By Joan Mieritz

Prologue

I lived almost the entire year 2000 and into 2001 in East Central China, in a city of over one million people called Changzhou on the Changjiang River or Yangzi, as it is called in the West.  It is located in the fertile and rich Jiangsu Province about two hours, by train, west of Shanghai.  I taught English at Hohai University, the main campus being in Nanging, but I was at a satellite campus in what is called “new Changzhou.”

I feel that next to being a mother, (and many of you will know exactly what I mean by that) it was the greatest, most exciting and most educational experience of my life.  I could talk for hours and perhaps write hundreds of pages about the people I met, the sites I saw, the wonderful experiences I had and all that I learned.  It was truly an “experience of a life-time.”  

I am thrilled that you are interested in reading about my adventure.  But, you need to know from the start that besides this being a travel story and fascinating comparison of cultures, it became much more significant and at the same time, much less pleasant than I would have liked my adventure in China to be.  The reason is that while there, I found myself immersed in well-kept dark secrets of intolerance, aberrant control, horror and death. 

While in China, I saw the “dragon” in its entire splendor.  I traveled to modern and majestic Beijing, historic Xian, bustling Chongching and ever rapid changing Shanghai with its forest of skyscrapers.  I visited many other places in China including seeing the technical wonders of the Three Gorges Dam. I even was able to go to Tibet, which the Communists say belongs to China because around 700, a Tibetan princess married the Emperor.  I loved mysterious Guilin and felt that those little unique mountains became my friends who I’ve missed ever since I left.  I saw “heavenly” Hangzhou, Suzhou and Wuxi, which has an amazing “tallest Buddah” in the world.  I climbed mountains in Tiashan and Huanshan. I could write hundreds of pages telling about the amazing sights of China.  But more importantly, I was able to know some of the off-spring of the dragon, which I saw as being the delightful, diligent and grateful students.  I also met someone who told me from personal experience how sharp and vicious the dragon’s teeth have been and, I must add, probably still are.  

HOW IT CAME ABOUT

After arriving at my Chinese university and meeting various members of the staff and administration, I was asked to teach Spoken English to the university teachers two evenings each week, in addition to teaching the university students during the day.  I was, at first, a little intimidated by that prospect, but my attitude has always been, what’s the worst that could happen?  They would ask me to stop teaching the teachers. It would be a lot of extra work, but I was excited because my hope was that with a peer-group, I could more easily be myself and not have to always be in the role of “teacher.”  I hoped that I eventually could learn a lot too because the university teachers might come to the point of trusting me and being willing to share with me some of their real thoughts and feelings.  This seemed like the greatest opportunity to get to know some adult educated Chinese people on a deeper level.  This was better than I had dreamed possible and I was so happy that I didn’t even think to ask for additional pay for the extra hours of work.  That started my reputation of being “kind and generous,” which I think were the nice words for less complimentary adjectives used behind my back.  The Chinese have a special way of being respectful and disrespectful in the same smile.  I love that quality because I have been cultivating it in myself since college and I was now learning from the “pros” who have been doing it for centuries.

The class, in fact, turned out to be as good as I had hoped.  We did have many interesting, exciting and even some passionate discussions about many topics.  I was able to share my ideas with the teachers and they came to a point of sharing some deeper thoughts and ideas with me.  It was a teacher’s “dream-class” with lively discussions, a flow of ideas and students looking forward to being there even after a hard day’s work.

There was always good attendance.   There were university staff members and teachers who joined the class in the weeks after it had started because I soon had the reputation on campus of providing classes that were worthwhile and very interesting.  I eventually found out that there were many Communist party members in the adult class so, in addition, I had the intellectual challenge of walking the tightrope of being “politically correct” in Communist China and yet being able to tell them that life in the US and the free world was quite different from how they were living.  I tried to educate them as much as possible without being critical in any way of Chinese Communism.  Many times I amazed myself at how well I presented and handled difficult topics.

The English Department gave me unbelievable freedom with my teaching, but they had said that I needed to give my university students written homework.  At first, I did not know what I could give as an appropriate assignment for Spoken English.  I joked about their spending so many minutes each week talking in English to one of the many trees on campus. The students already did this when it was time for one of their major exams in English. There were so many benches and large rocks around campus under trees where students could be found from early morning to night orally practicing English.   It was while walking on the tree lined sidewalk to my apartment that a brilliant idea came to me that spoken English written down could be called a letter.  So, I asked my students to weekly write to me a “love letter.”  I said that I used the words “love letter” because I hoped it would be from their hearts and that they would write interesting things about themselves and their lives because I was really interested in getting to know them. It turned out to be the best assignment there could be for my getting to know the students and sharing on a deeper level.  Most of the students responded beautifully.

I also gave this assignment to the university teachers, but I knew that they were too busy with their work and families.  I did not expect many letters from them and as it turned out, I only received letters when there were things they had to say to me that they did not want to share with the others in the class, which was easily understandable.

