Translations of Ran Yunfei's Writings 为冉翻译

Last Post

2011-09-25T09:58:00.001-04:00

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

On February 19, 2011, prominent Chinese blogger and public intellectual, Mr. Ran Yunfei was taken into police custody. His arrest was formally approved later on, with the charge of suspicious of inciting subversion of state power. After being detained for 171 days, Mr. Ran was released with the conditions that he remain quiet for another six months.

This blog was created in late June 2011 with the purpose to translate some of Mr Ran articles into English, so that he would get a wider audience which may in turn transform into international pressure to help free him.

As may be recalled, Mr Ai Weiwei was detained by the Chinese authorities from April 3 to June 22. During his detention, there were international petitions for his immediate release. The one hosted at Change.org received over 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments written in support of the detained artist. To help the people in China to understand how the world responded to this, Ruan Ji created a blog to translate those comments -- and later, articles urging for Ai’s release, news reports of protests about this detention -- into Chinese.

I was one of the volunteer translators of that blog. After Ai’s release, I thought if Mr Ran Yunfei’s articles were translated into English, he might be able to get a wider audience, audience in the English world. In so doing he might receive the international attention he deserved, international attention, pressure, that would help free him.

This was how this blog started: translate Mr Ran Yunfei’s articles to help him get international attention.

In fact, people had been saying since early May last year that Mr Ran would be free. But in a country where all kinds of rumors can come out of nowhere, these must be treated with extra caution. So the project was started, and went on regardless of those rumors. Nearly two months after the project began, the released artist tweeted to urge the people to speak out for Ran Yunfei. And coincidentally, the next day I saw people confirmed that Mr Ran was released.

Since Mr Ran Yunfei's freedom is not fully restored, I decided that the translation project should continue—until Mr Ran is totally free and can again write to criticize whatever he feels to be not right in China.

Then on September 25, I was told that several internationally renowned scholars like David Kelly have been translating the best of Ran Yunfei's articles. His articles have been available in English before this project started.

In view of this, the project's continuation has become meaningless, it therefore officially ends today. There will be no more update from this blog.

Thank you.

Politics can be good

2011-09-24T10:34:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 政治可以是美好的
Translated by @krizcpec

Listened to a talk by economist Mr Chen Zhiwu yesterday morning. What a talk! At noon my friends and I had lunch with Mr Chen, then in the afternoon I was occupied with other things. As a result, I didn't get the time to watch Obama's inauguration ceremony. But with advanced communication channels available, I can watch a recap this morning after I woke up.

Obama's philosophy is rooted in the liberal and democratic tradition of the United States. I knew this without having to watch the ceremony. Such is the rational expectation people can have with the protection of a good system. His speech began with economy, security, foreign relations, and sense of responsibility—nothing particularly impressive. But look at the way he spoke, and his political ideas, compare with those the living-dead faces of our officials, and the zombie-like sameness of words they use in speeches – and one would see what a difference there is.

An inaugural speech is not a lecture. It is not an instruction either. The speaker does not reproach the people with a stern face. Instead they would outline their promises in a cordial and pragmatic manner. Whatever is said, the specific plans in particular, must be honored.

To overcome stiffness in delivering public speeches may not be easy for Chinese officials today, but that's not the most difficult part. What the Chinese officials need to work at, most importantly, is to fulfill the beautiful promises they made. Most of the promises the authorities made in the past sixty years ended up as lies.

I said before that if one percent of the self-praise and promises of the government in the past sixty years had been realized, China would be a human paradise. Sadly, that didn't happen. China becomes a hell on earth instead.

That's to say, beautiful words and moving promises, without the good system that makes them happen, will only become nothing. You cannot but put a big question mark on the good promises the officials made when there is no genuine supervision of the government; no freedom of speech; and restriction on newspapers and political parties remains in place.

In our country where officials see fabrication as the norm, their speeches to refute rumors or to smooth things over are just ridiculous—and they think they succeeded in what they do. Just like the films made from the official perspective that tend to portray the KMT as idiots and so total victory become possible. The officials think the public are irredeemably stupid and they can keep lying without bearing any consequences. There is no behavior more foolish than this.

As societies evolve to this day, people have spent ample time to prove the doubtless universal suitability of a free and democratic system. Whoever coming up with excuses not to move a country toward freedom and democracy are enemies of the people. In his speech, Obama would of course not forget to remind us our victory over fascism and communism, and convey a message to countries that are superstitious about imposing violence on their own peoples. This is his ongoing perseverance in promoting democracy and freedom.

In his article “On Obama's inaugural speech”, Xu Zhiyong wrote that his focus on Obama was not out of high expectation of him. Rather, he intended only to point out through this election a matter of common sense—politics can be good. Two millions Americans watched the inauguration ceremony with heartfelt good wishes. What a saying, it can serve as a wake-up call for today's Chinese populace to get to understand the meaning of politics.

For thousands of years, China has been a social jungle; even to this day, China is still not a modern country with civilized politics, it is only a state where people have to give anything to get what they need to survive, where their way of life is governed by hidden rules and the law of the jungle. These naturally entail the ugly politics that we see.

Politics under the influence of the law of the jungle would of course endorse all sorts of tricks, and take the greatest advantage of information asymmetry. Politics that favors the use of trickery to destroy opponents instead of creating a situation in which all parties win and that prefers victory by force to peaceful co-existence is certainly bloody and ugly.

But if we put politics out in the open, and make sure that various check and balance forces are in place, then, like Xu Zhiyong said, “politics can be good”. I have no intention to deify the system of freedom and democracy. But when it comes to handling public affairs, a better alternative is yet to be found.

Politics is not innately dirty. It is the ugly policies put forward not in compliance with universal values that is dirty.

The Chinese people like to say that they do not like politics, that they have developed political apathy syndrome. This is exactly what those in power in dictatorship would want to see.

It's okay not to work as a government official. But it's not okay to turn a blind eye to politics, which is related to our rights in a myriad of ways. Politics is everybody's business, the officials have no monopoly on it. Unless our attitude toward politics has changed, we would not be able to put an end to the fate of being enslaved and exploited.

Seeing Obama's “American dream” of becoming the president came true, and looking at the seemingly indefinite wait for the Chinese to realize their dream of being a free people, I think we should keep working at that without slackening off, not even at times of cheers and happiness like the lunar new year.

January 21, 2009, 8:58 in Chengdu

Protest is a Form of Civic Education

2011-09-18T21:06:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 抗议是一门公民课
Translated by @krizcpec

In our country much of the common knowledge is blocked. Whether someone works as a politician, or a statesman, his compulsory course would be to face public protest with a proper manner. It was a disappointment that two days ago at Cambridge, Wen Jiabao made an inappropriate speech after a protester hurled a shoe at him. It indicated he didn't have the skills needed to face protesters.

The public of other countries are not like the crowds of Beichuan that are gathered specially when a politician felt like to put up a show of getting close to the people; they are not like the subordinates or subjects gathering at the Chinese embassy in London to be the audience of that kind of show either.

As for the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that showed no grace or manner, it has been a long term practice that that ministry would reveal the national image through diplomatic language that is with a hint of menace, and show a tendency to lift matters to class struggle and ideology level.

If any party is damaging to the national image of China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is doubtlessly the greatest saboteur and a failed performer.

There can be many perspectives in interpreting the incident of a shoe being thrown at Wen Jiabao. One of those perspectives is to compare the difference between it and the “Bush shoe incident”. That's a nice one, but sadly the commentator didn't make things clear.

After the shoe attack, George Bush spoke in a relaxed, humorous way, “If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw.” No sign of irritation could be seen on his face. Whereas Wen Jiabao's face turned red with anger, and launched an ideological bombardment: “Dear teachers and students, a dirty trick like this would not end the friendship between the Chinese and the British peoples. The progress of humankind, the peace on earth, these are historical trends. No force can stop them. Now let me continue with my speech.”

This reaction from a politician or even a statesman when a protester threw a shoe at him illustrated clearly the difference between politicians from democracies and authoritarian regimes.

And the lengthy applause at Wen's remark from those Chinese people who were arranged to be there by the embassy or the Chinese students who were there out of their own decision indicated a lack of democratic political training if they truly meant it. And if they applauded only because that was a political task, then that show was not quite clever.

Leaders of democracies are trained by processes of elections, debates and protests. If they are not up to their job, the voters would vote them out of office. If they do not respond to doubts on their performance, they would come under fire from the parliament or congress. If they do not deal with protests properly, then they are not qualified as leaders and the public won't vote for them.

In other words, protests are definitely a perpetual training for those who intend to involved the political activities, or aspiring to be politicians, statesmen, or officials. Because the more democratic a society is , the more frequent it would be for the many ways of protests to occur. This is the norm for a democratic and free societies.

If politicians of democratic societies put forward a platform and there is no voice of opposition or different viewpoint, then that is odd. Those who laugh at leaders of democracies having to encounter protests wherever they go are of a view that is shallow and ignorant. So is true for those who feel that motions being passed unanimously in NPC without any voice of opposition is better than lawmakers of other countries arguing, or in some physical contact with each other. This is but the result of stupefying education.

Lawmakers disagree with each other inside the parliament is an effective means to avoid police arresting members of the public who take to the street, it can, even more effectively, prevent the tragedy of peaceful demonstrators being shot and killed by the armed force. These seldom occur in countries where there are lawmakers in heated debates or arguments with each other and the system of check and balance in place.

Which do you prefer then: the lawmakers quarreling with each other? or you being arrested, beaten up or even killed by the police once you start protesting lawfully?

I do not think that throwing a shoe is the best way to protest against Wen Jiabao. I do not think that is proper. But protesters should not be deprived of their right to protest. Whether or not they disrupt public order, I believe the British police would deal with that in accordance with the law of the UK. They would not lock the protesters up inside a dark house, or send them to “learning classes”; they would not frame them and certainly would not make them disappear, even if the protesters are protesting against a premier of another country.

The protester said Wen Jiabao is a dictator, and that Wen had lied. That is the irrefutable truth I'm afraid. Some said that to say Wen is a dictator indicated the speaker did not understand the political system of China, Wen Jiabao is just an administrative officer. That's true. But Wen is the premier of a government that is uncontested; a member of the party that is running a one-party dictatorship; and most important of all, he is not democratically elected. All these make it certain that he would be called a dictator.

And Wen lied was a combined result of his personal problems and the regime he is under. For Chinese officials, lying is not a moral condemnation; it is but a statement of fact. Plentiful of them can be spotted in China.

Some said that lying is Wen's freedom of speech. Wow. Freedom of speech cannot be used as an excuse even if an ordinary person tell lies that would affect the interests of others; even less so for Wen Jiabao, a politician whose speech would influence the interests of a great number of people, which would at times be a matter of life and death.

Let me put it this way, people need to learn to protest since they are little. In family education, it is necessary to allow room for children to say no. In school, educators should not just cultivate students who are obedient, who know only one answer; they must not see students' objection to viewpoints of teachers as a sign of disrespect.

In a nutshell, in a healthy, prosperous society, there are more answers than one to many issues; and there are more voices than one regarding the same thing. No one can be immune from question. No one can be free from opposition. There is no one that cannot be objected. The thought of self-praising as “great, glorious and correct” should be sent to the crematorium of protests.

Why then do we Chinese people in general not oppose the officials? First, we dare not do that. Second, we have no idea how. Third, there are no channel for us to voice our opposition. Fourth, if we do that nonetheless we would be arrested, sentenced, or made disappeared, so on and so forth. Of the voice of opposition would be minimized.

The only option for the people is to condemn secretly. Or they would have to be forced to rely on spontaneous unrest to more or less reach their goals. If demands of sizable masses are taken no heed of, the entire society lacks a decompression mechanism, then just like car that is without a shock absorber, a terrible end is predictable.

In brief, lawful protests are a decompression mechanism, a shock absorber of a car. They are indispensable to political equilibrium. Should this equilibrium be destroyed, the social consequence would be beyond rational expectation.

Although the propaganda machine is still trying to cover up, they are not reporting in details that a protester has thrown a shoe at Wen Jiabao and would not let people comment on it. Much restriction has also been imposed on the Internet. In spite of these, the incident is spreading through all sorts of channels and become widely known inside China rapidly.

In this day and age, any attempt to cover up information would result in unexpected losses, such as the loss of credibility.

In the foreseeable future, the officials would continue to have to pay the price for the loss of their credibility. That being the case, the effective way [to address problems] is to allow lawful protests, which the government should see as the norm of expression of public opinion, a normal political [feature]. A real sense of harmony society can only be achieved if people have legitimate channels of protest, and the officials are not handling them by means of oppression; and both sides are solving the various conflicts between the officials and the public by means that are permitted by the Constitution and laws, engaging in dialog with sincerity, and the willingness to make compromises.

Protest is a form of civic education. The officials should start learning it, and so is the public. The media should report openly and rationally all kinds of protests, make them a mandatory course for every one of us. Let us learn the essence of protests, and thereby making the rational game play between the public and the government, and among members of the public themselves a reality. If that happen, then we are not far away from becoming a civic society.

February 4, 2009, 8:42 in Chengdu

Responsibility of Intellectuals

2011-09-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 知识分子是有责任的
Translated by @krizcpec

Ran Note: This is an informal interview that Za Zhiyang had with me while he was putting together in Western China a special feature on peach blossoms. It was to me a surprise that he would want me to talk in his special feature. And talk I would, happily of course. But like he said, these words, published with constraint, may sound somewhat incomplete – my apology for that. But it is my long held belief that we should speak in traditional media whenever we have the chance, so that our views can spread further. I would post the interview here in my blog so that more readers can read it.

As for the Ching Ming memorial, think I'd write about that two days later. Need to take a break and go to used books market to hunt for some books—haven't been there for quite some time now, I dearly miss it.

April 5, 2009, 6:53 in Chengdu

[The interview]

To me, peach blossoms in general have two layers of meaning in Chinese culture. First it is the beauty of them, which is why we Chinese would liken beautiful women to these flowers, and we would use them as metaphors when we talk about extramarital affairs and similar topics. Second, peach blossoms are a metaphor for utopia. In China, The Tale of the Peach Blossom Spring is somewhat utopian in nature.

Apart from study and passing the imperial examination to become officials, there were not many channels for people to showcase their talent. As a result, many intellectuals in those days would criticize dictatorship, and bad government in a very tactful manner. People like Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu would make up stories of good societies of ancient times and effectively made oblique criticism of the governments of their time. They did not dare to criticize the government directly, which would cost them too much. And so they made up those so-called world of supreme virtue and society of great unity—the Peach Blossom Spring, or utopia.

This interest in utopia set a trend of seclusion in ancient times. My understanding of that is, either it was done to stay away from the problems, or as a form of passive resistance. The Chinese people had the freedom to flee. But no one can escape from society altogether, not even those hermits. Wherever you hide, you have to pay tax, one form or another. Just like the saying in the West goes, "The only two things certain in life are death and taxes". There's no way to run from this.

In fact, there exists no society on earth that is so good that it becomes impeccable. We don't need to work for that either. The effort put in to create a flawless society would only be futile, and unnecessary. Utopia like that should only exist in the mind of the thinkers.

In society there are inevitably areas that are not perfect, what we need to do is to improve those when we spot them. If we spot something imperfect today, we work to improve it today. If we spot another area that needs improvement tomorrow, we work at that tomorrow and make things more reasonable, more human-friendly.

Of course, if as a personal choice, there is no problem if you want to lead a quiet life, a life that the hermits would lead. But if you run away from the public domain, say, when your rights are infringed upon. That's not a choice. That's playing ostrich. A mindset like this would harm the interests of all, including those waiting for a free ride [in rights protection].

There are too many people in this society who want to get a free ride, only a handful have the sense of responsibility and consider efforts necessary to bring forth a better society. The thinking of Chinese people is all about being practical and looking for an immediate pay-off: they want what they did today to pay off tomorrow. This is just like the Chinese’s attitude towards reading. They would do it willingly if they were to be paid five dollars for each character they learn; otherwise they would rather play Mahjong. Bertrand Russell spoke of the three passions that had governed his life: “the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” The Chinese people do not think in this way, they are full of anxiety and yet they get very anxious, if they cannot see their target become reality, they would not work at it.

Therefore at times when something big happen, the intellectuals become speechless. That could of course be attributed to many reasons. On a personal level, it is okay not to speak on certain matters. But if the people are collectively speechless, then intellectuals have the responsibility [to speak out]. And one must not speak irresponsibly. If Yu Qiuyu is only making money for himself, I would not criticize him. But he was there “advising in tears” that the earthquake survivors should avoid causing troubles or they would bring shame on China. Such remarks are not just an indication that Yu is ignorant. It is a sign of his shamelessness. And there is that Wang Zhaoshan, who said “[the quake victims] are happy even if they become ghosts”. This is to me a saying that has crossed the line. Remarks like these, if left unchecked, and let them confuse what's right and what's wrong, would cause tremendous harm to the entire community.

This is actually just a common sense. Yet many people consign them to oblivion and do something that is really stupid. Just like if you want to love a country, you should begin with loving your parents, your family and friends, the place you live, and yourself. You don't just love a country without these. Stupid behaviors like these harm not only the interests of those who commit them, but also the public interests of others, my own included. This is why I want to criticize them. I see that I should do my part, take actions [to stop them].

How many bizarre incidents occur in China daily?

2011-09-11T10:18:00.001-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 每天有多少荒唐的事情在中国上演？
Translated by @krizcpec

In my earlier blog I ran a few editions of “Common Sense Weekly”, which had had to be discontinued because the objective I set to answer ten questions in each new issue was too difficult to achieve. Shielded from China are the many common knowledge which, despite higher learning is not needed to understand, many people just can't figure out.

And a lot of people blindly believe in the many deliberately misleading opinions which are not only popular, but also get publicized by the all forms of media repeatedly. What is worse, these people not just believe in these false information, they also help spreading them further across. These actions harm not only their own interests but also that of others.

In view of this situation, I feel it necessary to share my views on a couple of incidents that have become subjects of heated discussion.

First, Lin Hao the 10-year-old “hero” in Sichuan Earthquake. Lin Hao himself didn't tell lies, someone made him. It's the sins of we adults and the community that made Lin lied. He's just a kid and should not be a subject for condemnation. Those who made Lin appeared to be a “hero” are officials of all levels who love to show off their accomplishments; the propaganda department that aims to fool the public; the central government that attempts to divert attention from its poor disaster relief effort and avoids criticism from the people; and the media that blow things out of proportion and observe no media ethics.

Lin Hao should not be promoted as a hero because he saved two lives, not even if he saved two hundred lives. It's the responsibility of the grown-ups to save lives, minors should not be encouraged to do it.

What sort of a country it is if it can't even protect its minors? In 1988, Lai Ling, a 14-year-old boy died fighting a forest fire. What stands out to me was not Lai's bravery; but rather the negligence of the firefighters. And it is certain that some of the details were fabricated.

I think that we should stop the practices of rating under-aged heroes, shortlisting top ten young pioneers and so on. Because this doesn't just reveal the irresponsible nature of the adult society; an education system that divide people into different categories is one that nurture submissive subjects rather than citizens.

Instead of carrying out disaster relief work properly, the officials can't wait to release self-praise reports of heroes and models. I can only say that this regime truly gives birth to an abundance of evil, nothing but evil. If you have no idea how to protect minors like Lin Hao, if you don't know how to love your children, go take a look around and see how people of countries that care for the citizens do. There are examples out there!

