2007年11月29日星期四

VOA新闻奖学金项目


早上打开Gmail邮箱,发现有VOA发来的一封邮件,邮件的末尾是VOA新闻奖学金项目。这个项目是由国际教育协会(Institute of International Education, IIE)中国办公室推出的,由美国之音(VOA)提供奖学金。此项目是针对已获得学士学位、有志于到美国大学(American University)进行为期一年的非学位性研究生学习的学生设置的。具体的项目信息如下:



研究领域: 新闻/传媒
资助类型: 全额奖学金
针对学生地区: 中国
奖学金名额: 两名
奖学金期限: 一学年
项目类型: 非学位的研究生课程学习,以及职业发展活动





申请的要求:


2007年11月28日星期三

Beijing in the Great Cultural Revolution: Investigation of the Appalling Massacre Happened in Daxing County



Beijing in the Great Cultural Revolution


Investigation of the Appalling Massacre Happened in Daxing County


[Author:Yu Luowen ]


Translated by Peter Guo, No Copyright Reserved


1. ORIGIN


It enumerated the methods that how the people in power damaged the "Black Five Categories" (landlords, rich farmers, counterrevolutionaries, bad members, rightist members) and their offspring in the Of Parentage written by Yu Luoke in 1966, in which there was a sentence of "cruelly 'pulled up completely with roots'", indicating the extremely cruel massacre incident of Daxing County which happened in August 1966.

However, the High School Cultural Revolution Report which managed by us had only three months of life span, and the newspaper also had been released only 7 issues, the writing space was limited and time was too little, leading to fail to complete the scheduled plans, though we tried to disclose and criticize the Fascist outrages of damaging mankind in every issue as far as possible. Luoke once even had an illusion of compiling a book before he was arrested, which specially collected and disclosed the horrible outrage that took place during the "Great Cultural Revolution ".

Sooner after Luoke was imprisoned, I was also put into the same prison, coincidentally the cell jailed one killer who participated in the massacre incident. Although he was ashamed of publicizing of his notorious doings, the other prison sufferers couldn't help to discuss his appalling evil doings and named him as a "butcher".


It was said that the slaughter of "Black Five Categories" in other places was to make them die rapidly, otherwise the village where the "butcher" lived in, except for beaten the old "Black Five Categories" to die by cudgels and split across the infant "Black Five Categories" into two halves, they imprisoned the teenage "Black Five Categories" and took the torture to those teenagers time by time as playing a "game".


They backed both hands of the male youth and hung up them by only the thumbs fastened, and then execute various kinds of torture; to the female youth, besides hung up and thrashed them, they did sex maltreatments on them. In the evening the butchers put down them and let them had a "rest", with the purpose to let them not die too fast and suffer more. In the mean time, they released the notices to the "Black Five Categories" who labored outside, compelling them to come back for "animadversion". Days later, all the male and female youth were dead.

For the teenage "Black Five Categories", they didn't even let pass. They didn't give anything to eat for the teenagers until they was hungry to a certain degree in the first several days, and then threw some eggplants to them to make fun by watching them grabbed the eggplants. Later their superiors released a designation of stopping massacre. Firstly the "butchers" treated the "designation" as nothing at all, and still there some people were dead.


Said according to the "butcher", imprison of him was not for the reason that he killed some people, but for he didn't respect the designation from his superiors. On the contrast, spoke of grievances for the innocent killed "mean people", Louke was ruthlessly sentenced death penalty.


Only twenty years after the Daxing Massacre Incident, there were some brief reports shown on some books and periodicals, from which we primarily knew that, the public security system of Daxing County conveyed the speaking of the minister of Public Security Xie Fuzhi in Aug. 26, 1966, from Aug. 27 to Sep. 1, there were 325 people killed, among which the oldest was 80 years old, and the youngest was just 38 days in the 13 communes with 48 brigades in this county. 22 families were annihilated in total (See Decade History of the Great Cultural Revolution, September 1986, Tianjin People's Publishing House).


