will meet, while an elite police counter-terrorism unit had been deployed to Kashgar and Hotan which were hit by the recent violence, Xinhua said.

"Security is paramount," Yu Xiudong, a senior member of the China-Eurasia Expo organising committee, was quoted saying.

"We should make meticulous preparations against all security emergencies to ensure a safe expo."

Xinjiang has seen several outbreaks of ethnic violence in recent years as the mainly Muslim Uighur minority bridles under what it regards as oppression by the government and the unwanted immigration of ethnic Han Chinese.

Tensions boiled over again in July when two knife attacks as well as clashes between ethnic Uighurs and police killed more than 40 people in the resource-rich and strategically vital region.

Officials and state media have blamed the unrest on "terrorists" but some experts say the government has produced little evidence of an organised terrorist threat, adding the violence stems more from long-standing local resentment.

In July 2009, China was hit by its worst ethnic violence in decades when Uighurs savagely attacked Han Chinese in Urumqi -- an incident that led to deadly reprisals by Han on Uighurs several days later.

The government said around 200 people were killed and 1,700 injured.

The trade convention in Urumqi will be held from September 1-5 and is expected to attract leaders from regional countries including Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who is due to arrive in China later Tuesday.

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China Hands Out Punishment After Airlines’ Bizarre Mid-Air Stand-Off

 

A passenger jet flies towards Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai August 23, 2011.

And you thought driving in China was treacherous.

The country’s General Administration of Civil Aviation on Monday announced its punishment for privately held Juneyao Airlines Co. after an incident earlier this month in the skies above Shanghai in which a Juneyao flight crew refused to give way to a Qatar Airways jet that had issued a “mayday” call and requested immediate permission to land as it ran low on fuel.

Juneyao, one of relatively few private carriers in an industry dominated by state-run airlines, was ordered to reduce its flight capacity by 10% and temporarily barred from going ahead with expansion plans as well as hiring foreign pilots. Officials also banned the flight’s captain, a South Korean citizen, from continuing work as a pilot in China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The Qatar Airways flight, a Boeing 777 en route from Doha, had been circling above Shanghai Pudong International Airport due to bad weather, Xinhua reported. Authorities decided to divert it to the city’s smaller Hongqiao International Airport as it ran low on fuel. The Juneyao pilot refused six orders from the control tower to yield and allow the Qatari jet to land first. Both flights eventually landed safely, but the Civil Aviation Administration said the Qatar jet had only about 18 minutes worth of fuel left when it finally landed at Hongqiao.

Juneyao Airlines in a statement posted to its website on Tuesday, said it “would seriously draw lessons” from the case, and said the airline took responsibility for the incident. The Civil Aviation Administration statement said China would discuss with Qatari authorities whether the Qatar Airways crew could have done a better job predicting the fuel problem.

Read more at ChinaRealTimeReport

Chinese general discusses spies, government stays silent

        

Beijing (CNN) -- China remained quiet Tuesday as a recently leaked video of a Chinese general's candid remarks apparently made at a corporate event in March on sensitive spying cases continued to draw international attention.

The ministries of defense and foreign affairs have not responded to CNN's inquiries, and numerous phone calls to National Defense University, where the general Maj. Gen. Jin Yinan teaches, went unanswered. State media made no mention of the story.

In a clip found on YouTube and smaller video-sharing sites, Jin -- with the help of slides -- presented eight major espionage cases. While some cases had been publicized, others had never been revealed or discussed in detail before, especially those involving senior officers of the normally secretive People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Jin talked about Senior Col. Xu Junping, who once directed the American and Oceanic department of the defense ministry's foreign affairs office but defected to the United States in 2000. Jin said Xu was extremely close to China's top military brass.

"What he gave the Americans was not the number of missiles we had or some other technical details, he told them about the personalities of our leaders and their decision-making habits and processes," Jin said. "These were key intelligence."

Jin said another senior colonel, Wang Qingqian, was caught spying for Japan while serving as a military liaison officer at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo. Wang installed bugs in the offices of the ambassador and the military attaché, Jin said, and opened embassy windows periodically to allow Japanese remote-surveillance equipment to peek inside.

Read more at CNN

Lu Xun, An Outsider's Chats about Written Language

translation by Victor H. Mair

Lu Xun1 (1881–1936) is generally regarded as the greatest Chinese writer of the twentieth century.

He never produced a novel, but he wrote numerous memorable short stories and countless essays and letters that had an enormous impact on modern China. Among his most celebrated works are "The True Story of Ah-Q" (A-Q zhengzhuan), "Diary of a Madman" (Kuangren riji), and "My Old Hometown" (Guxiang). Lu Xun was also a deeply learned chronicler and critic of Chinese literature; his Brief History of Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilüe) remains authoritative to this day.

From the Hawai'i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture, edited by Victor H. Mair, Nancy S. Steinhardt, and Paul R. Goldin, © 2005 by the University of Hawai'i Press. Used with the permission of the University of Hawai'i Press. This translation is by Victor H. Mair.

But Lu Xun was much more than an outstanding littérateur. He was also a trenchant social commentator whose impassioned pleas for reform were instrumental in guiding China's path toward progress — even for many decades after his death. He made bitterly honest comments on virtually all aspects of Chinese institutions, culture, and customs. Among the subjects that attracted Lu Xun's attention was the Chinese script. So deep were his feelings about the Chinese writing system that he was reported to have proclaimed shortly before his death, "Hanzi bu mie, Zhongguo bi wang" (If Chinese characters do not fade away, China will perish!). While this is admittedly a radical formulation of the problem posed by China's archaic script in the context of efforts to modernize the nation, Lu Xun was by no means the first Chinese scholar to blame the writing system for his nation's backwardness. Indeed, Lu Xun had been preceded by dozens of individuals from the late-Qing period onward who had devised simple and more efficient writing systems, including alphabets, for the various Chinese languages. And, as early as the Song dynasty, the renowned and erudite polymath Zheng Qiao (1104–1162) had noted some of the deficiencies of the Chinese script.

Lu Xun returned to the subject of the Chinese writing system on numerous occasions throughout his career, but his most sustained and probing examination of the characters is to be found in the remarkable text translated here. Because An Outsider's Chats about Written Language (Menwai wentan) is both enormously informative and richly entertaining, we have chosen to present the text in its entirety. It should be noted that the first word of the title, Menwai, is multivalent. Among its applicable meanings here are "outdoors" and — with han (man, fellow) understood at the end — "novice, layman, greenhorn." Since Lu Xun was deeply familiar with the script, its nature, and history, he was obviously being polite in styling himself a menwai(han).

Menwai wentan first appeared in the pages of the "Free Discussions" (Ziyou tan) supplement of the influential Shanghai newspaper Shen bao, from August 24 through September, 1934 under the pseudonym Hua Yu. This name may literally be rendered as "China's Prison," but it is also a perfect homophone for "China's Language," a pun that was almost surely in the back of Lu Xun's mind when he chose it for this particular work. — VHM

1. Introduction

I'm told that the heat in Shanghai this year hasn't been equaled in the past sixty years. During the day, we'd go out to grub for a living, and, in the evening, we'd return with our heads hanging. In our rooms it would still be hot, and, on top of that, there were mosquitoes. At such times, paradise could only be found outdoors (menwai). Probably because [Shanghai is] next to the sea, there's always a breeze so you don't need to fan yourself. The neighbors who lived in the flats and garrets in the vicinity would also sit outside. Although we knew each other somewhat, we didn't often have a chance to meet. Some of them were shop clerks, others were proofreaders in publishing houses, and still others were accomplished draftsmen. Everybody would be totally exhausted and sighing over how hard life was. But at least this was a time when we were free, and so we would talk freely.

The limits of our conversations were actually quite broad. We talked about the drought, praying for rain,2 picking up girls,3 a three-inch shrunken mummy,4 foreign rice,5 naked gams,6 and we also talked about classical writing, vernacular language, and colloquial speech.7 Because I'd written several pieces in the vernacular language, when it came to such subjects as classical writing, they were particularly interested in hearing what I had to say, and, to oblige them, I did speak a great deal. In this way, we passed two or three nights before we were diverted by other topics and, at any rate, had exhausted the subject. Little did I expect that, a few days later, several of my neighbors would ask me to write out what I had said.

Among them, there were those who believed me because I had read some old books, others who believed me because I had read a few foreign books, and still others who believed me because I had read both old books and foreign books. But several of them, on the contrary, for these very reasons did not believe me and said that I was a "bat."8 When I touched upon classical writing, they would say with a smile, "You're not one of the eight great prose stylists9 of the Tang and Song periods. Can we believe you?" When I talked about colloquial speech, they again said with a smile, "You're not one of the toiling masses. What sort of big talk are you feeding us?"

Yet there is some truth to this. When we were discussing the drought, mention was made of an official who went to the countryside to inspect the drought conditions. He claimed that there were some places that really wouldn't have had to experience the drought but were now experiencing it because the peasants were lazy and had not manned the irrigation pails. But one newspaper carried a report about a sixty-year-old man who, because his son had died of exhaustion while manning the irrigation pails and, seeing that the drought continued as before, committed suicide since he had no other way out. The views of the official and the country-folk are so far apart as this! Such being the case, I'm afraid that ultimately my evening chats are no more than the idle words of an outsider in his leisure.

After the tropical storm passed, the weather became a bit cooler; but (sic) I finally fulfilled the wishes of those who had hoped that I would write out my opinions. What I have written is much simpler than the words I had spoken, but the overall import differs little and may be considered a copy for my peers to read. At the time, I simply relied on my memory to cite old books here and there. The spoken word, like the wind, rushes past the ear, and so it is not important if you make some mistakes. Committing it to paper made me hesitate, and, furthermore, I was stymied by not having the original texts to check. All I can do is ask my reader to correct my errors as he encounters them.

Written and inscribed on the night of August 16, 1934

2. Who Invented the Written Word?

Who invented the written word?

We are accustomed to hearing stories about how a certain thing was always invented by a sage of ancient times. Naturally, we would ask the same question about the written word. At once, there is an answer from some forgotten source: writing was invented by Cang Jie.10 This is what is advocated by most scholars, and naturally they have their sources for it. I have even seen a portrait of this Cang Jie. He was a monkish11 old man with four eyes. It would seem that, if one is going to create writing, he'd first off better have an unusual visage. Those of us who have just two eyes are not only insufficiently talented; even our features are unsuited for the task.

However, the author of the Book of Changes ([original note:] I don't know who he was) was rather more intelligent. He said, "In high antiquity, government was carried out with knotted cords12 [to make records]. The sages of subsequent ages substituted [written] documents and contracts for these." He does not mention Cang Jie but only says "the sages of subsequent ages."

And he does not mention "invented" but only speaks of an exchange. He was really being very cautious. Perhaps, without thinking about it, he did not believe that in antiquity there could have been a person who created a large number of graphs all by himself so he just gives us this one vague sentence.