Let's not mention the traditional practice of raising children as a source of pension remains popular, the law states specifically that it's the children's duty to support their own parents, coupled with the long history of filial piety being promoted as a virtue that can bring forth a harmonious society. All these make both parents and children find it is right and proper that children should financially support their aging parents. But think carefully and you would realize how erroneous the above mentioned thoughts are.

All individuals, from the moment they were born to the time they die, are taxpayers—unless they live isolated like Robinson Crusoe. It is one of the taxpayers' rights that they get supported on issues like medical care, housing, and daily necessities. And who should support the taxpayers on these? The government, and not the children. If children want to support their parents it would have to be out their emotion rather than obligation. The government, however, should at least bear most of the responsibility in supporting the elderly financially. So why is the government so keen in promoting filial piety? why does it specify in law that children are obliged to provide their parents with money? That's because these would enable the government to satisfy its own greed with taxpayers' money and have the taxpayers to look after themselves, freeing the government from its duty and making it possible for double deprivation on the taxpayers.

It shouldn't be difficult to understand where the responsibility of financially supporting ones parents lies. But the fooling practices of Chinese governments throughout history have made it so. The result of these practices is the people see that it is a family business to support ones parents, and the government as the trustee of public affairs of society and the collector of tax money has no responsibility on this.

Intellectuals of the May-Fourth period who opposed Confucius and filial piety like Hu Shih, Lu Hsün, Chen Duxiu, and Wu Yu went only so far as to see the inhuman side of filial piety and its moral constraints. They missed the more important point that filial piety—the government imposed burden— is a form of vast economic deprivation.

That imposed burden is not just moral constraint on the people, it's also a mean to eliminate human nature, and most importantly, a form of a double economic deprivation. If great thinkers of a century ago failed to see it in this light, then how could we expect the ordinary people to realize it?

Being severely deprived economically because of the government imposed obligations to support both their parents and their young, the Chinese people have lower life expectancy on average.

This burden of filial piety is more of a harm to the people's dignity than a moral constraint.

To this day, we can still see brainless People's representatives like Zhao Chao who proposes that children should give three percents of their income to their parents as pensions. And so that the government can be freed from its responsibility to care for the elderly. Ridiculous People's representatives like Zhao are more than just a few in China I'm afraid.

Third: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. This famous saying of Samuel Johnson is the perfect sentence to describe Cai Mingchao. If his refusal to pay for the animal head sold to him in an auction was his personal behavior alone, he should not have said that to be an act of patriotism.

But then who can say for sure who or what is behind Cai Mingchao's foul play? If it were Cai's personal action, he would not have said it in an arrogant manner like this.

China Poly Group Corporation, a military subsidiary known for its lack of respect to other—a fact that Premier Wen Jiabao should have come to realize from his Sichuan earthquake relief work, is the chief patronage of Special Funds for Rescuing Chinese Cultural Relics Lost Overseas (中华抢救流失海外文物专项基金), to which Cai is a consultant.

The Poly Group has, apart from its other mindless expenditure, spent huge amount of money to purchase quite a few animal heads (two of which were a gift from Macao tycoon Stanley Ho). And much of the money belonging to the Special Funds was in fact taxpayers' money, as it has the backing of the Ministry of Finance.

It is sad that animal heads are lost overseas. But the way to solve this should be through modern means that is civil and proper, and not resort to inciting patriotic sentiment in the people and bringing the whole thing to the level of national pride.

We need to remember the many evil deeds, and those interests that cannot see light are done in the name patriotism in China. This auction fiasco is just another example. For the common people, they should start loving themselves, and then they should think how many cultural relics have been destroyed since 1949, how many of them stolen and became private belongings of the leaders. Why don't we start from bringing these to light and indulge ourselves in the patriotic trap laid by those care only about their personal gains?

Why don't you ask yourself this: yesterday you were still a patriot, today you woke up and found yourself died from “eluding the cat” because you had been arrested for no reasons? Do you love your country so much while you couldn't care less about yourself? Then let me be blunt: you do have the spirit of sacrifice. You've asked for your own death.

I cannot say what is the most important thing in life. I only know that there are priorities. For us ordinary citizens, the most important thing is to live quality life with dignity. And what keeps us from doing that is not foreign enemies blown out of proportion by the authorities, it is the authorities themselves. The authorities incite the patriotic sentiment in you is because in so doing they can deprive you of your interests more conveniently.

My stance on the Tibet issues

2011-09-05T12:36:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 我对西藏问题的态度
Translated by @krizcpec

There have been lots of news lately. What attracted people's attention were the unrest in Tibet and the election in Taiwan, both are related to our lives and rights. Whatever that are related to our lives and rights are things worth thinking over, and talking about.

Regarding the issues of Tibet, many wanted to know my views. Below are my thoughts, which might not be comprehensive. Please correct me if I am wrong.

First: Discard the notion that the country should stay unified even if that means all are doomed.

It's deeply rooted in the mind of the Chinese people the unreasonable love for maintaining state unity. They never ask themselves if this would harm their rights. I think that individual's rights are more important than unity of the state – something that is irrelevant to our lives.

Whatever form of unity and ethnic identity there may be, there are conditions. I would not agree with the opinion that maintaining state unity is a absolute must, no matter how impoverished the people may become; or even if the people would end up without dignity and freedom.

I think that ethnic identity and state unity must be forged on the basis that everyone has the freedom of choice and a sense of inner recognition. Otherwise no one would feel happy. It is wrong to make people identify with you without respecting their free will.

Second: I am pro-autonomy, but not easily pro-independence. That Tibet is to become an independent country would affect the interests and feelings of way too many people. Of course the wishes of the Tibetans should be respected. But there has to be a limit to this. It costs too much for Tibet to become independent. Many clashes may result. In view of this, I advocate for granting Tibet genuine autonomy and keeping it part of China.

But the authorities must let the Tibetans enjoy genuine autonomy, and do not manipulate them or give them fake autonomy which the Tibetans cannot decide matters on their own and have to obey the central government. One such bad example is the autonomy for Hong Kong after 1997.

Third: I oppose violence from individuals; and I oppose all the more violence from the government. If what the authorities said is true, that there was “a small fraction” of Tibetans burning, killing, and robbing, I would not sympathize with them, however justified they might be.

And of course, from the viewpoint of the Tibetans, and from the Dalai Lama – who has sent his brothers for high-level talk with the CCP numerous times, they have been hoping for a peaceful solution to the issues of Tibet. However, every time when new people assume office, the central government has become less and less sincere in its commitment to achieving a peaceful solution – something that the central government should reflect on.

The government should honor civilized politics, and abandon violence; it should know that negotiation and making compromise are the right things to do.

Fourth: a government that is open and honorable would not block the news. If it accused the Tibetans of creating a disturbance, why doesn't it let journalists to report it? It would be fair to say that it is exactly the blockade of information that escalated the issues. It is unrealistic to expect that rumors find no credence with the wise. Rumors can only be stopped by freedom of speech, by freedom of the press, and free flow of information. Let the truth stop the rumors. Do not conceal the truth and allow the spread of rumors.

Fifth: To shut everyone up and allow only one voice of judgment, the voice of the central government. This is a very tyrant and ridiculous logic.

Blocking the flow of information, banning journalists from interviewing freely, and then came up with the conclusion that the so-called Dalai clique was masterminding the unrest. This is absurd. Don't underestimate the people's normal ability to judge, this only reflects how unreasonable and stupid the [central] government is when handling these matters.

Sixth: The government should improve its capacity of response to public relations crisis. The way it handled the snow storm earlier this year was not good enough; this is also true with how it handle what happened in Lhasa this time round.

For decades repression has been the standard way of the [central] government's handling of dissident views, and different rights demands. It hasn't occurred to the authorities that change is needed. The government should get rid of this rigid approach gradually. Stop assuming the interests of the government itself tops all priorities. Change. Don't wait until it's too late. This society has become increasingly pluralistic in interests: interests of individuals, of ethnic groups, and of the nation; all these should be highly and truly respected.

Seventh: Demands regarding races, religions, and human rights are very difficult to deal with. The government should negotiate with sincerity, instead of resorting to repression with the use of armed force.

I myself is of an ethnic minority group, and had worked in Tibetan region. Naturally there are good and bad Tibetan people. Yet the feelings of the Tibetans, their ethnic identity, religious belief and freedom of choice are a big question. One cannot say the government's doing good enough in tackling these matters, there's room for improvement. Or perhaps one can say that the government's way of ruling the Tibetan region in the past few decades has not been good enough. This is a fact that can easily be found out by paying attention to the causes of the Tibetans' discontent. Articles on this topic are abundant on the Internet, just search for them and read.

Eighth: I oppose all kinds of terrorist activities, whether they are originated from the government or the people. If the Tibetan people demand independence by taking it out on the Chinese, killing every one of them they come across, they would lose real sympathy and understanding. Just look at the Palestinians, I know it's tough for them. But to resort to suicide attacks would be what sensible people cannot agree with. Terrorist activities are the tumors in politics and life. This premise is applicable to all groups that demand independence or autonomy.

Ninth: The year of the Olympics would of course be eventful. I wish the government would exercise restraint, be tolerant, compassionate, and has the goodwill to tackle responsibly the demands from various groups and individuals, including those victims who were forced to move from their homes to make way for the Olympics; do not oppress their rightful demands because of the Olympics.

It's not right for a government to keep thinking that some people are using the Olympics as an excuse to stir up troubles; it should find out what has driven these people to do this.

Look at the United States, why when that country hosted the Olympics, very few among its citizens boycotted it? – even if there were such boycotts, they were not banned. It's perfectly normal that in society, there are people who disagree.

[And then look back here.] The reason of this different reaction from the public in two countries was that in the United States the Olympics was hosted in a way that respected the people, criticism of it was allowed; whereas in China, we are not allowed to criticize it in public - what is more, the authorities has stressed that in the year of the Olympics everything else has to be put aside. There is no bigger mistake than this.

Whatever major activities that may be, they should not get in the way of the people's daily lives. Likewise, the incident of Lhasa should be resolved rationally, and not oppress it brutally because of the Olympics.

Tenth: the key to truly resolve the issue of Tibet and of China is to gradually bring forth freedom and democracy. Without freedom and democracy, many problems of China, let alone those of Tibet, would have no solution. Dictatorship is a form of government that is unacceptable, that harms the rights and dignity of the people. It has to be changed. That's the irreversible trend.

March 20, 2008 at 8:00 in Chengdu

Freedom and Smiles: image study of Hu Shih (III)

2011-08-29T09:42:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 自由与微笑：胡适图像研究
An abbreviated translation by @krizcpec (Part 3 of 3)

Three: Self and others

We all know that Hu Shih was an intellectual, and in some way a public figure. As a result, he must have paid much attention to the public communication effect of his photos and would not let photos that would harm his image be used in publication. The problem was, while he could request his friends and relatives not to make public photos of him that didn't look good, he had no control over the photos taken by reporters of newspapers and magazines.

What I want to say is this: not all of the photos of Hu Shih passed on to this day were under control of Hu himself. He had no say over the source of the images, how they spread, or the way they were interpreted. Base on this premise we can say that all those photos of Hu Shih with a broad smile, looking cordial and restrained, dignified and peaceful were a result of his self-cultivation, namely: to speak and write with sincerity, be a serene person, and smile often. Some may accuse Hu of affectation. But when someone managed to maintain the same affectation all his life, that's remarkable.

And certainly, in view of media ethic and the celebrity status Hu Shih enjoyed, the media at that time chose carefully the photos for publication. Thus the photos published were in line with how Hu Shih was as a person; as a result, Hu Shih left behind a positive image that was relatively stable.

Throughout his life, Hu Shih had done a lot of calligraphy, which can also be seen images he left behind. He was not a properly trained calligrapher, yet he wrote meticulously; his writing was dignified and beautiful. Among those spread far and wide were: “In pursuit of knowledge it is important to be skeptical; in getting along with others it is imperative to be confident and trusting,” “assume boldly, verify carefully”, “rather speak out and die than to remain quiet and live”, “tolerance is more important than freedom” These thoughts were themselves popular; with the crafty handwriting of Hu Shih, they spread even further, resulting in the re-transmission of his own image that was full of affinity, with a superposition effect.

Four: the signature smile

We can say that smile is the signature of Hu Shih in his entire life; in good times or bad, he by and large managed not to show others a nasty face. This can be attributed to his personality, his upbringing, his understanding of life, his remarkable achievements, and–his incorrigible optimism. Speaking of incorrigible optimists, many would think these people have no understanding of the dark side of hearts. No, not for Hu Shih. On the contrary, optimists like Hu did have a deep understanding of the limitations of human. And it was because of this understanding that Hu became deeply compassionate, and exceptionally tolerant.

Included in the book by Sun Yu were seventy-three photos of Hu Shih himself alone, or taken with others. In most of those photos Hu Shih was smiling, either subtly or broadly. Yet life in his later years in 1950s was quite uncomfortable. The CCP mobilized huge manpower to criticize his ideas, among them were his family and longtime friends; intelligence system of Taiwan also criticized him at great length, it even published book for this purpose. On top of this, Hu didn't earn much in those days, it would be understandable that he felt somewhat disconsolate. Hu's student Tang Degang had a lively description of this. Yet Tang failed to see what set Hu Shih apart from others: the air of solemness resulted from enduring perseverance and that he remained as optimistic as always despite all these unhappiness.

To Hu Shih, concepts like “it’s too little, too late to seek three years of medicine after fallen ill for seven years (“七年之病、求三年之艾”), “doing my utmost every day will not be for nothing” were not just abstract ideas, they were what propelled him to take actions.

Throughout his life Hu hadn’t seen his country achieve freedom and democracy, yet he believed that inevitably would happen. Now Taiwan has achieved freedom and democracy, this is the best way to commemorate him.

In 1954, reputed Chinese historian Chen Yinke, an old friend of Hu Shih, wrote a poem about how the Chinese Communist Party mobilized intellectuals to criticize Hu’s writings, as if they wouldn’t feel satisfied until the smiling Hu Shih was slain.

So it seems the signature smile and the thoughts of Hu Shih were to the totalitarian government a threat that wouldn’t go away easily. For those fighting for freedom and democracy, their smile and rationality are what scares the totalitarian regime the most. Dictators have no fear of people who are hateful and brutal like them, no one could surpass dictators on these. The timeless, resolute smile of Hu Shih are always the best impetus for people striving for freedom and democracy.

To understand better the power of smile, let me cite some recent examples.

On February 11, 1990, after a jail term of twenty-seven years, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. The smile on his face at the moment he stepped out of the gate touched the whole world.

"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison," Mandela said.

Keep smiling; it is the greatest contempt for the totalitarian government.

Not long ago Feng Zhenghu camped at Tokyo Narita Airport to fight for the right to return home. When in contact with the outside world, Feng paid close attention to his appearance; his manner was reasonable, and his mind peaceful. These made him very admirable.

After ninety-two days of struggle, Feng Zhenghu could at last return home. The smile of his at the moment he was about to board the plane was unforgettable, it moved hundreds of thousands of Chinese people striving for freedom and democracy.

February 18-20, 2010 in Chengdu

(End)

Freedom and Smiles: image study of Hu Shih (II)

2011-08-28T08:29:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 自由与微笑：胡适图像研究
An abbreviated translation by @krizcpec (Part 2 of 3)

Two: Self-expectation

In his book, Autobiographical account at forty (《四十自述》), Hu Shih wrote that since he was little, he had seen the hardship his mother had to withstand in running an extended family; the incompetent eldest sister-in-law and the competent second eldest sister-in-law both tended to show other a nasty face, showing no regards as to how others would feel. He slowly came to the understanding that “there is nothing more offensive than an angry face; nothing more indecent than showing others that angry face, which is harder to bear than being scolded or beaten.”

Hu Shih treated others with honesty, sincerity, generosity. He did not show others a nasty face. This wasn't the impression of just one person, but were how those who came into contact with him generally felt.

Historian Ho Ping-ti recounted in his memoirs (《阅世读史六十年》) that “one day at nine in the morning, as I was about to say goodbye to Hu and go into the city, the cook handed Hu a name card. Hu showed with noticeable anger his dissatisfaction with the personality and motive of that guest. Yet after a second thought, Hu decided to meet him nonetheless. As I walked out of the door I heard Hu greeted him loudly, 'Haven't heard from you for months, what are you up to now?' What followed was the sound of chat and laughter from both. Clearly, that was one of the characteristics of Hu Shih that was hard for others to learn from: to leave room for people you have doubt in and try best not to let others see an angry face – exactly what I can't do.”

Perhaps some would feel Hu Shih to be a man of affectation; but those with more experience in life would appreciate the difficulty involved in doing things that way. Because of his understanding of tolerance, his perception of liberty and his early experience, Hu very seldom showed others a nasty face. Therefore, you could hardly find any photo of Hu Shih with his face distorted by anger.

People who have some understanding of Hu Shih are aware that he aspired to bring about a new era, and had the self-expectation of becoming a great person. As a result he had strict requirements on himself: from studying, writing diary to getting along with others, none was done without discretion or order.

There are people who have strict or even rigid requirements not only on themselves, but also on others, which indicates that they do not realize others have the freedom of choosing what not to do. Without the understanding that people have the total freedom to choose to achieve greatness or live ordinary lives. Failing to recognize this shows a lack of understanding of what freedom really means.

It seems deceptively easy to follow the principle of being strict to oneself while showing leniency to others – the way how Hu Shih had lived. For most of the people, this is way too difficult. Renowned botanist Hu Hsien-Hsu, a cultural conservative who opposed vernacular Chinese, the exact antithesis of Hu Shih. In 1925 when Hu Shih met Hu Hsien-Hsu in Shanghai, they took a picture together. While Hu Hsien-Hsu put up a stern face, Hu Shih was smiling broadly, and on the back of that photo he wrote, “we are two friends opposing each other.” We can see from this how his tolerance of contrary points of view influenced the way he got along with others and his choice to show others a smiley face.

In one of my earlier articles (《一位微笑的反对者》) I devoted a section to deliberate the extraordinary friendship between Hu Shih and Chen Duxiu. After 1919, Chen became increasingly left-leaning; he established the Chinese Communist Party, and even took the road of violent revolution. It can't be more obvious how Chen's speeches and actions differed from that of Hu Shih, an advocate for gradual improvement; and in today's setting, the extraordinary friendship between them would be beyond comprehension for people who can't care less about rights and wrongs, paying attention only to the stance others take. Few are aware that people with difference in opinions, or in paths taken don't necessarily become enemies, they can still be friends so long as one another has moral principles.

Friends can be critical toward each other, too. In response to Chen's vigorous approval of the burn down of the office of an influential newspaper (北京晨报) which opposed the Soviet Union in 1925, Hu Shih wrote a letter to criticize Chen. In that letter there was a line that went, “You and I had jointly issued a declaration, 'fight for liberty'. The one principle to fight for liberty is: that which I disagree with isn't necessarily wrong; that which I agree with may not be right”, stressing the importance of tolerance of opposing viewpoints and beliefs.

At times when Chen Duxiu was in critical situation, or even after his death, Hu offered him help. Is it possible for such a friendship, as can be perceived in the pictures of Chen and Hu taken together, to exist now, a time when people easily break with others?