The purpose of researches on the aggrieved history is to provide reference for posterities and make the society go forward, races progress, is a matter of great significance. But not until we really wanted to probe into this case, had we found it was so difficult to find the historical data! At first, I went to the Beijing Municipal Archives which was just opened in last year, unexpectedly couldn't find any information about the well known incidents that happened in the early stage of the "Cultural Revolution". There was not any material on the matters regarding the Red Guards' confiscation of people's property, people killing, and massacre in the villages, e.g. a most obvious example: in March 18, 1967, all avenues in Beijing were pasted pieces of the announcement from the Military Control Committee of Bureau of Public Security (so called "318 announcement"), which stipulated 11 kinds of people and their family that needed to be repatriation to rural areas. After that, the "11 kinds of people" became a special term, including landlords, rich farmers, counterrevolutionaries, bad members, rightist members, capitalists, sinister gang members, reactive military officers, pseudo policemen, pseudo military policemen and secret agents respectively. So influential official public documents but not found in the archives. Fortunately, there was the "Report of the Municipal People's Congress and Military Control Committee on the Relevant Allocation Problems Concerning the Dispatched People" which was released in March 23, 1967, could still provide evidences that there once bad been facts of driving people to the villages, and these immoral conducts started in 1966 and didn't over in 1967. The "report" indicated that being dispatched to the rural areas, some of them returned to, more than a half of them were defined as the "11 kinds of people". It said "in consistent with the dealing measures" in the "report", should continue to dispatch (people to rural). The so called "dealing measures" were indicated in the "318 announcement" that released 5 days ago. Even though so incomplete the archives were and the many entries in the table of contents were pasted with opaque adhesive tape, it seemed that I found something that shouldn't be publicized within one year.


Driving the people out of who had "problems" should be traced back to the years from 1959 to 1961, when the mayor and secretary of the Communist Party Municipal Committee Peng Zhen had a famous saying: will construct to become "glass plates, crystal stones*". Just at that time they hadn't attained large-scale dispatch activity. Since the beginning of "Cultural Revolution", it was inevitable to implement the repatriation. I turned over the government documents regarding compression of the city population from 1959 to 1962 to seek any clue about "glass plates, crystal stones"; it's clearly that nothing to be obtained. Since it was hard to find the needed materials, I turned to look for the involved parties in the massacre.


There were 13 communes in that performed massacre, among which the commune was the most well known. The persons that commanded the massacre there were Gao Fuxing and Hu Defu, who are still alive; it was said that they manage grocers in the downtown areas of the county. I wanted to seek for them firstly; if succeeded, I would know who commanded them and their motivations at that time. I made great efforts to find out the younger brother of Gao Fuxing, but unexpectedly got the cheese, the "supervisors" upon them prohibited them to provide the historical data of that massacre incident to others with the reasons unknown.


Fortunately, that incident itself couldn't keep secrets; the activities behind the scenery didn't need to be said through learning about the kinds of facts. And the greater significance is on digging the root of this vicious incident and learning about why they happened so as to avoid happening again. The direct reason of Daxing Massacre incident was violence and killing of the Red Guards in urban regions. If make May 16, 1966 as the starting of the "Cultural Revolution", at the early June the "Red Guards" organizations with strong feudal colors appeared in high schools which eventually called as the "Old Red Guards". The only organizing principle of them was exclusively born in the families with high ascendancy. The "Red Guards" left the history two slogans and extremely notorious deeds.


The two slogans were: "rebellion is reasonable" and "hero father breeds brave children; reactive father breeds blamed children". The ashamed deeds to the mankind was the Fascist inhumane deeds that treating as if people's life was not worth of a straw, while the victims were those people in inferior position who had not any resistant ability and been repressed for years for no reason. The "Red Guards"s was not satisfied just only assaulting the presidents (principles) and teaching fellows in the schools, after "smashed" the "revisionism education system", they put excess efforts to the society, starting the activities of "break through the four olds" and bloody terrible "family property confiscation". It seemed that their job was to inexorably uncover the new "sinister gangs", destroyed the things that has traditional culture colors and oppressed and even killed the "black kinds" (pluses capitalists and "sinister gangs" based on the "Black Five Categories").