But, there was one retired teacher who faithfully gave me a letter after each class.   As we got to know each other better, he shared more and more about his life.  He eventually presented me with information that would have a powerful impact on me and my perceptions of China.  It would trouble me, compel me and would consume much time and energy for the next years of my life.  Most importantly, it would make me feel that I had to rise to a task that I never thought I was capable of.   I would write a book sharing what this retired Chinese teacher had told me about his life in China. 

HIS PROMISE BECOMES MY PROMISE

I feel that I have to write this book because I had learned that my adult student and friend, Robert, had survived about twenty terrible years in various Chinese labor and re-education camps as a political prisoner.  Part of the reason he survived is that he had made a promise to himself that if he lived he would somehow get information about his life and what had happened to him, to other people, especially people in the West.  I don’t know what fantasies he had about how this would happen, but I, in time, became the person he had dreamed of meeting for over 30 years. It started to feel like destiny that I had even come to Changzhou, taught the teachers and was the kind of sincere and curious person that I am.  After time, I became the person who would carry his story to America and the West.  He believed so much in America and in freedom and democracy.  He actually idealized America and Americans, unfortunately much more than I think we deserve.  It would please me greatly to be proven wrong on that account.

After reading some of his letters and then hearing him tell me about what had happened to him and how he felt, I promised him that I would get the story of his life published in the US.  I really didn’t know how to do that or how much work it would take, but I decided that if he could survive such horrors, then I certainly could do whatever it took for me to write about it.  Mine was the easier task, by far and some days, after struggling with the writing and publishing process, I remind myself of that fact.

WHY IS HE CALLED ROBERT?

I want to explain my use of the English name, Robert, for the Chinese teacher.  Most Chinese students, when studying English, take an English name. It is a fun thing to do and it often reflects how they see themselves and what they aspire to in life.  I had students with names like “Michael Jordan,” many named “Jack” after students saw the movie “Titanic” and one of my favorite names, “Pillar” because he saw himself as strong, sturdy and reliable, which he truly was. That was a most wonderful choice.

Chinese names can be confusing, sometimes last name first, but not always and sometimes one name used twice.  Whenever I recorded grades in my grade book I had the class monitor double check to make sure the correct person was getting the correct grade.  Chinese names are also difficult for English speaking people to learn to pronounce.  After I had taught for a few months and grew to know my students and care about them, I realized one day that I didn’t even use their real names, just their chosen English names.  I felt badly and made up my mind to change this, but often when I learned their Chinese names, an accomplishment for which I was proud, they smiled, complemented me and then said that they still wanted me to use their English names. Sometimes I would ask why?  A puzzling explanation centered around the fact that the use of a name is different in English.  From what I understand if a person is talking to someone in Chinese, they are not addressed by name as we do in English.  I finally asked one student, “What does your mother call you when she talks with you?”  He said, “She usually doesn’t call me anything or she may occasionally refer to me as son.” 

The students really seemed to like how we use a name and how I always addressed them many times by their English names as we were talking. Some said that it made them feel like I really cared, that they were more recognized as a person and that it often felt like an endearment. So, I will use the English name, Robert, because that is what I always called him in China.

RETURNING TO AMERICA TO WRITE THE BOOK

After returning to the US in 2001, I underwent quite the culture shock.  It was much more troubling than the culture shock I felt being in China.  My plane landed in San Francisco and I was soon helping my daughter and our three dogs (my Chow and her two Rottweilers) make a difficult move from California to Kansas City, Missouri.  My daughter dropped me and my dog off in Colorado Springs where I had lived and my car was being stored.   I spent some time with my son, grandson, and friends. Then after driving to Kansas City where I left my dog again with my daughter, I flew to Florida for several weeks to see my parents. 

Within about one month of returning from half way around the world, I had traveled from the West Coast to almost the East Coast.   First, I had driven with my daughter and our three dogs across the western half of the country through some rough and breath-taking mountain terrain.  We were also pulling a camper filled with over 200 lbs. of my belongings that I used while in China and some of my daughter’s  “needed belongings” that she didn’t want the movers to take, plus two big bags of different kinds of dog food and many kinds of dog toys and treats.  I felt like a typical American family with so much stuff that we needed to pull a trailer behind us to haul it all with us. And our “typical family” was over half “non-human” and just as spoiled as we were. 

In Colorado while visiting family and friends, I crossed the highest paved mountain pass in the deep snow of winter. Then I drove on an unbelievably smooth interstate to Kansas City and finally flew to the gulf coast of Florida where my parents live.  I was over-whelmed with being back in America.