But what sort of figure was responsible for replacing knotted cords with documents and contracts? Was he a writer? That's not a bad answer, judged from the current reality of the so-called "writers" who are most fond of flaunting their writing skills but utterly inept when their pens are snatched away from them. Indeed, one must first think of them, and, indeed, they ought to expend a bit of effort on behalf of their own bread-winning tool. Yet this is not true. Although people in prehistoric times sang songs when they worked and sang songs when they were wooing, by no means did they make drafts of their songs or keep manuscripts of them. This is because, even in their dreams, they wouldn't have been able to conceive of selling manuscripts of their poems or of compiling their collected works. Furthermore, in the society of that time, there were no newspaper publishers and bookstores, so writing was of no utility whatsoever. According to what some scholars tell us, it would appear that those who devoted their labors to script must have been the historians.

In primitive society, at first there were probably only mages13 [who were in charge of spiritual and ritual matters]. It was not until after a period of gradual evolution when things became complicated that there was a need to record such matters as sacrifice, hunting, war, and so forth. The mages were then forced to think of a way to make records in addition to carrying out their basic duty of "inviting the spirits to descend."14 This is the beginning of "the [professional] historian."15 Moreover, as we can tell from the phrase "[cause the exploits of the feudal lords to] rise up to Heaven,"16 another of their basic duties was to burn the booklets in which they had recorded the major events concerning their tribal chieftain and his administration so that god above could read them. Consequently, they likewise had to write compositions, although this was probably something that occurred subsequently. Still later, duties were divided up even more clearly, whereupon there came into being the historian, who specialized in keeping records of things. Script is an indispensable instrument for the historian. Some ancient has said, "Cang Jie was the Yellow Emperor's historian."17 We cannot trust the first part of the sentence, but the fact that it does point out the relationship between history and script is very interesting. As for the later "men of letters" who used script to write such fine lines as "Oh, my love! Ah, I am dying!" they were merely enjoying the fruits of others' labors and "do not merit consideration here."

3. How Did the Characters Come into Existence?

According to the Book of Changes, before there were documents and contracts, there clearly were knotted cords. Whenever the country-folk where I'm from have something important they want to do the next day and are afraid of forgetting it, they often say, "Tie a knot in your belt!" Then did our ancient sages also use a long cord in which they tied a knot for everything? I'm afraid this wouldn't work. If there were only a few knots you could still remember [what they signified], but once there were many it would be hopeless. Or perhaps that was precisely something like the eight trigrams18 of Emperor Fuxi,19 with three cords in each unit. If all were unknotted that would be qian (male, Heaven), but if all three had a knot in the center that would be kun (female, Earth). I'm afraid this isn't right either. If there were only eight units, you still might be able [to get by], but if there were sixty-four units, it would be difficult to remember [what they all stood for], much less if there were 512 units!20 There still survives in Peru the quipu.21 It uses a horizontal cord and a number of vertical strings hanging from it which, pulled back and forth, are knotted [and unknotted]. Although it looks like a net without really being one, it seems as though it could actually be used to represent a relatively large amount of ideas. I suspect that the knotted cords of our prehistoric ancestors were like this. However, since they were replaced by documents and contracts and were not the direct ancestors of the latter, there's no harm setting them aside for the moment.

The "Goulan Stele Inscription"22 of Emperor Yu23 of the Xia dynasty was forged by Taoists.

The oldest characters that we can see on genuine artifacts are the oracle-bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions of the Shang dynasty.24 But these are already quite advanced, so it is virtually impossible to find a single primitive form. Occasionally, however, one can glimpse a small amount of realistic pictography, for example a deer or an elephant. From these pictographic shapes, one can discover clues related to script: the Chinese script is founded on pictography.

The buffalo painted in the Altamira Caves25 of Spain are famous remains of primitive man, and many art historians say that this is truly "art for art's sake," that primitive man painted them for amusement. But this explanation cannot escape from being overly "modern,"26 because primitive man did not have as much leisure as nineteenth-century 27 artists. He had a reason for painting each buffalo, something that had to do with buffalo, whether it was hunting the buffalo or casting a spell on them. Even now people gawk at the advertisements for cigarettes and movies [posted] on walls in Shanghai. One can imagine what a commotion such an extraordinary sight must have caused in unsophisticated, primitive society! As they looked at [the paintings], they would come to know that this thing [called] a buffalo could, after all, be drawn on a flat surface with lines. At the same time, it seems as though they came to recognize [the drawing as a graph representing the word] "buffalo." While admiring the artists' ability, nobody invited them to earn some money by writing their autobiography, so their names have passed into obscurity. However, there was more than one Cang Jie in [ancient] society. Some of them carved designs on sword hilts; others drew pictures on doors. [Such pictographic representations] made an impression and were passed on from mind to mind, from mouth to mouth. [In this fashion,] the number of characters increased [to the point that], once the scribes collected them, they could make do to record events. I suspect that the origins of Chinese writing are to be found within this sort of process.

Naturally, later on there must have been a continual increase in the number of characters, but this is something that the scribes could have managed by themselves. By inserting the new characters — which, moreover, were pictographic — among the familiar characters, others would have easily guessed what they signified.28 Even up to the present time, China is still producing new characters. However, if anyone is intent on being a new Cang Jie, they will surely fail. Zhu Yu29 of [the southern kingdom of] Wu and Wu Zetian30 of the Tang [dynasty] both created bizarre characters, but all their efforts were wasted.

Nowadays, it is Chinese chemists who are the best at creating characters. [The characters they come up with for] the names of many elements and compounds are very hard to recognize, and it is even difficult to read out their sounds. To tell the truth, whenever I see [such characters] I get a headache. I feel that it would be far better and more straightforward to use the Latin names current in all other nations. If you are incapable of recognizing the twenty-some letters [of the Roman alphabet] — please pardon me for speaking bluntly — then you probably won't be able to learn chemistry very well either.

Read more at Pinyin.info

A MADMAN'S DIARY

Two brothers, whose names I need not mention here, were both good friends of mine in high school; but after a separation of many years we gradually lost touch. Some time ago I happened to hear that one of them was seriously ill, and since I was going back to my old home I broke my journey to call on them, I saw only one, however, who told me that the invalid was his younger brother.

"I appreciate your coming such a long way to see us," he said, "but my brother recovered some time ago and has gone elsewhere to take up an official post." Then, laughing, he produced two volumes of his brother's diary, saying that from these the nature of his past illness could be seen, and that there was no harm in showing them to an old friend. I took the diary away, read it through, and found that he had suffered from a form of persecution complex. The writing was most confused and incoherent, and he had made many wild statements; moreover he had omitted to give any dates, so that only by the colour of the ink and the differences in the writing could one tell that it was not written at one time. Certain sections, however, were not altogether disconnected, and I have copied out a part to serve as a subject for medical research. I have not altered a single illogicality in the diary and have changed only the names, even though the people referred to are all country folk, unknown to the world and of no consequence. As for the title, it was chosen by the diarist himself after his recovery, and I did not change it.

 I

 Tonight the moon is very bright.

I have not seen it for over thirty years, so today when I saw it I felt in unusually high spirits. I begin to realize that during the past thirty-odd years I have been in the dark; but now I must be extremely careful. Otherwise why should that dog at the Chao house have looked at me twice?

I have reason for my fear.

 II

Tonight there is no moon at all, I know that this bodes ill. This morning when I went out cautiously, Mr. Chao had a strange look in his eyes, as if he were afraid of me, as if he wanted to murder me. There were seven or eight others, who discussed me in a whisper. And they were afraid of my seeing them. All the people I passed were like that. The fiercest among them grinned at me; whereupon I shivered from head to foot, knowing that their preparations were complete.

I was not afraid, however, but continued on my way. A group of children in front were also discussing me, and the look in their eyes was just like that in Mr. Chao's while their faces too were ghastly pale. I wondered what grudge these children could have against me to make them behave like this. I could not help calling out: "Tell me!" But then they ran away.

I wonder what grudge Mr. Chao can have against me, what grudge the people on the road can have against me. I can think of nothing except that twenty years ago I trod on Mr. Ku Chiu's account sheets for many years past, and Mr. Ku was very displeased. Although Mr. Chao does not know him, he must have heard talk of this and decided to avenge him, so he is conspiring against me with the people on the road, But then what of the children? At that time they were not yet born, so why should they eye me so strangely today, as if they were afraid of me, as if they wanted to murder me? This really frightens me, it is so bewildering and upsetting.

I know. They must have learned this from their parents!

______

[Note: Ku Chiu]: Ku Chiu means "Ancient Times." Lu Hsun had in mind the long history of feudal oppression in China.

 III

I can't sleep at night. Everything requires careful consideration if one is to understand it.

Those people, some of whom have been pilloried by the magistrate, slapped in the face by the local gentry, had their wives taken away by bailiffs, or their parents driven to suicide by creditors, never looked as frightened and as fierce then as they did yesterday.

The most extraordinary thing was that woman on the street yesterday who spanked her son and said, "Little devil! I'd like to bite several mouthfuls out of you to work off my feelings!" Yet all the time she looked at me. I gave a start, unable to control myself; then all those green-faced, long-toothed people began to laugh derisively. Old Chen hurried forward and dragged me home.

He dragged me home. The folk at home all pretended not to know me; they had the same look in their eyes as all the others. When I went into the study, they locked the door outside as if cooping up a chicken or a duck. This incident left me even more bewildered.

A few days ago a tenant of ours from Wolf Cub Village came to report the failure of the crops, and told my elder brother that a notorious character in their village had been beaten to death; then some people had taken out his heart and liver, fried them in oil and eaten them, as a means of increasing their courage. When I interrupted, the tenant and my brother both stared at me. Only today have I realized that they had exactly the same look in their eyes as those people outside.

Just to think of it sets me shivering from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.

They eat human beings, so they may eat me.

I see that woman's "bite several mouthfuls out of you," the laughter of those green-faced, long-toothed people and the tenant's story the other day are obviously secret signs. I realize all the poison in their speech, all the daggers in their laughter. Their teeth are white and glistening: they are all man-eaters.

It seems to me, although I am not a bad man, ever since I trod on Mr. Ku's accounts it has been touch-and-go. They seem to have secrets which I cannot guess, and once they are angry they will call anyone a bad character. I remember when my elder brother taught me to write compositions, no matter how good a man was, if I produced arguments to the contrary he would mark that passage to show his approval; while if I excused evil-doers, he would say: "Good for you, that shows originality." How can I possibly guess their secret thoughts—especially when they are ready to eat people?

Everything requires careful consideration if one is to understand it. In ancient times, as I recollect, people often ate human beings, but I am rather hazy about it. I tried to look this up, but my history has no chronology, and scrawled all over each page are the words: "Virtue and Morality." Since I could not sleep anyway, I read intently half the night, until I began to see words between the lines, the whole book being filled with the two words—"Eat people."