(End of Part Two)

Freedom and Smiles: image study of Hu Shih (I)

2011-08-27T08:34:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 自由与微笑：胡适图像研究
An abbreviated translation by @krizcpec (Part 1 of 3)

Ran note: This is a reading report that I wrote recently for [newsletter] issue twenty-sixth of Hu Shih reading club. Now I published it in my blog, please feel free to comment. Been quite occupied these days: lots of socializing around Lunar new year, and a lot to write about. In less than two months, I got a flu again.

February 24, 2010 at 8:15 in Chengdu

Publications of studies on Hu Shih are in great quantity indeed. Yet it seems almost no one has done any proper research into the huge amount of photos Mr. Hu Shih left behind, his calligraphy, and visual productions about him (including recordings of his speech). The book Smile of Heresy: the image of Hu (《微笑的异端：影像中的胡适》) by Sun Yu reads more like image description, or erratic elaboration utterly irrelevant to the subject. He did not focus on explaining why Hu often smiled in his photos.

To do proper research into this topic, to formulate meaningful insight into it, one should of course visit places like Hu Shih Memorial Hall in Taipei, CASS Institute of Modern History, and go through lots of pictures and information. I myself have only limited amount of photos of and calligraphy by Hu Shih, yet in view of the special significance of this topic, I would like to share my view, which falls far short of a unique, meaningful insight I have to say, and hope to attract valuable ideas in return.

European art historian Erwin Panofsky broke iconology down to three levels: description, analysis, and explanation. Simply put, it means look at the picture and speak about it. In fact, iconology has long become part of people's daily lives: commercials, road signs, the exteriors of buildings, TV and film images, and photographs can all be used as subjects for iconology studies. Just like W J T Mitchell, renowned American specialist in comparative literature and art history, author of authoritative books like Picture theory : essays on verbal and visual representation, has in his book Cloning terror : the war of images, 9/11 to the present explained the spread of images in wars and their amplification effect, thereby changing iconology from mere description and interpretation of images to a component in sociology and communication studies; bringing our attention to implications of images that we previously failed to notice. This has provided me with unexpected guidance in my analysis of the spread of Hu Shih's images and their effect on the public.

One: How people appear is determined by their hearts and minds

As is widely known, how people appear is determined by their hearts and minds. You are how you think and feel. Those people of the lie may be hard to see through in the first place, but given time and with wisdom you would be able to see what they really are.

Artist Chen Danqing said, when he first arrived in New York, he saw everyone on the street had a face that showed no sign of being bullied. That was how the artist perceived the faces he saw in New York, a perception that shocked the artist who was particularly sensitive to images and left a long lasting impression on him. Why was that so? Because New Yorkers enjoyed good protection of their rights, felt content with their life, and had positive, rational expectation of their future. The people there were full of confidence and even pride, so that they had a face that showed no sign of being bullied or indication that they would bully others.

In his earlier photos, Hu Shih seldom smiled. In a picture taken in 1909 when he was eighteen, dressed in a traditional Chinese outfit and had his queue cut off not long before that, Hu showed a stern look and tightened lips. The stiffness resulted from the death of his father early in his life was shown all over his face.

Five years later, in a photo he gave his girlfriend in 1914, he had become an amiable person with a subtle smile, which indicated he became less tense and defensive toward the world than he once was. Almost from the same period was another shot, in which he dressed in a traditional outfit, wore glasses, in the crew cut, leaned his cheek upon his hand as if he was thinking. The smile on his face was obvious, confident and not presumptuous.

There were times when Hu Shih was with a worried frown, but these were few and far between. As for photos of him in extreme anger, I have never seen one. Does that mean he never lost his temper all his life? I doubt it. He did have a fair share of moments when he felt satisfied with his life, and that had to do with how his mother educated him and his personal expectation. Many human behaviors and the way they appear to others are the externalization of their thoughts and values, a concept not dissimilar to the mirror effect in psychology. The world you see, you joy, anger, and sorrow are of course a result from external stimuli, but they can also be seen as the externalization of your inner world.

(End of Part One)

Sichuan Earthquake, Six months on: in Memory of the Victims

2011-08-20T23:47:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 四川大地震半年祭
Translated by @Aliceyoung, proofread by @krizcpec

It's hard to believe that six months have passed since the devastating earthquake struck. For anyone who personally experienced that disaster, fear and pain are far from enough to express what they feel.

Looking back through history, comparing with any other peoples, we can see that God did not hand down special punishment to the Chinese people, including those living in Sichuan. On the contrary, they were given a vast and beautiful place to live, with rivers and mountains. What is loathsome is that for decades those who rule the country do not cherish it, triggering one man-made disaster after another, making this beautiful place a land of desolation.

The number of people died here in times of peace is so staggering that it trumps the death tolls of all times in history, of our own and of other countries. One poetic couplet by the great scholar Liang Qichao (1873-1929) reads: “how much more wind and storm canst thou stand? I lament for thee, our wonderful land.” Isn’t it still a statement best describes our land today?

Misfortune to the land; grief to the people; respect to the volunteers; abhorrence to the man-made disasters and shame to the officials – these are what we could say to mark the sixth month after the deadly earthquake.

It is not easy to come to terms with disasters, and even harder when those are hateful man-made disasters. To classify earthquake forecast as “State Secrets”, and to see information monopoly as a way to hold back the facts from the public, a government that does this shows utter disrespect to people’s life.

A Man-made disaster is ten-times more vicious than a natural one, and the authorities are blaming it to the Mother Nature. Schools collapsed everywhere, innocent students injured and died in large numbers. And yet, no one had to come out to at least apologize; no one had been punished for their negligence and wrongdoings.

Since no one has been punished, officials work recklessly in collusion with businesses in post-disaster reconstruction project [which would result in more tofu dreg buildings springing up]. Some citizens reported these to the authorities using their real names. They were, however, fallen on deaf ears. When disaster strikes again, who knows how many more lives would be lost as a price this society pay for the shameless collusion between constructors and government officials? If this type of evil collaboration is not stopped in a systematic way, who knows when will it end?

Some parents intend to bring justice to their children killed by mass collapse of schools shoddily built by constructors that work in collusion with corrupted officials through legal channel, they have been maliciously obstructed in more ways than one. Suppression would not bring the authorities a moment of peace as they had hoped, but would instead translate into long lasting social problems.

The public will come to realize that the man-made disasters, brought about by the evil government with unlimited and unchecked power, are far more vicious than natural ones. This realization makes the relationship between the authorities and the people stay highly tensed. The fear from both sides fills the whole society with tension, suffocating everyone living in it.

Because of corruption, reconstruction fund and materials, instead of being put to proper use, have been channeled into the pocket of corrupted officials. Excessive disaster relief materials are piling up on the main roads; few arrive at remote areas where it is hard for officials to put up a sizable political show. The distribution of the fund and materials is so inefficient that the people there remain unprotected from the bone-chilling temperature and hunger as the harsh winter came.

[There are many more problems that need attention.]

The quality of the houses built for the survivors is of big concern: those houses could not withstand fire or flood, nor could they fully shelter those living inside from the cold. The coercive rehousing policy facilitates widespread collusion between officials and constructors— on the pretext of “caring for the victims' resettlement”.

Another problem is that although public servants in the disaster-stricken region, as well as some low-ranking officials, need shift holidays, they are forced to run around diminishing the so-called unstable social factors to their exhaustion. As a result, every once in a while one of these would suicide because of the tiring workload.

Attention should be drawn to the issues of psychological treatment for, and raise in salary of, teachers who are aggrieved and yet have no opportunity to rest and recuperate. They are forced to teach students when they themselves have both physical and psychological problems. This would do harm to both sides. The government, however, does not increase the budget for hiring more teachers to teach on shifts and let those who need a break to get some rest. Instead, the government works these teachers to the point of collapse or exhaustion.

[And yet another problem:] post-disaster reconstruction effort varies in urban and rural areas. While reconstruction work in urban area is not good enough, it is simply ignored in rural area. This is unacceptable. The peasants are also nationals of this country. If they could not get the same treatment as the urban dwellers, then what legitimacy does this regime have?

The most intolerable thing [apart from these problems] is the mistreatment the children across the country have been subjected to. Just take a look at what happened this year: a little girl was sexually assaulted by Lin Jiaxiang, an official in Beijing; 100,000 babies developed kidney-stone because of the melamine-tainted milk formula; tens of thousands of students killed by the collapse of shoddy school buildings. No other countries would be so determined to destroy their future generations on such a huge scale as China.

The manufacturer of the tainted milk that made more than 100,000 kids sick and suffer from the kidney stones shamelessly resorted to using the name of “national enterprise” to regain trust from the people; those government officials that caused so many man-made disasters chants so often that they “Serve the People”. It is hard to tell who are more impudent: entrepreneurs like Niu Gengsheng, or the officials.

If we fail to hold accountable those so-called national enterprises represented by entrepreneurs like Niu Gensheng; if we fail to hold accountable those officials and constructors working in collusion in building those shoddy schools that collapsed in the quake and claimed so many lives of the students, leaving their parents heartbroken; if we fail in all these, there would be no end for similar disasters, and those innocent victims will never rest in peace.

Now the officials are holding various events to commemorate the victims at the earthquake site. They should engrave the names of each and every one of the victims, our young kids, on a monument to mark their lost future and their tragic death. Nearly 100,000 were killed in the earthquake, that death toll is not just a dead figure; behind it is the lives that were lost between – some of the bodies were nowhere to be found, their whereabouts have become an unsolved puzzle for the surviving families for the rest of their life. There is no greater grief that this.

If there is some sense of responsibility in our government; if there is still humanity left in our officials, they would be able to understand the pain of the survivors, especially the parents who had lost their child. If I were one of those parents, I would forever be haunted by guilt and sadness for my whole life if I could not bring justice to my lost child. This feeling of incompetence is one that could not be rid of; it would lead to either a breakdown or an eruption. There are thousands of families like this, the community has to care about them. In particular, the government should allow them to seek justice for their children through legal channels, let them win back the dignity of a human being, give them the compensation they deserve. Or it will be too late to do anything when this grudge explodes in a massive way.

It offers quake survivors comfort and help by denouncing those responsible for this disaster; by criticizing the government for its lack of actions and by remembering those who were killed.

Let us, who enjoy a relatively peaceful life, do our part.

Let us, with our sympathy, or compassion, try to truly feel, understand the pain and suffering of the survivors; and show our care and love for them.

Let us help them get another piece of clothing, even it is old and used, it gives them warmth. It doesn’t matter how much money one can give, our love is priceless.

On top of these, let us stay committed. Don’t let the disaster escape from our memory as time goes by, don’t let the survivors feel they are left out or lonely.

Shortly after I appealed for aid for 16 students from the town of Guangji and the city of Mianzhu yesterday, most of the students had found a sponsor. This really mean something to me. It is not my call that made this possible, it is the hard work of teachers, Wei Qihong, Gao Hongzhu and others in that area, all I did required little effort.

Now winter is here. The financial crisis is sweeping around the world. It is winter for all of us, life is hard for everyone. It is harsh and cold for the people in the disaster zone. Let’s try our best to help our friends there; that should be done, of course, not at the cost of our own lives. Let’s weather the winter together. You don’t need to donate much: five dollars, a notebook or maybe a loaf of bread each month. If everyone does the same, this relay of love, this continuous help and relief will all add up to something tremendous.

We do not compare who could donate more. We do not pressure others in the name of charity. We do compete with others and see who put into practice “many a little makes a mickle”; and see who intently pass on the faint candlelight in the silence of the night. Let us be the salt, let us be the light so our compatriots will not feel despair in the darkness.

People who are still breathing should lead a good life, and keep on fighting for dignity and freedom. Only in so doing could we do justice to the many people who lost their lives because of a combination of natural and man-made disasters.

To the 100,000 Sichuan Earthquake victims, rest in peace!

November 12, 2008, 8:55 in Chengdu

The Fear of Chinese Government Officials

2011-08-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 中国官员们的恐惧

Translated, proofread by @krizcpec

I read a report on the Internet that said many officials have anxiety about the Internet. Though there was no statistics provided, I found that report believable. Why?

Throughout history, [until the age of the Internet,] Chinese government officials had never been under genuine supervision and restriction. The saying “people's eyes are sharp” is but another way of saying that people are blind selectively. When the authorities need your eyes to be sharp, your eyes have to be sharp; when the authorities need you to turn a blind eye to something, you would have to do as you are told. In other words, the masses are used by government officials as puppets, and they can do nothing about it. On top of these, the populace sees the officials' unlawful actions, corruption and has no channel to air their discontent: the media, controlled by the government, would certainly not cover news stories that make officials look bad [simply because the public is dissatisfied]. Those disclosed corruption cases may be real, but their disclosures were not the result of effective supervision by the people, but rather the political struggle at top levels; or they could also mean those politicians had lost their backing. These disclosures have nothing to do with democratic and free supervision or victory of the common people; anti-corruption is but a pretext with which different political figures or factions fought against each other.

Officials in general think they have what it takes to find backing from their superiors: bribery and corruption are basic knowledge for people working as officials in China. They know perfectly well in the event that one of superiors is doomed, they still have others to rely on: they would not put all their eggs into one basket, a basic knowledge of investment that they put to use almost instinctively. That means if one of their superiors is doomed, they themselves are not likely to share the same fate. They would not fall victim to political struggle at the top either: they have no way to get close to those at the top to be connected with them; and they are not significant enough to be victimized in such power struggle. That said, what low level officials fear the most then is the relatively free Internet, which technical features make it difficult for total eradication of information detrimental to their career. And information comes so swift and from sources so diverse that many officials feel it hard to keep track. They have done too many evil deeds, of which there is plenty of evidence. Therefore they fear exposure, they want to do all they can to block news sources, to eliminate freedom of speech. Some officials would use protection of privacy to cover up their evil acts of corruption, having apparently no idea that much information about government officials do not fall in the category of privacy.

Confusing criticism of the government with subversion of the state, sending critics to prison for what they spoke or wrote; classifying facts that the public should know as state secrets, for example the student death toll in 2008 Sichuan earthquake – these are why the officials want to restrict free speech on the Internet [so that their negligence, or more importantly, governing legitimacy, won’t be questioned].

At the same time, they repeatedly issue the old-fashioned charges of spreading rumors. Even if someone really did spread rumors, the root cause lay with the government’s withholding of the truth and its noncompliance with the Regulation of the People's Republic of China on the Disclosure of Government Information. Instead of meting out punishment for those criminal actions of withholding the facts, the authorities penalized only those spreading rumors. Let's not forget that rumors can exist because the truth is not disclosed. How would the public be convinced when the culprit can walk free while those trivial offenders are punished? Moreover, without disclosure of the truth, the authorities' repeated statement that “rumors stop at the wise” is just a typical saying to fool the public. Rumors would only be stopped by disclosure of information, revelation of the truth, and freedom of speech. In a society where the truth is kept secret, to expect rumors to stop at the wise would be both ridiculous and impossible because that would need the entire society to consist only of the wise. No society is like that. In societies where few or no rumors exist, there are always channels for the truth that the public should know to be exposed [without additional requirements].

Netizens have to register their identity before they publish any blog posts or reply to any threads. This would soon be a new Internet regulation in Hangzhou. To comply with the principle that one should not make statements that are not supported by evidence, this article should perhaps entitle “The fear of Hangzhou government officials”. But the problem is, nowadays the Chinese government often make clever use of tentative approaches to implement measures that would attract much objection from the people. They would adopt such measures in a smaller scale, at certain locations first. Just like this time, the authorities implemented first in Hangzhou these regulations so as to test the waters. If this triggers no massive opposition from the people, stir up no criticism across the Internet, and result in no lawsuit of violation of freedom of speech, then it is very likely that the authorities would implement those local measures across the country, there by stepping up nationwide control of speech and the Internet. Because of information asymmetry, and control of free speech, we might speculate on [what follows] this experiment of tightening control of the Internet, commissioned to China Internet Association and the local government by officials at higher levels.

In fact, which local government in this country would not be interested to impose measures similar to that in Hangzhou, and tighten control of the relatively free speech on the Internet? If all local governments share this desire, then why are they not introducing these? That’s because the highest authorities are afraid that if such measures are implemented all at once everywhere, there will be repercussions. And in fact it is not necessary for each local government to separately introduce measures that are about to be in place in Hangzhou, if there aren’t a noticeable public outcry to stop it. A more authoritative and economical way to make such regulations nationwide would be for the Chinese Rubber Stamp Association, the NPC, to pass a new law based on the one introduced in Hangzhou. We should refrain from speculating the motives of other individuals; but as for a government that does not disclose information – or even if it does – we have the rights to find out its malice intent. Because the government may change its policies or take measures to its own advantage any time. What happens now to netizens in Hangzhou may happen to us tomorrow, for this reason we should not sit and watch; we should rationally express our dissatisfaction in every possible way and show our support for them and for freedom of speech. Otherwise if the central government spread nationwide “the advanced experience of Hangzhou”, the network of this country would end up become a genuine prison.

Heredity of Civil Service Positions, A Social Disaster

2011-08-13T08:18:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to source text in Chinese: 公务员世袭化是社会大灾难

Translated, proofread by @krizcpec

Ran note: The controversy over “Rich 2G*” is yet to be over; the shock and anger that “Crown Prince Party” have caused in the public is gradually spreading across the country, a phenomenon that needs more discussion and attention from all sectors of society. To me, the problem is not just about the “Crown Prince Party”, it is also about government officials who have turned, through nepotism, civil service positions into heredity. In other words, civil servants as a most secure “iron rice bowl” during economic crisis is now hereditary, and the ratio of positions filled by favoritism is shockingly high. Below is a column I wrote for China in Perspective, which explored the problems of heredity of civil service position, comments are welcome.

September 2, 2009, 7:46 in Chengdu

Heredity of Civil Service Positions, A Social Disaster

Not long ago, Time Weekly had a row with people.com over the statement that 91% of the country’s billionaires are children of top party officials. The former represented the voice from the people; the latter, the official. To me, the skeptical voice from the people sounded more rational and more believable, while the explanation from the official was weak and flimsy. There is a long history of the Crown Prince Party, with the massive power and influence they have, riding roughshod over political and economic activities in today's China. As the saying goes, ice three feet thick result not from coldness of just one day. Theories of regime changes like “power comes from within the barrel of a gun” and "those who fought to rule the country shall reign" make it a certainty that the authorities see a regime as private belongings of one party, or one faction that no one else can encroach on. The peaceful, non-violent way of regime change by means of election is deeply resented by officials whose huge, unfair advantage would be affected by such change.

That the Crown Prince Party are inheriting dominance in political and economic sectors is very obvious. This too happens in less lucrative sectors like that of art and culture. That is to say, wherever interests exist, one can expect to spot ubiquitous snatching hands of the Crown Prince Party. Without real, effective system that can restrain them, government officials of lower levels would follow bad examples set by those in higher positions, and the hereditary culture of the Crown Prince Party has spread across all levels of governments, manifesting itself in the forms of parental nepotism and of bureaucrats using their powers to seek unjust advantages for their descendants. Last year in the city of Benxi three China Youth League cadres were promoted. They all are children of leadership of that city. After being questioned by the media and the public, Sun Mingdi, one of those offspring, argued that children of government officials too have the talent needed to succeed. Indeed they do, and they are very capable of success. The very fact that they were born to official families itself make them geniuses when compared to offspring of people in the street. What difference is there between this argument and Jus sanguinis?