Mao Zedong saw those "Old Red Guards" on Tiananmen Rostrum tower in August 18. Song Renqiong's daughter Song Binbin wore a sleeve emblem for Mao Zedong. Mao asked Song what was her name if the Bin ( 彬,courteous) in the word "Wen Zhi Bin Bin" ( 文质彬彬, gentle), said "Wow! Yaowu ( 要武嘛,want violence)", therefore Song changed her name as "Song Yaowu". Since " ,the "Red Guards" became quite famous, ignorance, prejudice plus unlimited power, made them have beast like temper and minds without conscience.

The so-called "family property confiscation" was always confiscating and destroying all property, even if the old widows and widowers, were robbed everything in their home even some living items like bowls, chopsticks and bedding were also confiscated. Furthermore, the "family property confiscation" was always accompanied with "assault" which was an extremely cruel means. The common item during ""family property confiscation" was "shaving" "Yinyang hairstyle", hardly let the women pass. It was said "shaving", actually was shaving with depilation, sometimes pulled out the hairs handful by handful, even the skin of head was tore. There were often seen that some senior people slouched the bleeding heads with pink scalp, still in pillory through the streets. The crueler was that "washed" the heads, namely pouring the thick alkaline solution onto the wound places. The re was a "capitalist" family in the area near Dongsi (a street), where the senior couple were nearly beaten to die, and their son was compelled to beat them, the son in high school used a dumbbell to smash his father's head, himself finally became mad. It was quotidian phenomena that beating some people to die, on the sand beach street, some male "Red Guards" assaulted an senior lady using shackles and belts until she couldn't move, and a female "Red Guards" jumped on her belly until the senior woman were trampled to die.


A so called "Class Revenge Incident" broke out in the areas around Ganlanshi of Chongwen District, Bejing in August 25. It was said that a "house property lord" whose last name was Li couldn't endure the maltreatments using a kitchen knife threatened a "Red Guard" who watched him, and was killed. This incident was exaggerated and went the rounds to the "Red Guards" organizations in every school, the "small generals" in search of quarrels couldn't even give up the chance, thousands of hatchet men in soldier costumes and weapons in hands gathered in the street where the incident happened by special bus, "bloodily washed" these areas for 7 days, countless people mercilessly were beaten up and many people died of unnatural death. This was the "Ganlanshi Incident" that astonished. In this action, they confiscated the house of a "landlord's wife" (alone widow) near Chongwenmnen, compelled all the neighboring residents to take a bottle of boiled water for each family, pouring the hot water from her neck until the muscle on the neck scalded completely. Days later, her body threw in the house was full of maggots. The Shao's family in the Nangongkou Huton, formerly as an Intendant of Circuit in Qing Dynasty, stored a lot of balm and white sugar in his home. The "Red Guards" coerced this family to drink balm oil and have white sugar; Mr. Shao Zhongkuang who experienced this punishment said it was more unbearable than deadly assaults. Thousands of people in urban regions of were killed by the "Red Guards" during the last ten-day of August, 1966, and homicidal evil doings rapidly radiates to every suburb of , including Daxing County.


* Peng Zhen, the former mayor of Beijing city at 1960s-1970s, and one of the earliest heads of the Communist Party of China. The phase of "glass plates, crystal stones (玻璃板,水晶石)" means to spy the people to let there were no secrets hidden in the people, making the society clear and transparent like "glass plates, crystal stones". I think this had special meaning under that social circumstance, because at that time the culture revolution began, Beijing as the center of China, Peng should make the example for Mao Zedong, so he called for the police to digged out the "Five Black Categories".

Yu Luowen, the author and the narrator in the film of Morning Sun. Yu Luoke was his elder brother, an extraordinarily prescient critic of the Cultural Revolution and political manipulation in China, who was executed in 1970 for his ideas in his book, of parentage.