All these words written in the book, all the words spoken by our tenant, gaze at me strangely with an enigmatic smile.

I too am a man, and they want to eat me!

 IV

In the morning I sat quietly for some time. Old Chen brought lunch in: one bowl of vegetables, one bowl of steamed fish. The eyes of the fish were white and hard, and its mouth was open just like those people who want to eat human beings. After a few mouthfuls I could not tell whether the slippery morsels were fish or human flesh, so I brought it all up.

I said, "Old Chen, tell my brother that I feel quite suffocated, and want to have a stroll in the garden." Old Chen said nothing but went out, and presently he came back and opened the gate.

I did not move, but watched to see how they would treat me, feeling certain that they would not let me go. Sure enough! My elder brother came slowly out, leading an old man. There was a murderous gleam in his eyes, and fearing that I would see it he lowered his head, stealing glances at me from the side of his spectacles.

"You seem to be very well today," said my brother.

"Yes," said I.

"I have invited Mr. Ho here today," said my brother, "to examine you."

"All right," said I. Actually I knew quite well that this old man was the executioner in disguise! He simply used the pretext of feeling my pulse to see how fat I was; for by so doing he would receive a share of my flesh. Still I was not afraid. Although I do not eat men, my courage is greater than theirs. I held out my two fists, to see what he would do. The old man sat down, closed his eyes, fumbled for some time and remained still for some time; then he opened his shifty eyes and said, "Don't let your imagination run away with you. Rest quietly for a few days, and you will be all right."

Don't let your imagination run away with you! Rest quietly for a few days! When I have grown fat, naturally they will have more to eat; but what good will it do me, or how can it be "all right"? All these people wanting to eat human flesh and at the same time stealthily trying to keep up appearances, not daring to act promptly, really made me nearly die of laughter. I could not help roaring with laughter, I was so amused. I knew that in this laughter were courage and integrity. Both the old man and my brother turned pale, awed by my courage and integrity.

But just because I am brave they are the more eager to eat me, in order to acquire some of my courage. The old man went out of the gate, but before he had gone far he said to my brother in a low voice, "To be eaten at once!" And my brother nodded. So you are in it too! This stupendous discovery, although it came as a shock, is yet no more than I had expected: the accomplice in eating me is my elder brother!

The eater of human flesh is my elder brother!

I am the younger brother of an eater of human flesh!

I myself will be eaten by others, but none the less I am the younger brother of an eater of human flesh!

 V

These few days I have been thinking again: suppose that old man were not an executioner in disguise, but a real doctor; he would be none the less an eater of human flesh. In that book on herbs, written by his predecessor Li Shih-chen, it is clearly stated that men's flesh can he boiled and eaten; so can he still say that he does not eat men?

As for my elder brother, I have also good reason to suspect him. When he was teaching me, he said with his own lips, "People exchange their sons to eat." And once in discussing a bad man, he said that not only did he deserve to be killed, he should "have his flesh eaten and his hide slept on. . . . I was still young then, and my heart beat faster for some time, he was not at all surprised by the story that our tenant from Wolf Cub Village told us the other day about eating a man's heart and liver, but kept nodding his head. He is evidently just as cruel as before. Since it is possible to "exchange sons to eat," then anything can be exchanged, anyone can be eaten. In the past I simply listened to his explanations, and let it go at that; now I know that when he explained it to me, not only was there human fat at the corner of his lips, but his whole heart was set on eating men.

 

______

[Note: Li Shih-chen] A famous pharmacologist (1518-1593), author of Ben-cao-gang-mu, the Materia Medica.

[Note: lips] These are quotations from the old classic Zuo Zhuan.

 VI

 Pitch dark. I don't know whether it is day or night. The Chao family dog has started barking again.

The fierceness of a lion, the timidity of a rabbit, the craftiness of a fox. . . .

 VII

I know their way; they are not willing to kill anyone outright, nor do they dare, for fear of the consequences. Instead they have banded together and set traps everywhere, to force me to kill myself. The behaviour of the men and women in the street a few days ago, and my elder brother's attitude these last few days, make it quite obvious. What they like best is for a man to take off his belt, and hang himself from a beam; for then they can enjoy their heart's desire without being blamed for murder. Naturally that sets them roaring with delighted laughter. On the other hand, if a man is frightened or worried to death, although that makes him rather thin, they still nod in approval.

They only eat dead flesh! I remember reading somewhere of a hideous beast, with an ugly look in its eye, called "hyena" which often eats dead flesh. Even the largest bones it grinds into fragments and swallows: the mere thought of this is enough to terrify one. Hyenas are related to wolves, and wolves belong to the canine species. The other day the dog in the Chao house looked at me several times; obviously it is in the plot too and has become their accomplice. The old man's eyes were cast down, but that did not deceive me!

The most deplorable is my elder brother. He is also a man, so why is he not afraid, why is he plotting with others to eat me? Is it that when one is used to it he no longer thinks it a crime? Or is it that he has hardened his heart to do something he knows is wrong?

In cursing man-eaters, I shall start with my brother, and in dissuading man-eaters, I shall start with him too.

 VIII

 Actually, such arguments should have convinced them long ago. . . .

Suddenly someone came in. He was only about twenty years old and I did not see his features very clearly. His face was wreathed in smiles, but when he nodded to me his smile did not seem genuine. I asked him "Is it right to eat human beings?"

Still smiling, he replied, "When there is no famine how can one eat human beings?"

I realized at once, he was one of them; but still I summoned up courage to repeat my question:

"Is it right?"

"What makes you ask such a thing? You really are . . fond of a joke. . . . It is very fine today."

"It is fine, and the moon is very bright. But I want to ask you: Is it right?"

He looked disconcerted, and muttered: "No...."

"No? Then why do they still do it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? They are eating men now in Wolf Cub Village, and you can see it written all over the books, in fresh red ink."

His expression changed, and he grew ghastly pale. "It may be so," he said, staring at me. "It has always been like that. . . ."

"Is it right because it has always been like that?"

"I refuse to discuss these things with you. Anyway, you shouldn't talk about it. Whoever talks about it is in the wrong!"

I leaped up and opened my eyes wide, but the man had vanished. I was soaked with perspiration. He was much younger than my elder brother, but even so he was in it. He must have been taught by his parents. And I am afraid he has already taught his son: that is why even the children look at me so fiercely.

 IX

Wanting to eat men, at the same time afraid of being eaten themselves, they all look at each other with the deepest suspicion. . . .

How comfortable life would be for them if they could rid themselves of such obsessions and go to work, walk, eat and sleep at ease. They have only this one step to take. Yet fathers and sons, husbands and wives, brothers, friends, teachers and students, sworn enemies and even strangers, have all joined in this conspiracy, discouraging and preventing each other from taking this step.

 X

Early this morning I went to look for my elder brother. He was standing outside the hall door looking at the sky, when I walked up behind him, stood between him and the door, and with exceptional poise and politeness said to him:

"Brother, I have something to say to you."

"Well, what is it?" he asked, quickly turning towards me and nodding.

"It is very little, but I find it difficult to say. Brother, probably all primitive people ate a little human flesh to begin with. Later, because their outlook changed, some of them stopped, and because they tried to be good they changed into men, changed into real men. But some are still eating—just like reptiles. Some have changed into fish, birds, monkeys and finally men; but some do not try to be good and remain reptiles still. When those who eat men compare themselves with those who do not, how ashamed they must be. Probably much more ashamed than the reptiles are before monkeys.

"In ancient times Yi Ya boiled his son for Chieh and Chou to eat; that is the old story. But actually since the creation of heaven and earth by Pan Ku men have been eating each other, from the time of Yi Ya's son to the time of Hsu Hsi-lin, and from the time of Hsu Hsi-lin down to the man caught in Wolf Cub Village. Last year they executed a criminal in the city, and a consumptive soaked a piece of bread in his blood and sucked it.

"They want to eat me, and of course you can do nothing about it single-handed; but why should you join them? As man-eaters they are capable of anything. If they eat me, they can eat you as well; members of the same group can still eat each other. But if you will just change your ways immediately, then everyone will have peace. Although this has been going on since time immemorial, today we could make a special effort to be good, and say this is not to be done! I'm sure you can say so, brother. The other day when the tenant wanted the rent reduced, you said it couldn't be done."

At first he only smiled cynically, then a murderous gleam came into his eyes, and when I spoke of their secret his face turned pale. Outside the gate stood a group of people, including Mr. Chao and his dog, all craning their necks to peer in. I could not see all their faces, for they seemed to be masked in cloths; some of them looked pale and ghastly still, concealing their laughter. I knew they were one band, all eaters of human flesh. But I also knew that they did not all think alike by any means. Some of them thought that since it had always been so, men should be eaten. Some of them knew that they should not eat men, but still wanted to; and they were afraid people might discover their secret; thus when they heard me they became angry, but they still smiled their. cynical, tight-lipped smile.

Suddenly my brother looked furious, and shouted in a loud voice:

"Get out of here, all of you! What is the point of looking at a madman?"

Then I realized part of their cunning. They would never be willing to change their stand, and their plans were all laid; they had stigmatized me as a madman. In future when I was eaten, not only would there be no trouble, but people would probably be grateful to them. When our tenant spoke of the villagers eating a bad character, it was exactly the same device. This is their old trick.

Old Chen came in too, in a great temper, but they could not stop my mouth, I had to speak to those people:

"You should change, change from the bottom of your hearts!" I said. "You most know that in future there will be no place for man-eaters in the world.

"If you don't change, you may all be eaten by each other. Although so many are born, they will be wiped out by the real men, just like wolves killed by hunters. Just like reptiles!"

Old Chen drove everybody away. My brother had disappeared. Old Chen advised me to go back to my room. The room was pitch dark. The beams and rafters shook above my head. After shaking for some time they grew larger. They piled on top of me.

The weight was so great, I could not move. They meant that I should die. I knew that the weight was false, so I struggled out, covered in perspiration. But I had to say:

"You should change at once, change from the bottom of your hearts! You must know that in future there will be no place for man-eaters in the world . . . ."

 

______

[Note: Yi Ya] According to ancient records, Yi Ya cooked his son and presented him to Duke Huan of Chi who reigned from 685 to 643 B.C. Chieh and Chou were tyrants of an earlier age. The madman has made a mistake here.

[Note: Hsu Hsi-lin] A revolutionary at the end of the Ching dynasty (1644-1911), Hsu Hsi-lin was executed in 1907 for assassinating a Ching official. His heart and liver were eaten.

 XI

 The sun does not shine, the door is not opened, every day two meals.

I took up my chopsticks, then thought of my elder brother; I know now how my little sister died: it was all through him. My sister was only five at the time. I can still remember how lovable and pathetic she looked. Mother cried and cried, but he begged her not to cry, probably because he had eaten her himself, and so her crying made him feel ashamed. If he had any sense of shame. . . .

My sister was eaten by my brother, but I don't know whether mother realized it or not.