Heredity of government official positions and civil service posts, and people cheating during civil service examination were originally done secretly. Now these are done in broad daylight, oblivious to criticism from the public. In the past they needed the fig leaf of “serving the public”, now they don't need this anymore. For the huge potential benefits, they fight with their gloves off. One of the incidents that illustrates this happened during Huangshan civil service examination, officials arranged government vehicles to send their children to sit for it. Although they did sit for that examination, the fact that they got there on government vehicles raised eyebrows. These examinees had to be “different” even when it came to sitting for a civil service examination, without any worries that that would reveal their identity. And how passionate and daring the officials had been in protecting the unjust benefits of their children! Recently at Gushi county, Henan province, twelve cadres were appointed, most of them children of officials; minister of organization came out and said, “our procedures are legal.” What was meant by that? Who set those procedures? Who made those laws? Has it been approved by the public? Has it credibility? Children of current or out-going cadres are being blatantly handpicked to fill government positions, all the masses know is that it's a result from officials conferring interests on one another, and that it's a hereditary privilege. Where then is openness and fairness?

“People aspire to work in the government with the specific intention to seek personal gain, those in office act as if they are traders. (出仕专为身谋，居官有同贸易)” Recently it has revealed that at a county in Jiangxi province, children of parents who are chiefs at sub-division level can go straight into administrative unit to work; children of parents who are deputies at the same level can have bonus marks when they sit for examination; and children to parents who work in education department can work in school directly. These are outrageous. And there are cases more outrageous than these: one example is a chief work in collusion with businesses, forging permanent staff record for thirteen years old relatives so as to pocket the salary, and file for internal retirement when that relatives turned twenty-four (and continue to get monthly allowance from the “workplace”). Descendants of government officials who have certain level of capacity would get leading positions in the government without hindrance; those who are not so capable would have their records forged to collect money directly. Those descendants are most happy if they can have access to both power and money; those who have access to either money or power can use one to exchange for another perennially, and in so doing they ensure that their own offspring can continue to enjoy the privileges.

Given that civil service positions have become the hereditary domain of children to government officials or civil servants, maintaining stability of civil workforce would naturally become the basic policy. And since civil service have become the territory of civil servants' offspring, they would of course make every effort to deprive the masses of their interests, and give top priority to maintaining stability, regardless of how that would abuse public power, or how conscienceless the measures are. These government officials and civil servants by inheritance resort to pathological and rigid measures to maintain stability not because they want real social stability, nor because they have the public's interests in mind. It is because pathological and rigid measures to maintain stability can best ensure protection of their interests.

In this time of global economic crisis, governments in many countries have laid off civil servants, or lowered their salary so as to weather the storm with the general public. In China the exact opposite are being done: not only has there been no public servant downsizing, but also an increase in the recruitment quota of the civil workforce, particularly the police; and not only was there no reduction in salary of civil servants, but also more rent-seeking space has been provided for them. These are done to ensure the civil servants would continue to work hard for and remain loyal to this regime, regardless of the grievance the civil servants, especially government officials, may cause in the public. A government that has no appetite for democracy, liberty, and political reform seems happy that civil service positions become hereditary, as they see this to be the only way to continue their reign. To us, heredity of civil service positions is heredity of power, and that is a disaster for the Chinese society, a disaster that would bring unpredictable consequences.

August 29, 2009, morning in Chengdu

* “Rich 2G”, Rich second generation, referring to Chinese men born into rich families after the 1980s.

Update: Ran Yunfei is home!

2011-08-10T01:39:00.000-04:00

Great News!

According to Feng Zhenghu @fzhenghu and He Qinglian @HeQinglian, dissident writer Ran Yunfei @ranyunfei has been released at 10 p.m. local time last night, ending his 171 days of detention. He is now home under house arrest, or translated literally, residential surveillance (監視居住).

Below are twitterers reactions to this long awaited piece of good news:

Special thanks to @fabiano226, @Michae1S, @dissenter2020, @awfan, @SikoAlice, @michelle9647, @michisle, @ruanji and many others for their efforts in this project. You have all helped secured his release from detention.

However, given that the authorities still impose restrictions on Mr. Ran Yunfei, he is not truly free yet. Therefore, this translation project does not end here, it will continue until Mr. Ran's freedom is fully restored.

Don't be indolent, think!

2011-08-09T11:04:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 别在思考上偷懒

Translated, proofread by @krizcpec

Chongqing officials' eerily oppressive approach is really funny: I was invited to give a talk at a forum, and it was canceled on the grounds that fire safety requirements had not been met. However, some of my friends didn't give up trying, and at last they managed to organize in a bar a talk that was more like a question and answer session. The audience was from the younger generations, most were students.

The theme was movies, we discussed Chinese movies shot by foreigners; education in movies; and movies I enjoyed. These would of course led to discussion on many social problems, because they are closely related to our lives, and our rights. And I felt they were all anxious, eager to have an answer, or the answer, to whatever problems they have; this mentality may not be limited to individuals, nor is it just a reflection of the youthfulness of these people, it is, I'm afraid, a sentiment that is spreading across society. Such sentiment is understandable: it is a response from the masses who are increasingly disappointed with the government; it could be used as a wind vane to observe this society.

Because many among the audience were from the younger generation, who were eager to learn from me more about this society, I tried to answer them, cautiously, refrained from giving any conclusions and from saying anything decisive. It was not out of fear of telling the truth that I did so, it was because I felt it necessary to bear in mind not to go too far with groundless saying; I need to avoid misunderstanding and to prevent guiding others to the opposite direction of my thinking. Just like Mr. Lu Xun made criticism and the regime used him. That was not entirely his fault, but one should be aware that words could have recoil like guns: if you didn't make yourself clear, then things would easily go wrong. This is something that we speakers and writers should pay close attention to.

Of course, we should write what we think when we are writing some everyday articles; but when we are discussing complex social issues, we would have to try hard to avoid giving just one answer. Without doubt, the impatient young people would not feel satisfied if they are not given the one and only answer, but as someone who frequently speaks about public issues, I think it is not appropriate to change one's thinking lightly because of opposition or applause from others. There may be many people who disagree with me, that doesn't necessarily mean I am wrong. So long as it is my own thinking, it follows my conscience, I'd still go on even if tens of thousands of people disagree with me. I do not speak or write to get applause, I speak only what I think. I would not, because of others' approval, go a step further down the direction that I do not agree with or have yet to think over. Whether people clap or not is not what motivates me to put pen to paper. I focus on judgments I make, basing on the materials, evidence, and facts I gathered. Although this may produce something that please nobody, it is my long held principle toward writing and speaking to insist thinking independently. Just like I would not endorse the “Twelve Suggestions to Dealing with Situations in Tibet (關於處理西藏局勢的十二點意見)” simply because it was written by my friends Wang Lixiong and Liu Xiaobo. I endorsed it because I agreed with it, or else I would have voiced my opposition instead. Likewise, I would not change my thoughts because of an emotionally-charged audience, or when I am overwhelmingly accused as being a traitor; the sheer size of the crowd is not the reason for me to change my thoughts.

To say something absolute, something that others dare not speak, this would of course earn one praises for being “courageous”. Nevertheless, being seen as courageous is not what makes me speak, I speak because I want to share my views on social problems. At times you may not find my views agreeable, I hope you could understand; and if you find it agreeable, then that doesn't mean you would feel the same toward all my other opinions, because I am not you. If you agree with me, you can of course show your support; if you don't, you can voice your opposition. I do not need unconditional support from anyone, not even my family and friends; they have the freedom to think differently from me, and to criticize me.

Difference in viewpoints doesn't make people enemy, this is a view I have long emphasized. Difference in opinions may be caused by a number of factors, such as different basis points of interests, or difference in information obtained, or even different interpretation to the same information, which is perfectly normal to me. Those who see different opinions as enemies, as opponents that must be eliminated should change their mindset. In so doing we could avoid repeating the old path of hatred education and class struggle.

The questions raised last night were all worth pondering, my answers in haste were probably too brief , or maybe they were not to the point as I was worried about the recoil my words might have. But those answers I gave were my thoughts, my inner thoughts, and I was quite satisfied that I managed to do so. Yet those who demanded the one and only answer, or the absolute answer, to their questions, their way of thinking made me feel slightly unsettled. No one could solve social problems once and for all; it is all the more impossible for anyone to come up with a basket of solutions. Those “Jacks-of-all-trades” who appear to be able to tackle any problems any time are exactly the type of persons we should guard against. I believe in Sir Karl Raimund Popper's piecemeal social engineering, and I believe in Friedrich August Hayek's theory of gradual progress. I would rather fail you than to give you the one and only answer which, in fact, I do not have; I can only list out several options, and help you become aware of what you are choosing from. To me the preference for the one and only answer, this way of thinking is exactly where problems with our education lie. Those who prefer a one and only answer or prefer others to give them one and accept it are typical lazy thinkers, they give up completely their right of thinking freely; the drawback of this is felt in every aspect of our life. This is one of the root causes of our rights being often deprived unknowingly.

The many “one and only answers” found on textbooks, especially those ridiculous ones for fill-in-the-blanks practices in language textbooks, are results of conjecture. When it comes to social issues which are more complex than textbook questions, how can there be solutions that would resolve problems once and for all?

April 4, 2008, 9:15 at Shapingba, Chongqing

Use your change as a testimony

2011-08-07T07:54:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 用你的改变作见证

Translated, proofread by @krizcpec

Ran note: this is written in reply to a friend of mine, please feel free to comment. What I wrote about here are just small actions that do not need you to pay a big price, not to mention sacrifice your life; I am cautious toward those actions that require people to give their lives, not that I'm timid, but because the expected benefits of those actions are hard to control. I do not mean that the only choice you have is to keep your head down and live in disgrace; you have the right to live that way if you wish, though. No one can point the finger at you.

Dear Mr. Ran,

Saw your email address at De-Sci.org, I have some questions about democracy and would like to seek your advice, and so I sent you this email. Sorry if this causes you any inconvenience.

Base on the current situation, how do we bring about democracy? You can write articles, yet what should ordinary people like me do? I talk a lot to my colleagues about democracy, liberty, and the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party as an organization; sadly I am not an articulate person, sometimes I have fuzzy logic, and I didn't receive much education (Junior High only), these often make me unable to find the right words to talk about what I think, what should I do? What can ordinary people like me do to fight for democracy?

Dear Mr. Chen,

Many others have the same questions as you do, and I will try to answer as best as I could. But first I must make clear that my answers may not be suitable for everyone, there are too many individuals, all have their own problems, and the difference between one another is greater than I could imagine; also, my answers are not golden rules: they may be wrong, they may not be all-inclusive, and so you don't need to see these as doctrine that cannot be changed. That said, here are my answers:

First: Do things with the right mentality. What do I mean by that? It is to do things with joy, and not with the mindset of saving others, nor with the feelings of hatred. Though many of those you set out to help have greater difficulties than you do, you do not need to be in sorrow for them. Because of the boundlessness of grieve, happiness is all the more valuable. I very much like the saying from Nicolas de Condorcet, "it is not enough to do good; one must do it in a good way."

Second: Rid yourself of the savior mentality. Of all mentalities, it is the least commendable that people would think that those they have helped are in debt to them. You help and love others because you love yourself; this is the unshakable prerequisite. The very act of helping others itself is a payback to your tormented soul; you don't need to be repaid by other means.

Third: Help others within your capacity. Don't bankrupt yourself because of helping others. For one thing, this way of "Selflessly serving the greater good" cannot last long; for another, bankrupt yourself and you lose the ability of helping others in the long run. I'd say helping others beyond your capacity would lead to a situation in which both parties lose: it's bad for you, and it's not good for those you intend to help, either.

Fourth: Do not force others to accept democracy. No matter how good something is, do not make others accept it; doing that would only reveal your incompetence. Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do to you; don't force upon others what you desire, you can only show them that what you are after is good. Democracy and freedom is a way of life, and above all it is a self-demand. You are making contribution to democracy when you can listen to different voices, and allow different opinions. This way of life will definitely influence many others; from your family, to your friends, and then all the way to the community as a whole.

Fifth: Persist with small actions. I like people who make small donations and keep doing it for long. This unremitting patience is itself an inexhaustible impetus. You can for example donate each month two dollars to the Open Constitution Initiative; two to Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law Jintang Public library; and two to China Rural Library which is committed to nation-wide promotion of reading and enlightenment, so on and so forth. These organizations have over a long period made untiring endeavors to bring forth a civil society, it is important that we make them feel they are not alone.

Sixth: Recommend good things to others. You can, for instance, spread the words of a good blog, a nicely written article, a meaningful course of action to take and the like; you can do this via telephone or mail, there are many other ways for you to choose from. Whatever that is good, do it within your capacity; do it every day, persevere, and definitely more will be influenced.

Seventh: Vote with your choice. If you think a particular magazine is worth reading, you can buy it, or borrow it. If you have troubles making ends meet, you can consider subscribe it with friends nearby and read it together; or, given the Internet is now better developed, find it online. Likewise, do not spend any money on those media - such as newspapers - that you feel are telling lies, not even fifty cents, or you are harming your own interests.

Eighth: Use your change as a testimony. Those who believe in Christianity pay much attention to making testimonies, and the sharing of them between one another, in so doing each would get encouragement and trust. Although we do not believe in any religion, we need encouragement and testimonies all the same. You promote democracy, and yet you are intolerant to opinions differ from yours, or you would not feel satisfied until all comments that criticize you are deleted. This type of behavior itself would do harm to what you advocate: democracy and liberty. In fact, it is not easy for us to tolerate different opinions, as the education we received was, and still is, about hatred and class struggle; we were trained in either-this-or-that thinking. We can change, though. Let the change begin with ourselves.

Ninth: Get used to having opponents. Wen Jiabao made a gaffe at Cambridge not because he is stupid; it is because he wasn’t accustomed to facing opponents. The absence of opponents, the lack of different voices being expressed is actually harmful to both sides. One should know that it is normal that someone would disagree with you. If you don't want to have any of that, then you say nothing, do nothing.

Tenth: Commit to it your whole life. Perseverance is something that everyone knows, yet not many can actually put that into practice. Why? Because as time goes by, the passion one has is gradually worn thin. When we look at William Wilberforce, Hu Shih, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Mother Teresa, or Martin Luther King Jr., we would see that while they may have different endowment, education background, and life experience, they shared the same attribute: long-lasting devotion to what they do. You may say that these are all exceptional people, impossible for persons-in-the-street to imitate. But were they born like that? No; it is the length of time they did things that helped them achieved greatness. In fact, if you feel being great is something that truly matters to you, commit yourself to one meaningful cause, stick to it all your life and there would be no way for you not to achieve greatness. Sure enough though, being great is not the end in itself, what matters is you feel the joy of life along the way.

February 13, 2009, 9:00 in Chengdu

How should citizens treat the government

2011-08-06T08:04:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 公民应该怎样对待政府
Translated by @Michae1S, proofread by @krizcpec

Some people said I am unreasonable as I often criticize the government, I wrote in response an article “Who Exactly Is Unreasonable?”, hoping the public could see that our government is many times more unreasonable than the masses. They use all sorts of propaganda that go every extreme to instill in the public ideas that are in their favor, and suppress any criticism and questions. There is nothing more unreasonable than muzzling dissent voices. Apart from this, I must keep pointing out that criticizing, instead of praising the government is the bounden duty of every citizen. This is more true in China, where the government is not under any real oversight and restrictions. Just like the disaster relief works following the snow storm this year, I couldn't say the government hasn't done anything, yet what it did was far from a job well done. Moreover, officials have evaded issues of human errors in the disaster, and those who neglected their duty have not been duly punished; these are serious disrespect to the dead and the rights of the victims, and a government like this should be criticized nonstop. However, it appears to some individuals that the government is aggrieved, and that the masses have wrongly accused the government of its decades of bad governance. In fact, there is no other race in the world that is more obedient than the Chinese people.

My criticism of the government may not always be right; however, my right to criticize must not be restricted in anyway. But government suppression on criticism from the people has become the norm in this country. Let's just look back, in the past few years, which one has been without cases of people unjustly jailed for their speech? In view of this, I am listing out what I know about the relationship between citizens and the government. Surely this will not all inclusive, so if you think there's anything I've missed, please add your views.

First: Government and citizens should be equal partners in the contractual relationship between the two sides. The government is not the citizens' master, the citizens are not the government's servants. The government should be under public supervision, the citizens should be able to choose their government. If a government does not perform well, the public should have the right to peacefully vote for a new one.

Second: The government is not there for the people to sing it praise, it is there to be supervised by the people. I have written an article on this topic, “The Government Is Not To Be Enshrined (政府不是拿来供着的)”, please have a look. Showing the government their appreciation is not what citizens are supposed to do. It is a government's responsibility to do its job well, it deserves no praise for that. Whereas if a government doesn't do its job properly, then it should be criticized.

Third: Government will not do good voluntarily, the least of all so for an autocratic government which has many systematic flaws and has no supervision. That's because with the many rights in its hand, a government's tendency and the ability to do evil is much stronger than ordinary individuals. In other words, a government, which evil is one that is mighty, should be under multilateral checks and balances.

Fourth: The public should not trust a government that runs its own media to praise itself. It is easily understandable: [a government that does this is] just as laughable as an individual who runs a newspaper that promotes daily how virtuous he or she is and bans others from making criticism. Therefore, the decades old propaganda that portray the Chinese Communist Party as “great, glorious, and correct” is but a brainwashing excuse to stripe the citizens of their interests.

Fifth: It is a government's bounden duty to serve the taxpayers. Don't fool me with political expressions like "serve the people". Because a government without supervision like you can cross me out of your approved list of “people”, and punish me like a counter-revolutionary. Decades of tragedies that have happened to our lives made us acutely aware of this. If you think a government that would only spend the taxpayers' money wastefully and has never really served the taxpayers deserve your praise at the top of your voice nevertheless. Then all I could say is ridiculous.

Sixth: Government is a service institution. Bureaucrats are civil servants, they have no rights to give orders to the public, nor do they have the rights to make the populace live in a particular way. After they have paid the tax, citizens should be served accordingly. The salaries of the government bureaucracy come from taxes, so it is right and justified that the public employees serve the taxpayers properly.

Seventh: Citizens have the right to disobey. They are not a government's yes-persons. They are not the government's slaves. Under the constitution, citizens have the right to say 'no' to the government: they have the right to oppose government's policies, and the right to say no to the government's calls.

Eighth: We must be alert to whatever compliment made to the government. Beneath those compliments, whether they are from organizations or media, is the potential to cause damage to citizens' rights. And officials' self-praise in particular should be questioned and criticized incessantly.

Ninth: Government has no immunity from criticism. I always say that the harm done to society and the public by a government that is not truly supervised and rejects criticism cannot be overestimated. The brutal lives of the past sixty years serve the best footnote to this judgment of mine.