I was struck with our American mobility, having my family spread across the country and everyone wanting to see me a.s.a.p.  I thought very little of crossing our vast country.  It was not only comfortable, but it didn’t seem to be expensive.  In China most of my trips to other cities were difficult projects that took careful planning, great preparation and were unbelievably exhausting. The railway system in the rest of the world may seem amazing and relatively convenient, but not compared to America’s automobiles and super highways.  We are so spoiled to be able to pile ourselves and much more than we need into our cars, leave, stop, eat, rest and spend the night as we pleased.  While in China I almost always took students with me when I traveled and it was surprising how expensive they thought the travel was.  The student who took me to the 3 Gorges Dam was going to stay on campus that summer because he could not afford the train fare to go home.  To me the cost of the train was well worth the opportunity to live with his Chinese family for one week.  The student who flew to Tibet with me had the first plane flight of his life. It brought me so much joy to share this exciting experience with him since I flew for the first time when I was 10 years old and my children flew as babies. Travel in this world is much more varied than we realize and in the US we take what we have for granted, not realizing how wonderful it is and how truly fortunate we are.

Americans expect so much and always with the immediacy of fast food.  And we can make our lives ridiculously complicated by adding pets to our families—sometimes, numerous pets.  We own so much stuff that we can easily make our lives much more stressful than necessary.  Instead of things making our lives more convenient and comfortable, they too often also make them more complex and overwhelming.  I had come to see that other people in this world have problems mostly due to poverty, long hours of work to make a living and unsanitary conditions that are very common. These are not major problems for most people in the US.  But, it appeared to me that most often in America we create problems and difficulties for ourselves because we do not have the wisdom to live simple happy lives.  We buy more and more stuff to make our lives more complex and difficult. I did not like what I saw being home in America and I questioned how I had been living and how I might differently live my life.

My point in saying all of this is that I found it much harder to readjust to the complex life in America than it was for me to adjust to my simpler, but more difficult life in China.  I often referred to my year in China as the most difficult “camping trip” of my life.  There were many inconveniences and discomforts which I will tell you about later, but the wonderful things that happened far out-weighed the hardships and now I have, for the most part, the most precious memories that live in my mind and heart.

THE LONG WRITING PROCESS

For many reasons, months went by before I began writing this book.  I had made a commitment in China to do something that I knew would push my skills to their limit and maybe beyond.   I knew that I might have bitten off more than I could chew, but under those circumstances, what does a person do?  It reminded me of the children’s joke, how can a person eat an elephant?===one small bite at a time.  My course of action became taking little bites.  At first, I wasn’t writing a book, but just some paragraphs or maybe a page or two.  As long as I was making progress and moving in the right direction, it was OK.   

I began the long writing process by looking over the letters that I had been given in China, notes that Robert gave me and information that I had put in my laptop to bring back to the US.   I worried that I might have problems leaving China with the information that I had, but absolutely NOTHING of mine was checked either leaving China or entering the US.  

Robert’s English, though it seemed reasonably good when speaking in class or with me, was very hard to read. His handwriting was hard to figure out and the cheap flimsy paper, so common in China, made it even more difficult.  If I had known what a difference it would make, I would have bought high quality paper for Robert and insisted that he use it on one side only, but I didn’t know that things would happen as they did. 

It also took me a long time to figure out that often he did not present his thoughts in a chronological order.  He went back to a previous time when he suddenly remembered something he had left out. Often he gave the outcome of a situation as he told of the situation in whatever order it came to mind. There were many things that I simply did not understand what he was referring to, but I started plowing through the material.  By this time, I also had a full-time job, family and other obligations, but my biggest obstacle was my own fear of being able to accomplish writing a book.  This is one of the greatest personal growing experiences of my life.  So many times I said to myself—“just take one more small bite of the elephant” and “you HAVE to do this for Robert, he is depending on you.”  Then I would think of him being cold, hungry and sick, almost dying and I would forge ahead.

I feel that I need to explain, at this point, that I did graduate from the University of Wisconsin, even with honors, I have two Masters’ degrees and I wrote a thesis for one of them, so I have accomplished some written academic tasks in my life.  But, being well-educated and writing a book are not the same things.  Writing this book will, without a doubt, top my list of difficult accomplishments. Some days I honestly wish that I hadn’t made such a commitment, so I could just relax and enjoy myself during my spare time, instead of spending endless hours at my computer.  But, the truth is that I can’t stop writing for long, and now, not only because I made a promise to Robert, but also because the more I learned about the Chinese Laogai, the more important I believe it is for others to know about it.  It just happened by chance that I was given this very interesting information to tell and regardless how inadequate I feel or how many times it takes me to rewrite each sentence, I must follow through. 

MY GOAL — IN THE SAME SENTENCE — THE HOLOCAUST, THE RUSSIAN GULAG AND CHINESE LAOGAI

Sometimes I would deep inside me, feel another motivation for writing when I would hear the mention of the Holocaust or of the Russian Gulag.  In America there are many programs on TV about the Holocaust.  Because of the war in Iraq there were news reports on terrible episodes of torture and mistreatment of prisoners. When comments were made relating to these horrors, often the Holocaust or Russian Gulag would be given as a comparison.  I would wait to hear next the mention of what had happened in China, but there is never such a word. 