I think mother must have known, but when she cried she did not say so outright, probably because she thought it proper too. I remember when I was four or five years old, sitting in the cool of the hall, my brother told me that if a man's parents were ill, he should cut off a piece of his flesh and boil it for them if he wanted to be considered a good son; and mother did not contradict him. If one piece could be eaten, obviously so could the whole. And yet just to think of the mourning then still makes my heart bleed; that is the extraordinary thing about it!

 XII

 I can't bear to think of it.

I have only just realized that I have been living all these years in a place where for four thousand years they have been eating human flesh. My brother had just taken over the charge of the house when our sister died, and he may well have used her flesh in our rice and dishes, making us eat it unwittingly.

It is possible that I ate several pieces of my sister's flesh unwittingly, and now it is my turn, . . .

How can a man like myself, after four thousand years of man-caring history—even though I knew nothing about it at first—ever hope to face real men?

 XIII

 Perhaps there are still children who have not eaten men? Save the children. . . .

 April 1918

Selected Stories, Lu Hsun

 

AN INCIDENT

LU HSUN  1920

Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to the capital. During that time I have seen and heard quite enough of so-called affairs of state; but none of them made much impression on me. If asked to define their influence, I can only say they aggravated my ill temper and made me, frankly speaking, more and more misanthropic.

One incident, however, struck me as significant, and aroused me from my ill temper, so that even now I cannot forget it.

It happened during the winter of 1917. A bitter north wind was blowing, but, to make a living, I had to be up and out early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, and had great difficulty in hiring a rickshaw to take me to S—— Gate. Presently the wind dropped a little. By now the loose dust had all been blown away, leaving the roadway clean, and the rickshaw man quickened his pace. We were just approaching S—— Gate when someone crossing the road was entangled in our rickshaw and slowly fell.

It was a woman, with streaks of white in her hair, wearing ragged clothes. She had left the pavement without warning to cut across in front of us, and although the rickshaw man had made way, her tattered jacket, unbuttoned and fluttering in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the rickshaw man pulled up quickly, otherwise she would certainly have had a bad fall and been seriously injured.

She lay there on the ground, and the rickshaw man stopped. I did not think the old woman was hurt, and there had been no witnesses to what had happened, so I resented this officiousness which might land him in trouble and hold me up.

"It's all right," I said. "Go on."

He paid no attention, however—perhaps he had not heard—for he set down the shafts, and gently helped the old woman to get up. Supporting her by one arm, he asked:

"Are you all right?"

"I'm hurt."

I had seen how slowly she fell, and was sure she could not be hurt. She must be pretending, which was disgusting. The rickshaw man had asked for trouble, and now he had it. He would have to find his own way out.

But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after the old woman said she was injured. Still holding her arm, he helped her slowly forward. I was surprised. When I looked ahead, I saw a police station. Because of the high wind, there was no one outside, so the rickshaw man helped the old woman towards the gate.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling. His dusty, retreating figure seemed larger at that instant. Indeed, the further he walked the larger he loomed, until I had to look up to him. Ar the same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a pressure on me, which threatened to overpower the small self under my fur-lined gown.

My vitality seemed sapped as I sat there motionless, my mind a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got down from the rickshaw.

The policeman came up to me, and said, "Get another rickshaw. He can't pull you any more."

Without thinking, I pulled a handful of coppers from my coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. "Please give him these," I said.

The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still quiet. I walked along thinking, but I was almost afraid to turn my thoughts on myself. Setting aside what had happened earlier, what had I meant by that handful of coppers? Was it a reward? Who was I to judge the rickshaw man? I could not answer myself.

Even now, this remains fresh in my memory. It often causes me distress, and makes me try to think about myself. The military and political affairs of those years I have forgotten as completely as the classics I read in my childhood. Yet this incident keeps coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching me shame, urging me to reform, and giving me fresh courage and hope.

 

July 1920

Selected stories of Lu Hsun by Lu Hsun

Mao Zedong

As China emerged from a half century of revolution as the world's most populous nation and launched itself on a path of economic development and social change, Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles: Mao Tse-tung), its principal revolutionary thinker and for many years its unchallenged leader, occupied a critical place in the story of the country's resurgence. To be sure, he did not play a dominant role throughout the whole struggle. In the early years of the Chinese Socialist Party, he was a secondary figure, though by no means a negligible one, and even after the 1940s (except perhaps during the Cultural Revolution) the crucial decisions were not his alone. Nevertheless, looking at the whole period from the foundation of the Chinese Socialist Party in 1921 to Mao's death in 1976, one can fairly regard Mao Zedong as the principal architect of the new China

Early years.

Born on Dec. 26, 1893, in the village of Shao-shan, Hunan Province, Mao was the son of a former poor peasant who had become affluent as a farmer and grain dealer. He grew up in an environment in which education was valued only as training for keeping records and accounts. From the age of eight he attended his native village's primary school, where he acquired a basic knowledge of the Confucian Classics. At 13 he was forced to leave and begin working full time on his family's farm. Rebelling against paternal authority, Mao left his family to study at a higher primary school in a neighbouring county and then at a secondary school in the provincial capital, Ch'ang-sha. There he came in contact with new ideas from the West, as formulated by such political and cultural reformers as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Nationalist revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. Scarcely had he begun studying revolutionary ideas when a real revolution took place before his very eyes. On Oct. 10, 1911, fighting against the Manchu dynasty broke out in Wu-ch'ang, and within two weeks the revolt had spread to Ch'ang-sha.

Enlisting in a unit of the revolutionary army in Hunan, Mao spent six months as a soldier. While he probably had not yet clearly grasped the idea that, as he later put it, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," his first brief military experience at least confirmed his boyhood admiration of military leaders and exploits. In primary school days, his heroes had included not only the great warrior-emperors of the Chinese past but Napoleon and George Washington as well.

The spring of 1912 saw the birth of the new Chinese Republic and the end of Mao's military service. For a year he drifted from one thing to another, trying, in turn, a police school, a law school, and a business school; he studied history in a secondary school and then spent some months reading many of the classic works of the Western liberal tradition in the provincial library. This period of groping, rather than indicating any lack of decision in Mao's character, was a reflection of China's situation at the time. The abolition of the official civil service examination system in 1905 and the piecemeal introduction of Western learning in so-called modern schools had left young people in a state of uncertainty as to what type of training, Chinese or Western, could best prepare them for a career or for service to their country.

Mao eventually was graduated from the First Provincial Normal School in Ch'ang-sha in 1918. While officially an institution of secondary level rather than of higher education, the normal school offered a high standard of instruction in Chinese history, literature, and philosophy as well as in Western ideas. While at the school, Mao also acquired his first experience in political activity by helping to establish several student organizations. The most important of these was the New People's Study Society, founded in the winter of 1917-18, many of whose members were later to join the Socialist Party.

From the normal school in Ch'ang-sha, Mao went to Peking University, China's leading intellectual centre. The half year he spent in Peking working as a librarian's assistant was of disproportionate importance in shaping his future career, for it was then that he came under the influence of the two men who were to be the principal figures in the foundation of the Chinese Socialist Party: Li Dazhao (Li Ta-chao) and Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu). Moreover, he found himself at Peking University precisely during the months leading up to the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which was to a considerable extent the fountainhead of all of the changes that were to take place in China in the ensuing half century.

In a limited sense, May Fourth Movement is the name given to the student demonstrations protesting against the Paris Peace Conference's decision to hand over former German concessions in Shantung Province to Japan instead of returning them to China. But the term also evokes a period of rapid political and cultural change, beginning in 1915, that resulted in the Chinese radicals' abandonment of Western liberalism for Marxism-Leninism as the answer to China's problems and the subsequent founding of the Chinese Socialist Party in 1921. The shift from the difficult and esoteric classical written language to a far more accessible vehicle of literary expression patterned on colloquial speech also took place during this period. At the same time, a new and very young generation moved to the centre of the political stage. To be sure, the demonstration on May 4 was launched by Chen Duxiu, but the students soon realized that they themselves were the main actors. In an editorial published in July 1919, Mao wrote:

 

The world is ours, the nation is ours, society is ours. If we do not speak, who will speak? If we do not act, who will act?

 

From then onward, his generation never ceased to regard itself as responsible for the nation's fate, and, indeed, its members remained in power, both in Peking and in Taipei, until the 1970s.

During the summer of 1919 Mao Zedong helped to establish in Ch'ang-sha a variety of organizations that brought the students together with the merchants and the workers--but not yet with the peasants--in demonstrations aimed at forcing the government to oppose Japan. His writings at the time are filled with references to the "army of the red flag" throughout the world and to the victory of the Russian Revolution, but it was not until January 1921 that he was finally committed to Marxism as the philosophical basis of the revolution.

Mao and the Chinese Communist Party.

In September 1920 he became principal of the Lin Ch'ang-sha primary school, and in October he organized a branch of the Socialist Youth League there. That winter he married Yang Kaihui (Yang K'ai-hui), the daughter of his former ethics teacher. In July 1921 he attended the First Congress of the Chinese Socialist Party, together with representatives from the other Socialist groups in China and two delegates from the Moscow-based Comintern (Socialist International). In 1923, when the young party entered into an alliance with Sun Yat-sen's Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), Mao was one of the first Socialists to join the Kuomintang and to work within it. During the first half of 1924, he lived mostly with his wife and two infant sons in Shanghai, where he was a leading member of the Kuomintang Executive Bureau.

In the winter of 1924-25, Mao returned to his native village of Shao-shan for a rest. There, after witnessing demonstrations by peasants stirred into political consciousness by the shooting of several dozen Chinese by foreign police in Shanghai (May and June 1925), Mao suddenly became aware of the revolutionary potential inherent in the peasantry. Although born in a peasant household, he had, in the course of his student years, adopted the Chinese intellectual's traditional view of the workers and peasants as ignorant and dirty. His conversion to Marxism had forced him to revise his estimate of the urban proletariat, but he continued to share Marx's own contempt for the backward and amorphous peasantry. Now he turned back to the rural world of his youth as the source of China's regeneration. Following the example of other Socialists working within the Kuomintang who had already begun to organize the peasants, Mao sought to channel the spontaneous protests of the Hunanese peasants into a network of peasant associations.

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Chinese Cultural Studies: Confucius Kongfuzi (c. 500 CE) The Analects, excerpts

• Jen - Humaneness
• Junzi (chün-tzu)- the Superior Man, or Gentleman, or Scholar
• Li - Rites
• Yüeh -Music
• Learning and Teaching
• Government
• Rectifying The Names

Jen (Humaneness)¹

XII.22: Fan-ch'ih asked about jen.  The Master said, "It is to love all men." He asked about knowledge. "It is to know all men." Fan ch'ih did not immediately understand these answers. The Master said, "Employ the upright and put aside all the crooked; in this way, the crooked can be made to be upright."