Hastily written at 8:18, February 26, 2008, en route from Shenzhen to Guangzhou

The government is not to be enshrined

2011-08-05T07:57:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 政府不是拿来供着的

Translated and proofread by @krizcpec

Thomas Paine is remembered for the booklet he authored, Common Sense, from which many draw ideas to deliberate on Western Democracies, liberty, and government's legitimacy. Many of the common sense that we are going to cover are but a continuation of wisdom of human and reinterpretation of it. Some of the common sense had quickly become consensus, and for many reasons, a view that is almost universally agreed on fails to get approval on another land. Some common sense may have become a consensus rather quickly. Yet a consensus that is almost universally agreed upon has, for many reasons, not been approved on another land. It has even been smeared by the many interest groups and those have voice in their control, with the purpose to exploit interests of others and pocket the benefits themselves. I will today give a few examples to illustrate why government is not to be enshrined, so as to make things clear to those readers who ask me to put myself into the government’s shoes, these people are mostly civil servants, one of them leaves comments on my blog using the name “a rank-and-file bureaucrat”, and of course there are also those who have been brainwashed, become out of touch with real life and use “conditions of the country” as an excuse to shrink from their responsibilities. “Government is not to be enshrined” could be written into a booklet like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, serving the purpose of revealing [the nature of government] to humankind, and to alert them. As I get to know more and become more experienced, maybe I should perhaps give this task a try. What's covered in today's article serves only as a beginning of this project, it may not be comprehensive, but there's time to develop it further in future.

First: A government that wears unquestionable moral helmet to block criticism from the masses is shameful. No government in the world would shamelessly boost itself to be “great, glorious, and correct” like ours, laying claims to priority in using the best of human words. Look around, comparing what this government has said with the evil it has done, how else can we describe it apart from shameless?

Second: The shameful charge “Subversion of State Security” is derived from that moral helmet. Our government wears that helmet in the first place, and then by brainwash and coercion it makes people come to terms with its false claims to be “great, glorious, and correct”. From this it comes up with the bastard logic that criticizing the government is an act to damage and subvert state security. It is irrefutable that government is not the same as a country, yet government critics are jailed one after another; not a single one of them is unpatriotic, they are true advocates of the country, a country that has freedom and democracy, not the current authoritarian state.

Third: Country is like a campsite that is here to stay, while government is like flowing water that would come and go. Democracy is choosing your own government by casting your ballots. The longest possible time for a US president to hold that office would only be two terms, or eight years; peaceful change of administration is made possible in democracy. One of the evil attributes of autocratic regimes is that all rulers of dynasties, including our own authoritarian government, hope their reign would last forever; but in reality, these dynasties would last at most 300 years, and bloodshed is inevitable if a new dynasty is to rule the country. There is no basis for these dynasties to achieve eternal reign, Qin Shi Huangdi (the First Emperor) wanted his dynasty to pass on among his descendants for at least ten thousand generations, and what happened? (Qin Dynasty was overthrown fifteen years after China was first unified in 221 B.C. – translator note) And so what would happen to those modern dictatorships, which want to turn themselves from flowing water to static campsite? Do I need to tell?

Fourth: Government that is good is a trustee of public interests. The populace lives in a community comprising many individuals and interest groups, many of its issues are too complicated for individuals to take into their own hands; it is therefore imperative that members of a community surrender part of their rights, say they pay tax in accordance with the law, so that government as a trustee can sort out the issues for you. If a government acts not as a trustee of public interests but as an interest group that serves the ruling clique that pocket the benefits themselves, what legitimacy would a government like this have?

Fifth: Government that doesn’t do its jobs properly after it collects the money is no different from bandits. Let’s say you give your neighbors fifty dollars and ask him to do something for you; on top of that, you give him an extra twenty dollars or some other reward. He not only doesn’t do that for you, but also says you have not given him the money at all; do you not agree that a neighbor like this is not different from a bandit? A neighbor like this is not the real problem, you stop ask him for help and things would be fine. But can you stay away from the government? No; what is worse, a government consists of tens of thousands of individuals like the hypothetical neighbor mentioned above, and has control over a huge military force – which is supposed to be impartial and belongs not to any parties or sectors – and sizable tax; officials of all levels and departments are in a corruption and embezzlement frenzy, and doing no work for you. And you are not allowed to criticize them, or they will oppress you, throw you in jail, or even make you cease to be.

Sixth: A government that competes with the populace is not doing its job. Adams Smith has said long ago that government is a night watcher. Our existing government not only doesn’t care for your safety, and watch the nights for you, but also takes the opportunity to steal from you while it is dark. Their policies kept secret; their work non-transparent; they make you suffer losses without being able to tell anyone; what then is the difference between this and robbery by night? These are done more often in broad daylight, from illicit reselling of land, forceful demolition of flats, to being made to fulfill all sorts of mandatory appropriations (such as Olympics sponsorship, donations, charges, duties, and objectives) assigned by the leaders; with a gun pointing at you from behind their back, do you dare not to comply?

Seventh: They make you suffer with the money collected from you. We as taxpayers hand so much money to them, and they keep us in the dark regarding how exactly those money is spent; there is also widespread corruption, too. What's even worse, by employing more police, more secret police, and the massive army which has no fighting capacity when facing the enemy, yet perfectly capable of killing of their own people, they continue their exploit on you.

Eighth: With the populace striped of their freedom of speech, the authorities have control over the genuine marketplace of concept. American jurist, legal theorist and judge Richard Allen Posner has suggested that ideas are a marketplace, our thoughts can develop and benefit only from fair competitions between different ideas, and only with these competitions can social progress become possible. Concept is one of the key factors that can change the world; without free competition of free thoughts, there can be no genuine development in thoughts, invention, humanity, and natural science; an autocratic regime that does not allow freedom of speech wants to bring about the great revival of the Chinese people, this is utterly lunatic ravings. Comparisons of different schools of thoughts should be allowed without restriction, and the public should be able to choose freely between them. It is certain that those schools of thoughts that are comparatively better will stand out by public choice, thereby effectively putting an end to those deceptive speeches.

Ninth: Government has greater tendency and capacity to do evil than the persons in the street. In his book What the Anti-Federalists Were For: The Political Thought of the Opponents of the Constitution Herbert .J. Storing wrote that, “Government power should always be granted with a niggardly hand, a maxim that applies a hundredfold to this proposed general government (i.e. the federal government – Ran note), distant and dangerous as it must necessarily be even if improved.” The Anti-Federalists remained so attentive to the “distant and dangerous” abuse of power by the federal government, despite a checks and balances mechanism by state governments was already in place, was because they were convinced that the federal government was hard to control, and insisted that a checks and balances system would be a must. Look at our own “remote and dangerous” centralized government, tell me how grave is its tendency and capacity to do evil? Our officials flock to expeditions overseas, only to realize they are the most privileged public servants in the world. Joyously and zealously they come back to “love this country”, where the money is so easy for them to take, and the populace is so docile; they found out that, for the lack of tendency and capacity to do evil, the Western governments are nowhere as privileged as theirs.

Tenth: I love the Qing dynasty (referring to the PRC – translator note), and who loves me back? who would really care for us ordinary people? Stop shamelessly bragging that you are “Great, Glorious, and Correct”; stop using those labels of so called patriotism to scare the people. I do love this country, but does it love me at all? Without the component of lively individuals, how would there be any country? According to the order decided by the time of arrival, individuals are normally more superior to the state because individuals had lived here long before a country came into existence. What use of a country if it does not protect my interests? Those brainwashing theory that places state on top of individuals may as well be stopped.

Who exactly is unreasonable?

2011-07-31T12:07:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 到底是谁偏激？
Translated and proofread by @krizcpec

These days I often being criticized as biased. It appears that once being criticized so, all my arguments would become worthless for discussion - as if they are meaningless and untenable simply because of that criticism. And those critics would feel condescendingly a sense of victory without fighting. There are those who say not even a single word regarding the government's decades old of evil practices, and have an unreserved support of the government. These people have severe Stockholm syndrome, oblivious to their psychological yearning for persecution; some even feel happy to have this syndrome.

This phenomenon of hostages falling in love with their captor is nowhere more serious than in China, a country with thousand years of history under authoritarian regimes. They are willing to be on the same side of those in power, making hopeless efforts to ingratiate themselves with the powers that be; even though they themselves are the weak that are being persecuted. They would willingly form an illusion that they are not being rejected, and they would readily live in this illusion for the rest of their life. Therefore, there exist in China a curious phenomenon that can be seen in nowhere else: being on the weak side, suffering from exploitation through and through, the victims would identify themselves as belonging to the strong side. This sense of belonging is but wishful thinking rather than reality. In real life these people may be at the very bottom of the social ladder, yet the way they think has been tuned to toe the line of People's Daily – a topic I'd write in depth about in future. They would live in such an illusion in exchange for some sense of security which, as a matter of fact, couldn't even be seen as pain killers; it is, for most of the time, more like drinking poison without quenching thirst.

The Chinese people have never had freedom from fear. As a result, there is not a single day, not even a single moment in their lives that is without fear. Living constantly in fear, individuals' behaviors, expression and emotion are all unprecedentedly distorted. This unprecedented distortion has been deeply ingrained in us. Take our many euphemistic words for example, we say things that way not out of politeness, but rather a conditioned subconscious reflex that can be attributed to the externalization of the slave mentality, a result of being slaves for an extended period. Our sayings like “loose lips sink ships” is an inevitable result of the fear of free expression caused by the clampdown on freedom of speech. Numerous articles that ended up being absurdly exaggerated and unrealistic were not because of rhetoric needs, but of the fear within. This characteristic is particularly evident in a myriad of articles in the genre of essay. It is these characteristics that turn into compliments many essays that were intended to be critical of others. (Lung Ying-tai, the well-known Taiwanese scholar, attended the “Beautiful Articles” conference [here in China] more than a decade ago. She was frustrated by these characteristics, which made it hard for her to understand what exactly were being said.)

Let's name another example: the thinking and writing model of “opposing the Red Flag while holding it” (“打着红旗反红旗”) is often not because the content needs it, nor is it used to create a parody. It is for a sort of self-protection driven by fear. We have to thank all this to the lack of freedom of speech and the absence of freedom from fear. Many though would think this is not the problem. The problem, they think, lies with the critics not being able to express themselves tactfully and thoroughly, making their points sound rabid. They wouldn't take into account the fact that a single article, or even an entire book, devoted to analyzing the actual problems [in China] is still far from enough. They are not willing to read others' writing seriously, merely on the grounds that the way those articles express things differs from that they knew of. For example, they are accustomed to articles that are absurdly exaggerated and unrealistic and think that good articles should be written that way. And from this they come up with the conclusion that others are rabid

Patients with severe Stockholm syndrome, hostages in love with captors, these have become the accustomed habit and day-to-day behaviors of the Chinese people. The captors would of course love you to curry favor with them, to be in love with them. Yet whether or not they will love you in return, or if they will share anything with you depends entirely on their mood, on whether there is any kindness in them at the time. It all depends on their grace, with no reliable protection system in place. In fact, most of the time, the hostages that are in love with the captors couldn’t even get a mouthful of the captors’ leftover.

Why is that so? It is like business investments, when there is an over abundance of hostages, and every one of them wants to love the captors then in the eyes of the captors, the “value” of each of the victims depreciates significantly. This explains why you can’t secure your position as a slave even when you all compete for it. Presently there are way too many of us hostages who are in love with the captors, which is one of the reasons why we are being ignored by those in power. Too many hostages are in love with the captors, making it possible for the captors to control them with extreme ease; also, because too many hostages are in love with the captors, they become worthless – exactly why no one resigned, nor did the national flag fly at half-mast as a gesture of mourning, not even when there were so many victims.

In other words, with too many slaves around, inundating the market as if they are being dumped, it is inevitable that the value of the slaves would fall so much lower than the market value that they become garbage. Human dignity is priceless, yet part of your rights does have a price tag. It shouldn't be difficult to study Adam Smith's economic theories and equip yourself with the know-how to maximize your own interests. Some officials are willing to demean themselves when flattering their supervisors, that's because they could not think of any other way to maximize their interests. It is true that we should criticize them for how they maximize their own interests at the expense of that of others, but this beggar–thy–neighbor approach is still understandable. What I couldn't comprehend at all is that many at the bottom of this society have nothing, or being deprived with not much left to themselves; or perhaps those who have received some education – they can publish their opinions online, this I take as evidence that they have received education; however, these people are content to adopt the dog in the manger attitude. People who sacrifice their own benefits for others can be seen as noble, although in most cases this nobleness is only illusory; those who adopt the beggar–thy–neighbor approach are acting on their instinct, which may not be a good one; the most ridiculous type of persons are those dogs in the manger, they themselves get nothing, their rivals get nothing, it is the third party who are exploiting the interests of both sides that get benefited. It can be said that in China there are many people belongs to the third type, and they seem to enjoy themselves, even proud of themselves.

There are those who stand on the same side as those in power, and tend to label those who criticize the government as rabid. If you have watched the Oscar wining movie in 1954, On the Waterfront, directed by Elia Kazan, starring Marlon Brando, then you would know easily what I am going to say. There are too few people who would stand up and fight for their legitimate rights like Terry, but way too many indifferent workers who are apathetic about fighting for legitimate rights together, despite that's the only way to best protect their interests. Kazan's film ended with a triumphant Terry, all workers awaken. To me this ending is somewhat superfluous, Hollywood is at times too keen to make desserts for miserable life, and not so willing to produce remedies for it. This is what people often criticize them for their way of creating dreams. It is a wise strategy in terms of business, though. In fact, there are very few Americans who are not willing to wake up or unaware of their rights. I sometimes think that, unlike my compatriots who would resort to self-deception when their rights got infringed, the Americans tend to exaggerate infringement upon their interests. But well, this is a natural result of years of immersion in democracy and freedom.

This movie is all the more persuasive when it is related to the reality in China. I often think that if you are “happy”, “content” with your exploited life, or maybe you’re not happy but dare not say it. That’s okay. Yet if you are not only “happy” with it, but also helping our common exploiters to suppress those who fight for their own rights, then I’ll have to say that that is wrong. In China, there are just way too many miserable slaves that adopt the dog-in-the-manger approach, benefiting the rulers and the masters. These poor people are products of oppression from the regime, they deserve sympathy. But in the end, I must regrettably point out that these people fall too deep in love with the captors. They wouldn’t feel right without oppression.

If you yourselves love the captors to the extent that you don’t care about your interests, then that’s fine, you have the rights to decide what to do with your own interests. But it’s wrong to harm others’ interests because you love the kidnappers, isn’t it? Those who fight for their rights may not be noble, but while they’re fighting for themselves, they are, in a way, helping you to be free from the deprivation the captors imposed upon you. It’s understandable if you don’t thank them, you can quietly enjoy the benefits. But you should refrain from openly singing the captors praise, am I right? is that too much to ask for?

Those who come to my blog to say I have prejudice, please judge the government the same way as you judge me. If you are not disregarding the facts then I assume you would come to the conclusion that it is the officials that are most unreasonable, and this affects all aspects of our lives. Examples include the savage way of law enforcement in Shenzhen, where people are made to march through the streets, and there is gunning of citizens. These are not individual incidents. Just as we have all seen how bad our education is, and yet the government boosts how good it is; saying it is compulsory education while it has never been free of charge. Wherever we look, there are cases of human rights violations, and yet top government officials say China’s human rights conditions are the best in the world. Hosting the Olympic Games without caring the people’s interests, the government did not allow the slightest criticism of the Games. An old article of mine that poked fun at the Olympics was published on traditional media a few days ago; it has now been shelved because the Olympics cannot be criticized. The People’s Daily, and Xinhua News Agency are the country’s most rabid media, they report only the good news, cover only what the regime direct them to, and then they claim themselves to be “great”, “glorious” and “correct”, if this is not unreasonable, then what is? There is a never ending list of examples that illustrate how unreasonable the authorities are, I can keep citing forever. So those who think that I am biased please tell me, is it the government or the general public that should be labeled as rabid?

Of course, I welcome everyone to point out to me which arguments of mine are not backed by facts or have insufficient evidence. But I would not accept people who haven't finished reading the entire article and groundlessly accuse me of not having proof. When I write something, I care much about finding evidence to back my points. So basically my argument are supported by facts. I'm not saying that my viewpoints cannot be criticized, and I dare not consider myself to be correct; I only say what I think, contributing ideas that are different from the party. Whether or not my points are correct, trustworthy, you judge them. When you criticize me of being unreasonable, please, list out the facts that back your criticism, talk reason, I'd appreciate that.

And, I cannot be one hundred percent objective, no one can do that. I have my emotions. I have my flaws. I am not god, so don't ask of me the way you would of god. Nobody is god, no one is without limitations. I welcome others to help me push my limits further. But I must be on high alert to studied unfairness from the government: distortion of the truth done with the aim to fool the public. Because the government is the trustee of public interests, it is supported by our tax. It has to be under our oversight unconditionally. If the general public is said to have the rights to be “unreasonable” - which most of the times means none other than making criticism, then given this proposition, the government shouldn't have the rights to be biased. If a government is to use its one-sided accounts to fool the public, to exploit the interests of the masses, then it should be strongly denounced by the people. There are occasions when the government does something wrong. There are times when the government makes mistakes. The government should not see making such mistakes as something that is granted. Government should be restrained and supervised, otherwise enormous damage would result.

To the readers, please note that my basic conclusion is: in China it is the government, rather than the general public who are living in fear, that is more unreasonable. We can determine it this way because of the government command over the military, its access to taxpayers' money, and its high-handedness. As a matter of fact, the public don't have the capital to be rabid, their heads cannot grow back like leek.

Written at 7:49 AM on September 14, 2007 in Chengdu

Don't Expect More from Me

2011-07-30T09:35:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 不要期望我更多
Translated by @dissenter2020, proofread and edited by @krizcpec

Many people want to know why I publish a blog post every day. Actually, if you have read my previous posts, you wouldn’t ask this question at all, you would have found a pretty satisfying answer long ago. I think if you want to know somebody, you would use the search engine to find and read as much about that person as possible; you would compare, analyze, and formulate an idea of how that individual is like in general. Nevertheless, you'd better not jump to conclusion yet: human being is complicated and has many faces. Just like my blog is only a very small part of my life. Judging by my blog posts, you may find me to be too serious; but if you drink with me, then you would know a different Ran Yunfei. I would talk about literature and art appreciation—you may assume I do not talk about these as they are seldom covered on my blog. No, on the contrary, I feel most comfortable when talking about my feelings of literature and art. It is writing commentaries on public affairs that makes me wary and afraid. for I am with David Hume's view of "[it is] fruitless to dispute concerning tastes", my choice of words and style when writing literature and art review cannot be more different from commentaries, those who have read some of my other books may prove it. I do not agree with Mr Hu Shih’s being somewhat objective when reviewing literature and art. Since in my opinion, the appreciation and views of literature and art is more of a personal matter. It doesn't involve direct and extensive public interests. I admired very much Mr Hu's composition and demeanor concerning public affairs, yet when he spoke about literature and art, I think he was too “scientific”. His reviews were really too inartistic, lacking savor, and without the amazement of "O, so that's what it is!"