2007年11月26日星期一

Annual Awards of 2007


I found the following contents in a QQ group, when I asked someone who posted it where did from, the guy said it was transferred from a friend's friend, so I don't know its original place. Looking back to the year of 2007, there were so many things that couldn't be forgotten, such as inflation, media scandals, etc.. So a list of awards for those important events has been made by someone, attracting me to make a comment on it. As you know the inflation rate is quite high in 2007, the official said it was 6.5%, but I think it was underestimated. The price of pork is a significant example, it kept increase from the beginning of the year to the highest at August, I remember once per kilo of pork ribs charged ¥ 42.0 Yuan. To know the conditions of price of pork, click here and here to know the opinions of the general Chinese people. We are living in a time of inflation, some other places like Taiwan is also encountered this problem. The inflation rate of Taiwan is 4.5%. Ironically, the state owned media CCTV said in the fourth channel which always smears the achievement of democratization in Taiwan and defends the despotism in China , "the Taiwan people cry that they can't support their lives", and said in firth channel CCTV1, "the inflation has no big impacts on people's life". Moreover, you must have heard of a media scandal which caused a part-time journalist lost his job. Months ago, Beijing TV covered news saying there was someone selling the pork buns stuffed with cardboard, astonishing the whole nation. But when many people queried the truth, the authority fined the TV station and the journalist saying it was fake news fabricated by the journalist. On the contrary to the willing of the authority, more people believed it was real. Now, please have look at the following:




2007 年度大奖年度经济动物大奖:猪
猪肉价直追房价。
颁奖辞:它以它的生命完成了一道经济学课题。


2007年度形象动物大奖:熊猫
烧香的不一定是和尚,还可能是熊猫...
颁奖辞:它以它的形象实现了一次网络颠覆。


2007年度感伤动物大奖:白鳍豚
它,灭绝了
颁奖辞:人类的杰作。


2007年度食品大奖:包子
纸馅的,包子
颁奖辞:人类的又一杰作。


2007年度流体力学贡献大奖:张艺谋
时间和乳沟一样,挤一挤还是有的。
颁奖辞:以强烈的视觉效果增强了东方女性的自信。


2007年度PARTY设计大奖:现在大学同学工作后第一次聚会常选择在动物园
大家共同的理由是:只有在这里,才能感慨到自己还是个人……
颁奖辞:重温达尔文




Some friends, who don't know Chinese, can read the following translation:



Annual Awards of 2007


Annual award of economic animals: pigs;
The increasing speed of price of pork is catching up that of real estate;
The prize presentation speech: they have completed an economic topic by their lives.


Annual award of image animal: panda;
The one which burns incense is not necessarily the monk, sometimes may also be a panda ...
The prize presentation speech: it use its image to accomplish subversion of network.


Annual award of sentiment animal: Baiji dolphin
It, has been extinct;
The prize presentation speech: masterpiece of human.


Annual award of food: stuffed buns;
Pork buns, stuffed with cardboards;
The prize presentation speech: another masterpiece of human.


Annual award of contribution to hydrodynamics: Zhang Yimou;
Time, like the cleavage (breast), can always be presented if it is squeezed;
The prize presentation speech: enhance the Oriental women's self-confidence with strong visual effects.


Annual award of PARTY Design: the venue of first time classmates reunion of the university students is often chose in the zoo
Our common reason is: only here can we feel ourselves or are human ...
The prize presentation speech: reviewing



We can see that most of the events had relation with animals, such as panda, pig and Baiji Dolphin. I must add an award for this year which still has relation with animals:



2007年最震撼動物大獎: 螞蟻
千萬不要小看螞蟻,它們能毀掉很多家庭
頒獎辭:螞蟻雖小,能撐起一座大廈,也能顛覆一座大廈。



The translation is:



Annual award of most impressive animal: ants.
Don't look down upon the ants. They can ruin hundreds of families.
The prize presentation speech: although small in size, the ants can in one hand support a building, in the other hand destroy it.



You can find more stories about the animals, like South China tiger, but not the animals let us feel so ridiculous, but some Chinese behind.