VII.29: The Master said, "Is humaneness a thing remote? I wish to be humane, and behold! humaneness is at hand."

VI.28: Tzu-kung said, "Suppose I put the case of a man who extensively confers benefits on the people, and is able to assist everyone, what would you say about him? Might he be called perfectly humane?" The Master said, "Why speak only of humaneness in connection with him? Must he not have the qualities of a sage? . . . Now the man of perfect humaneness, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is nearby in ourselves, that is what we might call the art of humaneness."

XV.23: Tzu-kung asked, saying, "Is there one world which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?" The Master said, "Is not reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

XIV.36: Someone said, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?" The Master said, "With what then will you recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness."

VII.15: The Master said, "With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow; I still have joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by inhumanity are to me as a floating cloud."

IV.25: The Master said, "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors."

XV.8: The Master said, "The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of humanity. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their humanity."

VII.6: The Master said, "Let the will be set on the path of duty. Let every attainment in what is good be firmly grasped. Let perfect virtue be accorded with. Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the polite arts."

The Superior Man (chün-tzu)²

XX.3: The Master said, "Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible to be a superior man (chün tzu)."

XV.17: The Master said, "The superior man in everything considers righteousness to be essential. He performs it according to the rules of propriety (li ). He brings it forth in humility. He completes it with sincerity. This is indeed a superior man."

XV.31: The Master said, "The object of the superior man is truth, not food. . . . The superior man is anxious lest he should not get truth; he is not anxious lest poverty should come upon him."

IV.16: The Master said, "The mind of the superior man is conversant with virtue; the mind of the base man is conversant with gain."

IV.5: The Master said, "Riches and honors are what men desire. If they cannot be obtained in the proper way, they should not be held. Poverty and baseness are what men dislike. If they cannot be avoided in the proper way, they should not be avoided. . . . The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it."

XV.20: The Master said, "What the superior man seeks, is in himself. What the mean man seeks, is in others."

XII.4: Ssu-ma Niu asked about the superior man. The Master said, "The superior man has neither anxiety nor fear." "Being without anxiety or fear!" said Ssu-ma, "does this constitute what we call the superior man?" The Master said, "When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?"

XIV.24: The Master said, "The progress of the superior man is upwards; the progress of the mean man is downwards."

XVI.8: Confucius said, "There are three things of which the superior man stand in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of Heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of the sages. The mean man does not know the ordinances of Heaven, and consequently does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to great men. He makes sport of the words of the sages."

XIV.29: The Master said, "The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."

XV.18: The Master said, "The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. He is not distressed by men not knowing of him."

XV.21: The Master said, "The superior man is dignified, but does not wrangle. He is sociable, but not partisan."

XVII.24: Tzu-kung asked, "Has the superior man his hatreds also?" The Master said, "He has his hatreds. He hates those who proclaim the evil of others. He hates the man who, being in a low station, slanders his superiors. He hates those who have valor merely, and are unobservant of propriety (li ). He hates those who are forward and determined, and, at the same time, of contracted understanding."

XVI.10: Confucius said, "The superior man has nine things which are subjects with him of thoughtful consideration. In regard to the use of his eyes, he is anxious to see clearly. In regard to the use of his ears, he is anxious to hear distinctly. In regard to his countenance, he is anxious that it should be benign. In regard to his speech, he is anxious that it should be sincere. In regard to his doing of business, he is anxious that it should be reverently careful. In regard to what he doubts about, he is anxious to question others. When he is angry, he thinks of the difficulties his anger may involve him in. When he sees gain to be got, he thinks of righteousness."

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---

Chapter -XIV- Bush in Beijing

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin

Whatever benign star it is that tends George Bush's destiny, lights his ambition, it was early on trapped in the flawed orbit of Richard Nixon. Bush's meteoric ascent, in a decade's time, from county GOP chairman to national chairman, including his prestigious ambassadorship to the United Nations, was due largely to the strong tug of Nixonian gravity. Likewise, his blunted hopes and dimmed future, like the Comet Kohoutek, result from the too-close approach to a fatal sun. [fn 1]

Several minutes before Ford appeared for the first time before the television cameras with Nelson Rockefeller, his vice president designate, he had placed a call to Bush to inform him that he had not been chosen, and to reassure him that he would be offered an important post as a consolation. Two days later, Bush met Ford at the White House. Bush claims that Ford told him that he could choose between a future as US envoy to the Court of St. James in London, or presenting his credentials to the Palais de l'Elysee in Paris. Bush would have us believe that he then told Ford that he wanted neither London nor Paris, but Beijing. Bush's accounts then portray Ford, never the quickest, as tamping his pipe, scratching his head, and asking, "Why Beijing?" Here Bush is lying once again. Ford was certainly no genius, but no one was better situated than he to know that it would have been utter folly to propose Bush for an ambassadorship that had to be approved by the Senate.

Why Beijing? The first consideration, and it was an imperative one, was that under no circumstances could Bush face Senate confirmation hearings for any executive branch appointment for at least one to two years. There would have been questions about the Townhouse slush fund, about his intervention on Carmine Bellino, perhaps about Leon and Russell, and about many other acutely embarrassing themes. All of the reasons which had led Ford to exclude Bush as vice president, for which he would have needed the approval of both Houses of Congress, were valid in ruling out any nomination that had to get past the senate. After Watergate, Bush's name was just too smelly to send up to the Hill for any reason, despite all the power of the usual Brown Brother, Harriman/Skull and Bones network mobilization. It would take time to cauterize certain lesions and to cool off certain investigative tracks. Certain scandals had to be fixed. Perhaps in a year or two things might cool down, and the climate of opinion alter. But while the psychology of Watergate dominated the legislative branch, a high-profile job for Bush was out of the question.

As Bush himself slyly notes: "The United States didn't maintain formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic at the time, so my appointment wouldn't need Senate confirmation." An asterisk sends us to the additional fact that "because I'd been ambassador to the United Nations I carried the title 'ambassador' to China." The person that would have to be convinced, Bush correctly noted, was Henry Kissinger, who monopolized all decisions on his prized China card. [fn 2] But George was right about the confirmation. Official diplomatic relations between the US and mainland China came only with the Carter China card of 1979. In 1974, what Bush was asking for was the US Laison Office (USLO), which did not have the official status of an embassy. The chief of that office was the president's personal representative in China, but it was a post that did not require senate confirmation.

Bush's notorious crony Robert Mosbacher, certainly well versed enough to qualify as a conoisseur of sleaze, was uncharacteristically close to the heart of the matter when he opined that in late August, 1974, Bush "wanted to get as far away from the stench [of Watergate] as possible." [fn 3] Like Don Gregg in 1989, Bush wanted to get out of town and let things blow over for a while. His own story that Beijing would be a "challenge, a journey into the unknown" is pure tripe. More imaginative, but equally mendacious is the late Dean Burch's explanation that Bush had "a Marco Polo complex, thinking he could pentrate the mystery of the place." The truth is that with Washington teeming with Congressional committees, special prosecutors, grand juries, all in a furor of ostracism, Bush wanted to get as far away as he could, and Beijing was ideal.

Other attractions inherent in the Beijing posting are suggested by the fact that Bush's predecessor in Beijing was David K.E. Bruce, who had opened the liason office in March, 1973. Bruce had been the chief of the London bureau of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, which meant that he had been the boss of all European OSS operations, including Allen Dulles in Switzerland and all the rest. The presence in Beijing of Bruce, a true eminence grise of Anglo-American intelligence, points up the importance of the post, especially in the covert and intelligence domain.

Otherwise, as Bush has already mentioned, serving in Beijing meant further close subordination to Henry Kissinger. Kissinger told Bush before he left that policy would be implemented directly by Kissinger himself, in contact with the Chinese liaison in Washington and the Chinese representative at the United Nations. In practice, Bush would be ordered about by such Kissinger clones as Richard Solomon of the NSC, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Habib, and Winston Lord, director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and the scion of an old Skull and Bones family. But then again, Bush was a leading Kissinger clone in his own right.

Finally, anyone who has observed Bush's stubborn, obsessive, morally insane support for Deng Xiao-ping, Li Peng, and Yang Shankun during the aftermath of the Tien An Men massacre of June, 1989 is driven towards the conclusion that Bush gravitated towards China because of an elective affinity, because of a profound attraction for the methods and outlook of Chinese leaders like Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, and Deng, for whom Bush has manifested a steadfast and unshakeable devotion in the face of heinous crimes and significant political pressure to repudiate them. Bush wanted to go to China because he found Chinese communists genuinely congenial.

When Bush was about to leave for China, his crony Dean Burch (no longer troubled, as we see, by Bush's dermal diarrhea) arranged for a fifteen minute sendoff meeting with Ford, but this was reduced to 10 minutes by NSC director Scowcroft, at that time the most important Kissinger clone of them all. Before he left for Beijing, Bush could not resist making some sententious and self-serving pronouncements to the press about his experience in Watergate. He told David Broder of the Washington Post: "We've done a lot of running just to stay in place, and I was sometimes depressed by the amount of bickering that goes on. But then I look across town at Bob Strauss and his problems, and I feel like this was a 20-month honeymoon." Bob Strauss was at this time Bush's counterpart at the Democratic National Committee. Bush noted that there was "philosophical discontent" among right-wing Republicans about the policies of Nixon and Ford, but opined that these would never lead to a third party on the right. Bush defended "patronage" and said he was "worried about the health of the two-party system" even though he worried that this cause is "really not very popular right now." [fn 4]

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Ai Weiwei breaks gagging order in scathing attack on China's human rights

Dissident artist speaks out after weeks of muted criticism

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing

China's best-known dissident, the artist Ai Weiwei, delivered a calculated and outspoken attack about repression in Beijing, in an apparent rebuke to the regime that had sought to secure his silence by detaining him for nearly three months.

Mr Ai criticised the police, judiciary and the unfairness of Chinese society despite controls imposed on his release on bail in June that were designed to minimise his ability to embarrass the leadership.

In a commentary for Newsweek magazine's website, Mr Ai – best known for designing the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing – called the capital a "city of violence" where nobody could speak out because they were denied basic human rights. He also damned the legacy of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which has been trumpeted as a victory of Communist Party organisation and source of national pride.

"None of my art represents Beijing," he wrote. "The Bird's Nest – I never think about it. After the Olympics, the common folks don't talk about it because the Olympics did not bring joy to the people." The commentary appeared to stretch the terms of his release on 22 June after 81 days in custody for alleged tax evasion. He was ordered not to use Twitter or other social media and not to give interviews to foreigners. Many human-rights activists believe the tax charges against him were trumped up to remove a long-term thorn in the side of the Communist Party.

If so the commentary – headlined "The City: Beijing" – suggests that they failed and raises the prospect that he could be returned to prison. Since his release he has started tweeting again, with some critical comments and support for dissidents.