I think that it is amazing how the Chinese Laogai have remained such a secret.  I can’t believe that something so terrible can remain unspoken of in this day and age of open communication in most of the world. It makes what I have to tell you that much more important, but also more difficult because I’m revealing a huge dark secret of a government, a political ideology and a culture that, in some ways, I don’t feel qualified to speak about.  I wish I had a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies or was some kind of political or historical authority.  I am simply an American teacher who went to China to teach English.  My qualifications for writing are that I was there, I really wanted to learn about the people, I earned their trust and then listened to what people told me.  And now I NEED to tell you what I was told. 

I wish that the entire world already knew about the Chinese Laogai.  I would then just be contributing additional information about another person who suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Government. It would make things much easier for me.

MY INTERNAL CONFLICTS ABOUT FEAR FOR MY STUDENTS

I also want you to understand some of the conflicting feelings that I have had while writing.  I loved my year in China and I grew to love the Chinese people.   My personal experiences in China were great.  The students were as kind, loving and hard working as any teacher could dream of having.    My Chinese University and the staff of the English Department did their best to make me comfortable, safe and very welcome.   People on the streets (and believe me there were many of them) were friendly and respectful. The families of many of my students welcomed me into their humble homes or small apartments and treated me with heart-warming hospitality.  So many Chinese people treated me with respect, loving kindness, warm hospitality and great generosity.  I loved the Chinese people because they were easy to love.  So many people who I met are still dear to my heart and I do not want to cause them any grief, embarrassment or anything worse from their government. As memories of various students come into my mind, I

worry that they may have to pay a terrible price for simply being my friend and my writing this book.  This alone is an indication of the level of fear and retribution beyond our experience living in the West.

I feel pain because I have terrible things to tell of what the Chinese Communist Government did to my friend, Robert and people he knew.  And I fear that it may also happen to the people I know because of my telling what happened to him. There are estimates that similar or worse things may have happened to 50 million Chinese. 

I have come to the conclusion, with the help of a friend that I must tell you the information Robert told to me without making political commentary.  Yes, I can tell right from wrong and I can recognize horror, as well as you can.  But the truth is that there is so much that I do not know about Chinese history, government or politics.  Living somewhere and being an “expert” on that place are two very different things.  After my year, I felt that I had just scratched the surface of the cultural differences.  I don’t want to give you the impression that I am a “China expert.”  My goal is to tell you Robert’s story as he related it to me and that is what I am an expert on.  My commentary will therefore be limited.  I hope that you will think carefully about what I say and provide your own commentary and conclusions as you are reading.

ANOTHER SURVIVOR

After a few months of working with the material that I had, I went to the public library to find if there were any books about Chinese concentration camps or a Chinese Gulag like Solzhenitsyn had written about Russia.  I found one author who had written a book called Troublemaker—One Man’s Crusade Against China’s Cruelty, written in 1996.  The man’s name is Harry Wu.  I eventually decided that I had to buy a copy of my own to study and write in.  Then I found that he had other books called, Laogai– The Chinese Gulag, written in 1992, and Bitterwinds–A Memoir of My Years in China’s Gulag, written in 1994. I was able to order them to study also.

On many days, these books have become an additional inspiration that keeps me going.  I was shocked by the magnitude of what Harry Wu had written.  I had thought that my friend, Robert, was part of a small group of people that the Chinese Communist Government persecuted in their capricious and cruel ways. I did not know the extent of the horror.  Now I felt even more compelled to do my part so the world knows about these men and what they experienced and about other people who were not as lucky and did not live to tell their stories. These people were so horribly treated not because they had done anything wrong or had committed crimes, but because they had fallen out of favor with the Communist leaders in their area.  This government and these officials held such absolute power over another person’s life, that they could allow the person to live a normal life, destroy a life by making it a living hell, or maybe even take a person’s life completely and sometimes painfully. The choice was up to them. There doesn’t seem to be any system of “checks and balances” in Communist China.  How I would hate living under such a threat, such uncertainty and capriciousness and I worry about the students who are dear to me and live under those conditions.

In the US we so often speak of being “empowered,” as women, as workers, as teachers, as students, whatever.  In America we are into “personal rights,” “personal power”, the “individual,” “personal goals,” but in China, life is as different from this as it can be.  Our experiences in this area are hardly within their comprehension.  They don’t know how different our lives are.   You will also find that some things that I say are hard to believe or don’t make sense. There are huge differences in this world and you are about to learn about one of the most terrible.

HARRY WU SPEAKS FROM HIS OWN EXPERIENCE

Harry Wu says in Troublemaker in 1996 that, “The Chinese government has admitted that ten million people have been sent to the camps since the Communists took over in 1949. In 1995, officials said there were 1.2 million workers in 685 camps.  This is a ridiculously low figure.  I estimate that more than fifty million people have been sent to the laogai since 1949.  We currently have records of 1,155 camps, with between six million and eight million prisoners in them.  I believe that perhaps 10 percent are political prisoners, people who said the wrong thing at the wrong time.  The world knows only the tip of the iceberg….Millions of people have been lost in laogai.  Every one of those lives is precious.  The Chinese people have a saying, “We’re not looking for the tree but also the forest.”  The Chinese preoccupation with the majority has led to abuses by dictators like Mao Zedong.  Individuals cannot stand up.  The forest is too important.     I speak for the trees.  Each one has a name, a face, a soul, a family.  Some of them were my friends. How can I neglect them now that I have freedom?  This is my cry.  This is my mission.”