2007年11月25日星期日

我觸動他們敏感的神經


我向来不喜欢针对某人或某事做具体评价,轻易地得出某人或某件事物,甚至是以偏概全地得出某个群体或某类事物好与坏的结论;或许某个人的行为或某件事的影响可以当作反映某个整体的一面镜子,但并不是可以一概而論,一個擁有眾多精英的群體中也會有些害群之馬,另一面雞窩里也有可能飛出金鳳凰。我喜欢在整体的事件上做宏观分析,那样我可以找到那些人和事物的整体状态。比如说,我一再批判中国官场的腐败现象,前提是我已经从众多的贪污案件、大多数的民众的言论以及我个人的观察得知中国也就那么一回事,所以我并不惊讶于某某高官和另外一位高層領導共用一位情婦,也不想知道陳良宇到底拿了多少錢,反正是我不能夠想象的。贪污泛滥是中国官场的普遍现象,这是概率上為100%的必然事件,在中國當官原則上就要向國家、納稅人多少"拿"點,無論誰站在他們的位置都會這么做,結局都差不了多少。他們發達或下馬的區別,就如太監李蓮英和安德海,受寵時正如李蓮英一樣風光得意,落魄時就如安德海被慈禧給拋棄。但是,現在也許我應該修正自己的想法,對于身邊的人某些偏執的行為應該也做一些評價,因為有些人總讓我覺得如傻逼一樣頑固不化地思考,我有意無意地刺痛別人的神經。


一日,我和來自福建周邊的某個省份的同學在網上聊天,吃飯的時間到了,我向對方發了一張圖片,沒想到引起了對方的不快。這張圖片很常見(應該聲明不是我原創的),圖片是毛老人家望著前方,向前招手,刻意表現出他的高瞻遠矚,假裝很偉大。只不過在此圖片里邊,他被PS成了一個戴著廚師帽的廚師,手里拿著鍋鏟,所配的文字"吃飯時間到了"。我把這張圖片發過去就是要提醒對方吃飯時間到了,不跟他繼續聊下去,結果就被他鄭重警告"不要拿毛主席開玩笑",害我和他吵起來。


同這位同學交鋒之后,我思考了一下,其實不難發現,這個省份是毛老人家政治發家的地方,也就是今天所謂的革命根據地。當年,正是他在那片貧瘠的土地上建立了國中之國,也成就了今天的共產主義中國。所以,至今在那個省份境內仍保留著許多"紅色"根據地,以留下當年革命的證據,如今都成了旅游景點。就連境內的火車,據說那些乘務員也會裝扮成紅軍,唱著吐得掉渣的"紅色歌曲"。當真理部有需要教育它們的走卒的時候,便會扯上一幫人馬到那里去"憶苦思甜"。說是"憶苦思甜",實際上就是公費旅游,拿納稅人的錢,他們一點也不痛心。


現在那里很多人仍然保留著很多舊思想,見到毛的畫像還會眼淚汪汪的。過去我一直很同情那里的人,因為在上個世紀49年前就是中國東部最窮的勝負,很多人鬧革命,沒有得到任何好處,還害苦了鄉親父老,今天這里仍然是中國東部最窮的地方。為什么,這是我一直思考的問題,但是他們是不是想過里邊的原因是什么我就不清楚了。目前那里拿不出幾樣可以引以為豪的東西,我知道那里的瓷器很出名,但是能老拿祖宗的東西說事嗎?那里的年輕人蜂擁到廣東、福建等沿海地區打工,撿起最臟最累的活干。我不是嘲笑貧窮,沒有到根的貧窮,只要改變自己的思想,不要墨守成規,我想現狀是有可能改變的。思想改變行動,行動改變命運。抱著那種陳舊的思想在沿海發達的城市是行不通的,如果還那樣守舊的話,我勸你還是回到老家,那才是你最合適的地方。我根本犯不著蠻橫不講理地說:"從哪里來就回到哪里去!",又不礙我什么事。


毛是舊體制的象征,他的時代早已經被劃上句號,永遠不會再回來。不存在的人,怎么可以以舊的稱謂繼續稱呼他呢?你他媽的至少要在其前邊加個"前"字。頭銜也有時效性的,簡單的說,過期作廢。美國前總統克林頓卸任之后,美國公民稱他為Mr. Clinton或Former President Clinton,再則其全名Bill Clinton,沒有人會繼續稱他為President Clinton。中國的封建社會,為避諱帝王特別是太祖的名諱,才不敢以其全名相稱。如果你愿意當真擁護毛的話,我不反對,但同時你也別介意別人把它當成太祖刺痛你的情感(這句話到這份上,我已經相當克制了,不然......)。回到頭來,這樣的PS并不過分,君不見眾多的網民的簽名檔是中國當局領導人,附帶的文字比這更有趣。倒退二十年,我的行為可能導致我嚴重的政治錯誤,極有可能進大牢。