Read more at The Independent

Eight Questions: Living in China’s Shadow

In his new book, “Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance,” scheduled to be published in September, Peterson Institute for International Economics scholar Arvind Subramanian starts with a nightmare scenario: It’s 2021 and the U.S. president heads across town to the International Monetary Fund to sign a rescue loan package negotiated by the IMF’s Chinese managing director. “The handover of world dominance is complete,” Mr. Subramanian, a former IMF researcher, writes. China is now the world’s leading economic power.

Parts of “Eclipse” read like a wonky version of “Rising Sun,” Michael Crichton’s 1992 novel of Japanese dominance over the U.S. when Tokyo was seen as speeding toward number one. But Mr. Subramanian is a first-class economist who uses his book to discuss provocatively U.S.-Chinese relations and the nature of economic power. He was interviewed in Washington DC by the Wall Street Journal’s Bob Davis. Below is an edited transcript

Do you really think the U.S. eventually will have to turn, hat-in-hand to the IMF for aid?

I wrote it that way partly to shock and make people pay attention. But there is a real possibility of the U.S. being in such a dire economic situation that it might have to turn to the IMF.

How could it happen? The combination of a credible rising power in China, with which we have to cooperate and also be wary of. And broad economic weakness in the U.S., including slow growth, fiscal weakness, political paralysis and a middle class with diminishing prospects.

The probability of U.S. needing an IMF loan isn’t 80% but it’s not 2% or 5% either. It’s a 10% or 20% possibility.

By some of the measures you use, China already is a larger economy than the U.S. But haven’t you picked economic statistics that play to China’s advantage? For example relying on purchasing power parity to measure GDP. (Purchasing power parity, or PPP, is a statistical device that tries to take account of the different prices of goods and services in different countries.)

PPP is an important concept, but it has a small weight in my overall formula of economic power.

I believe that the resources a country brings to the power table includes resources that are internationally traded and resources that involve people. If the U.S. were to fight against China and 100 Chinese soldiers faced 100 US soldiers, would you say that because the 100 Chinese soldiers earn/20th of what an American soldier earns that the value of a Chinese soldier is 1/20th the value of American? I don’t think so. (PPP tries to account for such anomalies.)

Read more at CHINAREALTIMEREPORT

China, US bring down child porn website

BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhuanet) --For the first time, police in China and America have worked together to bring down a child porn website. Their actions have led to the arrest of dozens of suspects including the ring leader.

The largest Chinese porn website operator, with around 100 million users, has just been wiped out of the virtual world. Its founder, Wang Yong, is now in custody and dozens others, responsible for money laundering, have also been arrested.

Established in the US in 2002, the organization runs 48 websites, including 18 providing child pornography. It became an information hub for prostitution, and the breeding ground for sexual crimes.

The site was closely watched by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, but previous crackdowns had little impacts on its management. Guo Yuan, official of Network Security Bureau, said, “We had arrested over a thousand website administrators. But because the site was set up in the US, and the two countries have different legal systems, the group was still operating.”

But not anymore - Police forces in China and the US came together to bring down the site once and for all, sharing evidence and working out a plan.

Deng Hongmin, vice director of Network Security Bureau, said, “This is our first cooperation with American police and it turns out very well. It just shows the strength of cross-border cooperation when dealing with online crime.”

The International Criminal Police Organization also issued a wanted warrant, giving a helping hand. Public security officials say they will continue to work with international police forces to protect internet users.

(Source: CNTV.cn)

Pigs ‘fly’ from Britain to China in unlikely export deal

Selling pigs to China – live piglets, as well as the trotters, ears and snouts so favoured by Chinese – could significantly help the U.K.’s agriculture industry.

Photograph by: JASON LEE, REUTERS

SHANGHAI – It took five years to negotiate a deal to send British pigs to China, an idea that ranks up there with sending coals to Newcastle and snow to the Eskimos. China already raises half of all the pigs in the world, and the Chinese word “meat” is automatically understood to mean pork unless a different animal is specified.

But selling coals to Newcastle was a profitable enterprise for Timothy Dexter in the 17th century and again for the American National Coal Association in the 1990s.

And selling pigs to China – live piglets, as well as the trotters, ears and snouts so favoured by Chinese – could significantly help the U.K.’s agriculture industry. An agreement signed last November is worth 45 million pounds over the next five years, according to the British government.

“In terms of overall exports, it is a pin prick, but for the companies in this sector in the U.K., it is hugely important,” said Stephen Philips of the China Britain Business Council.

“We have signed several million pounds worth of deals so far,” said Dominic Stanton at the British embassy in Beijing. “And we have more lined up.”

“The Chinese are keen to accelerate the modernization of their agriculture and British pigs need one-third less feed, produce half as much manure and need much less land. They also have more live births in a litter,” he added.

ACMC and JSR Genetics, pig breeders based in Driffield in East Yorkshire, have been the two main beneficiaries of the deals, which have seen 800 pigs sent over so far.

In order to take advantage of the Asian market, some British farms are setting up in Southeast Asia, a move that also offers them a hedge if the U.K. is hit by another wave of disease.

Other British companies, meanwhile, are helping the Chinese improve their yields of soft fruits and modifying crops to be more drought-resistant. “The biggest concern in China is how can farming be more profitable so that people stay on the land,” said Dr Nigel Kerby, the head of Mylnefield Research Services in Scotland. “In poor areas, they want to know how can they grow high value crops.”

After 50 years of collective farming in China, there has been little incentive to improve yields. But as more and more Chinese move to cities, leaving only the elderly to farm the land, the country faces a problem keeping up with the expanding appetites of its people.

With a thinning supply of food, and rising prices, a wave of food safety scandals has emerged in the past few years as farmers try to maximize their profits by using such additives as melamine in milk and clenbuterol in pork.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/Pigs+from+Britain+China+unlikely+export+deal/5317621/story.html#ixzz1WHDdDEHw

All Together Now

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

HOLD onto your hats and your wallets. Since the end of the cold war, the global system has been held together to a large degree by four critical ruling bargains. Today all four are coming unstuck at once and will need to be rebuilt. Whether and how that rebuilding happens — beginning in the U.S. — will determine a lot about what’s in your wallet and whether your hat flies off.

Now let me say that in English: the European Union is cracking up. The Arab world is cracking up. China’s growth model is under pressure and America’s credit-driven capitalist model has suffered a warning heart attack and needs a total rethink. Recasting any one of these alone would be huge. Doing all four at once — when the world has never been more interconnected — is mind-boggling. We are again “present at the creation” — but of what?

 Let’s start with the Middle East, the world’s oil tap. Libyans just joined Tunisians, Egyptians and Yemenis in ousting their dictator, while Syrians and Iranians hope to soon follow suit. In time, virtually every Middle East autocrat will be deposed or forced to share power. The old model can’t hold. That model was based on kings and military dictators capturing the oil revenue, ensconcing themselves in power — protected by well-financed armies and security services — and buying off key segments of their populations. That lid has been blown off by an Arab youth bulge that today can see just how everyone else is living and is no longer ready to accept being behind, undereducated, unemployed, humiliated and powerless. But while this old Middle East system — based on an iron fist and a fistful of petro-dollars holding together multiethnic/multireligious societies — has broken down, it will take time for these societies to write their own social contracts for how to live together without an iron fist from above. Hope for the best, prepare for anything.

Read more at The New York Times

President’s right focus on China

PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari has rightly prioritized China on his agenda, as he would again be leaving on a visit to the friendly country on August 31, the eighth one after assuming the office of the President in September 2008. This speaks volumes about the importance the President and his PPP Government is attaching to solidify further relations with China that has proved to be an all weather friend of the country.

As per details made available by the Foreign Office spokesperson on Thursday, the main engagement of the President in China would be participation in China-Eurasia Expo being held in Urumqi but taking advantage of his presence there, he would also be having meaningful interaction with the political leadership of that country and the business community. Otherwise too, his decision to participate in an international trade fair where Pakistan is taking part in a big way is indication of the fact that the President lays emphasis on promotion of trade and commercial ties with China. His presence would also dispel the impression created by hostile propaganda by some vested foreign forces that Pakistan has, in any way, any hand in the recent trouble in the eastern Xinjiang province last month. It is heartening to note that during previous visits of the President to China, the two countries signed over fifty agreements and MoUs for cooperation in various fields. In fact, China has proved to be a willing and enthusiastic partner in the socio-economic development of Pakistan but we have so far failed ourselves because of bureaucratic tendencies to delay implementation of the agreements and understanding reached for the purpose. President Zardari himself has been holding regular meetings to ensure follow up action but despite that the progress is not as satisfactory as it should have been especially in areas like cooperation in building small and big dams and energy projects. We hope that the President would lay right focus on this aspect as well to translate his efforts into reality.

Pakistan Observer

China executes man for running over Mongol herder

BEIJING (AP) — China has executed a truck driver for killing an ethnic Mongol herder in a case that sparked Inner Mongolia's largest demonstrations in 20 years.

The official Xinhua News Agency said in a brief report that Li Lindong was executed Aug. 18. The report, dated Aug. 19, was posted to a regional news website and appeared to not be widely circulated.

The herder, Mergen, who like many Mongols uses just one name, was killed May 10 while he and others were blocking the road through their village to protest noise and pollution produced by coal trucks transiting the grasslands. Police said Li ran over Mergen and then dragged his body for 160 yards (145 meters) before he died.

His death and that of another Mongol in a clash with Chinese coal miners sparked protests across the sprawling northern pastureland by herders and students demanding justice and greater protection for Mongol culture and the nomadic herding lifestyle.

Li was sentenced in June after a six-hour trial at the Intermediate People's Court in the region's Xilingol League. Fellow driver Lu Xiangdong, who had been sitting in the cab of Li's truck when he drove over the herder, was also convicted of homicide and sentenced to life in prison, state media said earlier.

Two other people, Wu Xiaowei and Li Minggang, were convicted of obstructing justice and given three-year sentences for having blocked police who arrived at the scene, allowing Li Lindong and Lu to escape.

Mass migration to the Inner Mongolia region by members of China's majority Han ethnic group and a booming mining industry have placed traditional ways of life under severe pressure.

China is the world's largest enforcer of the death penalty and is believed to execute more people each year than the rest of the world combined, although the actual figure is a state secret.

AP

The Truth About "The U.S. Content of 'Made in China'"

Peter Navarro and Greg Autry

Any tourist standing on Shanghai's waterfront and gazing across at the garish Pudong skyline sees the visible manifestation of American wealth moving to China and every businessperson on the streets of Shenzhen knows that the manufacturing export business built it.

Yet, a recent "economic letter" from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Board contends that America is spending only 1.9 percent of its dollars on Chinese goods. It has inspired headlines like: "'Made in China' Taking Over U.S.? Not By a Long Shot" from the Wall Street Journal. How can we reconcile what we see on Wal-Mart's shelves with what these experts and media pundits tell us?