I also feel that I cannot forget what happened to Robert.

Harry Wu goes on to say that when he returned to China in 1995 to learn about the current conditions of the labor camps, “I was over there representing the millions of Chinese people who have lived and died in the labor camps.  I went back for all my friends who died while I lived.  I went back to see the labor camps where I was a prisoner for nearly two decades….I am trying to be a witness for millions of others just like me.”

HOW MUCH DO PEOPLE CARE?

Harry Wu has had the opportunity to appear on American television, including 60 Minutes.  He has been asked to speak before the California Legislature and the United States Congress.  He has also taken his message to many European countries.        

He has tried his best and continues to work with all his time and energy. Perhaps he was the first person with tales of horror and because of the organization he founded, more stories are being told by other Chinese people.  Now I, as an American and certainly an outsider to Chinese politics and perhaps a more objective person than a survivor, have to add what I have learned because I believe with all my heart that what happened in Chinese Laogai needs to be known as much as we know about other atrocities against mankind. It is often said that if we as humans do not learn from history, we will be doomed to repeat it. China has no right to keep its personal monsterous holocaust a secret, especially with the position that China is gaining in the world.        

I was definitely not on a mission to find out anything bad about China. I went to China to have an adventure and to help its people.  I found out a terrible secret and I need to tell my country and maybe others in the world what I was told.  I want to share this because America and the world needs to know what is lurking in China’s past and maybe also in the present.  We, in America, have come to like the Chinese dragon and especially, all its low-priced wares, but we also need to know about its sharp vicious murderous teeth.

THE SITUATION WITH CHINA IS SO DIFFERENT

It doesn’t take a political genius to see the huge differences between Nazi Germany, The Soviet Union and China. When details about the Holocaust became known we had just conquered Germany in the worst war the entire world had ever seen.  It was great to learn out what a truly horrible enemy we had subdued. We were not only the victors, but we were also saviors of millions of innocent people who were freed from Nazi concentration camps.

When Solzhenitsyn wrote his ‘Gulag Archipelago’, we already knew that we had a terrible enemy on our hands with the Soviet Union.  He provided additional evidence that the Cold War was even more valid than we had thought. We were not only saving ourselves and the free world from the horrors of Communism, but perhaps we could be saviors of millions of innocent people being held in Soviet labor camps. China is in an entirely different position in the world.

POLITICS IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE ECONOMIC WORLD

China is no longer our Communist enemy like when Mao ZeDong made threats of nuclear war. Mao is long dead, though his body is still being viewed by thousands daily in a building on Tiananmen Square. (I would not go to see it for many reasons.)

Few Americans remember his frightening statements about the aftermath of nuclear war. He felt that though “half the human race would be annihilated along with imperialism.”  He believed that “millions of Chinese would survive and create a civilization ‘a thousand times higher than the capitalist system.’”  That is part of the reason he encouraged such an increase in the population of China that has now resulted in the “one child policy” to get the population more under control. Many times when people would ask me what is the biggest difference between the US and China.  I would reply, “one billion people.”  I could not believe how a normal day of shopping in downtown Changzhou reminded me of the Fourth of July in America when the fireworks was over.

Today China has become a major economic power in the world.   The balance of trade is monthly millions of dollars in its favor.  Probably it is accurate to say that the US is China’s best customer and they are “our provider of choice.”  It seems that almost everything that we buy today is “Made in China.”  Today, at least 70 percent of non-food items sold in Wal-Mart stores have a Chinese component.  Ted Fishman, author of the book China, Inc., notes “there’s a Chinese component in virtually every aisle you walk in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart is the conduit for all of the output of the Chinese economy directly into American Lives.”  Wal-Mart imports an estimated $18 Billion in products from China each year.  Experts believe Wal-Mart is China’s eighth largest trading partner importing more goods each year than entire countries such as England and Russia. I do not believe that Wal-Mart cannot say with absolute certainty that nothing it sells was made in Chinese Laogai.

Chinese Banks have loaned more money to America and American businesses than most knowledgeable politicians want to think about or admit to. We have no obvious reason for wanting to think bad things about China.  I don’t expect that what I have to say will be popular, especially with American discount shoppers.  There are actually more reasons to want to over-look Laogai in China.  They are partly responsible for some of our cheap prices because prisoners do not have to be paid as other laborers are paid.  They do not need quality food or living conditions. They are the cheapest labor possible. 