The problem with commenting on public affairs is that I have to control my expressions as best as I could. Surely I often failed to do that the way I hoped, but in this country where there are so many social problems, I am fully aware how painful it is to exercise restraint. All sorts of disasters happen day to day, they drive me crazy. But when putting pen and paper, I have to be as calm as I could on the grounds that these are about public affairs. Although I only have little influence, I still have to try to make the effect of my remarks more in line with my relatively calm attitude. I appreciate approaches in public domain that are pragmatic, calm, rational, upholding a bottom line, and protecting the freedom of speech. But for me, just like every one with limits, to fit these requirements is not easy. Therefore, this is for me something to pursue and this itself is a long learning process. In other words, there is difference between my private self and my public persona. Privately, I swear, too. But I would not do that in public. That said, I do not blindly oppose swearing, there are instances when people make spectacular use of foul language, or criticizing others in an artful way, leaving people with deep impression and lingering memories. That’s to say, it’s okay to swear, but one should learn the art of swearing first.

To elaborate further, you cannot stop people from swearing. This is also part of free speech. Yet if you cross the line when doing so, it would involve certain related legal issues then. But there would not be such a problem if you criticize the government. The government is not a personal entity; it has no immunity from being criticized. This is crucial for respect for the freedom of speech. Likewise, officials, as they are supported by taxpayers, have become trustees of public interests and must accept oversight and even moderate criticism from the people. They have to pay the price of losing some of their privacy for the many gains they have in public domain.

Finally, I find it necessary to make clear that everything I do stems from purposes of self-love and selfishness. It is not my intention to become spokesperson for any group or anyone, I am up to that task, and have no desire for it. Because of my self-love and selfishness, I could not stand the human behavior of harming others, especially when those are done kind by the government and officials unto others of their kind. This is outrageous. This is something I could do nothing about. Yet rage does not make someone a better person, it only makes him or her appear not to have good bearing. But with all the bad things in this country, I'd really like the saying from Lung Ying-tai, “Chinese people, why are you not angry?”

It is okay to be angry. But after the anger subsided, one would still have to solve problems rationally, one would still have to learn to compromise, negotiate, bargain, and take the road of game that seems particularly difficult. I do not approve violent actions. I do approve rational improvement. I am only writing out some of my thoughts, I cannot guarantee that my views are correct on everything, I am not that conceited. Why do I allow all sorts of criticism on my blog, and not delete them, not even those abuses? This is, rather than a sign of forgiving others, of me being a person with good bearing, only a sign of self-pity I would say. That is because when I read remarks of some officials, I too feel the impulse to lash out at people. Without a doubt I am not a government official, my speech comes not from the compulsion of power. While state media would not let you criticize or lash out at government officials, leaving your with no channel to take out your anger, I allow you to question me on my blog at any time. Hence, you are not under my compulsion. You can write lengthy comments to criticize me, or create a blog specifically for that purpose if you like.

[When it comes to making myself a better, wiser, more capable person,] this is how I do it: when you feel someone is not good enough, the only option for you is not to look to him but to take action yourself. For example, if you think that person does not write well, then you learn to write and surpass him, do not expect others to progress as your wish. Or when you feel a person does not cook twice-cooked pork well, you try to cook it yourself to outdo him. Maybe you cannot achieve it, but you will come to know that twice-cooked pork is not an easy dish. And so you would come to maintain a fair understanding of why he doesn't cook that dish good enough. You may even sympathize with him for that. People have their limitations, so it is right and proper that we have understanding of other people's mistakes. Since those mistakes do little harm and affect only a small circle, they deserve forgiveness from others, especially from those who have been offended.

However, this is not applicable to an unrestricted government that does not correct its mistakes, which have far too serious consequences, involving interests and dignity of too many people. We all know that the government is formed by people. Organizations that are formed by people are bound to make mistakes. Whether or not a government reduces mistakes, apologizes for them, makes compensations; whether it can effectively prevent making the same mistakes again; or if it can minimize mistakes systematically; these are the criteria we use to assess if a government fails its job.

There are people whose thought is so impoverished that they keep saying [to me] all the time that you wouldn't do a better job than the current government even if you take over its office. In my view, this way of thinking is indeed very indolent. First, I won't do it at all, I know what I am capable of; second, I have no interest in that, I have no desire to be in power; third, if those [running the government] are not good enough, vote them out of office and let people with more caliber to take the positions. Do have faith in people's rationality. Of course, they may at times turn out to have the mob mentality; but overall speaking, the time that people are rational is more than when they are not. People may fall, but they eventually learn how to walk. Except the mobility impaired, I haven't seen any individuals who would fall all their lives and not able to walk normally.

I admit I am a sensible man whose blood is boiled with passion (this sentence may sound self-contradictory, yet it can describe how complicated I am). But whatever I do, I take into consideration the balance of corresponding matters. Just like if you ask me to go to disaster area everyday to participate in reconstruction, then sorry, I don't have that much energy and time. My family is a more important part of my life. I do not believe in the idiotic saying of selflessly serving the greater good of all, and I wouldn't put it into practice. Those who advocate this idea have never managed to do it themselves. But if you ask me to make use of my comparative advantages, my spare time to do things that are beneficial to the community, then I would be more than willing to comply, I would do so happily and untiringly. This was the intrinsic motivation that propelled me to do something with my Earthquake Weekly. Likewise, if I need to spend more than two hours in writing blog posts, than I couldn't stick to publishing one on a daily basis. I have to read, write, and strive for a living, I have to make my family feel me a man with some sense of responsibility, and not just a person that so selfishly disregards everything else for his own sake. I once wrote an article ("Use your change as a testimony/用你的改变作见证") that suggested the most effective approach to life would be to start changing with oneself, because change in oneself is something that everyone has control and one would have full understanding of how easy or difficult that is. Those who expect more from others is being lazy themselves (Please see also my article "Don't be indolent, think! / 别在思考上偷懒"). On top of that, they would feel disappointed, develop resentment toward and slander others as a result of their idealistic expectations. This would be interference in the lives of others. This would be the basis on which despotism comes into existence. And this should be something that we all guard against.

Written at 9:00 am, on Feb 28, 2009, in Chengdu

Quotations from Ran Yunfei (Part Four)

2011-07-26T22:16:00.000-04:00

As at the date this translation project started, twitterer @wuxinkuaiyu had tweeted 65 quotations from the detained dissident writer. Here are the last batch of the quotations translated into English.

Translated by @sikoalice
Proofread and modified by @krizcpec, @gaodawei

51. 这个社会太多的人想搭便车，很少人有责任感，觉得这个社会需要去努力。而且中国人讲究实用，巴不得今天做了事情明天就能收到效果。这就像中国人对读书的态度，如果认一个字能挣五块钱，那他愿意，要不他宁愿去打几把麻将。
Translation: There are too many people in this society who want to get a free ride, only a handful have the sense of responsibility and consider efforts necessary to bring forth a better society. The thinking of Chinese people is all about being practical and looking for an immediate pay-off: they want what they did today to pay off tomorrow. This is just like the Chinese’s attitude towards reading. They would do it willingly if they were to be paid five dollars for each character they learn; otherwise they would rather play Mahjong.

52. 我看不少人对中国这个社会相当悲观，我认为这样的心态虽可理解，但并不可取。我对中国的变革不是十分乐观，但绝不悲观，这一点就是拜胡适先生教导所赐。
Translation: Many people are fairly pessimistic about this country. Alhough this attitude is understandable, it is not the right one. I don’t feel very optimistic about China’s reform, but I am not pessimistic about it, this I have to thanks to the teachings of Mr. Hu Shih.

53. 告密是专制社会常用的手段，让其统治成本相对较低廉，所以几千年来中国史不绝书。告密是利用信息不对称来掌控他人权利而使统治者自身利益最大化的方式，更是对“囚徒困境”的一种极端运用形式。
Translation: Informants are often used in autocratic societies to make it easier for the rulers to govern. This can be seen in the history books that record thousands of years of Chinese history. Using intelligence from informants is a way to use information asymetry to best serve the interest of the ruler. It is also an extreme form of “the Prisoner’s dilemma”

54. 中国教育制度作为现存社会政治制度的子系统，它的革新，必须仰赖于政治体制循序渐进、有效而理性的改革，否则要实现教育的完全革新是不可能的。
Translation: The Chinese educational system is a subsystem of the socio-political system. Reforming education necessarily depends on gradual reform of the political system and on reasonable, effective reforms. Otherwise a complete reform of the current educational system will be impossible.

55. 在一个肉弱强食的丛林社会，尽情地利用一切信息不对称，干许多恶事被看作是天经地义的，这也就是中国历来三十六计、长短经、勾距之术比较发达的深层因由。
Translation: In a society ruled by the law of the jungle, using asymetric information as one likes to do a great many evil deeds is considered entirely normal. This is exactly the deep reason why in China there have been written so many classics about strategy such as the Thirty-Six Stratagems, Zhao Rui's "Classic of Ruses", and other works on trickery.

56. 从小事做起，做些不影响我们生活、工作等方面的力所能及的救助，与我们要彻底为建立民自由之国家的努力，并不是矛盾的，甚至是相辅相成的。对周围同胞的生存有一种及身而见、感同身受的悲悯，和慷慨激昂地批评社会不公，和不懈地批评政府的失职，同等重要。
Translation: Starting from the small things, let us do as many good deeds as we can without affecting our lives and our work that will serve to promote the establishment of a free and democratic country. Democracy and freedom are not contradictory but in fact complement each other. It is equally important to have compassion, empathy, and sympathy for the people around us; to passionately criticize unfairness in society; and to untiringly criticize the government for negligence.

57. 现在有许多中国人拿体制的命令和系统的僵化，来为自己所干的坏事推脱，他们根本不考虑这一切是否符合人道与良知。更有甚者，许多体制受益者还为自己的恶行辩护、振振有辞，颠倒黑白把自己所做的错事认为是正确的。
Translation: In these days, many Chinese people use orders from the regime and the rigidity of the system as excuses for their wrongdoings. just don’t stop to consider that these things are not compatible with humanity or good conscience. Even worse, quite a few eneficiaries of the system speak plausibly in defense of their own wrongdoings. They turn black into white to make what they have done wrong seem to be right.

58. 在专制制度下，所有官员都在玩轮盘赌，自己哪天倒霉，没有体面与自由，这是说不清楚的事，因此大家才会看到各级官员为什么好风水、喜八卦、学周易（进国学班主要学这个），和各种佛、道界的掌门人往来密切。
Translation: Under an autocratic regime, all officials are playing roulette. They can never know when it will be their turn to be out of luck, disgraced, and denied freedom. This is why officials of all levels are obsessed with feng shui, the eight trigrams, and studying the Book of Changes (Sinology classes are mainly about these things); they also keep close contact with Buddhist and Taoist leaders.

59. 西方的强大不是自吹自擂得来的，而是不断寻找问题和解决问题得来的。西方人他专门找问题、找碴子，绝不歌颂政府。政府是在民众的骂声中学乖的、是在不断的丢人现眼中成熟的。
Translation: The strength of the West comes not from bragging but from constantly looking for problems and then solving them. Westerners would intentionally find faults and problems. They never singing their governments praises. Their governments learn to behave amid the chorus of criticism from the people and evolved into maturity through a continual embarrassments.

60. 作为率先觉醒的中国公民，我们不应当首先把自己定位为一个颠覆一切的革命家，而应当首先在丰富多彩的社会生活中活得像一个人的样子，活得像一个公民的样子。
Translation: As Chinese citizens that have enlightened ahead of others, we should not see ourselves as revolutionists that subvert everything in the first place, we should instead live like a human in the colorful social life, we should live like citizens.

61. 税收的最大基础，便是建立在权利与义务对等的关系上，而纳税的人只有无穷无尽的义务，而没有取得相应的权利，他对税收便处于消极怠堕的状态，严重者便暴力抗税。
Translation: Taxation is based on the establishment of a balance between rights and obligations. Taxpayers will not be motivated to pay their taxes or worse, violently refuse to do it if they have to fulfill endless obligations without getting any rights in return.

62. 作为中国著名的艺术家，艾未未的创意能力和权利意识，都属一流。他可以创造出很好的作品，也可以表达出惊天动地的权利诉求，因为他是不错的艺术家和杰出公民的混合体，他做到了艺术创造和权利诉求的完美表达。
Translation: As a famous Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei's creativity and rights awareness are both top-notch. He is capable of creating wonderful works and expressing earthshaking appeals for rights. Just because he is a blending of a brilliant artist and an outstanding citizen, he successfully produces perfect expression of artistic creations and stirring appeal for human rights.

63. 艾未未在公共领域里的多个事件中持续发声，并以他的勇气、毅力、坚韧和持续的投入精神，聚合艾未未公民调查小组，对震后死难学生数字，进行了艰苦卓绝的实地调查，为推动公民社会的进步做出了极大的贡献。他的调查小组所拍的《老妈蹄花》、《花脸巴儿》堪称这个时代的真实记录。
Translation: Ai Weiwei constantly speaks out about important matters in public affairs with courage, perseverance, tenacity and unremitting dedication. He organized a citizen investigation team which conducted painstaking field investigations into the number of students killed in the Sichuan Earthquake and so made a huge contribution to the advancement of civil society. Documentaries shot by his team such as“Lao ma ti hua” and “Hua lian ba'er” deserve to be regarded as truthful records of our time.

64. 我并不是一个很勇敢的人，我只是个能坚持的人，因为认可胡适先生的理念，认可关于爱才是人生补药的理念，所以才能摆脱仇恨和戾气，不被仇恨和戾气所焚烧。
Translation: I am not a very brave man, My only virtue is that I am persistent. I share Mr. Hu Shih's views and agree that love is the tonic of life. This idea freed me from hatred and hostility so that I would not be consumed by them.

65. 艾未未在我眼里，他不政治，而是一个非常正常的公民，也与正常的公民一样知道，政治其实应该就是公民社区的公共事务，而不是小群精英们的特权；只是他做公民做的太直接太耿，在刻意躲避政治锋芒的中国文艺人群中，特别的政治和不合群。
Translation: In my eyes Ai Weiwei is not political, he is really a quite normal citizen. And just like any other normal citizen, he knows that politics are public affairs of the community, not the privilege of an elite clique. Just because as a citizen he is too blunt and stubbornly upright that he contrasts so sharply with those literati who deliberately distance themselves from politics.

Quotations from Ran Yunfei (Part Three)

2011-07-24T10:00:00.000-04:00

As at the date this translation project started, twitterer @wuxinkuaiyu had tweeted 65 quotations from the detained dissident writer. Here are the third batch of the quotations translated into English.

Translated by @sikoalice
Proofread and modified by @krizcpec , @gaodawei

36. 不要把自己的权利改善，寄托在没有真正监督与制约的政府善心大发上，这无异于缘木求鱼。在较完善的民主自由制度未建立以前，每个人自身权利无不是自己争取来的，每个人都可以在衡度自身安全的情形下，做力所能及的推动社会进步的好事，这并不需要你危及己身的大智大勇。
Translation: Do not place your hopes of greater respect for your rights on the good heartedness of a government that is not subject to genuine oversight and checks on its powers. This is like fishing in thin air. Until a free and democratic system of government is in place, every individual will be on their own -- they will have to fight for their own rights. Every individual can do whatever they can to promote social progress after weighing how their efforts might affect their own security. Everyone can do this. This is not something only for those with tremendous courage and wisdom needed for actions that might endanger their lives.

37. 一个国家不把自己青少年的健康成长当回事，这样的国家还有什么未来可言？一个民族给自己的下一代造成许多灾难，这个民族还有什么复兴之期？祖国的花朵却是地道的国家弃儿，这样的国家你怎么能爱得起来？
Translation: What kind of future can a state that is not concerned with the health and growth of its youth have? What hope can there be for the recovery of a state that creates so many disasters for itself? The flowers of our ancestral land have become outcasts. How can this kind of state be loved?

38. 在可以想见的将来，中国互联网的官民之争还会越演越烈，目下仅仅官民冲突的开始。被互联网相对多元化的信息唤醒的民众，决不想再回到那种令人窒息的从前，而官方则一如既往地想利用一切手段，最大限度地屏蔽不利于己的信息来愚民，从而实现自身利益最大化。
Translation: For the foreseeable future, arguments between officials and civilians will become ever more intense. This is just the start of the conflict between them. People awakened by relatively diverse information available online will not want to return to the suffocating past. The authorities, however, just as in the old days, will do whatever they can to cover up the information that makes them look bad so as to deceive the people and best serve their own selfish interests.

39. 我历来主张，你不喜欢某物某事某人，也应该在了解该事该物该人后，对其进行理性的抉择。同时，你如果要说出更深的不喜欢的理由，就一定要多读该人的诸种言论，观看他的行动后，对其有更为全面更为深入的看法。
Translation: I have long believed that even if you dislike certain things, incidents, or people, you should try to get a better understanding of them in order to make a rational decision. And if you want to give a deeper reason for your dislike, then you should first read more of those people’s speeches and observe their actions, so that you will get a deeper understanding of them.

40. 有许多身份和职业上的强势者，以为自己一直不会成为受害者。他们不仅健忘刘少奇、彭德怀等人是怎么被他的同党迫害死的，而且还健忘这个专制制度就是个自噬的制度。什么叫自噬呢？自噬就是互咬，到最后就是自咬自噬。
Translation: Many high status people in powerful positions think they would never become victims. They forget how people like Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai were persecuted to death by their own Chinese Communist Party. They also forgot that this authoritarian regime devours its own. What do I mean by this? It starts with people biting each other and ultimately ends up with them biting and devouring themselves.

41. 当前社会各种矛盾纠集，纷争百出，可说是多事之秋。这多事之秋的形成，既有外部因素如国际经济危机的影响，但更主要的是我们中国自身的问题。其中最主要的问题，当然是我们的制度本身就是一个不利于保护所有人利益的专制制度，说专制制度是制造社会不和谐的温床，一点都不为过。
Translation: Now all sorts of conflicts and disputes are popping up. We live in a troubled time. Some of this is due to external factors such as the global financial crisis, but the main cause lies within China itself. The most important reason of all is that our regime is an authoritarian one that is not effective in protecting everyone's interests. To say that the autocratic system itself fosters social disharmony is to make no exaggeration at all.

42. 包括大学在内的所有学校，都是培养公民的最佳场所，可惜的是，我们教育不中立，从小到大的愚民教育，真是断了社会前进与改善的种子。

Translation: All schools, including universities, are the best places to nurture citizens. It is a pity that our education is not impartial. Student grow up from their earliest years in a stultifying educational system that strangles the hope of social progress and improvement.

43. “公民教育”在我看来至少应该包含基本权利和基本义务的教育。权利和义务是连在一起的，比如我们履行了纳税的义务，就应该享受政府提供的公共产品及相关服务，并且有对政府进行批评的权利。而如果尽了义务而没有权利，这就是一个值得我们深入思考的问题。
Translation: To me “civil education” should at least include education on the basic rights and obligations of citizens. Rights and obligations are linked. For example, since we have fulfilled our tax obligations we should have access to public goods and government services and have the right to criticize the government in its provision of public goods and services. If we don't enjoy any rights after fulfilling our obligations, then this is a problem we need to think deeply about.

44. 一个将苦难和人祸遗忘得一干二净的民族，是一个没有希望的民族；一个拒绝对自己所负责任进行有效反思的政府，是个没有希望的政府；一个对人祸造成的苦难，不尽自己作为一个人应尽之责，不仅不配做公民，而且永远只会出现“人皆得以隶使之”的悲惨局面。
Translation: A people that forgets completely its sufferings and man-made disasters is a people without hope. A government that refuses to seriously reflect on its own responsibilities is a government without hope. A person who does accept not his or her share of responsibility for sufferings caused by man-made disasters is not just an unworthy citizen but also one forever a subject to “enslavement by everyone else.”