As Benjamin Disraeli supposedly remarked, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics" and the arcane art of econometrics makes it easy for academics and pundits to tell the public that black is really white with a straight face. Let's peel back just the surface of the onion that the FRB has offered us:

Firstly, the paper, titled "The U.S. Content of 'Made in China'" is based on Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), which include everything from existing housing to used cars and nursing home stays. It just isn't germane to discussions of trade balances and creating national wealth.

Obviously, China doesn't play in these generally non-tradable categories, which comprise the largest portion of consumer spending. Leasing cars and renting houses do move a lot of PCE dollars around, but they create no new net wealth for America and provide relatively few jobs. Making the tools to build new homes and making the parts to build new cars are what create wealth and jobs; two things that are increasingly "Made in China."

Read more at The Huffington Post   (if you enjoy anti-China rants)

Chinese Protest Suspensions of Bloggers

By MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING — The operators of China’s most vibrant equivalent of Twitter notified each of its 200 million users Friday that several bloggers deemed to have spread unfounded rumors would have their accounts suspended for one month.

In messages, the operators of Sina.com’s Weibo microblog detailed the suspensions of the bloggers. The announcements provoked a torrent of online protest, some of which was directed at the government on the assumption that it was behind the punishments.

If so, it was the clearest expression yet of the government’s growing concern about its inability to curb free expression on the Internet — particularly searing criticism of official acts — despite a sweeping and extremely sophisticated censorship regime.

On Monday, a member of the Politburo, the Communist Party committee that acts as China’s collective leadership, visited Sina.com officials and said that they should “resolutely put an end to fake and misleading information.” The official, Beijing’s party secretary, Liu Qi, said they should use new technology to better manage the microbloggers, whose numbers have grown explosively in the last year.

The company’s notices stated that two bloggers who had spread false rumors on Weibo would lose their right to post messages or to add followers for a month. One stated that a blogger had been suspended after posting a false report that the accused killer of a 19-year-old woman had been set free after his politically powerful father intervened.

Another disclosed the suspension of a blogger who accused the Red Cross Society of China, which is mired in a financial scandal, of selling blood at a profit.

Some Weibo users sardonically applauded the suspensions, writing that the notices of them spread the rumors more effectively than the original bloggers.

“I didn’t know about the story till now. How tragic!” one blogger wrote. Others expressed outrage. “How does Weibo know what’s true or not?” one user wrote. “Who gives Weibo the right to silence its users?”

Still, one official of a Chinese Internet-related service, speaking on the condition of anonymity about a matter of deep concern to the authorities, predicted that the notices would have a chilling effect.

Read more at The New York Times

Retired banker, author's relative lost in China

By R. NORMAN MOODY

MERRITT ISLAND -- High atop a steep mountainside in remote southwest China's Yunnan province rests the wreckage of an aircraft that likely still contains the remains of its American crew.

More than 68 years later, Merritt Island retired banker and author Bob Willett's desire to find out more about his cousin, co-pilot James S. Browne, and two others who went down in the ill-fated C-47, is driving efforts to plan an expedition to the site.

"It's something that's been in the back of the minds of the whole family since Jimmie was lost," said Willett, 84. "Now we've gotten a specific location. We know where the flight originated and what the destination was."

The China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC) Flight 60 left Kunming, China, where it had dropped off a load of gasoline and ammunition, and was headed back to Dinjan, India, when it disappeared Nov. 17, 1942. It was crossing the Himalayas, known to the aircrews as "The Hump," between India and China.

While occupying China during World War II, the Japanese cut off Burma Road, the only land route for outside supplies to get to China.

Forced to the air, the Chinese government turned to CNAC, a civilian airline it had formed with Pan American World Airways, to transport personnel and supplies to Chinese and American Forces fighting against the Japanese occupation in China, Burma and India.

American pilots flew most of the CNAC flights through cloudy skies or at night to avoid being shot down by Japanese fighter planes.

Crews, which included some British and later Chinese pilots, flew around the clock.

At first, CNAC had only a handful of planes. But at the height of the airlift, it was flying 50 round trips a day. The roughly 500-mile one-way trip would take about five hours.

The CNAC 60 crew of pilot John J. Dean, co-pilot Browne and radioman K.L. Yang had dropped off their cargo in a C47, also known in civil aviation as a DC-3.

The plane was half loaded with tin, cast into molds or blocks, and hog bristle for the trip back to India when Japanese bombers approached. The crew waited until the bombers were gone before taking off, but they were lost somewhere on the route.

It was the first CNAC aircraft and crew lost during what was known as The Hump airlift and one of the few downed CNAC planes never recovered, according to the CNAC Association, a club of former crew and associates.

There were 26 other CNAC fatal crashes in China, Burma and India. CNAC 60 is among six still not located or recovered.

Willett said the airline made 35,000 flights over The Hump during the war. The Army Air Corps made 167,000.

Dean, who was 28 from St. Peter, Minn., and Browne, who at 21 had only been in China one month, was from of Winnetka, Ill. The association said little was known about Yang.

In addition to Willett, Browne has family members in Massachusetts and Illinois.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/27/2377046/retired-banker-authors-relative.html#ixzz1WGwhRPHu

China's plan for secret detentions alarms rights activists

China proposes a change in its criminal code that would allow authorities to detain suspects for up to six months in a secret location. Such a measure would increase the risk of torture, a Human Rights Watch spokesman says.

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Beijing—

A proposed change in the Chinese criminal code that would allow authorities to detain suspects for up to six months in a secret location is a dangerous step backward for the country, activists charged Saturday.

The change would effectively enshrine what has become a common practice for silencing dissidents, many of whom have disappeared for months without formal charges being filed. Under the change, the suspects can be held without notice to their family members or lawyers.

The proposed change in the law was disclosed earlier in the week in the respected Legal Daily.

"This new amendment will legalize 'forced disappearance,'" Beijing attorney Liu Xiaoyuan tweeted Saturday. Liu was briefly detained himself around the same time as his friend and client Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist whose disappearance earlier this year made international headlines.

Under current law, a person suspected of a crime but not formally charged could be put under house arrest for six months.

Read more at The Los Angeles Times

The MLK Memorial: Made in China?

Bob Duggan

The international summer of troubled and/or troubling public art continues and, I hope, concludes with the unveiling of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, which was to officially take place in Washington, DC, this Sunday, until Hurricane Irene intervened. Originally scheduled to the mark the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, the unveiling already had storm clouds approaching in the form of protestors railing against the use of a Chinese sculptor and Chinese pink granite for the African-American’s tribute. Does it really matter who sculpted the memorial or what it’s made of? Or should a grand symbolic gesture be symbolic through and through?

The memorial takes its main inspiration from a line from that “I Have a Dream” speech. “Out of a mountain of despair,” King prayed, “a stone of hope.” The official website describes the design thus:

 “At the entry portal, two stones are parted and a single stone wedge is pushed forward toward the horizon; the missing piece of what was once a single boulder. The smooth insides of the portal contrast the rough outer surfaces of the boulder. Beyond this portal, the stone appears to have been thrust into the plaza, wrested from the boulder and pushed forward – it bears signs of a great monolithic struggle.

“On the visible side of the stone, the theme of hope is presented, with the text from King's famed 1963 speech cut sharply into the stone: "Out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope." On the other side are inscribed these words: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness”, a statement suggested by Dr. King himself when describing how he would like to be remembered.

“The boulder is the Mountain of Despair, through which every visitor will enter, moving through the struggle as Dr. King did during his life, and then be released into the open freedom of the plaza. The solitary stone is the Stone of Hope, from which Dr. King’s image emerges, gazing over the Tidal Basin toward the horizon, seeing a future society of justice and equality for which he encouraged all citizens to strive.”

 So, to sum up, you walk through the “Mountain of Despair,” which has been split apart by “a great monolithic struggle” into a “Stone of Hope,” from which MLK’s visage emerges (shown above). I guess the idea that in the Tidal Basin, “justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” is implied. The symbolism’s so thick that the address of the memorial is 1964 Independence Avenue to celebrate the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is a lovely gesture but one seemingly inconsistent with the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech theme so prevalent everywhere else. I shouldn’t quibble with the memorial designers. Memorials are all about creating memory through evocative symbolism—heavy, pervasive, and obvious even to the children learning about MLK and Civil Rights for the first time.

But how is it possible to compose such a grand symphony of symbolism and yet be tone deaf at the same time? The biggest wrong note in question is Chinese Master Sculptor Lei Yixin. Lei’s previous experience in creating public art came in his native land in sculpting memorials to Mao Zedong, among others. I doubt Mao and Martin would ever share a beer together, let alone an artist. In April 2008 the U.S. Commission of Fine Art actually rejected Lei’s earlier design as too confrontational. Just judging from the photos, it does seem that King with crossed arms is more warrior than peace-maker, although he was a warrior for peace. I may be influenced by knowing Lei’s history, but I can’t help but shake the idea that you could rip off the MLK mask and find Mao scowling beneath. How hard would it have been for the organizers to find a suitable African-American sculptor? Some critics allege that such a search never happened, which would be a shame. I’m not saying that it had to be an African-American. But if you’re going to get all “Mountain of Despair” and “Stone of Hope,” why not take the extra, but extra-important, step of making the choice of a sculptor enjoying the fruits of MLK’s labor today? The fact that the sculpture itself is made of Chinese pink granite (chosen to stand out from the other memorials in DC made of American stone) is just more bitter icing on the cake, especially for an American granite industry already competing with Chinese and other foreign markets.

In just this past year, Oliviero Rainaldi’s quirky statue of Pope John Paul II drew the ire of Italians, some of whom thought it looked more like Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini; while in Chicago, Seward Johnson’s skirt-flying Forever Marilyn made some look up (her skirt) and others look away. Now Lei Yixin’s MLK via Mao completes the summer’s triumvirate of taste-challenging public sculpture around the globe. I guess the lesson for future planners of grand public sculpture is that if you’re going to go symbolic, take the advice of Marilyn Monroe in a different field, and go all the way.

bigthink

Right now, I have neither the time nor the words (I'm agasht) to comment on Mr. Duggan's article which belies his education, and ignominiously showcases his ignorance thus revealing a complete  and utter lack of knowledge about humans.  This piece that he has written is, to me, offensive; and, I am neither Black nor Chinese.

I have serious doubts, as should you, that Mr. Duggan possesses any knowledge whatsoever about either Blacks or Chinese, their history in America or their homelands.  However, the Press being what it is these days, I wonder why I wonder such dribble is not only written, but actually consumed and accepted by both the educated and ignoramus.

"But how is it possible to compose such a grand symphony of symbolism and yet be tone deaf at the same time? The biggest wrong note in question is Chinese Master Sculptor Lei Yixin. Lei’s previous experience in creating public art came in his native land in sculpting memorials to Mao Zedong, among others. I doubt Mao and Martin would ever share a beer together, let alone an artist."

Mr. Duggan"s Master's Degrees notwithstanding, he, a white man, has the presumptuousness to suggest that two of the three most oppressed races (Native American is the third) in the U.S., if not the world, cannot understand one another!