Many people will rationalize that after all, this is the Chinese government dealing with their own people. If that’s what they want to do with their own people, why should we get involved?  Is it really any of our business what they did, or even do??   Others will rationalize and say that what happens “behind closed doors” or behind “Chinese walls” should stay that way.  Is it really our concern?  Bad things happen all over the world. We know that the Chinese Communist Government isn’t into human rights, but this is their own people they are hurting. If they were hurting someone else, it might be different and we might do something.    OK, well Tibetans look like Chinese!   The rationalization goes on and on. 

Besides, really what can we do about it??  There is NOTHING we can do. We have no power, control or even influence in these matters.  With the memory of Tiananmen Square still in our minds, thanks to the brave student who defied the tank, we know that no one in China besides those in absolute power have any power.  Life appears to be cheap and the individual of little value.  We seem to be buying into that concept in relationship to China more than ever before.

THE SLEEPING DRAGON IS AWAKE!!!!

People can rationalize all they want and they will, but I must do my part so that you will have information and a new sense of understanding of China.  We know that China has often been portrayed as a  “dragon,” and it has been a “sleeping dragon,” but it is now awake and on the move.  It has done and may continue to do what dragons are known to do.  They have fierce sharp teeth and they use them. Sometimes they just use them to threaten and frighten, but soon you will hear too of how the teeth have maimed and murdered innocent people.

In his own words, Harry Wu also said: “I want to tell you about the camps in China.  For nineteen years, I was one of those prisoners, held for vague offenses against my homeland.  My captors said they wanted to reform me, but really what they wanted was to work me until I dropped.  I was lost in the camps that are strategically scattered all over China, where millions of prisoners produce goods for Chinese industry.  For my purposes, I call the entire system Laogai….Laogai—the phrase burns my soul, makes me crazy, makes me want to grab Americans and Europeans and Australians and Japanese by the shirt and scream, ‘Don’t you know what’s going on over there?’  I want the word laogai to be known all over the world in the same way that gulag has become synonymous with the horrors of Stalin’s prison system.” 

I think that Harry Wu may have, like Robert, idealized Americans, and also Europeans, Australians and the Japanese.  It appears now that not many people seem to care.  But, I will be an optimist too and believe that sometimes people can rise to their potential, if provided enough information and out-rage for the sake of humanity.

What is most remarkable and unbelievable is how something like this has remained almost unknown to the rest of the world.  In America we know so much about our government because of the media. Nothing can remain a secret for long.   But, there are two huge factors that make such secrets possible in China.  We, in America, hardly have a clue about these things :  CONTROL  and   FEAR.    I will share with you some personal experiences that I have had with these concepts in China.  Realize that they are so foreign to us. The examples that I give may seem minor and trivial, but think about them for awhile, put yourself into these issues and ask how you would feel about them, if it were your life.

INFORMATION I LEARNED WHILE IN CHINA ABOUT GOVERNMENT CONTROL

The Communist government ultimately controls much of life in China.   We, in America, not used to government control, have no idea how that is possible.  We experience the unbelievable freedom to come and go, study and work without anyone in the government knowing or caring what we are doing, unless laws are broken. Then we have something to be concerned about.  Of course also, at tax time our government has its greatest interference when making sure it has its fair share of our income to run the country.

But, in China it is different because almost everything is not only known, but controlled and there is an underlying fear because the Chinese people know what power the Communist government has and the fact that there are NO  HUMAN  RIGHTS given or guaranteed by their government, a constitution or Bill of Rights.  When thinking in terms of China, we can realize how truly precious these things are that we vaguely remember studying in a high school social studies class. Human rights can truly make life worth living and a lack of them can make it unbearable. 

Although our media has its faults and limitations, it does have the freedom to tell us anything.  The Chinese government totally controls the media in China. People are only told what the government allows them to be told. Often it was laughable to hear the international news in China given in English and the spin the government puts on life in the US and free world. I sometimes said, “like anybody is going to believe that!”  

The Internet is having a great impact on life in China. People have a new way to gather information and it can’t be totally controlled, although I often was told that many web-sites cannot be accessed in China. I enjoyed it immensely when my students would check on the Internet if what I had told them in class was true.  For example, one day I said that 14 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world were in China.  My students hadn’t heard that and didn’t like it that I had made such an accusation.  They knew that Americans created the most pollution, but they had no idea of how bad pollution is in China.  To them, we in the West, were totally at fault for “destroying the planet” and, of course, China was innocent and blameless. One of the strangest things I experienced in China is how different the sun looks in the sky.  It is always filtered by so much pollution that you can see a ring at its edge. I cannot find the words to accurately describe the great difference there is. The Chinese people, of course, assume that this is the norm for all over the world, which it definitely is not.  How would they know any differently?

I still remember the night that I asked in my university teachers’ class how many people had been outside of China.  Only one man volunteered that he had been out of the country, but I know others also had been, but weren’t brave enough at this point to enter into the discussion.  Then I asked him about the way the sun looks in China compared to Europe where he had been.  I let him be the one to explain to the class the difference and how it is related to the severe pollution in China.  We had quite the discussion that night, but too often my students spoke in Chinese because it was beyond belief what they were hearing.  They had to ask for clarity and share their disbelief in their native language.  I also think that they were so troubled that they didn’t want me to know how little they were aware of the truth and didn’t want to believe it.