我不希望有更多的人將自己對號入座,我相信自己已經刺痛了那些人的敏感的政治神經。

2007年11月23日星期五

Get close to Burma


In front of the blow tank

The period from October to November of 2007 is worthy of memory in my life time, especially after I became a translator/interpreter. During these days, I got along with some people from Burma, which has been renamed by its dictator into Myanmar. Thanks to a training program to a team of 48 Burma technicians at a paper factory in a mountainous city which is hundreds kilometers away from Xiamen, couples of interpreters were needed, so I was assigned to the factory by my company. I would have been expected there for 2 months, but actually I only stayed there just 1 month.


In Oct. 9, I arrived at the factory, starting the journey as an interpreter. The Burmese arrived in Oct. 11. I met them in the parking yard and led them to their dormitory. They accompanied by three Chinese to Burmese interpreters who have Chinese origin, two of them whose fathers are from Fujian province. Frankly to say, I have never met with some foreigners from a country which is poorer and more despotic than China, resulting in a sense of superiority complex in my mind at first. Later I found this complex isn't healthy. I don't deny that I have sense of inferior complex when I get along with the people from western countries. On the contrary to the common feeling, the sense is not come from my economic situation, but the political - the distinction of being slaves and free people. They are also from a calamitous country; endless wars, dictatorship have almost ruined this country, making it a poorest country in the world. In Chinese, there is a saying, "难兄难弟", which means brotherhood of different persons even if no blood relation in adverse circumstance, indicating the same circumstance that the Burmese and Chinese encounter. I thought Chinese are the same with those people, encounter the same problems of economy and politics; both of the people should fight against with poverty and dictators. On the extent, we shouldn't look upon down the Burmese; the Burmese in China likes a general Chinese in the street of New York.


The paper factory has previous experience in training Burmese technicians, so it could win the bid for this newly program. Burma is a mysterious country to me, the military government, religion and their customs, not until the day I saw them had the mystery been revealed. In this factory, I heard of that there was once a batch of training team which is led by a military leader. It was the basic impression of mine to the people from Burma and their country. A length of two months is not long in one's life, but when you get along with foreigners in such length of time, it seems that you can learn much from them and their country.


I was frustrated


Not until I met Burmese had I felt interpretation is such a tough job. Though I didn't major in English in university, I never lose the self-confidence for my speaking English, and also listening. However, when I hear they are talking, I feel myself so naive. My colleague was asked if there was a "delephone", only after the other side made a gesture of making a phone call, he knew what he wanted was telephone. We learned that they pronounce t as d; days later I learned that they pronounced p as b, such as "power station" was pronounced "['bauə] station". It seemed not an easy beginning.


Political Problem


Nothing can always go on smoothly. The training courses began at the second week after their arrival and all the conditions ran into normal. But suddenly, we were faced with a critical problem, which touched someone's sensitive nerve of politics. The deputy manager who has been to Burma found that all places relate to the country's name was translated into Burma. But the most important is that the training materials are translated by our company and the Burma party will dispatch two generals to here to watch the conditions of this training that we res. So they argued with my boss why we had translated in that way. As you know, the military dictators changed the country name from Burma into Myanmar. But it has been seldom recognized in worldwide. Now even on the most famous newspapers in the world, Burma is frequently used. So we used the word too without considering the significance it will bring. Actually, we shouldn't bear the total responsibility, in the materials our customer gave us the country's name was also pre-translated as Burma. We tried great efforts to make up this issue. We always are confuses by these two words: Burma/Myanmar, like a post written by a Hong Kong blogger.


1: 6


It is the ratio of adult males and females in Burma, but some other said it was 1: 3. When I heard of this, I wondered that why sexual imbalance will occur in this country though there is no baby control policy in Burma. Later I was told that due to years of wars in Burma, the adult males are forced to be recruited as soldiers and died in the battles. The damn wars had ruined many families and people's life. Furthermore, many Burmese don't like to be soldiers, although to be a soldier somedays can earn a post in the government; the adult males exile from this country to the countries around like India, Thailand, even China so that the sexual ratio is extraordinary imbalanced in this country. 40 years ago, a family has an average of 9 children, but 2 to 3 children currently.