I think I'll grab my coffee table book on architecture - design, and look at buildings by I.M. Pei.  My favorite?  The Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong.   Oh, by the way, Bob - you might want to inform the millions of visitors to the D.C., Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the 58,261 occupants of Valhalla whose names adorn the cool, black cut-stone masonry wall - their commemoration was designed by a Chinese, a woman no less,  Maya Lin!  

wdb

 

Patient dies when surgical team flees

Workers clean a building at Shanghai's Baogang Hospital on Friday after an operation room inside caught fire on Wednesday, killing a patient who was undergoing an amputation surgery. Provided to China Daily

SHANGHAI - Six medical staff members who fled during a fire, leaving a patient who was undergoing surgery to suffocate in thick smoke, have been suspended and placed under investigation, the hospital said.

On Wednesday, a fire broke out around 9:45 pm in an operating room at Baogang Hospital in Shanghai, where a 49-year-old patient surnamed Zhu was undergoing an amputation surgery after a traffic accident. Two doctors, two anaesthesiologists and two nurses fled. The patient was under general anesthesia and suffocated.

The hospital said it would be dangerous to move the patient, who had just undergone the amputation and was still bleeding profusely. Moreover, the fire had caused a power outage that disabled the electric lock on the operating table.

Fang Yong, president of Baogang Hospital, said the fire started with an ozone sterilizer in one of the operating rooms.

"Power supplies were cut off, and an emergency system was turned on to keep the patient's breathing machine running," said Fang. He said when the power cut off, the breathing machine could remain working for only 30 minutes.

"Under the circumstances, the doctors decided not to transfer the patient, but to leave and find firefighters to rescue the patient," he said.

Fang conceded that the medical workers misjudged the severity of the fire. He said firefighters arrived about five minutes after the fire began and took 30 minutes to extinguish the flames.

Zhu's nephew, surnamed Jin, said he entered the hospital after the fire was extinguished. "Firefighters were cleaning up the scene and I saw my uncle's body on the ground, covered with a white cloth."

Read more at ChinaDaily.com

It's Time for China to Pay Its Debts to the United States

AP

Nov. 17, 2010: President Obama walks with Chinese President Hu Jintao during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Many people assume China has the U.S. over a barrel. The country buys so much of our debt—around $800 billion—that we cannot “rock the boat” when it comes to U.S. and China relations. That has meant not pressing the PRC “too hard” when it comes to North Korea, or Iran. 

Just recently, a top Obama administration delegation visited the People’s Republic of China. While there, the Chinese were told not to worry about the U.S. paying its debts to the country — their investments in the U.S. were safe. True enough.

But, I was struck with the fact that the PRC, however, does not pay its debts to the U.S. Now, that may strike most Americans as a “You must be kidding story”. But in fact it is true. 

Many decades ago, China sold sovereign bonds worldwide to investors in many nations. They sold tens of thousands of these bonds on U.S. soil to American citizens on the recommendation of our government, indicating it was a lid investment. 

Over the last sixty years, China has refused to pay to these bondholders either the principal or interest on these full faith and credit sovereign bonds. (To say nothing of the hundreds of billions also owed to U.S. artists from unpaid royalties on the more recent sale of pirated CD’s and videos, but that's another story). 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/26/its-time-for-china-to-pay-its-debts-to-united-states/#ixzz1WGAenq4l

A Source of Tension Between China and Japan: YASUKUNI SHRINE

A little Japanese boy can be seen dressed-up in Japan's imperial military uniform at the Yasukuni Shrine. He was visiting the Yasukuni Shrine march, which honours wartime leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with millions of war dead, on the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two:

Visitors release doves at Yasukuni Shrine on the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two. The shrine honours wartime leaders convicted as war criminals, along with millions of war dead:

A woman wearing a Japanese army cap and carrying a banner saying 'kamikaze', a word used to describe suicide attacks by Japanese pilots during World War Two, visits the Yasukuni Shrine on the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two. The Yasukuni Shrine honours wartime leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals, along with millions of war dead:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, right, leaves after delivering a speech as Emperor Akihito, left, and Empress Michiko look on in the background during a memorial service for the nation's war dead at the Budokan martial arts hall, marking the 62nd anniversary of the end of World War II:

About Yasukuni Shrine

The origin of Yasukuni Shrine is Shokonsha established at Kudan in Tokyo in the second year of the Meiji era (1869) by the will of the Emperor Meiji. In 1879, it was renamed Yasukuni Shrine.

When the Emperor Meiji visited Tokyo Shokonsha for the first time on January 27 in 1874, he composed a poem; "I assure those of you who fought and died for your country that your names will live forever at this shrine in Musashino". As can be seen in this poem, Yasukuni Shrine was established to commemorate and honor the achievement of those who dedicated their precious lives for their country. The name "Yasukuni," given by the Emperor Meiji represents wishes for preserving peace of the nation.

Currently, more than 2,466,000 divinities are enshrined here at Yasukuni Shrine. These are souls of men who made ultimate sacrifice for their nation since 1853 during national crisis such as the Boshin War, the Seinan War, the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, World War I, the Manchurian Incident, the China Incident and the Greater East Asian War (World War II). These people, regardless of their rank or social standing, are considered to be completely equal and worshipped as venerable divinities of Yasukuni.

Japanese people believe that their respect to and awe of the deceased is best expressed by treating the dead in the same manner as they were alive. Hence, at Yasukuni Shrine, rituals to offer meals and to dedicate words of appreciation to the dead are repeated every day. And, twice every year－in the spring and autumn－major rituals are conducted, on which occasion offerings from His Majesty the Emperor are dedicated to them, and also attended by members of the imperial family.

Thus, Yasukuni Shrine has deep relationship with the Japanese imperial family. Also, five million people visit the shrine every year since it is known as a central institution for commemorating those who died in wars.

Japan still maintains the culture and tradition of respecting and worshipping the deceased. The Japanese have long believed that spirits of the deceased remain eternally on earth and guard their descendants. Even in today�s Japan，people consider their ancestors as their �guardian deities,� and thus as an object of worshipping because such traditional way of thinking along with the belief of Shinto is still inherited.

In addition to this, Japanese people have respected and worshipped spirits of those who made prominent contribution to regional and national communities－not only to family communities as such. Yasukuni Shrine is an example which represents such genuine Japanese culture.

Yasukuni Shrine is a place to commemorate in a manner of Shinto, a traditional Japanese faith and a place for all the Japanese to show their appreciation and respect to those who died to protect their country. The spirits of these deceased are the object of worship at Yasukuni Shrine. Therefore, the shrine has completely different nature from that of tombs where bodies or bones of fallen soldiers are buried.

More at Japan's Vasukuni Shrine March -&- Yasukuni Shrine

 

The Last Emperor's Humble Occupation

He was consigned to be a relic before his time had come. Henry Pu Yi started out life as an anachronism, a boy emperor of a fading dynasty. He died as a forgotten footnote, a stooped gardener assigned to the Beijing Botanical Gardens where he tilled the earth that had supported his Qing Dynasty predecessors for nearly 300 years. Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi, the 10th ruler of the Manchu Dynasty, was born to the gilded splendor of the Forbidden City and ascended to the throne in 1908. Just three years later, a nationalist putsch ended the infant's reign. At the tender age of six, the Son of Heaven was out of a job. Twelve years later, in 1924, Pu Yi was ejected from his prison palace by an ambitious warlord. He fled to Tianjin, where he cavorted as an exiled and extravagant playboy, full of imperious airs but no imperial mandate. That mandate, however forced, was reinstated in 1932, when invading Japan set up the puppet regime of Manchukuo in northeastern China. Tapping the disgruntled ex-Emperor as figurehead ruler, the Japanese promised him a kingdom to match his royal breeding. In 1934, Pu Yi slipped into silken robes emblazoned with dragons and formally ascended to the throne of Japanese-occupied Manchukuo, fueled by hopes of a revived Qing Dynasty. Pu Yi proved a brittle ruler who lashed out at cowering servants to compensate for his sense of powerlessness. With the Japanese surrender in 1945, his dreams of empire were dashed, and the chastened Emperor was trundled off by advancing Soviet troops to the Russian Far East, where he spent five years dreading his return to the country he had betrayed. On releasing him into Chinese hands in July 1950, the Soviets heightened the ex-monarch's fears, assuring him that he would be executed by a wrathful populace. Moscow was wrong. By not killing Pu Yi, the Chinese communists avoided making him into a martyr like Nicholas II in Russia or Louis XVI in France. Instead, he was to be fashioned into a Maoist role model, proof that even the most pampered royal could be reformed. Pu Yi spent a decade in jail, where he underwent relentless thought reform. In addition to admitting his complicity in Japanese barbarity in Manchuria and professing communist zealotry, Pu Yi also learned more practical things like how to brush his teeth, wash his feet and tie his shoelaces. On Dec. 4, 1959, Comrade Pu Yi, a 54-year-old who could now dress and groom himself, was issued a special pardon and entered life as a private citizen.In 1960, Pu Yi was sent to the Beijing Botanical Gardens to begin work as a gardener and handyman. The preserve was not far from Pu Yi's old Forbidden City haunts, but it was worlds away from the splendor of imperial China. He lived with his fifth wife in a dilapidated courtyard house, shuffling occasionally to the library to conduct historical research on his defanged and unloved dynasty. Just hours before he died, unmourned, of cancer at a Beijing hospital in 1967, the medical staff reportedly had to link arms to keep the Red Guards from storming the ailing Manchu's ward. Nearly three decades later Pu Yi and his clan finally enjoyed a reprieve. In 1995, his widow was allowed to transfer his ashes from a public columbarium to the Western Qing Tombs, where five of the 10 Manchu rulers are interred. Just a few years before, a sanitized Qing revival had begun. Manchu-style banquets became the rage in Beijing, and state-published recipe books illustrated the proper ways of preparing, for example, a tasty sheep's ear. Cashing in on the hype surrounding Bernardo Bertolucci's 1988 film The Last Emperor, the Chinese tourist bureau even began offering tours of landmark places in Pu Yi's life, including his spartan prison cell in Fushun. The Botanical Gardens, where the deposed Emperor spent many of his final days, were not part of the itinerary. Curious tourists had to make do with official photographs of Pu Yi tending his plants. Those graying portraits evoke a bittersweet Chinese Gothic, a diminutive, bespectacled man standing solemnly with his gardening tools. The one-time Emperor nurtured the earth lovingly, professing himself content with watering his patch of the motherland. In 1960, armed with his first voter's card, Pu Yi voiced the hopes of the great Chinese agrarian revolution: I, along with my 650 million compatriots, was now the owner of our 9,600,000 sq km of land. Perhaps he had forgotten that he had once been responsible for more than just a little plot of flowers. Indeed, as a very little boy, Henry Pu Yi had once owned it all.

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