45. 六十年来，官方对民众训练得非常成功的一个思维模式就是：非此即彼，非黑即白。这在我们许多热爱自由的朋友们身上，也时有流露。这不能说热爱民主自由的人们对专制的一系列特点没有防备，而是说专制统治深入了我们的骨血，融成一片，让人们习焉不察。
Translation: Over the past sixty years, officials have been very successful in training the people to see things in black or white: either this or that. This is obvious at times to lovers of freedom. We cannot say that these people who ardently love democracy and freedom have no defenses against the various characteristics of dictatorship. It is simply that these characteristics through long habit have become written upon our flesh and blood, become part of us, and so have become difficult to notice.

46. 再宏大的目标，再远大的理想，再公共的知识分子，始终葆有哪怕微渺的人性，对周围同胞的生存有一种及身而见、感同身受的悲悯，和慷慨激昂地批评社会不公，和不懈地批评政府的失职，同等重要。

Translation: Goals no matter how grand, ideals no matter how lofty, intellectuals no matter how dedicated they are to the public good are still subject to the vagaries of human nature. It is equally important to have compassion, empathy, and sympathy for the people around us; to passionately criticize unfairness in society; and to untiringly criticize the government for negligence.

47. 我坚持每日一博，日拱一卒，功不唐捐的理念，是因为爱，不是因为恨。我对政府有失望有猛烈之批评，但没有仇恨。我知道自己从小是受阶级教育仇恨教育长大的人，我对自己受教背景充满警惕。我对自己身上不宽容的东西充满警惕，但宽容不是纵容。
Translation: It is out of love and not hatred that I persist in posting on my blog every day. I believe that giving my utmost every day will not be for nothing. I feel disappointed with the government, I strongly criticize it, but I do not hate it. I am aware that I grew up educated to think of the world in the terms of class division and class hatred. I am wary of the education that I received. I keep a watchful eye on the intolerance I find within myself. Tolerance, however, is not connivance.

48. 宣传部是一个扑灭民众权利、堵塞民众知情权、愚弄民众的机构，这样一个机构不会因灾后重建有丝毫的改变，相反可能在消灭和堵塞真相时因“政治正确”的原因而做得比平常更为过火。
Translation: The party's propaganda department is an organization that aims to extirpate the rights of the public, to deny them their right to information, and to deceive them. Such an organization hadn't the slightest change for the sake of post-disaster reconstruction. On the contrary, it will probably go to even greater lengths to destroy the truth or to prevent it from emerging for the sake of “political correctness”.

49. 真相是灾后重建中最重要的一部分，任何想籍此遮掩的举措，都是在犯罪为恶。政府必须清醒地意识到这一点，否则政府任何宣传任何自我表扬，都无法获得民众的谅解。无法得到谅解而造成长期的积怨，时间也不会让他们屈服。
Translation: Facts are crucial to post-disaster reconstruction. Anyone using this as a reason to do a cover-up is committing a crime and doing evil. The government should clearly understand this point. If not, any propaganda or self-praise will not be understood by the public. The long term grievances caused by their failure to understand this will continues to accumulate. They will not lessen, not even with the passage of time.

50. 只要能够促成自身利益的短暂实现，他们也会心甘情愿做着许多他们自己都不相信的事，说着许多他们自己都不相信的话。只有利益，没有是非；只有利害，没有底线，这是许多五毛最实际的行事考量。
Translation: Those who chase after short-term accomplishments for their own selfish advantage may well happily do many things that they do not personally believe in and so many things that they do not believe. For them, there is only personal advantage but no true and false. They care only about their own interests -- there is no limit beyond which they will not go. This is what the fifty-centers (Note: people hired by Chinese governments at various levels to influence public opinion online) do and how they think.

Quotations from Ran Yunfei (Part Two)

2011-07-22T10:03:00.000-04:00

As at the date this translation project started, twitterer @wuxinkuaiyu had tweeted 65 quotations from the detained dissident writer. Here are the second batch of the quotations translated into English.

Translated by @sikoalice
Proofread and modified by @krizcpec @gaodawei

21. 打着国家的旗号，干着恶浊的勾当，这是我们生活中常见的例子。国家只是为所有个人服务的工具，舍此国家没有任何作用，或者国家的存在意义将化为乌有。也就是说，我们不能用神化国家来损害个人利益。
Translation: Dirty business done in the name of the state is no rarity in China's national life. A state is just a tool for serving all the individuals in it; it has no other function, or it has no reason for being. In other words, we should not harm the the interests of individuals merely for the sake of deifying the state.

22. 中国几千年来，公权力世袭化，没有像今天这样普遍化，遍及生活的各个角落的。如官员的学历文凭之滥，到了令人惊讶的地步，这在科举考试时代都没有发生过的事情，却在今天畅行无阻，谁说共产党领导的中国一定胜过古代，那就是睁眼说瞎话。
Translation: Throughout thousands of years of Chinese history, the inheritance of govenment power by the children of officials was never so common as it is today. It affects every aspect of our lives. The public is shocked that the faking of the officials' diplomas and certificates is so common. These ugly things that didn't occur under the imperial examination system face no resistance today. Whoever says that the China under the rule of the Communist Party is better off than the China in ancient times is telling an out-and-out lie.

23. 中国百姓的胆小、懦弱、苟且可谓有名，他们深知专制者的厉害，所以不到万不得已，他们绝不会起来维权。不少人完全是被逼上梁山，他们走完了所有的渠道，无法解决，要么被折腾而死，要么活得憋屈绝望，活在人间遭罪。只有少数人像杨佳一样，出现鱼死网破的多败结局。
Translation: We can say the Chinese people are famous for their timidity, cowardice, and degradation. Knowing very well how ruthless the despot can be, they do not stand up and fight for their own rights until the very last moment. Many people are forced to fight only after they had exhausted every other channel without getting their problems resolved. They may either die from physical or mental suffering or live in pain and despair. Very few have the guts to do what Yang Jia did - fighting to the bitter end with the authorities and ending up in a situation in which all parties lost.

24. 当下中国没有信仰，没有普世价值观，只有金钱至上、利益万能，实用主义雷同到令人伤心的地步，这绝对不是一个健康的社会所当有。所有不违宪不违法的理想，都应该给予尝试的机会，这个社会才有未来。
Translation: In China today, there is no religious faith or universal values. What rules nearly everyone to a very discouraging extent is a kind of pragmatism that “Money comes first” and “interests are everything”. This is not what a healthy society should be. Our society will have a future only when every ideal that does not violate the constitution or the law is given a chance to succeed.

25. 现今的中国教育特别是大学教育不及民国教育远甚，民国是教授治校，现在是党棍治校和特务管理，这就是绝大的差别。不解决制度革新问题，在党棍治校和特务管理下，要出世界一流大学实在是自我意淫。
Translation: Today’s Chinese education, especially university education, falls far short of what it was in the Republican era (1911 - 1949). In those days, universities were run by the faculty. Now they are run by party cadres and spies. There is no bigger difference than this. Without solving the problems of reforming the system, in a system that is ruled by party hacks and spies, the dream of creating a world class university in China will remain just an act of intellectual masturbation.

26. 垄断是我们生活中的祸根，不仅是政治领域，在经济领域也是如此。像所有国企一样，凡是被垄断的行业，就成了行业的小金库，成了官员贪腐的武库，民众只有被剥夺的份儿。名为国企，实则是用国企的名义，变相地抢劫民众利益。
Translation: Monopoly is the bane of our lives, not only in the political arena but in the economic one as well. Just like all the state-owned enterprises, all the monopolized industries become merely sources of slush funds in that industry, and financial arsenals for corrupt officials. The public is exploited and can do nothing about it. The officials status of the so-called state-owned enterprises is only a cover for the looting the public interest.

27. 需要群众来打帮捶的时候，来替他们造势的时候，就说“群众的眼睛是雪亮的”；当民众要主张他们的利益，起来反抗官方镇压的时候，他们不仅是不明真相的群众，而且不管多少，都是一小撮。
Translation: When they need to use the public to hammer its opponents, the Chinese Communist Party would say “the people's eyes are sharp”; when the public calls for its rights and stands up against official oppression, the CCP would say that they are only a crowd with no understanding of reality and call them just a tiny fraction of the people no matter how many people are standing together.

28. 社会制度有问题，不仅没能有效地阻止贫富悬殊的增加，而且在财富的再度分配和社会保障上做得相当差，这就容易使有话语权的写作者去神化弱势者，最差的结果便是有的人用弱势者所具备的道德同情优势来煽动暴力，谋取自身利益最大化，暴力革命的号召者无不如是。
Translation: The social system has problems. Not only has it failed to prevent the increase in the gap between rich and poor, but it also has done a terrible job on wealth redistribution and social security. This makes it easy for those writers who have the right to speak out to adulate the disadvantaged. The worst result is when people use public sympathy for the disadvantaged to instigate violence in a way that best serves their own interests. That is exactly what all who call for violent revolution do.

29. 说中国的教育混蛋都不足以表达我的心情，有许多人都不想表达意见了，认为中国的教育实在太混蛋。在涉及到教育诸方面的官员实际利益时，在涉及到有关他们增加收入的改革时，搞得迅如虎豹，在涉及实行应该免费的义务教育方面，教育部门的各级官员，他们却慢如蜗牛。
Translation: Condemning the state of Chinese education is far from enough to express the way I feel. Many people don't want to express their opinions because they think Chinese education really stinks. When a reform affects the real interests of educational officials or can increase their own incomes, they react as quickly as tigers. But when it comes to implementing free compulsory education, officials at all levels involved in education move as slowly as snails.

30. 不用谩骂的方式，不妖魔化不诬蔑对方，不要与对方比谁更暴力，不要模仿对方不堪的思维。比如用共产党的方式批评共产党，就是一种预先的失败。你可以批评毛泽东号召我们学雷锋是愚民，但你不可以说毛泽东是个傻逼，这种骂人的话没有任何力量。
Translation: Don't resort to vituperation, demonizing or insulting your opponent. Don't compete to see who is more violent, don't imitate your opponent’s nasty way of thinking. Using the means adopted by the Communist Party to criticize the Communist Party is doomed to fail. You can criticize Mao for idiotizing the people when he asked them to learn from Lei Feng, but you can never say Mao himself was an idiot. This kind of criticism just doesn't carry any weight.

31. 敏感期越来越多，最终会弄成每个日子都敏感；敏感词汇像蝗虫一样蔓延，最终会让每个字都成为他们的心腹之患。
Translation: There are always more and more politically sensitive dates. In the end every single day will become sensitive. With the number of sensitive words increasing like locusts, ultimately every single word will become a scourge in the rulers' eyes.

32. 作家流沙河先生对赵藩联的改作，更是治理今之蜀乱以及中国之乱的不二窍门：能富民则反侧自消，从古安邦须饱肚；不遵宪即宽严皆误，后来治国要当心。
Translation: The modification the writer Liushahe made to the couplet by Zhao Fan shows the best solution to the recent turmoil in Sichuan and across the country. The modified couplet suggests that so long as the people can be made wealthy, rebellion will naturally fade away. From ancient times, the basis of social stability has been to keep the people's stomachs full. Future rulers should bear in mind that failing to comply with the constitution results in inappropriate actions whether the country is governed strictly or not.

33. 不在制度上进行改革，你就是再花费纳税人巨大的血汗钱，到北京去洗脑也没有用。不进行制度改革，各级政府权力不受制约与监督，官员们的贪婪无度，使得他们不可能真正为民众着想，会导致与民众利益严重冲突，而这样的冲突才是对“稳定压倒一切”僵化管理模式的最大冲击。
Translation: Without reform to the regime, nothing can be accomplished regardless of how much of the taxpayers' blood and sweat money is spent, not matter how much you send them to Beijing to get brainwashed. Without reform to the regime, and without restrictions and oversight imposed on government power at all levels, the insatiable greed of officials will prevent them from truly considering the interests of the public. This will lead to conflicts of interest with the people that will be a big blow to the fossilized, rigid management method of "stability is more important than anything else".

34. 红歌充满非此即彼、仇恨教育、逻辑混乱、情感错位等，不仅在学校教育中盛行，而且在大众日常生活中也非常普及，最后连精神病人也不放过…一方面大力强调和谐社会，另一方面又不遗余力地灌输红歌里面的阶级斗争思想，这就是当轴的精神分裂。
Translation: Red songs convey a black and white “either this or that” outlook, are an education in hatred, illogic, and confused emotions. These songs prevail not only in school but also in the daily life of the general public. Even the mentally ill are not spared them. The rulers on the one hand place huge emphasis on creating a harmonious society, and on the other make every effort to spread the class struggle way of thinking conveyed by the red songs. This is the schizoid thinking of our government leaders.

35. 互联网在各种利益部门虎视耽耽的情况下，在各级政府的空前打压下，还是有些许缝隙让当轴头疼。因为当轴并不想你监督他，所以当你真正行使宪法、法律赋予你的权利的时候，他便采取一系列的方式来围堵来掩盖，希图让自己的恶行蒙混过关。
Translation: The Internet, despite close surveillance by the various stake-holding departments, and unprecedented repression by all levels of governments, offers a few glimpses of the outside world and so gives the authorities a headache. Government leaders are unwilling to accept your oversight, so when you excercise the rights that the PRC Constitution and the laws give you, the authorities come up with various measures to block you all the while concealing what they are doing. They hope that they can get away using these false pretences to prevent you from exercising your rights.

Quotations from Ran Yunfei (Part One)

2011-07-21T13:02:00.000-04:00

As at the date this translation project started, twitterer @wuxinkuaiyu had tweeted 65 quotations from the detained dissident writer. Here are the first batch of the quotations translated into English.

Translated by @sikoalice
Proofread and modified by @krizcpec

1. 我读书、写作、做研究的目的，是为了求真，为了求自由，是为了求得自己体面而有尊严的生活。当然我知道我远远没有得到这一切，因为没有谁会将尊严和体面奉送到我的面前，我得自己来争取。如果每个人都为自己的体面和尊严而斗争，当然这个社会可能就会变得更好一点。
Translation： I write, read and research to pursue truth, freedom, to pursue a life with glory and dignity. Surely I know there is still a long way to go, no one would present these two things in front of me and I must fight for them myself. Of course this society may change for the better if everyone gets to fight for glory and dignity.

2. 批评政府及制度，其目的在于做一个自由的人，为自己的权益起而奋斗。这样说来，每个人都有为自己权益起而批评的义务与动机，都不应该寄望于别人来为自己争取权益。
Translation：The purpose of criticism of the government and the system is to be a free person fighting for one’s rights. From this we can say that all have the obligation and motive to criticize for their own rights. No one should depend on someone else to strive for these rights on their behalves.

3. 我对政治没有道德洁癖，只是个人对此并无兴趣，我认为政治并不比人类的其他领域更肮脏，前提是只要有比较好的制度的话。换言之，我最喜欢做的事，是读书、写作、旅游、饮酒，快意适己。
Translation： I have no moral mysophobia of politics - I am not trying to stay away from it, it is just that I have no interest in it. I don't find politics to be more filthy than other aspects of human life, so long as a better system is in place. That said, what I like to do most are reading, writing, travelling, drinking, having fun, and making myself comfortable.

4. 中国有许多看上去充满“智慧”的成语和俗语，是我们通往公民社会的障碍，可是有很多人习焉不察。这样的“习焉不察”，不止显现于“谣言止于智者”这种不堪的成说，更展示在“多难兴邦”等习焉不察的没有逻辑的屁话里。
Translation：：There are many Chinese sayings and proverbs that appear to be full of “wisdom”, which are actually barriers to our society evolving into one that is civil. Yet many people are just too accustomed to these to call them in question, this blind acceptance can be seen not only when it comes to absurd sayings such as “rumours find no credence with the wise”, but also those utter nonsenses like “much distress revives a nation.”

5. 言论自由与任何人的利益、尊严都有关联，一旦言论自由被垄断被扼杀，自由思考和自由思想就成为不可能，没有自由思想，便没有元气淋漓的创造，就不会使人之生命散发出应有的光芒。
Translation：Freedom of speech is related to the rights and dignity of every person. Free and independent thought is impossible if the freedom of speech is monopolized or nipped. There can be no vivid or incisive creations without a free mind, and the glorious light of life will soon die out as well.

6. 如果日历一撕便是一年，我会毫不犹豫撕掉十一页。没有如果，每翻一页，日拱一卒，不期速成，让良心犯们离开监狱，不至于感到在更大的监狱。
Translation： If tearing off a single page of the calendar means a year has gone by, I shall tear eleven pages without any doubt. Unfortunately there is no such thing as “If”, with every day goes by, we shall do our utmost, slowly, and painstakingly, without expecting a sudden triumph. Let those prisoners of conscience be free from prison, without feeling that they are trapped in a bigger one. (Note: this quotation was referring to Liu Xiaobo, who has been sentenced to 11-year imprisonment in 2010)

7. 由于制度缺陷使所有人没有理性预期，加上没有信仰，于是庸俗实用主义、犬儒主义，我死后哪怕洪水滔天也与我无关的思想，甚嚣尘上。大家都走在互相伤害的“康庄大道”上，这就是我证明的中国是个互害社会。
Translation：Owing to the defects of the system, and on top of the absence of faith, people have no rational expectation. This results in the prevalence of vulgar pragmatism, cynicism, and thoughts like “after I die, nothing concerns me, not even a massive flood.” Everyone is moving on the “Broad Road” of harming each other, this is what I have proved about the characteristic of : China is a society which members are doing bad things to one another.

8. 我们要用一切合理合法的方式让所有为恶者，为自己的为恶迟早买单。同时也要让将来的为恶者，在为恶时有所收敛，知道做恶不能保证永远不让人知道。
Translation：We shall exhaust all means that is rational and permitted by law to make all evil-doers pay for what they have done. And so that the fiends-to-come would exercise some restraint when they do bad things, knowing that their crimes will not remain secrets forever.

9. 我之所以能坚持，实出于自私之心，即自己作为一个还算有点知识的人，如果不说一点自己看到的和研究出来的中国社会的真相，如果不道出自己感受到的真实状况，那么自己就觉得有一种亏欠，我自己要说出来、写出来后，才能吃得饱、睡得香、醉起酒来肆无忌惮。
Translation： Actually, the reason I persist is for myself. Being a man with some knowledge, I will surely feel guilty if I do not speak out the truth of China society as I observed and studied it; if I speak nothing about the true status as I feel it. I shall eat, drink and sleep with clear conscience only when I have spoken and written all these.

10. 与互联网共同成长这十年，我从一个充满暴戾之气的人，转变成一个能倾听不同意见，且能保持宽容平和的理性之人，是我这十年来所取得的不错成就，我很满意我这种变化，由此不难想见互联网所具有的巨大的社会教育功能。
Translation： Having grown along with the Internet in the last ten years, I transformed from a ruthless and tyrannical man to one that is capable of listening to different opinions, while staying tolerant, calm and rational. This is a gratifying achievement I have obtained in this decade, I am happy with this transformation, and from this it is not hard to see the great social education function the Internet has.