1: 185


It indicates the exchange rate between Chinese RMB and Burmese KYAT. So you can use a bank paper of 10 Yuan to exchange that of 1,850 Kyats [pronounced cha]. The maximum nominal value of the Burmese bank paper is 1,000 Kyats. In order to keep something in memory, some of my fellows exchanged the Burmese bank note according to the rate of 1: 100, which is a bank note of 10 Yuan exchanges that of 1,000 Kyats. So far as I know, the average salary of the workers is just equal to RMB 200 Yuan per month, and hundreds of thousands of people now live in desperate poverty. One day when I led them to the supermarket to buy something themselves, I felt a great responsibility; I was afraid of being cheated by the sellers, moreover I was afraid of the relative high price. You can image that, how a Burmese who only earns 200 Yuan a month could afford to buy a digital camera which costs at least 1,400 Yuan. For these reasons, I led them to the stores where sold cheap things for shopping in every weekend. So poor a country, but life in Burma is expensive. I was told by some Burmese that in Burma a GSM card costs about 3.1 million Kyats, equal to 17,000 Yuan, if some one wants to own a cell phone, he/she will be charged above 18,000 Yuan. If you don't have any concept to RMB, exchange rate between RMB and US $ is 7.6: 1, so from here you can image how expensive it is! You know the telecommunication, controlled by the military government like China Telecom controlled by the state owned capitals, is monopolized. In Burma, the dictators rate so high telecommunication fee so as to blind and deafen the people, because the general people are poor and can't afford to use telecommunication and Internet to learn what happen in the world and what is freedom and democracy.


Burma has not been invaded by Japan


It seems that all dandy guys share a common ground, that is, ignorant of knowledge, no matter where are they from, US or China, even if Burma. There was a guy supposed to be with limited knowledge, when he was asked with the question of "Has Myanmar been invaded by Japan?" , unexpectedly this guy shrugged and said no. It caused us to laugh at him, even his fellow. This guy couldn't even know the meaning of invade, so we repeated and explained again and again. Until we said "Had the Japanese army ever been to land of Myanmar?", we knew we were defeated, because he couldn't give the answer but just shrug.


Something relates to the job


I was responsible for the training of pulping section where is the most dangerous and smelly place in the paper factory. In this section, there are many pressure containers and pipes which are the risks of safety. Moreover, some chemicals which have uncomfortable smell, such as Na2S, Cl2 and ClO2 for pulp washing and bleaching exist. During the days if there is strong wind, the smell spreads to every corner of this factory. The most difficult thing is that the Burma trainees can't understand what I said - someone told me that he couldn't follow my pronunciation; moreover, so many complicated paper-making related terms that need me to remember. Considering that they couldn't follow my pronunciation and the difference of mastery in English of the trainees, later I found a most primary method: I wrote every word especially that contains "b", "p", "t" and "d" that they couldn't get instantly and draw the picture of the mechanical elements. Though it would slow down the progress of class, it was effective, during the interval I wrote the words, they had enough time to reflect what I said, so the study efficiency was promoted.


The relations between Chinese government-CPC with Burma government


When talk about the relationship between Chinese government, I must discuss the politics situations of Burma first. Burma is of military regime. The majority of ministry and cabinet posts are held by military officers, with the exceptions being the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, posts which are held by civilians. Evenmore, the local administrators are from the army. Burma can be divided into 7 States and 7 Divisions, wherein almost all of the local administrators have . The only reason that Burmese military junta can exist under the international pressure is that there is a black hand supported behind it. It is the Chinese government, but I would rather to say it is exactly done by the CPC. The day after I arrived at the paper factory, a bomb attacked the Chinese consulate in Mandalay, the second largest city of Burma.


Leave


One month later, I had to leave the factory and went back to Xiamen. In that evening before I left that city, some Burma trainees drank beers with me. The said a lot of blessing to me and I was indeed moved.


Note: The picture in the left is taken near the blow tank which stores pulp in the paper factory and the person with me is U Tung, the leader of cooking section of pulping plant in the mill of Yeni.