My students often told me to be careful when sending e-mail.  I did not believe that millions of messages could be monitored.  Since my return to the US I have learned that they and their fear were appropriate and correct.  I did not believe what Chinese Communist control was like even when I was living under it.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF EDUCATION

I really became aware of how the government controls the educational system.  A student gets into a university by scoring high on tests and then, based on the tests, they are told what their major will be.  I had many students tell me that they are in fields of study that they don’t like, but there is no choice, but to work hard and do well, because there is only one chance for higher education in China.  You cannot drop out or flunk out and get another chance.  I had a student tell me how he had been planning his suicide because he could not go home from school as a failure. One of the students I got to know and love, one of the kindest, most gentile and loving young woman, missed being able to go to medical school by one point because she had been up all night before the test, taking care of her sick mother.  There is no such thing as a “re-take.”  She is now not in a people-oriented field like she wanted, but is working with computers, which seem boring and unfulfilling to her.   I could sense when she spoke with me how her young spirit was broken. Both China and she have lost out in this process.  The stories could go on. They are too common and numerous for me to tell them all.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF JOBS

The government also controls most jobs. You don’t work or make a living without the approval for the job by the Communist Government.  There are some open jobs that people can interview for, but even these have great restrictions. If you get into the free market you forgo a position with the Communist Party.  Many students asked my advice about their becoming a Communist and their fear of not becoming one.  They wanted to know if freedom and the free market really work. They thought that as a teacher in America, I not only worked for the government, but was told where and what I would be teaching.  They could not believe that I have lived in six different states and was able to go to a different state if I wanted to and then get a job there.  They really don’t understand how a free market works in the United States, a totally free country.  Our system is unbelievable to the Chinese and their system seems beyond comprehension to us.  They actually think that government control is the only way life can exist. Most of the time, we assume that the whole world lives with the freedoms that we enjoy and take for granted.   Likewise, the Chinese assume that our lives are not so different from their lives except that we have more money.  I tried to be respectful when talking about such differences to be as factual as possible and honest, but not bragging or boastful because I feel that we in rich free America have our problems too.  Lacking in wisdom is more a human quality.  I did not want to tempt my fate with the Communist Government because I felt like I was tempting fate enough every time I rode in an automobile in China.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF HOUSING

When a person gets a job in China they then become part of a Work Unit.     Another powerful factor is that the Work Unit controls every person’s living arrangements.  Let me give an example from my university.  All the university teachers and staff live in certain apartment buildings owned by the university.  There are buildings for married staff, each unit having a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. I was told that some how the couple can “buy” the apartment from the university, but if they leave they must sell it back to the university. The system never quite made sense to me, but it seemed great to them. It is like they paid rent, but got some money back, if ever they were to leave the university, which seldom happens.  The more flights up an apartment is located in China, the less expensive it is because there are no elevators.  One English teacher, who I visited, lived on the seventh floor with no elevator.  She was so proud because with the money she had saved walking so many steps she was able to buy her son a piano, which is a very expensive and high status item. There are also smaller studio apartments for single teachers.

GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF MARRIAGE

The University Staff is highly encouraged to marry within the university community.  Most of the teachers I knew were married to other teachers or administrators, etc. of the university.  One of the weddings I attended was between two engineering teachers who were both in my class.  The University President presided at the wedding, which was held in the ballroom of a local hotel. There is no sanction of religion in China, so hardly anyone would get married in a church. Another wedding I attended was held in the University Library where twelve couples, all on the University staff were married at the same time with hundreds of university students and staff present.  Then the couples went to nearby hotels for their own private reception. The Communist Party gives permission for a marriage. If a divorce happens, which is fairly seldom, the Communist Party first tries various types of pressure to keep the couple together.  I know of only one divorced person who I met during my year in China.  “For better or worse” are truly the vows that could be taken in China, meaning much more than they do in the US. 

THE ULTIMATE “NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH”

Many people and especially Communist Party Members seemed to keep tabs on others.   I was shocked at the gossip and great interest the Chinese have for other people.  It is like the “Ultimate Neighborhood Watch” program in the US, but everyone is watching everyone else and some are reporting to the authorities. I know that the name of any person who came to my apartment was recorded and sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs. People working in my apartment building entered my rooms on a daily basis.  The outward purpose was to deliver hot water or to clean, but I know that they looked around my apartment in places that were not their business because I caught them on several occasions when I returned without their seeing me. They monitored every time I left and were so “friendly” to ask where I was going, if it was after class hours. The university always wanted me to have an escort if I left campus, except for near-by food shopping.  They did buy me a bicycle for World Women’s Day and I rode a little off campus, but I considered streets to be very dangerous and I stayed close to the campus.

A WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD

I forgot to mention that our campus is walled-in, like most large companies and institutions in China.  Apartment house complexes are also walled-in.  My university has three gates with 24-hour guards.  Now this did make me feel safe that only students and staff were allowed on campus. But, they also knew every time I left campus, the direction I was going, who I was with and what I carried with me.  The university also knew that the beautiful flower gardens all over campus would not be disturbed, damaged or used as food by outsiders.  There are definite advantages, but I don’t know of any college or university that could be like that in the US.  So many places in China, such as schools, hospitals and companies are walled-in with controlled access.  It seems like a strange concept in the West, but very functional for many reasons including Communist control.

I heard that, once in a while, people can move to a single-family house that is privately owned.  Each house is not walled-in, but the neighborhood of such houses does have a wall.  One teacher who I got to know fairly well was going to move to a house close to the university after I left China. I never saw the house, but I saw a little village of houses being built near the university and she showed me the plans of one that was to be hers. The couple themselves did not have enough money to move out of their apartment, which I visited often, but the husband’s parents were chipping in and three generations would live together.  The grandmother would take care of her granddaughter, the couple’s only child.  The grandfather had to provide the maintenance for the house and then the teacher told me that she and her husband would be able to work longer hours for the university.  Another teacher told me behind her back that this sounded so good except the grandparents were very mean to the female English teacher, their daughter-in-law.  I was told that they not only spoke in a cruel way to her, always being critical and disrespectful, but that they often struck her and she was made to serve them dinner without eating herself.  These behaviors were typical in China’s past, but do not seem to fit with modern educated people.  She would be the last person in the family to eat and she only got what was left over, sometimes very little. The husband in the family was a university administrator and all adults in the family were members of the Communist Party.

I, TOO, EXPERIENCED CONTROL WITH THE VELVET GLOVED HANDS OF MY STUDENTS

I also was “under subtle control” while in China.  I never went anywhere without the approval and a chaperone from the university.  At first other university teachers escorted me around.  After they knew me, that I wasn’t up to something terrible, I could go with a university student.  I was told that the students were talked to before they went with me and threatened to make sure I was safe and never left their sight. They also had to report back after our outing. The students always held on to me when I crossed a street.  I didn’t mind this because I felt better being taken care of. But, there can be a different point of view for their behavior. One vacation in the Spring I went to the home of one student for half the time and then to the home of another student for the remainder of the nine days.  It was arranged that we would meet at a certain place to deliver me from one student to the next.  I asked them if this was the changing of the “guards” or “baby-sitters?”  They laughed and said, “both.” And then the one said that she was greatly relieved that her duty was over and had been successfully completed because she was worried what the university might have done to her if something had gone wrong.

There was a young Australian teacher who also taught English and he was not as closely monitored, partly because he would not have tolerated it.  He was into much riskier behavior than I was, but he also was in constant trouble with the University.  My goal was to be safe, but looking back I know that there were other goals on the part of the university and the government.

The most “alone” thing I did while in China was to go to Beijing with a couple from Australia who also taught at the university. We were three adult foreigners traveling without an escort. But, the university made the plane reservations, took us to the airport, made the hotel reservations and then there was a lady at the hotel who monitored our daily activities.  We could, of course, eat where we wanted to, but every morning she went over our plans, “in case we needed some help” and every night she was waiting for us to arrive back at the hotel “to make sure that we had had a good time.” At the time, I preferred to feel like I was being “cared for,” but I think that other interpretations seem obvious.  I did not have problems with the close supervision I experienced. I liked feeling safe and cared for and I wanted to get along well with the Chinese people and the University. I didn’t have anything to hide and was willing to “fit with the program.”

Now that I am away from China I realize things that I did not think of when I was there.  Whenever Robert came to visit me he always brought me food that his wife had made.  They decided that she was going to teach me how to cook Chinese food.  I was a little interested, like I’m curious about everything, but I never had the idea of wanting “cooking lessons.”  Whenever I went to their apartment she did show me how to cook whatever we were eating and I was interested and listened. Robert would stop by my apartment frequently during the week to bring me samples of food and on the weekend I would go to their apartment to “learn to cook.”  I later realized that we could get together more often with this simple explanation for our frequent visits when actually we were mostly working on the material for this book. At the time, I didn’t understand what was really going on.

The things that I’m telling you about the students aren’t terrible.  The control I experienced was not oppressive, but this is certainly not how things are done in free countries.  We would not treat people like this in the US.  I would not want to live like these students and adults, and I feel sure that you agree.

Some people who I know enjoyed great benefits being part of the Chinese Communist Party.  They had happy weddings, secure marriages and a few private houses.  Several of my adult university teacher-students were able to study abroad, but all, I found out, were party members.  And we all were “fitting with the program” and not “rocking the boat.”

LIVING IN FEAR

That is where the fear comes in—“boat rockers” and sometimes even thinkers, don’t do well in China, some do very poorly and some, as you can read about as you continue, are severely punished.  Unfortunately, you will also hear about others who did not even live to tell their own stories.   

I want to get started now on more interesting details on how I got to China, started working, met Robert… and then on to his amazing survival story.