11. 中国现实生活的惨烈、荒谬、奇幻，胜过任何当今中国的文学特别是小说作品。即便那些自命不凡的作家，在强大的现实经历面前，在官方的诸种不可理喻面前，其想像力也是不堪一比和不堪一击。
Translation： The real life in China is weirder, more tragic and bizarre than any contemporary Chinese literature, especially fictions. The formidable real life experience and all sorts of governmental irrationality dwarf and trump the imagination of even those writers who pride themselves on being exceptional.

12. 我并不想天天写博客批评社会和政府，如果这是一个正常的民主社会的话，我没有这样一份“豪情”和“雅兴”。但生在多灾多难的中国，如果不发声，别说有担当有良知这样的高要求，就是连做一个普通知识分子，大约也是不合格的。
Translation：I would rather not criticizing this society and government on a daily basis if it is a normal democratic society, I do not have such passion and interest. However, being born in this country dogged by misfortunes, I cannot be called an ordinary intellectual, not to mention being one with conscience and sense of responsibility if I do not speak out.

13. 大家尽量对自己身边的事情，特别是关涉权利的事情说出自己的意见，使意见在众声喧哗中，形成声音、信息的多元化，使那种想将声音、信息一统天下的极权大梦见鬼去。
Translation：Everybody should speak out what you think about the things around you, especially those concerning your rights, so that in the midst of various viewpoints can pluralism in the voices of the public and information be formed; so that the totalitarian dream of standardizing all voices and information can go to hell.

14. 对开明派的赞赏和对青天的呼唤，其心态根本没有什么两样，把自己的幸福抵押在人治状态上，这种思维之落后、观念之没品，是一望可知的事。有许多人沉浸在对体制内开明派的意淫中，是为自己放弃抗争放弃努力找点鸦片式的替代品来麻醉自己。
Translation： The people who sing the liberals praises have the same mindset as those calling for honorable officials: counting their happiness on the rule of virtuous man. The stupidity and obsolescence of this type of thinking is blindly obvious. Many people indulge themselves in their illusion about the liberals inside the system. Instead of fighting and striving for themselves, they numb themselves with this opium-like substitute.

15. 很多人至今不知道他们(汶川大地震死难者)的名字，他们的名字至今未能刊刻在任何一座纪念馆或者博物馆上。不知道真实姓名的纪念，不永久铭刻在纪念碑上的纪念，像官方这样自我表扬的纪念，不只是做秀，更是一种不能接受的亵渎。
Translation：To this date many people still do not know what they (those who died in Wenchuan earthquake) were called; their names have not been inscribed on a single Memorial or Museum. To commemorate them without knowing their real names, without their names carved on monuments for good; to commemorate them in the self-praising manner like that of the government would not only be a political show but also an unacceptable blasphemy.

16. 大多数国人本来就健忘，甚至善忘——官员教导民众对历史要宜粗不宜细，传媒号召大家既往不究——民众都像喝了孟婆汤，频遭无数灾难，但伤疤未好就忘了痛。
Translation： Most compatriots are forgetful, or even willfully forgetting things in the first place —officials teach the public to better not go into the details when it comes to history, media asks people to let bygones be bygones — as if they have drunk the Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness. Despite being struck by numerous disasters, the populace forget the pain before the wounds are healed.

17. 我历来认为仇恨是短跑，它有爆发力，但却缺乏持久性。因此我更相信爱，因为我们许多要做的事，都不是短跑，而是人生的马拉松。我拿不出解决社会的一揽子方案，也无意以策师的姿态献计，我只是凭着自己的认识与观察，知识储备和道德底线来做事和说话的人。
Translation： I always see hate as sprint, it is rather explosive but lacks the stamina. Therefore I believe more in love, the nature of the many things that we want to do is more like a marathon of life than a sprint. I could not offer a package to solve social problems, nor do I have the intention to act as a schemer and offer advices, I am just a person who act and speak basing on my knowledge, observation, and moral bottom line.

18. 这么多的灾难，不仅没有好的研究，也没有好的记录，更没有对普通人的倾听与悲悯，我们生活在这个时代没有做出相应的努力，我们是有责任和有愧的。
Translation： So many disasters without proper research or record, without listening or compassion to the common people. Living in this day and age, we have the responsibility to take corresponding actions and should feel guilty if we don't.

19. 六四是这个国家永远的捆绑，是我们这个国家永远的伤痛，是政府的罪恶。不妥善解决六四问题，整个中国就会像一道巨大伤口浸泡在污泥里，越来越大，整个中国就永远无法步入一个文明的社会和国家。
Translation： The June 4th crackdown is forever the constraint of this country, the pain of our nation, is the sin of the government. Without proper settlement of the problems brought by this tragedy, the entire nation will be just like a giant wound immersed in mud, becoming ever larger, and will never be able to transform into one that is civilized.

20. 若是在传统传媒垄断所有信息的时代，在中国这个铁幕国家，你就永远只有被动接受新华社的灌输和愚弄。好在有网络的存在，哪怕只是个备受GFW管制的半残废网络，也可以从门缝里看到许多与党产黄喉完全不同的风景。
Translation： In this iron curtain country, you would always be stupefied and instilled by Xinhua News agency if it was in the time of information monopoly by traditional media. But thanks to the Internet, even though it is only a partially functional one under the constant restrictions of the Great Fire Wall, we could peek out and see something quite different from what we are given by those Communist mouthpieces.

Why is China being demonized so easily?

2011-07-14T22:06:00.000-04:00

Hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 中国为什么容易被妖魔化？

translated by @krizcpec

proofread by Michelle Adams @Michelle9647

I do not agree that China is being demonized. Then why am I writing about this topic? It is because occasionally, there may be some inaccurate reports by the West; and whenever our official media and people with strong nationalist sentiment see such reports, they would say that this is a collective, intentional distortion of China. English writer Joseph Rudyard Kipling once said, “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

Kipling's words were too absolute, the two sides shall surely meet; yet how they meet, and how do the two sides handle it when they meet, these are the (underlying) questions of the East and the West. The way to handle it when the two sides meet would involve many aspects of the spiritual and material life of both sides; this puzzle is one that begs study. In the course of the East-West convergence, China's reactions, needless to say, are different from many other countries in the East. The problems [of misreport] in the West – is that they have their own check and constraints from interested parties. (If we are a bit more sensible, we could see the self-correcting ability and mechanism of China's media is in no way comparable to that of Western media. Not unless if a [Western] news agency wants to fold up, otherwise none of them would not take credibility seriously.) I think what the Chinese should ponder is: if indeed China is being demonized, what have we done wrong, so that the West can demonize us so easily? If misunderstood, people should first ask themselves if there is anything wrong with them. This is exactly one of the reasons I stress reflection on China's own problems. Although I cannot make clear such a vast proposition in a hastily written article, there are some viewpoints I'd like to share, and in so doing provide everyone with something to think over and to criticize. The viewpoints are listed out as follows.

One: The land mines of irrational nationalism we have today are the result of China's education that fools the public. As Chip Tsao has put it, “China's education is laying mines for the future.” This saying is an alternative of describing the same thing as Yuan Weishi's saying of “Wolf's milk education” did. Our education is one that mixes up the notions of loving our country, loving the government, and loving the [Chinese Communist] Party, one that stupefies the people. Whenever the West criticizes the CCP dictatorship, our government would say that is criticizing China, that is anti-China, an insult on China. On hearing these, the ordinary people who received the official stupefying education would, jump in an illusory fury and want to fight. What I am trying to say is that many of the foreign criticism on China are actually on the government, on the CCP dictatorship, they are not criticizing this country or our culture, they have no discrimination against us, that's all. As an ordinary person, it is important to be able to see this and not be swayed by the government. Sadly though, how many of those are not upset with their miserable state of living and yet have a strong sense of patriotic anger actually understand this? The government just makes good use of all this to legitimize its rule and to maximize the interests of the ruling clique.

Two: As a country that lags behind [in developments], [China] has a feeling of [being threatened by other more advanced countries]. Thus it sees all criticisms as provocations. Since 1949, we have been taught that if one lags behind, one will inevitably be thrashed. This proposition is ridiculous, yet it is still widely accepted today. There are many countries in the world that lag behind, they have not been thrashed before; the fact that one lags behind does not naturally links to its being thrashed. However, dated notions do indeed bring about unnecessary hassles in a world that is more interconnected than in the past. Let's take the Opium war for example, the British wanted nothing more than mutually beneficial business ties, and it was turned down unreasonably by China, this resulted in the troubles that followed. Of course leading to a war like that, the West was not unsuspected of bullying; yet we should not overlook China's own role in the outbreak of that war. From the Opium War to now, we still have not been freed from the masochistic mindset. This reflects our people's distorted, and fragile mentality, which was, nevertheless, magnified for the needs of our terrible modern history studies and ideologies, thereby becoming a maniacal sentiment of nationalism.

Three: the government nurtures the masochistic mindset in the general public so that its image of a great savior that saves the world looks grander. After risen to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party's initial propaganda was “without the CCP, there is no China.” Later they felt such absolute statement to be overly shameless, they changed it to “without the CCP, there is no NEW China.” Dogmatic sentences with the structure of “without..., there is no...” have been repeatedly abused since 1949. This abuse strengthened the illusory sense that without the Communist party, the Chinese is not Chinese, the Chinese could no longer live. Why do they want to stupefy the public and create this type of illusory sense? That's because they know very well that they seized power by force; that they grew in size when the rest of the country was busy fighting the Sino-Japanese War; they fear they do not have the populace's allegiance. Therefore they have adopted a series of brainwash strategies, and successfully implanted in the public's head the notion of “without the CCP, there is no new China”; rendering its citizens completely unable to think independently. From nurturing the masochistic mindset, to exaggerating oppression and aggression by other countries, [the CCP] has completed its full mental enslavement and domination of the nationals. They then exercise all-inclusive control on human's material needs by authoritarian economy, thereby successfully inserted into the people's mind the chip of its image as a great savior.

Four: [The CCP] implants [within the Chinese] the chip of “[its image as the] great savior”, exaggerates the Imperialist aggression history, and nurtures the opium of nationalism [in China]. Whether or not the West had invaded China is without question. Indeed, the West's bullying behaviors when they interacted with China [back then] should be criticized; yet those [bullying behaviors] to some extent was also related to our country's dictatorship and its xenophobia. Surely many of the contemporary wars that broke out [in China] were caused by foreign countries' bullying, invasions, and provocations; but China's own problems had also played a part in leading to these disasters, we need to face this rationally. Prior to 1949, people would still call a spade a spade when they talked about the Western invasions; yet after that year, people would have no hesitation in distorting all historical facts to eliminate doubts about the legitimacy of the CCP regime, all in the interests of that party. For instance, they refuted everything about the U.S. only because it supported the Kuomintang; the wave of anti-America sentiment that swept through the country in 1950s served only the private interests of the rulers, it was not [started] for the benefits of the people, or the nation. The reason they demonized the U.S. in the 1950s was of course in part due to the Cold War, but we must not deny the facts that the Chinese Communist Party leaned to the totalitarian U.S.S.R. and its practices that served the party's own interests.

Five: Foreign policies that serve the interests not of the nation but of the party are a cause of the frictions between the East and the West as well as leading to the so-called demonizing of China. As everyone knows, back in 1950s and 1960s, many died in the country and yet our government had us tightened our belts to support the ideological class “brother” Vietnam; later on, due to differences in ideology, our government made us go punish Vietnam. These were all partisan diplomacy, which brought about national disasters. Even in its foreign policy today, when [our government] decides whether a country is a friend or a foe it is the party and the ideology, rather than the interests of the country and the nation, that is taken into consideration. [As we can see], whichever country that the free and democratic world sees as a hooligan regime is a friend of China—such as North Korea and Cuba. Making irrational decisions in the interests of the party and disregarding everything else, China, how should the West see you then? Democracy does have its problems, but for the last three or four hundred years, the 20th century in particular, it has proven to be a social system more superior than others, including the so-called Socialism.

Six: Totalitarian rule is the real cause of the West “demonizing” the Chinese government. Politics nowadays needs to be rid of monopoly and calls for checks and balances between the power and political parties. Only in this way can the rights and freedom of each individual gets protected gradually. A system that monopolizes politically and engages in one-party dictatorship is continuing the savage law of the jungle of the past; that is uncivilized power politics. A system like this should be criticized, condemned, and corrected. An autocratic system causes many things to go wrong. Lets just look major Tibet issues today. Firstly, [the government] blocks information, rejects the truth, and denies the West the opportunity to really get close to Tibet, this results in reportage in the Western media. Secondly, the official propaganda media lost all its credibility, and yet the government allows only Xinhua News Agency to cover stories [in Tibet] exclusively; this of course stir up strong reactions from all sides around the world. Thirdly, there is the practice of organizing interviews for media, that is, restricting media's freedom of conducting interviews. The practice of “organized interviews” is in itself absurd, and way different from interviews that require the truth. Moreover, during the interviews official acts of deception were discovered. We can say that the strong reactions, as well as misreports, from the international community this time may be caused by their own values and bias. But the most important thing is the concealing attitude of the Chinese government and its extremely inept public relations response to crises. The government thinks that by continue using the long employed practice of blindfolding the masses with the power it has it can eliminate all other voices and questions. This is just self-deception. [With the West] unable to cover the truth, it inevitably leads to misreport, which is then exaggerated as “demonizing”.

Seven： Irrational nationalism is a double-edged sword which ultimate victims are the public and the country. With the decades old stupefying education that preaches loving the party equals loving the government, and loving the government equals to loving the country, the government has succeeded in sneakily switching concepts, placing the interests of the party above that of the country and the people, substituting the latter with the former; the interests of many have therefore been taken away without even realizing it. This is the success of the decades old stupefying education. Besides, in the interests of the party, [the ruling clique] successfully “demonized” freedom and democracy, and convinces the general public that freedom and democracy do not suit China, thereby completing their hijack of the rights of the people. To ensure their grip on the country and the people and facilitate their grab for partisan interests, they launch every propaganda machine without hesitation to distort the benefits of democracies, they would also say anything to stress the superiority of the socialist system. One such example is the Taiwan Straits issues, they take a tough stance on Taiwan not because they are patriotic, but because otherwise they cannot answer to those who get irrational with nationalism or those who get drunk with patriotism, and this involves their governing legitimacy. In fact, to really solve the Taiwan problem is not difficult, simply set aside the partisan interests and putting the interests of the general public, of the people, and of the country first. That's it. However, will the autocratic government do this? I sure yearn for unification, but if the government does not relinquish partisan interests, if it does not stop putting its dictatorship first, then how can it unify Taiwan? Who would be willing to unify under a totalitarian regime when they can enjoy freedom and democracy? The Hong Kong model is simply not applicable to solving the Taiwan problem. Whereas Hu Jintao's recent suggestion,“One China, respective interpretations”, is comparatively more practical. But the road to true unification is long and winding, unless China adopts freedom and democracy, it cannot unify Taiwan. Without changing its authoritarian rule, and use partisan interests to go against the democracies of the entire world and the interests of your citizens, China, if unfortunately you get demonized, who can you blame?

Written at 8.40 A.M. , April 10, 2008 in Chengdu

Fight for the love of yourself

2011-07-13T08:15:00.000-04:00

hyperlink to the source text in Chinese: 为热爱自己而斗争。

Translated by @fabiano226
Copyedited by @kRiZcPEc and Michelle Buchanan (@michisle)

Since we were children, and on into adulthood, the educational brainwashing we have received has told us to love the Communist Party, love socialism, love China, but it has never told us to love ourselves. The idea of cherishing our own life has not been promoted; no attention has been paid to safety education–which, by the way, should include not only how to deal with natural disasters, such as earthquakes, or fire, but also an understanding of food safety–because our humble lives are not considered worth it. Those political science textbooks–from sociology to Mao’s works–were all impractical, exaggerated, and stupefying.

Today these textbooks are still being used. These theories are still being taught. This is the result of an education that is not independent from the Communist Party of China, an education that is enslaving us. Thanks to this kind of education, many people go through their life never realizing what a government is supposed to do. Who feeds the government? Where does the money that keeps a government running come from? Most people lack this knowledge, and even a college graduate cannot explain these matters thoroughly. Why is it that even an educated person cannot see the detrimental nature of the existing regime? Is this not a sign that it is truly restricted? And this is not a result of such a person not reading much, but that he has not read good books. Consequently, he misses out on the ability to think about these social issues in a critical way, for the betterment of himself and others. Of course there are people who have gained from the prevalence of this education, and become a part of it; they even become spokespersons and advocates of this corrupt system.

Loving yourself is about cherishing your rights as a human being. And how to gain those rights? The only way is to fight for them yourself; you cannot rely on the mercy of others. Just like in the melamine tainted milk scandal, the best way to show your disapproval of the company responsible is to boycott it. Don’t buy any milk powder unless substantial improvement is made. If you have bought it and become a victim, you should try all possible means to fight for your own rights: gather more people to file a class action suit against the manufacturer, or write down your experience and distribute it, so as to avoid more people being harmed. As a result of you exposing the problem, the harm done by the manufacturer will be lessened, and, as more people stop buying their products, they will be penalized through substantial profit loss. Being a victim does not mean that you can accomplish nothing, or have nothing to do. No matter how powerless one is, there is always a way to fight. While not risking your life, keep fighting, non-stop, for your own rights. When more people wake up, take the same actions, and fight rationally and persistently then still more and more people will be awakened to do the same.

Of course, what I mean by self love is not limited to oneself; no one is isolated in this world. You have your family, relatives, friends, colleagues, and so on. All of your interests are interconnected; the only difference is whether the interconnection is tight or loose. In turn, the whole of society, even all human kind, is interconnected in this way. No one is an island. Any other person’s suffering and pain has something to do with us. When their dignity and rights are trodden down, so are our own dignity and rights. For whatever happens to them today, could happen to us another time. Our support to those victims is, in itself, supporting them to fight for their rights, and, at the same time, an indirect effort to keep our own interests from being harmed. Those who are addicted to harming others should be punished, and the system that harms the interests of individuals needs to be improved so that it serves our common interests better.

So, loving yourself begins with loving others. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, said, after he deliberated on the power of the invisible hand of the free market, that acting in one’s self-interest is the origin of morality, but if you act in self-interest with the aim of benefiting yourself at the expense of others then this type of action must be restricted by law. He said, however, that if you make money with methods that do not break the law, and if you work hard in ways as permitted by law for your own interest, then you will, in a way, help others; you pay taxes; you start a company and create more job opportunities. Indeed, you are benefiting yourself, but, while doing so, you are required to let your workers have their rights; you must have their acknowledgment of the contract, which can be amended if issues arise. While you make money and act in your own interest you contribute to the improvement and development of society. It should not be the other way round: you serve the community first and talk about your own interest later. This is a misplacement of interests. Putting the so-called national and collective interest above that of individuals is a savage and shameless robbery. It dramatically deprives many people of their will and impairs the creativity and development of the community. The limitation of people and their energy can also come from their drive for self-interest, and self-love, so, when actions to serve one’s own interest causes damage to society what we should strive to do is not eliminate self-interest, but let it be under the regulation of the law, and admit that a human being is a creature with limitations. We shouldn’t have wild wishes that a human being be perfect, this is not realistic. We choose a way of life and a system not because it is perfect, but because it is less imperfect.

Written at 8:30 a.m. on September 24th, 2008, in Chengdu, in the pouring rain.